Lagrange wrote:But how do you intend to redistribute the wealth when most of it is created by a minority of highly skilled individuals instead of heavy machinery? What is to stop these individuals from leaving the country once public ownership of the means of production has been established, leaving no wealth to redistribute?
Unless you intend to force the skilled laborers to work (acting as the factories of the past) it is no longer feasible for the proletariat to own the means of production. Then to redistribute all you are left with is the income tax system, and that's no different than liberal capitalism.
I don't know and I don't purport to have the answers. I identify as a socialist because of things that matter to me. I don't really involve myself in politics, I don't really vote, and I don't have any interest in being active with any left-wing political organizations, marches, rallies, movements, etc.
What I can say about my views is thus: there are some things that are real, like water and bread and meat and gasoline and electricity. These things are real, there is a finite amount of these things available for consumption. These things can be distributed. These things facilitate the alleviation of thirst, starvation, the need for transportation, and keeping cool in hot weather and keeping warm in cold weather, among other things. These things actually exist, can be distributed by whatever means humans devise, and directly affect the material world through aiding and alleviating those very essential necessities of modern life. Wealth, however, is imaginary. An obscene amount of food goes to waste every day in every country on Earth, primarily in the Western world, famously in America. Recently a news article was made about children in a state in New England being turned away from school lunch queues because they didn't have enough money (the school in question was supposed to provide these poor children with milk and a cheese sandwich but they provided NOTHING).
I don't have all the answers and I don't have the answers to fix society's problems, or how to stop wasting surplus food and goods. I'm not Marx or any other political and economic thinker who might claim to have the answers. I merely recognize there are severe issues that still plague our species, and that the concept of wealth and money should be secondary to the need of addressing human deprivations. It is less necessary for 1% of humans to live a life of unimaginable luxury by any standards and control 99% of the planet's "wealth" than for billions of people who lack proper food, drinking water, and so on to have their needs addressed. Our perspective and priorities are still skewed and outdated.
"I don't know if you're a detective or a pervert."
"Well, that's for me to know and you to find out."
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