this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026
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Hmm, the biggest problem I have with socialism is that you end up with government committees deciding who gets access to basic needs like food, water and medical care, when, where and how much. Attempts to plan out fair distribution for an entire country become brittle and inflexible, and result in scarcity and waste because human life is not static. Well-intentioned socialist governments become authoritarian out of the desire to control the behavior of the population in order to stabilize the plan, but the efforts to control inevitably create more instability.
That is literally happening under capitalism. You buy health insurance, and a private Healthcare group motivated by profit decides if you get medical care.
Hmm, and yet the US is not the only example of a capitalist nation with a health care system. The problem has more to do with regulatory capture. You can say that this is a consequence of capitalism, but then how do you explain other capitalist nations which do not have similar issues with their healthcare systems? There must be some aspect which is specific to the US, and personally I think it traces back to the degradation of antitrust enforcement under the Reagan administration, which allowed massive conglomerates to form.
Blaming this specifically on capitalism is too narrow, it ignores the broader sociocultural issues that lead to the current situation. Capitalism as it is realized in the US is more a symptom of underlying issues than it is the core of the problem. Attempting to replace capitalism with a different economic system will not resolve the problem.
I'd argue it's because the other countries have tempered capitalism with socialism to create strong social nets to protect people.
USA has one of the worst examples of health care: 17% GDP spending on health care. It's not just the most expensive private health care system, it's the most expensive health care system.
But it's also not a fully privatized health care system, or even the most privatized one. Roughly half of the insurance spending is public via Medicare, Medicaid, military, etc.
Switzerland's and Netherland's systems can be viewed as more privatized (100% of insurances are via private sector, NL almost all hospitals are private), and are way more efficient than the US system.
Looks like privatized health care + private insurance works the best, but it does seem to require some guardrails (which you might call socialism, I guess). But also devil's in the details and it's possible to do everything badly. I also wouldn't be too amazed if somebody managed to do fully socialized healthcare well. But I would be amazed if such a system stayed good longer than a few decades.
Feel like you're missing a ton of context for the system in the NL which I think is the most likely model for folks in the USA to accept if we were picking another healthcare model out.
Things like: there's a public fund that's paid into that covers end of life care and old age care. There's a ton of regulation and laws around how insurance companies operate and what they're allowed to bill for. There is a minimum standard of care and price ceiling all insurance companies must meet. There is a lot of oversight via the government ombudsman. There are subsidies for folks that have under x dollars to help them afford the basic plan (which all insurance companies have to follow).
Basically the competition in the private insurance marketplace in the NL is driven by trying to undercut each other's prices since there is a price ceiling for services. Other ways they can compete are better network integration, apps, ease of use, etc etc. It's also driven by the hospitals themselves and what they can offer.
Very much different than the USA.
Yeah, exactly. Point being that there isn't just one way to do private healthcare, which means that just because one way of doing it is bad doesn't mean that others must be as well.
Only sycophants use Grok.
Your one step away from reinventing communism and 2 from discovering decentralised anarchism as the real answer.
Controlling a nation is power. The people who control the nation have more power than other citizens, they form a political class.
Communism seeks to create a classless society but its main flaw (which is actually a reasonable perspective in historical context and the technology of then) is that it still held on to the idea of having a state, a centralised leadership.
But technology has evolved, anyone can interact with any group through digital means. Anyone can share knowledge or document and publish problematic events in their local area.
Building a network of decentralised neighbourhoods where all citizens are welcome to join the local political debates (and multi local joined sittings) is possible.
There is no need why a few chosen people have to have all the power.
Please learn to be less condescending. Stop assuming that people who have different opinions from your own are necessarily ignorant.
With that out of the way, isn't "decentralized anarchism" redundant? what would centralized anarchism even be, other than a contradiction?
OK, for the sake of argument let's assume that this works the way you believe, in a technical sense. Reality is more complicated than that, but we'll overlook that for the moment.
I would like to ask you to watch the Adam Curtis documentary All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. Curtis is highly opinionated and his documentaries are built to drive specific conclusions. What he presents is true, but not necessarily the whole truth, so please keep that in mind. Even so this is particularly relevant, especially episode 2, which describes various attempts to analyze and manage biology, ecology and society with computer systems.
People have been trying such things since the 60s. They are misguided.
All the power, no. However, it is also not possible to spread power out amongst every individual equally. For instance, where do you draw the age line of inclusion? Will 6-month-old infants be part of the discourse? 12-year-olds? What about 90-year-old dementia patients?
Even if we can make some practical exclusions, it is still not effective to get everyone's opinion on everything. Task specialization and division of labor are more efficient in every context. In practice, if everyone is responsible for completing a particular task then no one is.
I wasn’t trying to be condescending, i ment that quite literally. Ironically, i feel like you’re being a little condescending here by quoting and dissecting my input like this. Sorry if i made you feel like i was attacking your input on the meme.
I mean it more informational, not just for you but also for context to other people who are reading these comments. I am not trying to have an actual debate which for this topic is quite impossible in forum like thread format. Wed need a much bigger debate with many more people if we want to take this matter seriously, that's kinda what i hope to inspire. Not a solution but a direction to have people work on a solution long term rather then idling in the status quo.
In the same vein you are correct that if you understand that anarchism is not simply “lawless chaos” that “Decentralized” is redundant, but many people still don’t know this so i add it as emphasis. Makes people who don’t know think twice about what is meant.
I am not going to overlook that reality is more complicated than what a 5 minute comment can express. I am not solving this alone, neither is anyone. But you do seem to think about this topic in a level headed/intelligent way and i do appreciate your input and documentary recommendation. If we ever have these bigger debates irl i wish for you to be involved.
A few people will always end up with all of the power, it's how its always been because that's how our species works. Having mechanisms for choosing these people peacefully is better than a free for all power grab.
Saying concentrated power is human nature is weird. Humans are creative and social enough to do better.
I approve of the optimism that we can do better, with effort. However, that optimism cannot be blind if it is to be successful. The historical record demonstrates an overwhelming tendency for power to concentrate in the hands of individuals and small groups. Even with the best of intentions, people in positions of authority inevitably work to protect their authority, at everyone else's expense if necessary. They will convince themselves that they are right to do so, because no one else understands their work.
We only need to look at human history, and animals in general. The power of an individual is very limited, so those with shared interests group together for protection. The bigger and more powerful groups dominate the smaller and weaker ones and power naturally concentrates into the modern nation state, political party, corporation, etc. And whoever controls those groups holds the most power.
Your perspective requires that all humans be willing and able to come to mutually acceptable compromises for any disagreement. But that's obviously not possible, there are many disagreements where humans can't just split the difference or are simply unwilling to make any compromise for whatever reason. And so power becomes the deciding factor.
But bears roaming the streets...
That wasn't a community coming together to share the burden of governance. It was a group of selfish assholes who didn't want to be told what to do.
Then I think they just reinvented democracy. It would be nice to start over with a clean slate though.
Well, that problem is exactly the same in capitalism, except the committee is composed of people called executives instead of people called politicians. Executives have even less accountability than politicians.
Civil service bureaucracy can indeed become brittle and static, but at least it begins with the intention to serve the public rather than to make money. It works well in most democratic countries.
Why doesn't it tend to happen in free market capitalist societies, then?
It does. Private health insurance is but one example.
I mean free health care for all, everyone gets it, and gets what they need. Or our social Car Insurance with one single insurer. We all pay about the same, and discount brackets for safe years of driving. And rebates if they took in more premium then they paid out in claims.
Where is the problem?
Wait what? We throw away less food, optimize production and get less food in the end?