Socialism (Moved from Grapes of Wrath)

I listened The Grapes of Wrath as Audio Book until they reach California and everybody starts dying.
From there it just goes socialist on you, and reading the Wikipedia summary on the rest was enough for me.

Well... if you consider listening to the audio book reading.
I think the reality - as in everybody dying - somewhat disturbed me.

And that socialism isn't a dirty word any more will doom us all.
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So whats dirty about it ?

Rewarding bad behaviour, punishing good behaviour.

I was referring to modern socialist tendencies in general.
Such as progressively taxing the productive - or the rich aka. the middle class - for politicians to buy votes.
It's punishing good behaviour and rewarding bad behaviour.
Did you know that half of Americans don't pay any income tax? Why would they vote against tax increases?

Everybody paying the same rate does sound fair to me.
Do you agree that it is a good idea to punish your children for better grades, while rewarding bad grades?

Why would the majority, that does not pay any taxes, be against socialism?
They don't have to pay for it.
The state has no business redistributing wealth. Quit useless social programs and the state does not need as much income.

When does socialism punish kids for getting better grades, are you really being serious?

Why should the majority of people who fall below the level of a certain income be forced to pay taxes at a higher rate than those who are above that rate.

The state does not redistribute income, it taxes those who earn and helps those who are below a certain income.

We are not talking about scroungers or the lazy but honest hard working folk who by circumstance or even greed by those who have succeeded, fallen on hard times, they need for humanities sake for society to aid their recovery.

We have to disagree as we have gone off topic far enough and this is not a politics forum.
You simply state contradictions, and frankly you are wrong.
I was referring to regressive taxing, not anything else.

I didn't find The Grapes of Wrath offensive, I quite liked it.
I pointed out that a socialist view was expressed, which certainly is justified in the context of the book.
I do believe that there has been progress since the time depicted in the book.
I am fine with creating equality of opportunity and helping those, that fell on a hard time.

You stated that income redistribution is not taxing those who earn and giving it to others.
I call that a contradiction. I like to know what else income redistribution in your view is.
And then you somehow equated not progressively taxing with regressively taxing.

Progressive taxing - taxing higher income at a higher rate - is in my view unfair.
It is taking more from someone because the person is productive. I called that punishing bad behaviour.
An an analogy, it is like giving your child a higher reward for a worse grade.

My utopia of a free country is one that allows it's citizen to keep the fruit of ones work.
Most socialist programs these days don't advance equality of opportunity.
They merely takes from those that have and gives to those that don't have.
The main purpose is for politicians to get votes from those who receive the money.
It seems to me like an advanced system of bribery.

"The trouble with socialism is it runs out of people to steal from." - Vladimir Putin (To my knowledge)

I confuse socialism with communism? Would you shorty define socialism and communism for the sake of the argument?

For some reason taxing the middle class is always excused with the existence of super-rich multinationals.
If you have a problem with exploitation of the system, try to prevent exploitation of the system.

And how can you generalise on the method of how "the rich" made their money?
So we as a society can decide that they all made their money unfairly and don't deserve it.
Okay.

You were claiming I am referring to communist ideology instead of socialist principles.
I ask you to back that up instead of just telling me to look it up, because I think you are wrong, sir.
How is what I was referring to not socialist, but communist?