Comment by germandiago | Hacker News Reader

Comment by germandiago | Hacker News Reader

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> Is there a word for this tendency to say, "it's someone else's job"

At the risk of sounding pretentious, I call it "socialist", since they spend their lives telling others what to do or what is good or not for the rest of us but they rarely do anything about it. Surprisingly, this is the group that is really worried about poverty and climate change and do as much as I do for it, with the difference that I do it by myself, the few times I do it, not requiring the rest to do it.

It is always someone else who will do it. Though the other day I had a conversation with a non-socialist person that had that same attitude ("other should do it") towards what OTHERS should do. I really dislike that attitude, no matter where it comes from.

Point at hand: when I want or promote something, I am the first one to do it no matter others do it or not. The rest, no matter the ideology, all b*llshit.

As imperfect as I am, I try to do what I think is good (and sometimes my imperfection prevents me from doing it) but I do not spend my life telling other people why they are worse than me and telling them what they should do or not. The most I have for someone is good suggestions, never requirements.

This has nothing to do with socialism. Since it is a problem under capitalism why don't we call it "capitalist". Or maybe we could just say lazy.

The irony here about socialism for me is that I find plenty of people that would fall in those ideals (not only in those, but most of the time) that tell you what is good or bad for everyone else but they seldom do what they say. That is why I said "everyone else's job" is an approximation of "socialism" in my view.

I cannot see how that would be a vice of capitalism since capitalism is basically non-intervention and freedom.

>That is why I said "everyone else's job" is an approximation of "socialism" in my view.

I don't think socialism is the word you're looking for. If you're trying to say that the described behaviour ("it's everyone else's job") is common in, or a byproduct of, a socialist system then it would make more sense (though it could be argued).

But that doesn't make it a correct "approximation" of socialism. Socialism is:

>a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

https://www.lexico.com/definition/socialism

I know the definition, lol. What I meant is attitudes I found under that thinking quite often. It was just a silly observation.

I did not mean anywhere every socialist is like that or that all peopple that do that are socialist.

On top of that, that is just a personal opinion. Nothing else.

I think you should read some more socialist authors. Socialists are very into doing things but would also like to have access to the resources that facilitate getting things done, rather than being forced into the position of constantly petitioning bureaucrats. But socialists who run for office on a platform of opening up that bureaucracy to the public are often denounced as undermining the foundations of society, prosperity etc.

Socialism and scarcity go hand in hand no matter the intentions. It has happened, and it still happens partially.

A centralized economy is not flexible enough to supply the changing demand or to readjust.

The big leap forward was created, for example, to overtake England (I recall, correct me if I am wrong) in Steel production. In practice what happened is that people run desperate for their lives and died of hunger. Because they did not have the means to do it.

There are way more examples, being this one maybe the biggest disaster, but in essence there is an impossibility to calculate prices and gather information of good quality in a socialist system.

Socialism is not synonymous with central planning (example of a decentralized socialist concept below). I am not an advocate of the latter, though if I were I might point out that highly centralized Amazon seems to operate profitably and efficiently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

Amazon works with private capital and under market laws.

Not with public capital and under coercion, which is how a socialist system works.

Oh wow, an uncritical hot-take refers to some one they disagree with as being a 'socialist', you're so revolutionary. I wonder where you could have gotten the idea that all of your problems are the fault of the 'socialists'.

Oh wow, where did you take from I said all my problems come from socialists?

I described an attitude I dislike and I often find, like it or not, at that side of the spectrum: we have to eliminate poverty, stop the climate change and do all good things in the world. At the same time I write from my big luxury Iphones, my big house (as I promote equality) and, of course, tell the rich to pay the bill as if their money belonged to everyone else. Mine no, I am no rich... I am socialist to point to who should do it, not to do it.

I have never, ever seen a person with a capitalist mindset pointing to the wealth of others or saying that everyone should have the same be equal for the sake of being and they are quite more restrained about telling all the others what to do. Also, they are often quite more frugal people.

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