Canadians Who Have Never Experienced Socialism Prefer it to Capitalism

So, I keep seeing these socialism memes on Facebook. Nothing new, of course, just the same old ideas repackaged. Usually it's something along the lines of, "Socialism GOOD, Capitalism BAD", so of course I would ask the poster of said memes stuff like, "Why do people from socialist countries move here, but not the other way around?" Or, "Why do you think it would work here, when it has never worked anywhere else?"

The sad thing is, the only answer I ever get from these posters is stuff like, "You obviously don't know very much" or "This isn't communism, you know!"

Never have I even once got a logical, reasonable answer as to why socialism would be good in this country. And yes, I realize we have social services here that we pay for with our taxes, but does that really make this a socialist country?

In the fall of 2022, the Fraser Institute in conjunction with Leger did a study called Perspectives on Capitalism and Socialism. The study was based on a poll involving residents of Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

The results were very much split according to age, which is something I probably could have told you without the benefit of a poll.

What the polling found was that in Canada among the 18-34 age group, 46% of respondents felt that socialism was the ideal economic system, compared to 29% who felt it was not.

When asked about capitalism, only 39% of that same age group (18-34) said it was the ideal economic system, while in the 55 and over cohort, 60% felt that capitalism is the ideal economic system.

This is how I boiled down the results of this poll where Canada is concerned:

I should probably clarify that one of the sections of this poll asked "What is your definition of socialism?"

This same 46% chose not to define socialism as, "The government owns and controls everything", but preferred, "The government will give me free stuff and free services".

This is why they need someone else to pay for that free stuff, which is also something I could've told you without the poll.

Another thing I try to do with these types of conversations is steer them towards examples of actual socialism. You know, countries like China, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and the USSR (the current version of Russia isn't much better either). These are countries where freedom has been stifled, in many cases the economy ravaged, and are just generally shitty places to live, which is why many of those people come here.

Inevitably these defenders of socialism come out swinging with something like, “that's not real socialism”, or, “socialism is not communism, you know!”

Evidently I was talking about the "bad" kind of socialism, and what we apparently need here in Canada is the "good" kind. Apparently this is the kind of socialism that runs on rainbows and unicorn farts. And at least it's not fascism.

While these people love pointing out my ignorance about the difference between socialism and communism (which I don't even deny), they also seem oblivious to the fact that the current list of socialist countries and the current list of communist countries are almost exactly the same.

I even had one of these people use many lines of text to try to convince me that the failed USSR was not actually socialist, even though the second half of its name was literally “Socialist Republic”. It's really hard to even make up stuff like this, you know.

The other thing I hear a lot is how Canada is a actually socialist because we have health care and Oh wait - the Nordic Model! The funny thing about the Nordic countries (and Canada for that matter) is that the only reason the government has all this free healthcare and other benevolent things to gift its people is because there is a wonderful capitalist economy operating in these countries that makes loads of cash and therefore pays taxes that support this “socialism”.

So again, it's not the kind of socialism where the government owns everything, but it's the kind where the government gives us free stuff. Except that it's not actually free because we're the ones paying for it. This would likely be the biggest reason why young people who are just starting out like this idea of socialism, while the old guys who have been working their butts off for thirty or more years don't care much for it.

And so while it's fine to help people in need, to then call that "socialism" while other countries (that are truly socialist) are boot-stomping their people into submission shows the kind of fantasy world certain people are living in.

The funniest thing about this whole mess (if one could actually laugh at any of it) is that many people seem to really believe that a socialist system will take care of those "greedy capitalists".

Let's examine that concept a bit, shall we?

Most business people and entrepreneurs who are extremely successful are also very driven. They have some kind of crazy thing that motivates them to get up at 3:00 AM and work out for two hours, then jog to the coffee shop, get their gluten-free-lactose-free-no-fat-latte and still make it to work by 6:00. Then if they're lucky, they can be home for supper around 8:00 in the evening, take an hour or two to call potential customers overseas, devise a brand new method to take advantage of witless consumers like you, and still spend a couple hours meditating before bed.

There's a reason these guys are in the position they're in.

Now, imagine the government owned everything - all the businesses, all the property, all the service providers. Who do you think would be running these various departments? And trust me, there would be a lot of departments. I'll bet it would be guys who are extremely driven and motivated, who get up at 3:00 AM and work out for two hours…

That's right, those crazy successful guys in the capitalist system are still going to be around under the new socialist one, using all the same tactics, except now they'll be in government. I'm pretty sure I'd much rather have them running a huge corporation which I could decide not to support. And there's another funny thing about this: in every instance of socialism the world has ever seen, this marvelous utopia where everyone is equal and shares all things equally - this Shangri-la where all decisions are made by the collective - it always seems to end up being run by one guy. And historically he's not been very nice.

So here we have relatively young, inexperienced citizens with a decent amount of freedom pining for a world where all their needs are met by a benevolent collective, inspired by a rosy definition that bears no resemblance to any historical situation, while those old-timers who remember the actual history, and in many cases lived through it, just shake their heads while they plant their gardens.

Call me cynical if you must, but these days in this country, I think reality is the biggest cynic of all.