link to original reddit post by /u/omgcoin
I watched countless number of debates like "capitalism vs. socialism". For years, every single debate is going circles to nowhere. I have strong feeling that many advocates of free market capitalism don't really understand what socialists of various brands are trying to tell them (in their convoluted and vague way). This post in an attempt to explain how to avoid going through circles and getting stuck in weeds of complex historical events and getting further and further away from the main point (that's what they want you to do).
There are actually zero socialists who got into socialism just because of Labor Theory of Value (LTV). The opposite is true, they become socialists who are just using random theoretical constructs to justify their beliefs. In very unlikely event when you actually convince socialist that LTV doesn't work, he/she will pick up another argument from infinite pool of arguments for socialism. So debating with socialists over LTV is a waste of time.
By the same logic, there are zero socialists who dislike billionaires just because of regulatory capture, inflation, crony capitalism ... you name it. If, by some miracle, we get rid of all cronyism, all socialists will still dislike billionaires, millionaires (i.e. the rich). So debating with socialists over crony capitalism is a waste of time as well.
There are zero Marxists who wouldn't choose social democracy in the absence of fully planned economy (like USSR). So debating over economic calculation is a waste of time because they can always jump into "Nordic model".
There are zero social democrats who dislike communist regimes just because they understand economic calculation problem. Social democrats dislike communist regimes because they don't have liberal democracy, not because they actually strongly prefer market economy. Social democrats choose market economy and private property for purely utilitarian reasons because they couldn't figure out how to make planned economy to work.
There are zero ancoms or ansyns who actually dislike the state itself. They will always prefer social democracy over night watchman state.
And finally, there is absolutely no point to debate over identity politics because it's just derivative of socialism and it never comes without its economic component. There is infinite pool of socialist derivatives. Debating over identity politics is a waste of time and distraction. In the end of the day, they just want your money. That's it.
So what's the single component which is shared by endless variations of socialism (from Marxism to Social Democracy to anarchism)?
Everything becomes clear if you separate methods from goal of ideologies. All socialist ideologies are united in one single goal: wealth equality for its own sake. Imagine a tree of all socialist ideologies, so that "wealth equality" will be root of the tree from which everything else is derived.
Their methods may be different (planned economy, Nordic model and so on) but their stated goal is always the same.
I would clarify their goal. Even if you somehow remove all cronyism, inflation and even introduce basic income, they will still dislike "the rich" just because "the rich" have more than others. They would never accept economic system which gives "the poor" more opportunities at the cost of wealth inequality. It's a waste of time to argue about raising living standards for "the poor" in capitalist economy. Raising living standards was never their goal in the first place. Again, the only goal of all socialists is wealth equality for its own sake. It doesn't matter if everybody becomes poorer as long as they get closer to their ultimate goal.
Social democrats don't prefer market economy, they tolerate it in the absence of opportunity to build workable planned economy. They consider entrepreneurs and investors as nasty pests but it's proven to be too dangerous for economy to get rid of them. At best entrepreneurs and investors can be tolerated, at worst they have to be taxed out of existence.
So when socialists of all sorts complain about wealth inequality, they do mean it, literally. It doesn't actually matter to them what is the source of wealth inequality (cronyism or technology or free market).
However, all of them will try to throw on you endless arguments about LTV, exploitation, climate change, billionaires, cronyism, automation, imperialism and so on. That's a trick. You will be drown in their "arguments" like in quick sand (especially when it comes to history of imperialism). So each of your historical counter example, they will bring 10 other sources which state otherwise.
So what you are going to do? You should recognize it and skip all the steps and jump straight to the core of their beliefs (i.e. total wealth equality at all costs). Forget about defending Jeff Bezos (he is a crook anyways), they don't want you, personally you to get ahead.
Socialism is popular because envy is a human nature. That's it. Everything is just extremely long, convoluted, complex, long worded cover up for this simple fact.