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Originally Posted by Infection
Hmm, okay, so you are saying move it out of capitalism to start to unwrap that. I def don't consider myself an expert in navigating the nuances of socialism etc, but I have concerns from a psychological perspective when we divorce choices from consequences at some level. What I mean is that part of capitalism (in a pure sense, not a corrupt crony capitalism--if you believe we can differentiate) is that productive choices get rewarded and nonproductive choices are disincentivized, right? If you want to argue that what we have now is way too far in that direction, where power is getting more and more concentrated and the less wealthy are being marginalized, then I would agree. But my initial stance is to be wary of going too far in the other direction too. Curious about your thoughts here
I'm from the UK and we have heath care, education, social housing, benefits etc. Even under conservative governments, it's all varying degrees of fairness vs greatness within a capitalist country.
I agree on
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psychological perspective when we divorce choices from consequences at some level
this quite a lot and for that and other reasons in the past I've been a left wing capitalist. But for exactly the same reasons I would now pretty much identify as a democratic socialist.
The reality is that because of science/tech and automation, it's increasingly difficult for peoples choices to impact on the consequences. We can explore this more but to put it pithily - humanity is increasingly wealthy at the same times as it's increasingly difficult to earn a fair share by working or making good choices.
We have to, imo, make the differential bit more about perks and less about anything important. Otherwise the impact of the psychological problems caused by being unable to improve our families share of the pie by making good choices will, among other things, wreak havoc on political decisions. Democracy itself is on the line.
Note. Although I think I'm correct, I recognise that I'm obviously in a fringe position on this even for people on the left. I don't want to confuse my views with that of the mainstream of the left.