Can someone explain the problems with socialism to me?

The "problem" with socialism, from a conservative viewpoint, is that it is a change from the status quo, which is perfect, eternal, and unchanging throughout history. Just read a history book and see how little the average person's life has changed since the middle ages. /s

As a conservative, you probably dislike the idea of the "welfare state" - an entity which often gets lumped together with "gun control", "affirmative action", and "progressive tax rates" under the umbrella of "socialism", i.e. conservative-speak for "things I don't like". But if you actually examine the material conditions which exist under capitalism, you'll see that all of these things are the result of a capitalist, bourgeois democracy, and not "socialism" in any (politcal-economical) sense of the word.

Since the purpose of a liberal (classical liberal, that it - more John Locke and less Hilary Clinton) democracy is to balance of the affairs of the haves against the have-nots, certain concessions are made to the have-nots to keep them from armed rebellion against the economic order which is keeping them in perpetual poverty. So we have welfare, which makes the life of the proletariat bearable enough to not consider revolution, gun control, which keeps the populace unarmed so a revolution would be nipped in the bud, affirmative action, which seeks to elevate the position of marginalized groups to show that "the government and the bourgeois elite care about you (not really), and progressive tax rates to help pay for it all.

Under capitalism, the product of your labor goes to a single individual - the person who owns the "means of production" (that is, the person who provides the machine which increases your labor output - in Marx's time it was a factory, though nowadays it is more likely and office or multinational corporation). Under socialism, you get to keep the products of your labor, but since you usually make more than you could ever consume personally (thanks to machines), most people will opt to give away, usually under the assumption that all other laborers are also giving away the surplus as well. This kind of exchange-in-kind, however, is only one kind of socialism. There is also market socialism, where cooperative factories sell goods on the open market and then redistribute the profits equally to all members of the cooperative, centrally-planned socialism, where the state takes all the surplus and redistributes it based on need (which many socialists are wary of, given that it allows the state a huge amount of power and thus control), and of course communism, a classless, moneyless, stateless society where the productive forces have become so efficient that people don't even think about surplus labor. You need food? Walk into the market and grab some. You want a new TV? Drive down to the tv factory and walk out with the one that suits you. There are many different kinds of socialism but they all have one thing in common: that your labor belongs to you, and any extra you produce should benefit society, not a single, arbitrarily-decided person.

If you're a business elite, own a large multinational corporation or conglomerate, or hold significant amounts of stock or other financial instruments, then conservatism is to your benefit - it seeks to preserve the current order and the status quo. However, if you're a blue- or white-collar worker, own a small business, or believe in justice and liberty, then conservatism holds no benefit to you - in fact, it is explicitly against your class interests and contributes to your own immiseration. Socialism is the way forward - the only other direction is towards barbarism.

/r/Conservative Thread