It’s naive to talk about more or less taxes.

Somehow it’s ok to spend 100s of billions of tax money on military hardware that no one needs or wants for the sole purpose of keeping those factories going and the towns employed, but spending half as much on a basic income for those people with no middleman taking a cut is wasteful and unreasonable.

Socialism is the idea that means of production are owned publicly with how and why people work being decided democratically. Creating a social safety net via taxes while the means of production are privately owned is still capitalism.

The fundamental question is what is the purpose of work, and why we work in the first place. Some work is necessary work that makes our society function. This is what we were referring to as essential jobs at the start of the pandemic. These jobs produce direct value such as food production, creation of housing, education, healthcare, and so on. This is known as production of use value.

However, there is a whole other set of jobs which only exist for the purpose of producing capital with any social value being largely incidental. These jobs don’t have any purpose beyond that, and can often be harmful to society. An example of such a job would be a corporate lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry. This job is a net negative for our society, and we’d all be better off if these people could just stay home and do nothing at all. There’s a great book called Bullshit Jobs on the subject.

One of core problems with capitalism is that it primarily optimizes for creation of trade value, and use value is largely produced incidentally. The reason most people have to work is not because it’s actually necessary or useful, but because it creates value for the capital owning class. Most of the people end up being treated as nothing more than resources for wealth creation. This is especially clear in US where health coverage is tied to employment. This is basically explicitly saying that human life has no value beyond creating wealth for the business owners.

Companies are also run as totalitarian dictatorships where the company decides when you work, where you work, how you work, what you’re allowed to say, how you dress, and so on. Many companies even monitor everything you do while at work. So, people are spending majority of their waking lives in an Orwellian nightmare.

I highly recommend reading this article explaining the relationship between socialism and communism.

I have no issue with paying taxes if they are allocated right. For a long time they were paying for two unlawful conflicts.

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When i was a kid i’d always hear that communism was when: what everyone had was the same, and was nothing. I’d always been confused by this because it seemed to me like that would give people a common incentive.

To the naive question of cost, i have told people that i’d gladly give the government my entire paycheck if they genuinely took care of all of my needs. I’m not much of a consumer and i never have been, and i’d likely have a much higher quality of living if that were the case.

Fortunately if you look at the real world nothing like that is necessary, any sort of actual socialist economy takes care of its own needs practically automatically. But I’d still do it, if it worked like that.

Yes, but waste not. Many government programs utterly fail in bringing any help for the people who need it. Some even outright prevent help.

While not completely socialists, countries like Sweeden pay very high taxes and seem to be happy about it as they dont have to worry and plan for the next catastrophe that may or may not arise.

I have heard discusions where people talk how their pay is less then those of us in the US, but they can spend more. That sounds good to me.

I grew up on food stamps, from the age of about 5 until I was older than 12. I don’t remember the exact ages, and no one who could remember for me is still alive. For those of you not from the United States, “food stamps” are a form of welfare that subsidizes groceries for those below some arbitrary income level. At the time, they were given out as these little booklets of paper vouchers. My understanding is that today, they are issued an “EBT” card which looks much like a debit card, but is still visibly distinct from those, especially for anyone who’s ever been a cashier at a grocery store.

I’ll never go on welfare again. I would rather starve.

I would rather have starved then, though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it then.

In small towns, no one goes to the grocery store that there’s not someone also there in line who doesn’t know you.

Almost as bad was the “free lunch” program. At least in the 1980s, all the kids would file in and pay theirs just before the lunch room, I think it was a quarter. I’d be the one kid who’d file through the line without paying, and even in first grade, everyone noticed. Not just the kids though, the lunch lady taking the money and putting it in the little lockbox always had this cunty face going on too.

Welfare can’t work when the people making it happen do not love the people they’re doing it for. Then it becomes, at best, a farmer feeding his livestock. At worst, it’s the farmhand kicking the livestock before dumping the food on their head, jealous that they’re “so well taken care of”.

Here in the Netherlands I already pay quite high taxes!

I am happy to take actions that decrease my own “quality of life” if it helps others live better lives, but I don’t think paying even more taxes to the dutch government is the most efficient way to get help to those who need it the most. I prefer having agency over how my money is used to help others. I am originally from Mexico and my family lives there, and the “extra” money that I have is peanuts in the Netherlands but can actually make a significant difference there. I prefer donating to projects that I think are valuable, give to people directly, and also to contribute to conservation efforts.

I wouldn’t be against paying more taxes, but I would want these extra taxes to be used to help people in other countries.

You shouldn’t have to - state expenditure should be covered by nationalising land and resources, and taxing wealth rather than work.

I live in Sweden which many liberals consider “socialist” when it is in reality barely social democratic since the collapse of the Folkhemmet. Income is taxed highly and Sales Tax is 25% - this is bad for social mobility, meanwhile property, business and capital gains are hardly taxed at all.

No I wouldn’t be okay with paying high taxes I don’t think the government should take any more of my pay than is necessary to provide roads, police, courts , firemen and workfare. Taking of your health is your personal responsibility you should bear the consequences of any decisions you make regarding your body if you wilfully choose to neglect your body then society shouldn’t be forced to shoulder the cost with one exception that being if you’re having a rough time through no fault of your own I believe some state care should be provided. The government is not your personal caretaker it should provide an environment where everyone is provided with the tools that is needed to provide for themselves but it shouldn’t provide everything for you.