“Socialism Isn’t the Problem,” She Told Me - Then We Dug Deeper
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about socialism, communism, and the health care system in the United States. We discuss the pros and cons of socialism and communism, the benefits and drawbacks of socialism, and what we should do about it.
Transcript
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Do you think a system like socialism, that people have arisen like dictators and have committed huge atrocities,
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do you think a system like that, that has that tendency, do you think that is undesirable?
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Would you not say that Canada has socialist rules and socialist policies?
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The economy seems fine. It's not like failing or anything.
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I mean that socialism doesn't deliver on its promises.
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probably with my definition I tried to steel man the argument
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what do you mean by it's failed so it's failed to produce wealth it's failed to
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create sufficient like sufficient resources for everyone basically like that's the claim is that
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everyone will have enough right that no one will have too much and then we'll all have what we need
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that's the claim but it actually doesn't do that so in socialist countries you don't have
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competition right so like one of the claims against capitalism is it'll it'll run to monopoly
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or something like that that's what people claim right but when you have socialism it literally
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is a government-run monopoly right so competition actually incentivize efficiency and an increase
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in wealth for everyone right but when if you have socialism there's no incentive to be efficient
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so in the end like socialism always has this honeymoon period where everyone's like oh this
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is awesome everything's like free and it's great but then things start to run down you get shortages
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you get famines you get you get the government trying to force people to work because they don't
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have an incentive to work so you get gulags and soviet union or a really heavy-handed government
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right like the more that it leans towards socialism and communism in the end the harder
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the government has to be and the worse it is for everyone what do you think the difference
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between communism and socialism is communism is just a little stronger so like socialism and
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communism really are like sisters basically in practice they look they look a little similar
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so like communism and social they still have this public and collective ownership
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right um but really the only difference is that communism has guns and socialism is supposed to
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be democratic would you not say that kinder has like socialist rules and socialist policies
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you have some and that's probably like our health care is probably what you're thinking of
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right that is it's a welfare it is socialist sort of um but we can see that it's not exactly
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working out that great right there's huge delays people are dying every year waiting for health
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care and it's just at this point i don't think it's working there needs to be some sort of
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competition inputted i'm not saying we get rid of like free health care i'm saying there needs
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to be competition inputted in our health care system to make things faster so do you think
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the health care system would be better if there was no socialism involved at all where nothing
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is subsidized or do you think it would be better if it was still like socialist but there was
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like a bit more competition introduced well i think it would be like the best service for us
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if there was no subsidizing and, like, all private industry run.
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So if it was, like, the states, do you think it would be better?
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So I do kind of like that they have, like, insurance companies
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and, like, employers will pay for health care and things in the states.
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Like, honestly, if the States goes to socialize health care, I don't know what Canadians are going to do because Canadians actually go to the States to get health care when we can, right?
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But when people advocate for socialism, they're really advocating for that sort of inefficiency through all specters of our economy, right?
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I mean, there are aspects of, like, the things that you said are the pros of probably having a non-socialized health care system.
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Some people would say better care because there's more competition.
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But don't you think there are other benefits that aren't, like, maybe that aren't mentioned there that could be more important?
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Like, if someone isn't able to afford health care and they get hurt in the States, often they go into debt.
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for the rest of their lives because of it and they have no way to pay it at all so like when
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the benefits of socialized health care is that people who wouldn't be able to afford to pay it
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can still get health care and then also having the states as their neighbor with like that system
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people who can't afford the health care when it's not socialized like this they do have the
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opportunity but for people who can't afford it it can like save their lives from like years and
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years of debt right so that's where it gets complicated right like um we do have so you
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kind of you have this trade-off right like where you you have the service free but you might not
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be able to get the service or you have the service like normally priced competitively priced and
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you'll be able to get it quickly um for those people who can't afford that like i do think
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like see government i don't think it should be like a hammock i think it should be a safety net
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so when someone legitimately cannot better themselves then there could be government
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welfare for them but i don't think it should be like a hammock i think it should be a safety net
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so there's a possibility of government helping someone get care in that sort of system but
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i mean i don't know to what extent and welfare systems can be abused like even in the states
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They have a welfare state, it's growing, and it's being abused.
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We can see where certain individuals across whatever race,
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they are abusing the system and just not working.
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it's got to be one that legitimately helps only people who can't help themselves.
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Yeah, I think socialized systems can be abused by people
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support until they can find a new job and get back to
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so see socialist systems instead of no socialist systems see when you get rid when you implement
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socialism you get rid of the desire for someone to work right so okay i think people already don't
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want to work but i don't think that socialism enables them to not work i think most people
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who benefit from welfare systems are like honest people trying to help out the workforce and maybe
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there's a few bad actors but i think you see that in any system even in capitalism there's people
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who run businesses that scam millions of people like i think any system will have bad actors but
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i don't think that means the system itself is flawed okay so we've tried this we've tried
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socialism like 40 times and in different different ways different extents and every time it's turned
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out poorly and i don't see any possible way to improve it what do you mean every time it's
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well the more that we tried it like the more social socialism we've implemented the worse
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has turned out like the worst most deadly regimes we've had in world history have been collectivist
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regimes right so that's true maybe the most recent ones but i don't think that's no like
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it because it's implemented i think they were just bad people i think if socialism was working
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in its ideal form it would have been fine but it was then these people took advantage of it
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and turned into a bad system and so like the socialism that was there they were able to take
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advantage of it so i don't think that means socialism is bad inherently like i think canada
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one of the reasons that canada is such a good country is because it balances capitalism with
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socialism and i think if we didn't have the socialism aspect then and it was just only
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capitalism it wouldn't be the country that is people like there would be a lot more poverty
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unemployment a lot worse things all right yeah but i want to i want to go back to one thing that you
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said so you said that bad people arose in a socialist society right to take advantage and
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kill hundreds of millions right that's like we were talking about Soviet Union and other places
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but do you think that a system that enables such people to take such control is undesirable
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not if it's used correctly I think like there they designed a system that was bad
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and also they use socialism to do it, but can you repeat the question?
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Yeah, so do you think that any system that enables someone to rise to power
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and abuse it, a system like socialism, that people have arisen
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and taken control like dictators and have committed huge atrocities,
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do you think a system like that, that has that not just possibility but tendency,
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Well, I think that those dictators who rise in control and do that are doing something inherently un-socialist,
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which is instead of making it better for everyone, they're taking the power for themselves.
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They're pretending that other people need to be all equal and the wealthy give to the poor,
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but they themselves are the wealthy who are not giving to the poor.
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I think we call those socialist societies or communist societies,
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But really, like those awful dictators who run these places, they're being the most un-socialist.
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They're only thinking of themselves and not thinking of other people.
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And so I would argue that that isn't a socialist society and those bad things aren't coming from socialism.
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Yes, but the reason that they were able to come to power was because the people, well, not even the people in most cases, the government took so much power.
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and it had the capacity to do these horrible things.
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In a socialist country, you have to have a big government.
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That's, like, the only way to force equalization and equal sharing.
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so those i would say those are the closest to like a socialist ideal society like an ideal
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social society as like they exist i think those that's the closest to real socialism and it's
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where everyone works together you know it is i do i do um and they tried communal living for quite
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a while but they have since moved away from that so a lot of kibbutzes have like 60 plus percent
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are no longer considered like socialists so socially living um so they're they're moving
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away from that as well because they're considering just how it's not working for especially young
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people so they are moving away from that as well I don't know if they're necessarily moving away
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from socialism a lot of them aren't completely socialized as they were there are also some that
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are but I don't think like the ones are moving away from it are moving away from it because it's
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not working like I think it like it does work pretty well they're just moving away for it from
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it because like they don't want to do that anymore and they like want to explore other options but
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i think not because it doesn't work okay well and the ones that still are socialized are very
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successful and like accomplish the things they want to accomplish they have like happy societies
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people contribute people feel meaning okay i don't know a whole lot about how kibbutzes are run
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um but i will say this they are small communities and very small scale
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so they are able to monitor each other and make sure that each other is working
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right once you get that to a large scale you need this large government
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in order to monitor everyone to make sure they're working and that's added cost right
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Is your argument that socialism on a large scale doesn't work because, like, bad governments take control and oppress people?
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But there's other reasons, too, that socialism just doesn't work.
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Like, you no longer have that incentive to have to, like, an incentive is basically just the possibility of future reward, right?
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But when you take away incentive for someone to, like, get profit,
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they no longer have the desire to get things done efficiently.
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They may continue to work, but they won't work as hard.
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When I think of socialism, I think, imagine everyone's a bar chart of how much, let's say, money they have.
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And there's a minimum value of living a good life.
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you can like you take the top bit off of the people who are above that bar and you give it
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to the everyone who's below that bar to bring them up to like the like a good standard of life
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but then past that you can still like you can still make as much as you want you just have a
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little percent taken off to help the people who need it but there's no ceiling for you it's not
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like you have to give all of your stuff away it's just like the little bit extra you have
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can go towards helping people that's how i think of it yeah so i understand how if you're thinking
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of it differently no no that's like that's wealth redistribution right so we tried that
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and taxing the rich like specifically even sweden and denmark they both try this high taxes on the
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wealthy and the wealthy left they left their countries well i think we have a form of that
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system in place here and i think it works pretty well well we don't exactly have a booming economy
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our economy seems fine it's not like failing or anything like what what more do we need for our
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economy well we have we have for the past 10 years we have gone down we're the slowest growing
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economy in the g7 that's not great but and well that's yes yes to some extent i think it's due
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to heavy government regulation and government overreach and not letting the free market do
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what the free market should right so the free market should be out there creating jobs and
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especially for youth unemployment is crazy right now and they don't have the jobs so
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like like the economy is just not creating enough jobs for everyone that's coming into this country
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and it should be but it's not i can agree with that but i think that free market is good but
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i don't think that means socialism is bad because like there like you said there's a lot of places
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in society where like socialism is good but maybe in these cases like in in like certain places
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socialism maybe shouldn't be applied or should be applied differently but i think as a concept
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like i don't think it should not exist i think we're gonna disagree here um yeah no i just i
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don't see socialism working um but i do encourage you to like you obviously you've read a lot it
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seems like you've heard a lot about socialism and other things um but i encourage you to do
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some research about capitalism and why that works because we've seen over the past 200 years like
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like real wage has climbed like 10 or sorry like 10 times yeah i just think that also socialism's
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good like socialism's good yeah but i would encourage you also to look at like so look at
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both and kind of like objectively compare them because when you look at what socialism actually
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does in practice it's never great right i have to agree to disagree on that okay yeah all right