There are no taxes in socialism

Socialism means public ownership of the means of production. So all profits are shared among the entire population. There is nothing to tax. The objection is what about Lenin, what about Stalin, what about the USSR? Lenin and Trotsky sought European socialism. It never happened. They, and Stalin, tried to survive in a world that remained capitalist. It was hopeless. The Russian experiment would either be copied in Germany, France, and England, or it would succumb. It succumbed. The current understanding of "socialism" is Scandinavia. But this is welfare capitalism, not socialism. It taxes capital in an attempt to keep the working class from open revolt. It's a compromise in which the ruling class demands subservience from the workers, the workers demand a living wage, and the overseers who manage the whole situation try to keep the pitchforks at bay with handouts. It can't last. Errant (and even to a lesser extent Monkey) has a point. Capitalism has a built-in mechanism for managing production. It assigns risk to individual capitalists. Those who correctly anticipate the needs of shifting markets survive, those who don't fail. Socialism cannot do that. Socialism necessarily socializes risk. The whole society either succeeds or fails together. Capitalism argues that is a recipe for failure. But how well has capitalism succeeded in assigning risk? If this is what success looks like, why should we fear failure? What is at stake here is the capacity of the species for making rational, collective choices. If we cannot do that, we are doomed. The "rationality" of capitalism will not save us. hugzu ;-p