Andy Taylor - Thunder

One big problem we have is that the "American" definition of the word "socialism" makes no sense to the majority of the world. Rightfully so, those things a stereotypical American labels "socialist" are not by any historical or philosophical definition "socialist." Most of the programs, projects, the concept of "the Welfare State" as a whole, are in fact Capitalist devised compensations for the known structural flaws inherent to the division of labor itself. They are "remedies," or "medicine," to borrow a more accurate metaphor. Like medicine, many of these actions do not solve an actual problem. Instead, they simply postpone, reverse, or ease the consequences of the fundamental problem of monetary systems (universal equivalence) as a whole. A tangible example is the Infrastructure Bill, and we ask the question: 

Which is larger? A) the amount of spending (aka the amount of new money created), or B) the savings of the Capitalist class who will remove the actual cost of producing the total product from general circulation? 

The government does not give money to the poor. Instead, the government creates new money to fund "commercial social work" and attempts to collect that money back through taxation, cuts to other budgetary expenses, and other incentives for directionally destructive spending (destructive meaning money spent to specifically deflate the money supply itself, rather than acquisition of capital, aka "taxes" in the most general abstract form). This is conceptually much different than the more familiar metaphor of "repayment of debt." You can take over the cost of running those businesses any time you feel like writing a check.

From a psychological perspective, America at large has internalized and normalized the Red Scare propaganda version of reality. Not surprising considering the well documented and observable revisionism of public education curricula from the 1940s to the mid 2000s. 

The fundamental problem of all capitalist structures, the inherent "unevenness," is that the value of labor, no matter how you define that labor, is always less than the market value of the product of that labor, and that "surplus value" is redistributed to the analogical Capitalist who watches the worker work. 

That fact is a fundamental component of Capitalism itself, not what most Americans mistakenly call "Marxism." 

Socialism, in all of its historical meanings represents the inversion of that relationship such that as much of that surplus value as possible is returned to the working class as a whole. 

No social experiment or implementation has succeeded in accomplishing this inversion, and it may very well be that it is philosophically impossible, the same way that it might be impossible to reconcile the metaphysical Telos with its simultaneous rejection in Marx's own philosophy. 

Taxation is the cost of having a Capitalist economic system, as it represents the theoretical surplus value itself. Again that is entirely a feature of Capitalism as a functional system: all labor is by definition undervalued. The Economic Right argues that that surplus value is a reward for the speculative investment in the production of commodities, the Economic Left argues that that surplus value is an exploitation of the system over and above the fairly calculated profit of a truly competitive market. The Left argument is very compelling, and all things considered the side i associate with, because it's a powerful explanation for the seemingly natural tendency toward monopolization (which we observe as rising prices). We call it greed: the defense and legitimization of any social hierarchy one inherits upon birth and from which one receives tangible privilege.

What do we mean by surplus value? 

Ok, we need 3 people at a minimum. A laborer, a capitalist/owner, and a consumer. The capitalist pays for the material and wage that the laborer uses, and sells the product to the consumer for the total price plus his own wage. We'll use arbitrary percentages. Say 30% goes to the laborer, 30% goes to the "owner." The actual sale price is the maximum clearing price. Just for ease we'll say that price is 100% markup. If a doodad sells at the maximum clearing price of $50, we know that $25 represents the total cost of production: materials must cost 40% ($10), wages cost 60% (7.50 for the laborer, 7.50 for the owner). The remaining $25 represents surplus value, and we need to decide how to distribute it. Again, just to make the numbers easy, let's say 20% gets taxed for future instability, that $5 is saved/reserved for future changes in one of those costs. How does the remaining $20 get allocated? In a completely unregulated Capitalist system that $20 goes to the owner and he can do whatever he wants with it, we don't get to know. In a fully regulated socialist system that $20 gets divided between the laborer and the owner according to an explicitly agreed and legally binding contract between them. This contract can of course be renegotiated all the time, but that negotiation takes place only in relation to the surplus value generated from the sale. Socialism ceases to exist when the surplus value drops to zero or lower. 

There is nothing stopping a Capitalist from running a Socialist business, and that is in fact the normal way most companies manage their internal structure. Bonuses, raises, parties, extra paid days off, all of these things are standard Socialist distributions of surplus value, but they are not regulated by any contractual agreement, and thus looked upon as "generosity" on the part of the owner. He doesn't have to do that, he can pocket all the money and go play golf 7 days a week if you let him. 

It might seem silly on the level of 3 people, but it's not so silly at all when you scale it up to 30 people in a mid-sized private firm, 100 people in a multi-branch company, 2-million people all over the world in the case of Wal-Mart. 

I said taxation itself is the cost of a Capitalist economy, but you could make the argument that the refund schedule is a Socialist program in its own right; your refund represents money the government didn't have to create based on your actual spending, and thus it is an egalitarian redistribution of surplus wealth based on merit. 

Some people will obviously argue the other way around, but that requires pretending that money is real and the comparative value of labor is imaginary, the way a corporation thinks about its employees. You know, Sandra's 40 words per minute are somehow worth less money than Martin's because Sandra has a vagina. Julio can't possibly expect to earn the same salary as Kevin for doing identical work because he pronounces his Js wrong. 

All of which of course in no way begs the question "what would happen if the guitarists from Duran Duran and the Sex Pistols made an album together?" The answer somehow involves copying the pen and ink style of Rockwell Kent, so your guess is as good/bad as mine.