Interesting Points - Capitalism and Socialism

This was a comment by "Quimby" on Melanie's blog:

Saying that socialism is actually very close to Communism is like saying that Republicanism is actually very close to fascism.

I am firmly convinced there is something in the American psyche that is inherently classist. The poor have been so demonised - they're lazy, they're incompetent, they're morally inferior - that even poor people don't like poor people. Coupled with the myth of "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps", there is an entire segment of the population that will never be economically wealthy, but still wants to protect the economically wealthy because, hey, today I'm just an unlicensed plumber who owes a couple thousand in back taxes and police fines, but tomorrow I might have an income of a quarter of a million dollars. After years of trying to work it out, I'm still no closer to why it is that the poor and middle class in America are still so willing to screw themselves over to give the wealthy a helping hand.

You know how this child of a public school teacher got through university without any debt? Income redistribution - my grandpa was an American farmer who made more money through farm subsidies than he ever made on the free market. I was one of the lucky ones; in my very poor town only about 5% of my graduating class was able to go on to a 4-year university or college.

On the other hand, in socialist Australia, my husband was able to go to university because of a government scheme where they pay your tuition and you pay them back once you've established a career. His father - a farmer - never recieved a subsidy from the government because farmers just don't over here.

Both systems are income redistribution - we both went to university because of income redistribution - but in the US system, the money is more likely to go to people who really don't need it. (Very few subsidies actually go to family farms; most are corporate farms.) Whereas, in Australia, anyone who gets the grades can expect the government to pay their way through university.

We could also talk about health care. My grandfather, a WWII vet, got all of his medical expenses paid twice, once by Medicare and once by the VA. On the other hand, my brother-in-law, a very smart guy with a PhD in physics and a great business idea, had to stay at a mind-numbing job with very little job security purely for the health insurance - he couldn't afford to start a business and pay out of pocket for insurance for his family of 5. So, how is that encouraging innovation and business? In Australia he'd be able to quit his job, start his business, and know that the government could pay for any unforseen medical expenses - and probably also get a government grant for living expenses in the short-term.