Warning: I understand there can be a distinct difference between democratic socialism, national socialism, communism, etc. However, today I will be tackling the overall concept of socialism and why it doesn't work in different instances.
United States Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, has been getting a lot of attention for promoting policies such as a single-payer health care system, free college tuition, and raising the minimum wage to $15/hour across the country. Although many of his policies would create record deficits, he plans on paying for many of these proposals through tax hikes on the wealthy. Sanders believes that people earning over 10 million dollars annually should be taxed at 52 percent, rising from the current 39.6 percent. The Senator from Vermont wants everyone making above $500,000/year to pay more of their income to the government in order to pay for more social programs. Even citizens making $231,450 - $413,350 annually will see a sharp rise in their income tax rate from 33 percent to 37 percent. It’s no question that socialists want to redistribute the wealth, much of the time through taxes, to lessen income inequality and to pay for government programs. But many of you may ask, what’s wrong with that?
You are not entitled to other people’s money
I’m constantly told by the people around me that the rich need to pay their fair share and that we need to tax them more so things are more even. However, the top one percent of this nation already pay 50 percent of the tax revenue. The rich have been giving us millions and millions, but we still rack up huge deficits. Liberal college students walk around chanting, “Tax the rich!” but what makes them entitled to the wealthy’s money? Taking hard-earned money away from people who worked their butt off to attain it isn’t morally right. I don’t support crony-capitalism and corporations using tax loopholes, but these tax increases affect normal Americans. You would be taking money away from the small business owner, the man who worked his way up through the ranks, and the average citizen who worked so hard to earn their revenue. It’s easy to say “tax the rich” when it isn’t our money that is getting taken away. Giving away other people’s money doesn’t have the same moral value as you donating your own.
The Pizza Analogy
If you and I are splitting a $10 pizza, we would both probably chip in $5 to pay for it. Regardless of how much money either of us earn, we would both pay for 50 percent of the pizza. However, let's say you make more money than me and offer to pay $7 so I can pay $3. I would be very grateful for your offer and take it. This is voluntary socialism and that’s perfectly fine. It becomes an issue when the person chipping in $3 pulls a gun on the wealthier person and tells them they need to pay $7. The transaction becomes involuntary and the wealthier of the two is being robbed. The person with a lower income isn’t entitled to the other person's money. Americans are forgetting that we don’t always need the government to run social programs. Just because the government isn’t taking money away from the wealthy doesn’t mean social programs will cease to exist.
What about Scandinavia?
People often refer to Scandinavian countries such as Denmark, Sweden, and Norway as socialist successes. Nevertheless, all three of these countries use free market-based economies to boost revenues. Denmark’s own Prime Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, said in November of 2015, “I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.” We also have to keep in mind that our populations are radically different. The United States has 318 million people while Norway (5.1 million), Denmark (5.6 million), and Sweden (9.7 million) all have only a small fraction of our population. The same ideology and policies won’t work in all countries.
Socialism by the concept is immoral in the sense of stealing other people’s money and using it for what you want. The United States of America has many socialist programs, but we also can’t control our reckless spending. We spend over $114,000/second and have the wealthy already paying 50 percent of our tax revenue. You could tax every single taxpayer at the 100 percent rate and we still couldn’t pay off our debt. Socialism isn’t the solution to our problems. Spending reform is.
