What has socialism ever done for us?

Every now and again, and against my better judgement as I'm very aware of "feeding the trolls", I engage with those who make comments on some of my posts. Recently, I've had an amicable exchange with someone, quite young, who claims that they hate both socialists and socialism. I'm not too sure that they really know what they are talking about so I thought, with all due respect, that I'd challenge their views - assuming that they still read what I write. So this is for them (Anon from the UK).............and any others who may have lost sight of the benefits of socialist policies. And which could be lost if we drift to the right. And for what?

You've told me how much you hate socialism and socialists and I really hope you’re not being hypocritical about it. If you truly hate socialism, you’d better not be benefitting from public ownership or accepting any of the rights that were won for you through the sacrifices of our socialist forefathers. Here are a few things that you might like to ponder on.

Public health: If you or your family have ever used the NHS for anything from injury and illness to pregnancy and childbirth, you’ve benefitted from socialised public health. If you truly hate socialism, you should want to pay profits to capitalist profiteers every time you visit a doctor, and detest the lefty idea of "free at the point of need". Am I correct?

Paid holidays: If you’ve ever had paid holidays at work, you’ve benefitted from the workers’ rights won for you by generations of socialists. If you truly hate socialism, you should reject the advancements that our socialist forefathers fought for, and always refuse paid leave. But I expect you already do this without any prompting from me.

The weekend: A lot of people take the idea of the five day working week and the eight hour working day for granted, but they were actually won for us by socialist activism. If you enjoy your weekends, and protections from bosses trying to force you to work insanely long hours, you’re benefitting from socialism. Pretty good, eh?

Employment rights: Do you think bosses should be able to fire their workers whenever they like and for whatever reason? Like Elon Musk is doing right now in the USA?

* If they don’t like you advocating for safe working conditions, or if they’re a frothing bigot who wants to get rid of you because of your race, religion, or sexuality?
* If they want to use their position of power to punish you for your political opinions?
* If they want to fire you and hire someone who will do your job for a much lower salary?
Well, if you hate socialism, you should want a bonfire of employment rights so that capitalists can bully, exploit, and dispose of their workers as they see fit. And you won't complain if any of these things happen to you and yours.

Pensions:  You’d better not be planning to accept your state pension when you retire, because that’s a socialised benefit. You should be wanting to work until you drop dead, or get killed by the insane hours and unsafe work conditions that your pesky socialist forefathers fought to eliminate, right?

Social security: If you properly hate socialism, you’d better not have ever accepted money from the social security system. No statutory sick pay; no child benefits; no tax credits or housing benefit when your employer paid you exploitative poverty wages; no automatic National Insurance contributions when you were studying or raising children; and no unemployment support if your employer ever unexpectedly laid you off.

All of these advantages and protections from destitution were won by socialists, so if you properly hate socialism you should have been rejecting them all, and uncomplainingly suffering destitution in your times of need.

Culture and public arts: You do realise that a huge proportion of museums, art galleries, music venues, theatres, town and village halls, community centres, and cultural events are supported by public funds? If you’re opposed to socialising the cost of these things, you should be distancing yourself from most of Britain’s cultural life, shouldn't you?

Universal education: 93% of us went to state schools, so it’s highly likely that you benefitted from socialised education. Even if your parents were loaded enough to send you to private school, you still benefit indirectly from the fact that your doctor, accountant, plumber, train driver, sales assistant et al have literacy and numeracy.

If you truly believed in capitalistic exploitation, surely you think all parents should pay capitalists to educate their children? And then the children of the poor and ordinary should have to learn to live without literacy and numeracy because their parents can’t afford the ever-inflating education fees that are required to cover the cost of capitalist profits?

Roads: If you hate the idea of public ownership, you’d better not be freeloading by using Britain’s road network. You should want the roads to be privatised, so that you can pay tolls to the capitalist operators every time you step foot outside your door.

The armed forces: If you hate socialism, have you ever asked yourself why the Armed Forces aren’t privatised? I mean, defence of the nation seems like an extremely important thing, and if the right-wingers are correct about capitalism being inherently more efficient than public ownership, it seems extremely odd that they’ve left the Army, Navy, and Air Force under public control. In fact, if public ownership is so inherently inefficient, how come the government uses the Police and Army to step in at the last minute and save the day when capitalists totally screw things up, like security at the 2012 Olympics?

National parks and public spaces: I’m a big fan of Britain’s national parks and public spaces, but they must make you furious. You must boil with rage that huge swathes of the countryside are publicly owned, or protected by public legislation. Just think of revenue capitalists are losing because they’re prevented from concreting over our national parks?
A lot of people think that one of the things that makes British cities so great is that we have so many public parks compared to a lot of other countries. As a self-declared hater of public ownership, you must be enraged that capitalist profiteers are cruelly prevented from buying up and building over all of this prime building land.

Privatisation: I’m with the majority of British people who think that privatisation of essential infrastructure and services like energy, water, and the railways have been disastrous for British people and the British economy.

As a hater of socialism you should be ecstatic every time you receive extortionate energy bills; see privatised water companies inflating their profits by pumping raw sewage into our rivers and coastal waters instead of treating it; or have to suffer our creaking, unreliable, over-crowded, and over-priced rail network.
You must be delighted at the billions of pounds that have been soaked out of our economy by the privatisation profiteers, after they were given all of this stuff at a fraction of its true value. And you must seeth with rage at the popular idea that these essential things should be renationalised and run for the benefit of the British people and the British economy, not for capitalist profiteering.

Anti-Britishness: It’s interesting that right-wingers of your ilk promote privatisation by claiming that public ownership is inherently inefficient, but then have no objection whatsoever when foreign governments buy up massive stakes in our "privatised" essential infrastructure and services. It seems that people like you only hate public ownership when it’s British public ownership, but you’re absolutely cool with it when the government of France buys up all of our nuclear power stations for example, and when countries like Qatar and China buy up chunks of our privatised water companies and national grid.

It would be less hypocritical if you could be honest about it and admit that you just hate the idea of British people benefitting from socialised ownership of British infrastructure and services, but that you are fine with the people of France, China and Qatar reaping the benefits through their government's ownership of our stuff.

"Other people’s money": But socialism is just "spending other people’s money" you like to squeal, but then you seem to be forgetting how your beloved capitalists are completely addicted to public cash. Fossil fuel and arms companies receive literally trillions of pounds in public subsidies every year globally. When capitalism fails they always go crying to the government for bailouts, like what happened after the reckless UK financial sector gambled themselves into insolvency in 2008.When capitalist employers boost their profits by paying their workers unliveable poverty wages, they rely on public funds to lift their workers out of destitution via in-work benefits that cost tens of billions of pound in public funds per year.

Why are you OK with governments endlessly subsidising and bailing out greedy capitalist profiteers, but go apoplectic with rage at the idea of public funds being spent to improve the lives of yourself and your fellow Brits?

"Idle layabouts": Who told you that socialism exists to pay for the lifestyles of idle layabouts? Socialism exists to ensure workers get a fair deal, and to keep the most vital components of the national economy (health, education, water, energy, transport, mail …) out of the hands of greedy capitalist privatisation profiteers.
If you want to oppose an ideology that supports the lifestyles of idle layabouts, maybe you should have a think about how capitalism actually works? Who are really the idle layabouts? The socialists calling for better wages and working conditions for British workers? Or the capitalist shareholders passively collecting lavish dividends on the national infrastructure that was sold off to them at a tiny fraction of its true value?

Who told you to hate socialism?: Maybe it would be helpful to consider how you came to believe that socialism is such a terrible thing?
Did you read it in a capitalist newspaper? See it on a capitalist TV station? Get fed it by the algorithm of a capitalist social media platform? Hear it from a capitalist-bankrolled politician or someone who idly profiteers from shares in what used to be our publicly owned stuff? Get told it through one of the dodgy opaquely-funded right-wing think tanks whose paid propagandists are virtually ubiquitous on TV politics shows these days? Perhaps it’s time to have a think about why capitalists are prepared to spend such vast fortunes trying to convince ordinary people that socialism is a terrible thing, even though ordinary people would be even worse off than they already are without socialist protections and public provision? Perhaps it’s time to think about what right wing policies actually mean for you and your family?