As I scrolled through some search results on Instagram I stumbled across a post that asked "how do people wake up, work 40 hours a week, a nine hour shift every day, and think yes, this is the way of life without questioning how absurd capitalism is?".
The question is a good one because it gets to the root of the difference between the people who just want to be taken care of and people who want to take care of themselves. The socialist minded vs. the liberty minded.
People who would question this as a way of life tend to think that the government can print money and issue them a universal basic income sufficient to provide them with all of their needs and some of their wants and desires if they play the system correctly or give up on certain things to save up toward a goal. Capitalism within a socialist environment.
I have yet to encounter a fully raw capitalist system. But my understanding from studying capitalism is that each player or entity in the capitalist system is looking for buyers for whatever it is that they are selling. Once you develop a market for whatever it is that you want to sell then you create demand and supply and make trades to gain some sort of income. I have computer skills and you have a need for some work done on the computers to bring your stuff into view of buyers. And so you pay me to use my computer skills to make your product available and visible and the buyers buy that product demand. If your supply goes down and more people want your product you can raise prices to equalize supply and demand and get a continuous stream of income flowing as they do the same thing on their side and everybody makes money along the way. Money chases money throughout the capitalist system. In the socialist ways money drains and money gets created through artificial means driving up inflation and making products that actually have to be produced at a cost go up because it takes more money to pay people to produce the products and then to sell them..
I have traded 40+ hours a week to an agency now for over 30 years. In that trade I have been compensated tremendously for my time and have enjoyed the benefits of the fuel for my life engine that money became.
So many people who look at socialism and see so many cool looking people relaxing and doing whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it say "that's what I want to be when I grow up tomorrow" don't realize the cost that those people become on the system. And that they have spent years practicing learning an artificial system that allows them to jump from step to step and gain advantage over others in the giveaway system so that they can embrace the lifestyle they are pursuing. That woman sitting on the park bench drinking her free coffee for the fifth day in a row may have six illegitimate children at home taking care of each other while she applies for the next government check.
I hate thinking of it that way, but I was raised to think that you work for your money and then you enjoy your money and what it can bring you. I have worked and given up life with my children and family at times in order to get that fuel and make more money. I have pursued goals that brought more income but denied me more time out and about doing what I wanted to do. But at the same time I got to do a lot of the things that I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do them within the framework that I had set up within that system.
We all have to figure out where we fit in what we can and can't do. We have to look at and evaluate the situation and choose the path that we want to go on. And if you want to give up your freedom and liberty in order to sit and sip a latte have at it.
I prefer the dangerous world with a veneer of civility and I'll take care of the rest. My liberty makes me very dangerous and that's what scares so many people. Because I, like so many others, could throw off that veneer quickly and become what they fear.
The other part of the socialism vs. communism discussion is one that nobody really likes to take on. I acknowledge that socialism would be awesome if it could actually be done. I have yet to encounter a group of people that are unselfish enough to make socialism or a socialist economy work. Because within that framework selfishness takes hold and people will withhold resources and hoard resources that the group needs and watch others not survive while they and their family survives to the fullest and more.
I enjoy capitalism. I despise socialism and communism.
