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Comment by cynicalsecurity | Hacker News Reader

Capitalism creates inequality, but in a socialism/communism economy there would be either no money or no goods. Everyone would be equally poor, not just some.

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This is the argument made by people who would not work without getting paid for it.

If this were universally the case, open source would not exist.

And yet unpaid internships are still a thing as the point is education, not direct financial compensation.

Why would there be no money under socialism?

No money is a bit of hyperbole, but fundamentally, nobody really wants to work hard for the exclusive benefit of everybody else.

Greed is an innate human trait.

So there would be money, it would just be less efficient. That's a fair enough claim, but I don't understand why I was downvoted for asking.

Socialism is not communism and isn't anarchism.

Those are not the same, but too many don't know what's the differrence.

Because it would be stolen by the government. Ask people in post-Soviet countries about how Soviet governments were stealing money from their bank accounts, from all citizens collectively. No one believed in money under socialism in the USSR. The government could always pull a funny trick called "and now... it's gone". Be happy, comrade, that only your money is gone, you could also be in prison.

USSR operated under state capitalism, nothing like what any of the communists or socialists ever imagined. But I guess that is what USSR made socialism mean as a result.

BTW: Most of the world lives under state capitalism, not capitalism, not socialism, not any other form of economic system. The state has an unrestricted claim to any and all of your wealth.

Money only works when there is a base level of trust that later, money accepted will have some similar utility.

Social democracy is Socialism[1].

European social democracies are among the top of the wealthiest countries in the world.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy

I was unlucky to see and live in socialism. European democracies are not socialism by a mile. They are capitalist countries with some socialist elements. Yes, it makes sense.

Social democracy is a Socialist philosophy and has been ever since the spring revolutions of 1848.

You seem to confuse capitalism with market economy. Germany's social market economy was conceived as an alternative to capitalism; a market economy with strong focus on unions and social fairness/justice. In other European countries is very similar.

Socialism core principles have always been égalite, solidarity and democracy. It's pretty silly to think that a highly hierarchical, unjust and undemocratic system has anything to do with Socialism.

Hint; it doesn't. It might say so on the marketing material ("Socialist Republic!") but that's just that - marketing to fool the numbnuts.

European countries did not get wealthy just because of their social democracy system. There is a lot of very painful history as well.

Interestingly enough, when detractors like to point out countries where communism "failed", it's always countries that did not have a rich history of colonialism and exploitation of cheap labor forces around the world.

Just a thought.

It's almost as if countries, companies and super rich people are adored by the people in group 1 for their wealth by people while simultaneously are despised by the people in group 2 for the tactics they used to get that wealth. Some peope are both members of group 1 and group 2 which makes it even more strange.

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