[jokethrowaway]

The reason people associate socialism with taxes and a centrally planned economy is because that's the only popular socialism.

Anarcho-socialism rejects statism (totally agreeable) but doesn't offer a credible alternative. That's why common people don't even think about anarchy when you talk about socialism.

In a centrally planned socialist economy, the people in power can steal resources from the workers (like all the governments of the world do nowadays) and exercise power.

In anarcho socialism the power would be decentralised and distributed among democratic groups of workers. Why would the workers even bother to take all these decisions? They're not gaining power (or very little, due to the rightful decentralised nature of power in anarchy) nor currency.

The assumption is that workers are perfect human beings and don't need incentives do to the right thing, which is a pipe dream.

[pixl97]

Unless you have a powerful organization that prevents others from taking power, a powerful organization will always form that takes power.

[ClumsyPilot]

> socialism with taxes and a centrally planned economy

Taxes have nothing to do with socialism and have existed in Feudalism, in ancient Egypt and in every 'capitalist' state. Just because you collected money, does not mean you need to centrally plan how to spend it - carbon dividend would tax things that produce CO2, and distribute it equally to all citizen. Someone who produces no CO2 would get paid, and someone who produces the average amount would see no change.

I have no problem with central planning being associated, it was a key feature of socialist states. But Central planning means government sets prices on Salami, like USSR did, and I never came across anyone in the West proposing that.

At most someone advocates for some infrastructure, and they get called a socialist. But then, why does no capitalism society privatise the police, the army, the navy, the judges that sit in court, the federal reserve, the public library and the patent office?

If the accuser does advocates for privatising them, the rest of society will call him a nutcase and move on with their lives.

So he must instead make up excuses, of various levels of absurdity, for why free market can't be trusted with managing elementary building blocks of society here, but it's socialist to suggest government should step in over there.

The only solution is to Stop accusing everyone of being a socialist in disguise and learn from history and other countries: we have tried societies without government-managed police and courtsm, the results were terrible. We have tried private prisons, and government-managed consumer goods, also terrible.