Memes

Canadian here: socialism has been a part of culture since the outset. Even Americans have social systems in place to support the population. Many don't recognize it as such, but it's there.

One of the many outstanding examples of this is fire fighting. Everyone just assumes that the fire department is there and normal, but it's socialist. In the early days, fire departments were more privatized and several may show up at a blaze to basically quote the property owner to put out the blaze. This was widely inefficient at a time when spending more time to discuss the business of firefighting would take away precious minutes from the job of firefighting and it would put lives and property at risk for every minute the start of firefighting activities were delayed.

It was pretty much unanimously acknowledged that putting out a fire is more important than figuring out who is going to pay for it, or do the job; so social infrastructure was made common for fire fighting. Given that it would risk not only the structure and lives of those involved in the blaze but also that of the surrounding structures and the lives of those who lived/worked in those structures, is obvious why government/social fire departments exist. They are there to save the life and limb of those involved in a blaze and do their best to prevent as much property damage as possible from such an event.

Its very nature is socialist, by the people, for the good of the people, paid for by the people. This is, however, still more or less unanimously agreed upon as a necessary thing.

Canada has extended this to healthcare, since during an emergency, like a life threatening wound or condition (cardiac issues are a common one to cite), time is essential. Going to an "in network" hospital, like the Americans may need to do, could add minutes or even hours of travel time between getting to the patient and getting them to the care that they desperately need. That time could mean the difference between living through it, and dying on route. So we have socialized healthcare too, no matter where I am in Canada, or what the closest hospital is or who administrates it, I can get the help I need immediately, at no cost to me. This saves lives, but it mainly saves the lives of people who would otherwise not be able to afford healthcare, or to have a healthcare package that allows for any hospital to provide care. This has been extended, in Canada, to cover more than just emergency situations. So pretty much all my basic care is covered.

This is socialist and one of the things that America seems to be very strongly opposed to. This leads me to believe that the fire department situation is less about saving lives and more about saving property. To put it crudely: "I don't want my (thing) to be damaged by the fire happening with your (thing)." (Kind of mentality).... At least on the part of regulators. They're okay with fire departments since fire can spread and create a bigger problem, including a problem for those who control the government. Meanwhile with healthcare, the problem is your problem and they don't want any part of paying for your ability to resolve it. In this assertion: property > lives.

Most liberal/left/communal focused people (myself included) are more focused on the greater good for all, not just for you, or your loved ones. We want what's best for the majority of everyone. The people on the right are usually very capitalist and focused on what benefit do I get? above all else. They get no immediate benefit if you're in good health or survive a major medical issue. There are long term benefits from having a healthy, educated public, but it's all long term thinking that seems to escape most capitalists. "Why pay for something now hoping for a benefit later?"

Additionally, the benefits are a paradox, that you'll certainly get the benefit, but usually in the lack of long term costs, so the benefit is forged in the form of not losing money in the future, which, quantifying a lack of losses that didn't happen is nearly impossible. This was recently demonstrated in the analogy of rat poison, which some of you may be familiar with: "why do we have all this rat poison around? I haven't seen a rat in years! Stop putting out rat poison, it costs us money and serves no benefit" then later: "where did all these rats come from?"

You continue to pay for and cover people for their safety and security, and you don't have to deal with replacing them. You don't suffer those negative effects of not having their help, and that's a hard thing to prove when it didn't happen.

Capitalists, from my experience, lack this kind of theoretical thinking, only benefiting from the experience of making a bad decision to remove the rat poison, only to have their entire company overrun by rats causing a more significant loss than if they had simply continued to pay for the placement of the poison. That experience and thinking is dangerous when it comes to policy, as many people need to die before the losses are realized.

The recent loss of a large portion of the population due to this same short term thinking during COVID, is going to have ripple effects on the job market for decades. People who would otherwise be alive, well, and ready to work, are either suffering with life long illness, or a serious case of death, and it creates a worker shortage.

Workers who were happy to keep their jobs at a minimal pay increase are now being replaced by people who are demanding better conditions and pay. Which only serves to emphasize the struggle between companies and their employees. That struggle has been ongoing for decades or more.

I've seen rather poor job postings for my line of work, go unanswered for weeks because the company is offering too little for too much work, and have a reputation for overworking their employees. An extreme example of this is from Amazon. They're facing a shortage of people who are willing to cope with their insane working conditions. They're burning through the workforce at an unprecedented rate by demanding too much and providing too little. Their own internal analytics have identified this as a problem, and they're not doing enough, quickly enough, to curtail it so they don't end up with nobody who is willing to put up with their shit for what they're paying (specifically referring to warehouse and delivery workers here).

It's an ongoing problem and it's borne from the extreme capitalist way of doing things: burning through willing workers until none remain, all in the pursuit of profits in the short term.

The only way that Amazon has curbed the issue is in contracting out their delivery system, bringing on dedicated delivery contractors, and professional delivery companies like FedEx and UPS (or similar) who can "pick up the slack" for not being able to hire enough drivers to fulfill their orders.

Amazon is a good case study on capitalist business practices and the values of capitalists. But I digress.

Social services, and social/socialist philosophies will always be better at/for long term planning, while capitalist systems will be better in the short term. The two will always butt heads on what's important because they focus on wildly different things. Many capitalist Americans bring this business philosophy home with them; they don't, and will never support something that doesn't have a clear and direct benefit to them, and will continue to advocate for personal responsibility of anything that doesn't and cannot affect them directly, believing that doing otherwise will unreasonably increase the costs of the systems they use for those benefits and unreasonably benefit those they see as competition on their imaginary "ladder of success", which will, to them, unreasonably and unjustly elevate those who have not earned it, to a better position on the success ladder, which may, as a side effect, cause their position to become weaker as a result. They're better than those who can't afford what they have, and they'll fight with every tool they have to ensure that those whom are less than them, know that they are less. That may be in the form of denying them healthcare that they need but cannot afford, or wages that they cannot otherwise earn because of either job scarcity (or simply the scarcity of jobs offering more), or that they don't have the education to earn such a position.

They're "better" than others. Those that want stuff that doesn't benefit them are idiots and their "lessers", and should be "put on their place" to them.

This is, at its heart, thinly veiled classism, driven into the masses by propaganda, and reinforced by the ruling class, aka celebrities, the affluent, and government officials. The "Elite" class has convinced their lessers to fight the fight for them.

IMO, the only way to break someone of this thinking is to attack the root cause of the thoughts, that you're not better than your neighbors and the people you would consider to be less than you are. That we're actually all part of the "masses" and we, as the "masses" are in a sustained and ongoing fight with those that consider all of us to be their lessers, aka, the "elites". Only when they recognize that we're not fighting eachother or vying for some imaginary "rank" in an objectively unfair system, will they ever understand that social services are not only good for everyone, but a requirement for everyone. We all will have slightly more or slightly less than everyone else, and those slight differences are nothing compared to how much more the affluent "elite" class has by comparison. Having 0.01% vs 0.009% of the wealth of any one of these "elites" isn't significant enough to divide us in terms of purpose. We are the people. The government is supposed to serve the people. It isn't. Stand up and take action.