Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Everybody makes choices that benefit their own self-interest, regardless of whatever explicit or implicit virtue they may be signaling. People who prefer socialism are the ones who would directly benefit from forced sharing. There are others who prefer socialism due to some kind of masochism, self-loathing or guilt. Defining exactly what socialism is, however, has become problematic; apparently the people who would prefer it want it to be what they personally imagine it to be. In fact, over the years, the Wikipedia definition has changed a number of times: recently, it said: "There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, though social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms." But even that distinction is not universal because Western European-style socialism doesn’t include so-called “social ownership.” In it’s most fundamental form, socialism is the needs of the group supersede the wants of the individual, the opposite of American-style liberty. Die-hard socialists don’t recognize that definition because they think it’s evil; they don’t condone a society based on personal autonomy, and aren’t shy about condemning it. Therefore, Socialists only want to debate about society’s goals after settling on the needs of the group come first. Freedom-centric societies, on the other hand, can adopt socialist, group-first policies when in pursuit of liberty; after all, government itself is based on doing what’s best for everybody.