Why is socialism viewed so negatively in politics and media?

Ignoring the mega rich and inherited wealth, do sme’s (and landlords) fund the public sector and the benefits system or materially benefit from it? Obviously government spending is funded through taxation rather than the generosity of sme’s and landlords but the fact that low wages and in work benefits benefit the sme’s and landlords means they as a class take more from the government whilst employees and tenants pay less tax.

This is compounded by the entitlement of those who don’t need state support believing it’s not fair to not receive it like wfh allowance for all pensioners, non means tested state pension, free childcare provision for those on a high salary.

It’s the greed and selfishness of capitalism applied to state provision for the poor and needy by those that think they are more deserving. For some unknown reason I keep getting emails about the huge profits that can be made by investing in property where rent is paid by the government. Capitalism is treating the poor as a profit resource backed my government funding.

This is one reason why capitalism does not work for the pubic good - not for tenants, not for government funding for anything but social housing.

It seems like capitalism is no longer survival of the fittest but continual and unaffordable top ups and bail outs by government. And then the right wing press complain about the costs of health education and welfare.

Blimey! If working extra hard made you rich I’d be rolling in it! I’m sure there are some clever business people out there but also a lot of rich buggers who inherited it. I worked my arse off , got a degree, teaching qualifications, 25 years service, paid all my taxes, (I love paying taxes honestly!) I’ve also worked in care homes, done cleaning and I do voluntary work. For that I get a mortgage on a two up two down, a 19 year old car and a el cheapo trip to Spain every so often, plus I’m putting DS through uni. And I’m so bloody happy! I’ve got all I NEED and more. When I had multiple health scares last year I was scanned and biopsied to an inch of my life within weeks. When I crashed with burnout and WRS I was treated with care and dignity. God bless the NHS and the welfare state! And God bless my union (NEU) who got me through it. I can’t work in business because I don’t know how to charge people for things and services at more than they’re worth - that’s what entrepreneurialism is isn’t?

They haven't always worked extra hard. My boss who got what today is worth £10 million because the company that owned our company decided to sell it was a complete twat only in his job because my team and one of my colleagues teams were producing all the profit he got credited with. He was very good at licking arses, though.

Most people earning £50k a year aren't working any harder than a care home shift worker on minimum wage.

But no, i don't think it's fair to take off of an entrepreneur who risked his own home and worked himself to the bone to establish his company and give it to someone (and they do exist) who is sponging of the state. I just don't know any fair way to manage that situation.

Political thinking may think that. But the reality is that collective goals are often being subordinated in order to impose solely the rights of individuals. For example, the right to free speech (a collective good) is being subordinated to the right of an individual not to be offended by a derogatory comment on religion that the individual may consider blasphemous. Or someone's right not to be deported on the grounds of family life trumps the collective good regarding the safety of the population.

What are your examples of the pendulum going the other way, out of interest?

@Pineneedlesincarpet That isn’t quite what I said.

I didn’t state that individual rights should always override the good of society, or that collectivism simply means ‘the will of the masses’.
My point was that a free society has to preserve individual rights and autonomy, and that some political thinking now does seem to lean to the subordination of individual rights in order to impose solely collective goals.

Of course societies need limits and shared obligations. But once the collective is treated as morally sovereign over the individual, adversely, we become even less of a just society.

Collectivism is a different thing from "will of the masses".

And one's individual rights are not and should not always override the good of society. There's been too much of a swing to the rights of the individual recently at the expense of the national interest, exemplified by Starmer's rule of lawyers.

@SharonEllis, your point on collectivism is apt, on this thread.

Society does have a moral duty to provide public services and to protect the vulnerable, but there is no free society that exists where the individuals rights of choice and autonomy are denied.

Some of today’s political thought and leaning, does point to collectivism and the belief that will of the masses is sovereign over and above one’s individual rights.

I think you're right. Democratic socialism and social democracy are what a lot of people on this thread are muddling up with socialism. And a lot of what people are talking about is just collectivism which has existed pretty much forever but can and does exist outside of a socialist structure. The definining characteristic of socialism is structural state control.

"Despise wealth creation".

Concerning. Who do they expect will fund them if they are unable to fund themselves because they haven't "created any wealth"?

I honestly don't know how anybody can support wealth redistribution. Do you REALLY think it is fair to take money from those who have worked extra hard to earn it to give to people who, quite often, can't be bothered to get off their backsides and get a job??

I’d totally agree with this. I’ve been to Cuba and had a year there as part of my degree and the biggest issue I saw was they are strangled by American sanctions. A lot of Cuba is run down purely because they can’t import parts they need. The cars, apart from the vintage, touristy ones tend to be Chinese as they will import to them.
however the university systems and hospitals are fantastic. Cuban doctors are regularly sent to other countries to assist and the patents they have developed are considerable. It would be interesting to see how they exist without American sanctions.

This thread exemplifies the baggage connotations of socialism and also that OP asked what she thought was a simple question to a very complex societal problem.

Many people in the UK consider themselves socialists because they support the NHS, the welfare state, despise wealth creation, see huge levels of inequality and believe strongly in redistribution.

We don’t talk about social democracy enough in the UK, which I think is closer to where OPs question lands.

What I meant was that capitalism in its true sense is not be able to co-exist in a socialist country - perhaps I misunderstood the point you were making in your post?

Like Jimmy Ma, the founder of Alibaba who got too successful and too outspoken for the likes of the Chinese government. He has now been ‘rehabilitated’.

I think it was more the people on both sides that screwed us re Brexit unfortunately. A very unfortunate collection of politicians here both as PM and those in Parliament, in the EU and especially in Ireland. But I suppose that's the system we had.

And covid wrecking the economy of course and then leading to the Boris wave. We will never know what would have happened re Brexit if we hadn't had that as I don't think counterfactuals are helpful

Im sorry but further discussion is pointless until you have grasped some basic definitions. Your example was a good example - you said exchanging a product for a token was by definition profit. Its only profit if it is worth more than the good it was exchanged for, which you didn't clarify till your subsequent post. But your subsequent post didn't really show much understanding of the costs of production which is basic to understanding levels of profit. I think you need to go back to basics.

It is called a socialist country and a few others that are similar.

The Nordic model is still capitalist.

Did you miss off an "I'm joking" emoji?

If you're unable to understand the example then further discussion is pointless.

More people are being deported than under tories . I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad to be honest. The issue with refugees happens a lot further back than the Kent coast that’s for sure. Socialism isn’t communism. I think that’s key to what has gone wrong in political debate: everything is polemical these days. Another nasty habit with got from USA. Polls are showing a slow improvement for labour. Farage’s are dropping again, he’ll be back with some other iteration of UKIP or whatever.Brexit has screwed us good and proper both economically and culturally.

I don't think you're going to make a lot of money with those calculations.

Can you name a successful socialist country that negates capital deals?

I think probably anything that's run by an iron clad dictator couldn't fairly be called a socialist country.

The closest we get that I know of is the Scandinavian countries with small populations who have a strong need social cooperation to survive their geography.

And even then Sweden is at the top in Europe of wealth (not income) disparity.

Because socialism means to some people - more tax, more bureaucracy, less incentive, aspiration and growth, but more state control, and as a result the word has gained a negative reputation.

People understand, accept and agree with taxes providing public services and helping the vulnerable. What some people don’t like is the sense that socialism often creates an anti-success narrative, expands dependency, and makes the people who work and net contributors feel over burdened.

So it’s not just media and politics. Also it must be understood that socialism gained its negative reputation from historical events, many examples of which are discussed in this thread.

Socialist societies by definition still retain low levels of private ownership however I imagine state interference would be high to negate any capitalist ideals.

Socialism as an overall system doesn’t do this very well. North Korea is socialist and it’s not fairer, it’s more unequal.

But that IS about profit. It's about me having planted a bean that cost 1p and exchanging the resulting crop of beans for something worth a £1.

That's profit, since the dawn of an agrarian society.