Explain Like I'm Five

I think socialism is awesome but capitalism, when highly restrained, is more effective at generating capital.

I think a few fairly simple steps can merge the best of both.

Limit personal net worth to, say, 01 million dollars. Companies can have a networth of, say, 1 billion tops. Below that, put like 10 or so tax brackets, the more you're worth, the more you pay tax. Anything over those limits goes 100% to tax

This favors many smaller companies working together instead of one huge monster that can't even take care of itself and requires regular bailouts

The tax income will be more than enough to support a large socialist system that can take care of free education, free healthcare, etc, hell, even universal basic income

Best of capital generation,best of socialism.

Ask a typical American what they hate about socialism and they will perfectly describe capitalism

People hate socialism because they believe it is a right/freedom be able to privately own and control the "means of production" from tools to assembly lines to mines and groves.

Thatcher said it best: "There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty." and by economic liberty she means that ability to own / exclusively control any (non-sentient) thing.

(end LI5)

Personally, I think authoritarian socialism (sometimes called "communism") is problematic due to the authoritarian part. I think libertarian socialism (often called "anarchism") is problematic because "warlords" (selfish people willing to use violence to hoard property) will naturally arise from any sufficiently large group and I think they are best opposed via a State with a "monopoly" on violence. But, I am convinced that rent-seeking behavior has been choking Capitalism for a while and it's only gotten worse since I was born (1980)... something needs to rein it in, and I think that something has to be very democratic and significantly socialist, but I don't really have a name for it myself.

The US is run by very rich people who benefit from the current system.

You answered your own question. Taking care of neighbours is socialism so fuck that. I got mine, fuck you!

Socialism’s critics believe that people who receive government aid become reliant on it and cease making an effort to become self-sufficient.

As someone who works in community mental health, I sadly have to admit that those criticisms aren’t entirely false. Ironically, I think the fact that the government organizations that implement these social safety nets being underfunded contributes to the problem. Because it takes so long to obtain benefits like disability (SSD/I in America), people don’t want to risk getting a job, potentially losing it, and having to go through the long, arduous disability application process again. So they just learn to be content living on disability pay and food stamps.

But that’s disability. I don’t think the same applies to just public assistance (which you can’t live off of) and SNAP.

Anyway, despite there being a kernel of truth in said criticisms, they’re largely off-base. I think a lot of the critics also confuse socialism with communism, and don’t realize that all most socialists desire is a system like European countries have, which is proven to work and not threaten capitalism. Then there are the really sick fucks who believe in social Darwinism and genuinely think poor people deserve to be so, and that it would be just for them to die off. But thankfully, those are in the extreme minority.

What a hilarious place to come ask this lol

Nothing is wrong with socialism except that maybe it doesn't go far enough

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare

It's pretty much all US propaganda that makes people hate socialism

It's propaganda. The reality is that much of our system is already Socialized. In fact, some of the best stuff in our society is Socialist.

Schools, libraries, fire departments, police, military, parks, roads, etc. are all Socialist concepts at their foundation.

Fire Departments used to work by subscription. A building owner would pay a local fire brigade for protection. He would get a small cast iron badge that he'd place next to his doorway. If a building caught fire, the fire brigade would show up, and if there was a a "fire mark," they'd fight the fire. If there wasn't a fire mark, they'd let it burn down. That is a strictly Capitalist concept.

It was eventually decided that public tax money would be used to protect EVERYBODY from fire, which is a Socialist concept. The old subscription-based fire brigade concept evolved into the predatory insurance industry, a Capitalist concept which has been preying upon us ever since.

Like most political philosophies, Socialism has its positives and negatives. Any political philosophy, taken to its most extreme ends, would be a disaster. The best governments take the most successful parts of any philosophy, and rejects the bad parts. A pure Democratic/Republican/Socialist government would be terrible, but a combination of the best elements, could be really great.

MAGA is not a legitimate political philosophy. it's core tenets include treason, corruption, racism, bigotry, violence, pedophilia, misogyny, intolerance, ignorance, and incompetence. MAGA is a criminal enterprise disguising itself as a legitimate political movement, and it's influence must be fully purged from our government and our society.

I think it’s fear. People fear that their country doesn’t produce enough and isn’t wealthy enough to support an army that is capable enough to keep any real or imagined enemies at bay. Add a good amount of corruption and propaganda to it, and you get a perpetual cycle where this fear needs continuous fuelling.

The worst part of it is that the fear isn’t entirely unjustified. As the Ukraine war shows, predators will try to pray on the weak, and Europe has been complacent about its own defence.

That doesn’t mean I think capitalism is the answer of course, but it is a horribly delicate balancing act to consider all concerns.

Only if you're in the military or a billionaire.

The most common gripe I hear is that because not all labor is similar[EG: Healthcare vs Mining] there is no easy way to make sure that people are putting in the same value into the system. For people that already mistakenly believe there is a large group of "lazy immigrants" draining resources in the current system, this is a deal breaker. The internal logic isn't too much to swallow its just a hurdle to get people to sit long enough to hear the answer. They would rather fight over the crumbs than share the whole because somehow thats more "fair".

WKUK-Backseat

Propaganda works.

Arguments I hear are usually something along the lines of "it's going to destroy the economy", "it destroys jobs", "I'm rich and they'll tax me a lot" (said by people who aren't actually rich). Also, confusing social democracy (Germany, Nordic countries) with what the Soviet Union and China were doing.

The people who hate it are those who think themselves better than their peers. They think they deserve more than their peers, and that socialism transfers their superior effort to the benefit of their inferiors.

They see socialism not as everyone helping everyone, but as they, the successful being forced to support them, the lazy.

It's mostly thanks to USA propaganda and the whole "Red Scare" that began in the 1950s

I mean doesn't it mean a system where the people take care of themselves and neighbors?

Not really, the system is supposed to be about a government and economy that cares about the well being of its people first, such that several wealth distribution methods would be applied to ensure minimal inequality.

There are various kinds of socialism. Some "take care of themselves and neighbors" & some merely claim to.

One of the merely claims types is authoritarian socialism, which includes Marxism–Leninism.

Authoritarian socialism, or socialism from above, is an economic and political system supporting some form of socialist economics while rejecting political pluralism. As a term, it represents a set of economic-political systems describing themselves as "socialist" and rejecting the liberal-democratic concepts of multi-party politics, freedom of assembly, habeas corpus, and freedom of expression, either due to fear of counter-revolution or as a means to socialist ends.

That ideology does not respect & protect inherent individual rights & liberties recognized since the Enlightenment. Authoritarian socialism is hated for abusing human rights, and it's often incorrectly assumed that all socialism is authoritarian. That explains the hatred.

Kinds of socialism that respect & protect human rights do exist, however, and they have a better claim to a system of self & mutual care. There's little reason to hate those.

No, its means workers control the means of production.

Edit: Im getting really tired of people conflating socialism with social programs. Its not socialism when the government does something, stop saying it is.