Few thoughts I've been having regarding all this economics and philosophical ideologies people have (Long read, might drift from topic too sorry)

I'm a bit obsessive about understanding the opposite side of something I believe strongly, and I'm a big believer in capitalism so naturally I've read a fair amount into socialism and communism.

The conclusion I came to was more or less the same one you did. I don't struggle as much to get through it, but I never hear anything of value. That's been consistent for all of the socialist/communist content I've consumed.

That rubbed me the wrong way, so I zoomed out a bit and examined why I was curious about socialism - why was it such a significant influence in politics? I looked pretty heavily into Bernie Sanders and tried to understand why he was getting such significant support, and I found nothing. Quite literally, if you look at his career, he has done nearly nothing in his many many years as a senator. Here's a left-leaning publication that explains what I mean.

From there, for better or for worse, I just decided my intuition wasn't wrong - socialism and communism are mainly pushed by people who are habitually ineffective, and not to be crude, but generally not very smart. The reason older adults lean conservative is because they have a better understanding of how the world works - not because they're old and senile.

All of this to say, I wouldn't focus on understanding socialism, or digging into those who preach it. I would focus on understanding capitalism - the upsides, downsides, interesting unintended side effects, the balances between fully free markets and regulated ones, etc. In short time you'll find yourself agreeing with some principles on both sides of the political spectrum, which is where anyone intelligent should be - it's very complex, and certainly not black and white.

Examining socialism won't get you there because it's all theoretical or failed, which means there's an aggressive amount of subjectivity. It's kind of like getting into physics by starting with quantum mechanics. Examining and understanding capitalism gives you plenty to look at in existing society - you can directly see things working/failing in the world today. Much easier to build into a comprehensive understanding of the complexity of running a country from there.

/r/Capitalism Thread