She Says Essentials Should Be Freeā¦ I Asked Who Pays
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode, I sit down with my good friend and college buddy, Alyssa, to talk about the political spectrum and what it means to be a socialist, fascist, and communist. We talk about our political views and what we would like to see in the future of our society.
Transcript
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I think everyone should have access to food. I don't think people should have to pay for food.
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I don't think people should have to pay for water. I don't think people should have to pay for housing.
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I think everyone should be able to have access to clothes and, you know, not be...
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Um, like, otherwise, they have no incentive to continue to do that efficiently or in sufficient quality or in sufficient quantity.
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Are you leaning more so, like, strictly capitalism or more so fascism?
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yeah so fascism is really a sister to socialism kind of because it's a large government there's
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speech restrictions it's hyper-nationalistic incorrect so fascism i'm taking a degree in
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criminal justice and public policy okay so i'm and i'm also a deeply political person i pride
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myself in learning about all different kinds of politics um i describe myself as a socialist um
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okay more so on the i describe myself as socially um like in terms of socially socialism and then
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um economically like fiscally conservative that is how i describe myself as a person
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interesting okay and do you want to debate are you okay yeah yeah could i just get you a little
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closer so we could kind of yeah okay yeah go ahead the way i personally think of social so
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it goes on the two you have the two sides of the political spectrum you have communism and you
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have fascism fascism is the far right of our political spectrum and communism is the far left
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do i think communism can exist no i don't think it's a feasible i don't think it can exist same
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way i don't think fascism can like exist either communism is solely it it has a saying that's
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power to the people which essentially means that the power the people are in control but the reason
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that it is not feasible is if you're say looking at it from the marxist definition of communism it
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is a stateless classless moneyless society in our current society we cannot have that we already have
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money we already have states to remove that is to remove everything that we currently live and exist
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on and it also removes human aspiration and drive and wanting to work for themselves and wanting to
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do what they would want with their lives so that's communism right there communism is equally
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contributing to everyone but you don't really have necessarily have that um drive to achieve
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for more but there's no restrictions on speech or those kind of things that's when you more so get
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into I like to think of the political spectrum more so as a circle than less of like a straight
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line because you kind of so you're more like horseshoe theory you've heard of that yeah a
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little bit and that like that's why I mean when I say like I'm very like socially liberal and then
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very fiscally conservative i do think like i said i don't think communism is possible um like same
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way i don't think fascism is possible but i think the issue i have with capitalist societies is
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capitalist societies thrive off oppression they thrive off of poverty they thrive off of
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a booming marketplace they thrive off of greed um which the way we the way i currently actively
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look at it is the more of a booming marketplace that we have the more we push on sales and yes
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working for yourself to get I heard what you were saying earlier and I completely agree with that
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I think being self-sustainable and working for yourself is the ideal but I don't necessarily
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think that's capitalist capitalist is about the marketplace it is about what is the market though
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the market is I mean it depends on how you personally interpret like the market I like to
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it's a global thing the marketplace is a global thing it's where sale of goods if you want in the
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most basic simple definition in terms of like business it is where the sale of goods takes
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place or the trading of goods but it's inherently people it is you are correct it is inherently in
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that and those goods are provided by people and made by people and you are correct in that
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um i personally just don't think that fighting like having having to choose between okay i need
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to pay for this or do I need to pay for that that's kind of where you start getting into the
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capitalism of we're focusing too much on the money aspect of it and like I said I think working for
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yourself and being self-sustainable is good but I don't necessarily like in my brain self-sustainable
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is when I'm older I would love to live off the land I would love to live off the grid
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and work for myself and you know have my own farm have my own land bake my own food that is my dream
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when i'm older yeah mine too yeah but personally to me that is less that is not necessarily
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capitalism that to me that that's removing myself from the marketplace i don't want to have to rely
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on the government i don't want to have to rely on the marketplace in order to achieve what i want
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if you're looking at it in terms of a um strictly political definition sense of the word if that
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makes sense yeah okay i think we agree on a lot yeah but where i would kind of peg my disagreement
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is that i don't actually think capitalism is inherently oppression so when there is transfer
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of money it's not necessarily a zero-sum game yeah it's both sides actually gain like if you
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were to go say buy lunch the producer of whatever you eat gains and you gain as well so when someone
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makes a service like say amazon you're gaining from fast and reliable service and they're gaining
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your money basically yeah right so i don't think that it's a zero-sum game i wouldn't necessarily
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say capitalism is oppression no i don't think it is oppression it thrives off of oppression i think
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there's a very big difference between those two things okay um and where i what i mean by that
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is that i personally don't think and yes you're right like it's not a it's not a zero-sum game
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i buy something they obviously benefit from something and i benefit from something um but
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i personally don't think i think everyone should have access to food i don't think people should
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have to pay for food i don't think people should have to pay for water i don't think people should
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have to pay for housing i don't think people should have to pay money for their basic necessities and
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basic rights luxuries yes i think do i need to have access to every single streaming service on
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the planet no that is not a basic necessity that i need to survive um do i need food to survive yes
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do i need water to survive yes do i need shelter to survive yes if you're looking at like the
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hierarchy of needs i need those things to survive but i luxuries i completely agree with yes i think
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you should have to have some kind of transaction there in order to receive luxuries but certain
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basic needs i don't necessarily think that we should have to pay for that and i think that's
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where i'm kind of not on the side with capitalism is that everything needs to be some kind of
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transaction and i don't necessarily agree with that okay so then you would say you have a right
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you say you agree that you say you would have a right to food to water i think everyone i think
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everyone has a right to food water shelter the basic necessities so you have the right to someone
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else's work um no not necessarily but like what i mean like i think if we can provide for ourselves
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that's great but not everyone has those means or resources or is physically able to um do those
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things or like people who don't have the physical capabilities to work on a farm and to provide
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themselves with that food um and there's other people doing other things like we all there's
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all different kinds of traits right but I personally don't see an issue if I have enough
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food for myself and I have enough left over I don't see an issue in giving that to people for
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free personally that's that's personally just me I think what if it's like your employment
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right if it's your job to provide other people food like you're basically saying that someone
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else has the right to your labor for free if someone if it means they have access to the basic
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things that they need to live and it helps them survive and helps them thrive then i have no
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issue with that and i think and i know that is a very a lot of people don't necessarily agree with
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that i think it's a bit different like i i i really do think that like we should go back to
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the old system of things of like oh you have like a bunch of corn i need my tap fixed can you fix
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that for me and i'll give you this corn sure that's great i i would much rather a trade of
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services than a trade of money and goods if that makes sense it's not feasible in every instance
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absolutely no you are correct you are correct but i i think and that's that's where i go back to
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the i think certain luxuries we shouldn't luxuries aren't you don't need luxuries to survive i'd like
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said i don't need every single streaming service on the planet to survive i don't need the newest
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Xbox in order to survive. I don't need those things in order to live fully. But I do need
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food. I do need water. I do need shelter in order to live. And I think every single person should
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have access to that regardless of where they land in society, what physical capabilities they have
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or don't have. And like I said, I know a lot of people will disagree with that, but I see no issue
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if I have enough food myself and I have enough food left over. I will gladly give that to my
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neighbors i will gladly give that to my friends for free because they're just as equally deserving
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as it as i am even if that does mean i work for it if they are benefiting off of it and that is
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benefiting the entirety of the people if they are able to um have food water and shelter and that
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makes them you know healthy enough to be able to go out and work and benefit everyone else as a
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society okay that's fine they're benefiting everyone else if my work helps them benefit
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at others then i'm okay with that so suppose that someone it was their it's their employment to
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produce food yeah right so someone else has the right to their service without paying for it
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how is that person supposed to maintain a good life and continue to produce that service like
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how does that even work what i'm saying is um you have obviously some of that that food for
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yourself you don't just give all of it away and then you give everyone their their needed share
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of what they need um a big thing that I like to always distinguish is the difference between
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equity and equality I think equity is extremely important um more so than equality everyone gets
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what they need not everyone gets the same if that makes sense um so but if some say someone wants
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a little bit more of something and they don't necessarily mean it then sure you would have to
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pay a fee for that you would have to do some kind of transactional thing for that um and I think
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that's where because because we do have a lot of excess and goods that that is I can't even think
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tons and tons of clothes go to waste every single year and it's extremely wasteful um I think
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everyone should be able to have access to clothes and you know not be no one wants to walk around
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the streets naked and cold so I think everyone should have be able to have access to the clothes
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but say you want extra clothes or you want clothes that like you don't necessarily need like you want
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like three winter jackets instead of two or what for whatever reason i think you should then have
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to pay or trade some kind of service then um but i don't that that's that's like more thing i think
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we should all be able to have access to our basic necessities because we're all equally
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deserving of that regardless of who we are right um okay i don't think we're gonna totally agree
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on no no and i i i understand that and i'm fine with that yeah yeah i just i see it i see it this
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way so a lot of people it's their employment to produce these basic services right yeah and we
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want to incentivize them to continue to produce those basic services yeah and the best way i think
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is to continue to pay them for it yeah and like otherwise they have no incentive to continue to
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do that efficiently or in sufficient quality or in sufficient quantity do do you think the
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government can um pay those people without necessarily uh making others pay egregious
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amounts for those basic needs and necessities okay yeah but where does government get that money
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money is a money is a concept money we create money money is a man-made thing money is something
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that humans have created and humans have deemed the value of i really i that that is something
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that really boggles my mind we one day were just like that's silver coin i'm gonna give you value
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and over time that has changed into this big worldwide thing
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and declining of increase of goods, decrease of goods
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but money is at the end of the day a man-made thing
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it is the commodity that we transfer wealth with
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yeah right and we want to make sure the wealth is transferred equally yes um so we need a stable
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currency see we came worldwide we need a stable currency i think i definitely agree with that i
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think worldwide we need to have one collective currency that is equal everywhere because the
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changes between everyone's dollar and the changes between it's a lot of one it's just confusing i
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don't want to it's just really confusing but at the end of the day i think it would just make
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everything a lot easier um but i think and i know a lot of like the economy finance bros are going
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to be like oh my god she's not she's talking about when i say this i don't understand why
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we just can't increase the amount of money we make and i know there's the whole thing to it
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of like oh that decreases the value of our dollar dollar and whatnot but why it is a man-made thing
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it is a man-made idea um if we cannot fix the way we run our society where everyone can one
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both have access to everything they need but then also yes at the end of the day still pay
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what they want for luxuries and things like that i don't that's i think that's where like the thing
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where money gets me is i i think the government can make more money i think the government has
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enough money i also think the government spends too much and that this is like an entire different
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conversation outside of socialism when you go into what the government is spending their money on i
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don't think we should be spending as much money on the military that also just goes to i'm very
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anti-war i don't think okay fighting is like that's that's an entirely different conversation
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yeah and then using that's like even so money is it's not arbitrary the value of our dollar is
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proportioned to the amount of wealth that we have in this country so like the more money
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have you heard of the quantitative theory of money yes so like the more money that the government
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prints the less each dollar is worth therefore the more money we need to pay for each good and
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service right why why does it have that's like that's like why does it have to be like like i
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said at the end of the day it is a man-made thing it is a man-made idea why does it have to why can't
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we not just have all an equal dollar create as much money as we need to help people in order to
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get by but when you create that dollar you're not creating wealth see the reason we have so much
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inflation right now in this country is because they're printing this money and they're not