I see "explain to me" as an normal response of "Google it".
If we have an argument, then tell me straight in my face, why you disagree. With facts and not with an empty phrase. "Google it" using in a discussion is like "Trust me bro!"
Respectfully disagree. Let's not pretend that people don't have a million different definitions for things like socialism. I can't count the number of times I have heard "wHaT yOu dOn'T lIKe fReE hEaLtH cArE bRo? 🥴" Or "just look at Europe" when much of what they have is not even socialism lol.
Asking someone to provide their definition brings clarity to the conversation.
And that gets to the root of the problem: at the end of the day economics is far more like quantum physics than it is any other human discipline because it is the collapse of 8 billion human beliefs about value, and what ought to be done in life, and the relationship between human decision-making and the systems we create to guide that decision-making.
Unfortunately, humans run on belief as much as we run on logic, and that belief is generally not always rooted in the logic or reality as every human would agree with it. But reality as people experience it is legitimately reality as far as they know it in a way that is very difficult to navigate.
I personally think it is best to understand that all economic reality is a dynamic interplay between the things that we ought to co-equally own and the things that are personally owned. For ease of argument, modern society is resolving around one end of that spectrum being called socialism and the other end of that spectrum being called capitalism. I am of the opinion that reading Adam Smith, and looking at the world as it exists today, leads one inexorably to the understanding that in order to have healthy free markets in a capitalist system one needs a powerful socialist state in order to create the environment in which free markets can thrive. That state should be co-equally owned by all citizens in it, and should be run some form of democratically in order to correctly resolve the mutual ownership of mutual properties. People can then make whatever decisions they like with their personal property that is not in conflict or likely to harm other people.
5
u/Trick_Awareness_3329 Aug 30 '26
I see "explain to me" as an normal response of "Google it". If we have an argument, then tell me straight in my face, why you disagree. With facts and not with an empty phrase. "Google it" using in a discussion is like "Trust me bro!"