[unflxw]

I see this sentiment expressed often, but I don't quite get it.

Is the implication that if you personally enjoy a high standard of living through capitalism, it is therefore hypocritical to advocate for everyone to enjoy a high standard of living through socialism? How come?

(I am asking this question in good faith. Note that at no point I am stating that socialism would or could actually achieve a high standard of living for everyone. I am neither interested in having that discussion or claiming that position. Please don't reply with a Wikipedia copy-paste about the great famine)

[caskstrength]

> I am asking this question in good faith.

I appreciate and will honestly try express my point of view on this issue in good faith and without being too snarky.

> I am neither interested in having that discussion or claiming that position. Please don't reply with a Wikipedia copy-paste about the great famine

Actually I come from a Ukrainian family that was affected by Holodomor, so I don't need Wikipedia to reason about the subject but okay, let's drop it.

> Is the implication that if you personally enjoy a high standard of living through capitalism, it is therefore hypocritical to advocate for everyone to enjoy a high standard of living through socialism? How come?

I think champagne socialist brigade on HN is a wealthy people who already got theirs (house in SV that they bought long time ago and which appreciated to several million dollars price today, maxed Roth IRA for decade+ that they weren't even supposed to be eligible to but still got via shenanigans of their corporate employers, etc.), now they just pulling up the ladder and basically suggesting newcomers to consider paying their healthcare cost during their retirement or something (don't know why but those people always enamored with European-style single payer healthcare for no good reason). Now, try to suggest to those people to fund their leftist inclinations by heavily taxing actual wealth and inheritance and they quickly come up with all kinds of convoluted answers why that is a bad approach that would never work...

[unflxw]

I appreciate your answer. It's hard to have these conversations online without it quickly devolving into a shouting match, hence my disclaimer.

Not that I have any intent to defend this abstract group of people, but I don't generally get the impression that wealthy people who advocate for a greater social security net do so without understanding that it would necessarily be funded by their taxes. If they do, though, it's certainly a nonsensical and unrealisable position.

That said, I don't get how this eleven-dimensional chess play to have the peasants pay for their healthcare costs during their retirement would be worth the effort. If that's their end goal, wouldn't it be much easier to advocate for less public services and less taxation on the rich, pocket the difference into their investment plans, and use _that_ to fund their private healthcare plans?

[caskstrength]

> Not that I have any intent to defend this abstract group of people, but I don't generally get the impression that wealthy people who advocate for a greater social security net do so without understanding that it would necessarily be funded by their taxes. If they do, though, it's certainly a nonsensical and unrealisable position.

Why would it be nonsensical? There is no wealth tax in US, their property taxes are capped by prop 13, their Roth withdrawal and re-balancing are tax free. Worst case scenario they will pay some long term capital gains tax, which is still somehow much lower than income tax. So what is left? VAT? Try suggesting increasing VAT and those people will lecture you for an hour how it would be "sO ReGreSsiVe!!1".

> That said, I don't get how this eleven-dimensional chess play to have the peasants pay for their healthcare costs during their retirement would be worth the effort.

I don't see how this is some eleven-dimensional plot. They leeched every single dollar they could while everything around them was slowly crumbling and turning into basically a big homeless camp, now they would like someone else to pay from the _income_ for tidying the place up while their _wealth_ is safely tucked away.

> If that's their end goal, wouldn't it be much easier to advocate for less public services and less taxation on the rich, pocket the difference into their investment plans, and use _that_ to fund their private healthcare plans?

Now that would indeed be a "nonsensical and unrealisable position" in California.

[unflxw]

To be clear, I meant "nonsensical and unrealisable" in that there's no realistic, long-term sustainable way to greater public services without greater taxation. Nonsensical as public policy for them to advocate for. I didn't mean that it wouldn't make sense for their pockets to want that, all else equal.

Again, thank you for explaining your thoughts on it.