Yeah, that’s also true. The US is huge. But while this was not a good example, there are plenty of examples of the government fucking things up for the sake of proving that the government can’t do anything right.
We need to rise up a level in our thinking about this. The way we treat each other is a matter of evolutionary psychology. Human beings are social animals. Yes we do compete, but we also cooperate and work together. Indeed we seek each other out rather than living in selfish isolation.
The social concept of a community where people live together and care for each other is normal - not an exception. Knowing your tribe/village will help when you are ill is valuable because you will do the same. There is strength and safety in numbers.
The modern difficulty is that there are millions of people in each “community” and we no longer feel connected to each of them. Research suggests that an effective group is 150 people which is why governments are needed to extend social protections to everyone else.
Not only that, but in true socialism (or at least, the kind envisaged by Marx), there would be no money, so it’s not really possible to answer the OP’s question in terms of monetary payments and taxes.
This.
True socialism/communism would probably only work in small communities where everyone knows each other and/or cares about each other, and doesn’t care if someone is pulling more weight or less weight; we’re all in this together.
In a society where people don’t know each other, and it’s a huge community, that feeling of selflessness is gone.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think there are several significant problems in the way this question, as in the OP, gets asked.
First, in government, you can literally destroy value. It seems to happen a lot, actually. It’s entirely possible to spend a huge amount of money and get nothing, or to get worse than nothing. So governments should always realize that just because something has to be done, and this is something, well, you maybe still shouldn’t go ahead and do it. That said, doing things at a national level isn’t necessarily socialism, but it’s also not automatically a good idea.
And that’s the basic divide I cut this question in two. Doing anything at a high level of government introduces an absurd number of complications and problems, and also tends to start a local of resentment and rebellion - not the least of which from the angry people who demanded the change in the first place but now hate what they got, and are loudly blaming the opposition… because politics.
Furthermore, and this is extremely important, it’s not a shortcut to getting what you want. Current systems don’t exist in a vacuum, or to serve some mathematically-perfect community. It serves living people who demand a say in how it runs, and basically gives them what they ask for. Any system will run smack into the same problem, and you can’t simply wipe away, say, cost increases from two decades ago because they’re inconvenient today. If you want to change the system, you have to change what people ask for or find a way to improve the efficiency of the system, or have the political clout to take things away entirely (but the latter is extremely hard and often ends up getting put back via litigation).
Middle ground, as usual, seems to be the best option. You could look at countries that have tried pure socialism. AFAIK, and feel free to provide counter examples, exactly zero have been successful. The latest melt down in Venezuela seems to be another in a long litany of failure.
On the other side…well, AFAIK (same caveats) exactly zero countries have every attempted pure capitalism, so it’s kind of hard to judge. However, most countries, including the US, who have balanced some ASPECTS of socialism yet have a quasi-capitalist economy have been incredibly successful. As a country slides the bar more towards socialism (and gets into public ownership of means of production and all the rest of what it means to really be ‘socialist’) they start to fail. One has but to look at the last 50 or so years in western Europe to see this in action…they are, in fact, the perfect test bed for this. Slide the bar to far left and they don’t do very well.
Where to set the bar is certainly a debate. The US sets the bar towards less government involvement and less regulation, generally, then Europe does. That tends to give us a more dynamic business environment, but less services as well…and in a lot of cases some inefficiencies. Europe, on the other hand, tends to have a less dynamic business environment, and often gets into problems with it’s social spending getting out of control (obviously ‘Europe’ is many different countries, so this is a broad brush). What’s optimal? Probably somewhere in the middle between where the US is and where many European countries are. Perhaps…Canada. 
Sure…there is tons of data on this stuff. The most convincing, to me, is the fact that many western European nations were very heavily socialist in the past…why did they change? Actual socialist/communist countries that have been even partially successful (such as China) have also changed quite a bit and at least bolted on some capitalist processes as well as lowered some of the socialist programs that were costing the state huge. Again…why? On the other side, the US spends a hell of a lot on our lashed up health care system which is neither fish nor fowl, neither fully public nor private but a weird combination that does nothing well. This costs the US quite a bit for an inferior system.
It probably wouldn’t be cheaper, per se, but you’d get a better working and more structurally whole healthcare system in the first example. Problem is, people are used to what we have and are, frankly, afraid of change. There is also, unique to the US I think, a distrust of big government and government solutions to problems like healthcare.
As for the second, obviously outside of a few nuts we obviously already pay for collective projects like the road system and maintenance as well as other public services, so not sure where you are going with that. Sure, there are some folks who don’t want to do this or think that magically they would get built (and built better) without the government, but most accept that this is a legitimate function of the government to provide for public infrastructure. Where you cross the line is in some of the large proposed projects that some folks want to build…large, expensive high speed rail projects between major US cities (or the always popular one between Las Vegas and various places in California).
What the hell are you talking about? In what way is hyper-capitalist Venezuela an example of socialism?
In just about every aspect. The Venezuelan government owns most companies, having nationalized them. They set wages and prices centrally. All services are from the state. Etc etc. I know you don’t get this, since you’ve made this same silly argument in a number of threads, but basically Venezuela is the poster child for socialism. My question to you is, in what universe do you see ANY signs of capitalism in any aspect of Venezuela, outside of the seemingly ubiquitous black market that all socialist countries have in spades, since it’s generally the only thing that works? Feel free to give examples of what you consider 'hyper-capitalist ’ aspects of Venezuela…should be amusing, at the very least.
You have this No True Scotsman logic whereby if something fails, or is bad, then it can’t be possibly be socialist or left-wing…because what is socialist or left-wing can only sail smoothly. Since Venezuela is in a shambles right now, it therefore “isn’t socialism.” Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were murderous tyrants, therefore they “aren’t left-wingers.”
This is a warning for accusing another poster of lying. If you feel you must, the BBQ Pit is right around the corner.
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State controlled production and wages is clearly communism. Communism is also quite fond of socialism, in which group assets pay for everything the people need. But Communism and Socialism are distinct things. Socialism is the thing that refuses to die, and quite flourishes when everyone gets on board; communism is the thing that fails to stay dead, and kills itself when everyone gets on board.
In other words, not the workers. Therefore, capitalism, with the state as monopoly capitalist.
In other words, not the workers. Therefore, capitalism, with the state as monopoly capitalist.
The fact that it’s not the workers making the decisions, but a distinct ownership class. Which is, of course, the very fucking essence of capitalism–it’s what distinguishes capitalism from literally every other mode of production.
Defining it in any other way is analytically useless, because if you do that then basically anything and everything is capitalism!
That has nothing to do with it. The distinction is on whether or not the workers control the means of production. This isn’t difficult.
Utter nonsense. Communism is by definition stateless. After all, the state is merely the executive committee of the ruling class–so since communism is the abolition of class distinctions, then when there’s no ruling class there’s no longer a purpose for the state.
I can’t remember whether your end goal is communism or socialism, but I remember it’s one of the two.
Is there a country yet that fits the ideal you envision, or is it all theoretical?
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Wrong on every count. You need to find out what socialism and communism actually are before you proceed further.
FWIW recall that the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment showed a 40% increase in emergency department use in the treatment group. Granted that was just short term and could possibly be mitigate through better education and improved access to urgent care alternatives.
I don’t know that I’d call this socialism, but if the OP is asking whether government spending is cheaper than private spending, yes it is, in cases where competitive pressures don’t produce efficiency.
Of course, that’s not the whole story, because you still have to compare spending the money to simply not spending the money. But if the money is going to be spent anyway, sometimes you can get savings out of having the government do it instead of 300 million individuals.
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In other words, not the workers. Therefore, capitalism, with the state as monopoly capitalist.
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No, that’s not socialism. Socialism advocates the means of production and distribution being controlled by the state (as well as no private ownership of property). The end goal of communism is that eventually the state fades away and the means of production and distribution are fully controlled by the (good) workers (and peasants of course). But that is the end goal…not the reality in the first several stages.
But, let’s pretend for a moment that your No True Scotsman thingy here is correct and that Venezuela isn’t, in fact, socialistic (by your obviously incorrect definition). What makes it capitalist? The definition of capitalism is that the means of production and distribution are in private hands with private ownership. I assume you have some sort of different definition, again than reality, but how do you go from the state owning and controlling pretty much everything to this being a capitalist system?
Repeating a two line assertion does not, in fact, make it true. You can keep repeating it as long as you like, but you will still be wrong.
Except it’s not capitalism when it’s the state that owns and controls everything…it’s pretty much the stock definition of a socialist government system. Throwing ‘fucking’ in doesn’t suddenly make your erroneous assertions more credible. Because the workers don’t make the decisions does not negate the fact that the definition of socialism does not have the provision that workers MUST make the decisions or it’s not ‘real socialism’…except perhaps by your own personal definition of socialism. Even in communism, this is an end goal, not an initial set of conditions.
Irony is so, well, ironic. And your irony here is pretty much off the scale. You are attempting, in fact, to go with so loose and ridiculous a definition of capitalism that everything IS capitalism while attempting to define socialism so that there aren’t any Scotsmen to be found. Thing is, we all know why folks like you attempt to jump through the hoops you attempt to jump through. It’s not a mystery. It’s pretty obvious that in the real world the rest of us live in, actual socialist countries who use actual socialist systems fail miserably. Exactly zero of them have been successful. Communism is even worse since in most cases not only are they zeros but they are horrible human rights violations in the form of a state.
Countries that are successful, pretty much across the board, incorporate some of the social aspects of socialism with the economic power of capitalism, softened by those socialist programs and ideas. Swing the bar too far towards socialism, however, and you get…Venezuela. And all your handwaving and redefinition of terms doesn’t take that reality away.