Why You Should Be A Socialist In 2023

Happy New Year! You've probably heard a lot of talk about socialism becoming more popular over the past few years. There's a reason for that! The capitalist system has shown itself to be incapable of solving the problems it creates, and more and more people are living a worse life than their parents or grandparents. What's going on here, and is socialism the way forward?

Why You Should Be A Socialist In 2023 – Second Thought

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Citations and Further Reading:

Ten richest double their wealth while bottom 99% of humanity’s fall/would still be richer than 99% of the world after 99.99% loss

Nearly 100 million fall under $1.90/day during COVID

Bosses bet on workers getting COVID

Layoffs during COVID

Why Socialism? - Albert Einstein

45% of new created wealth goes to top 1%/CEOs make 350x what their workers do/Wages are lower than 50 years ago/half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck/$50T transfer of wealth from bottom 90% to top 1% since 1975

Vacation days & paid time off

Maternity leave

Gender pay gap

Legal & societal changes growing the gap between productivity and wages

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About Second Thought:
Second Thought is a channel devoted to education and analysis of current events from a Leftist perspective. Welcome!

[Maxcraft-tccz]

Capitalist here- originally clicked on your video for a laugh, but this was one of the most insightful and well thought out videos I’ve seen on this website in awhile. Thank you for the wisdom. You have earned a subscriber.

[noahramsey]

As some who worked in a worker co-op for a year I’ll say it could be a little annoying having meetings and referendums, but it was totally worth it. No a-hole bosses, no feeling like I wasn’t being payed my worth without having input on it, no feeling like my work was being made harder because my manager wouldn’t listen. You should try it. You don’t actually dread pulling into work every day

[martindonald]

I am a senior Canadian retired teacher and farmer. When I was a teenager in the early 1970's, I was lucky enough to go on an exchange to Yugoslavia. It taught me lots. Not only were people there just as free as us Canadians, they were in many ways more free. I had worked in factories from the age of 14. I couldn't imagine electing your foreman.

[truthisfree]

I'm glad to see channels like this growing. As a scientist, I see humanity failing in one critical aspect almost constantly - the ability to simply learn from collective experience and to grow from it. What does this mean for society - it means that it would be very easy to observe and adopt the best aspects of the many economic/social systems we have already experimented with. Capitalism has worked in some areas, but it has already failed once in the early 1900s. We are going down the exact same path now that we did with Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, etc. Here in the US, we addressed these shortfalls in the 40/50s and as a result - flourished for decades. Ironically, the very people who yearn to return to the 50s are the ones voting for the people destroying the structure that enabled this prosperity (republicans).

[mauzekoni]

You're one of the best socialist explainers I know, and usually, when trying to introduce a new friend to socialism, I start by sending them your videos. You're extremely patient and polite in the way you express your arguments, something that many leftists (including myself) struggle with.
You're great, keep going comrade!

[munchmaquchi]

Someone tried to insult me once by calling me a socialist. My response: “Yeah, and?”

[SynthD]

A college professor once noted that the bulk of his class were socialists. He asked if they’d like to vote a socialist system into the class where everyone would be treated equally, there would be no more good students or bad students, the classroom would work together and receive the shared grade rather than individual grades.
Naturally the vote to implement the system passed with flying colors.
It started out great. On the first test the class grade was an A. Everyone cheered and couldn’t believe it.
After class a few of the student got together and were talking about the new system. One student proclaimed he didn’t even have to try on the test, he knew he’d still get an A. The other students pondered on this and came to the same conclusion.
On the second test the class grade fell to a B. Not bad. However, a different group of student met up this time. They were frustrated because they had stayed up and studied for several hours. They were sure they got most of the answers right. They felt like they deserved better than a B for the work they had put in. Well, this was the last time they’d put on that much effort while others weren’t pulling their weight.
The this test came, and the class grade fell down to a C. The professor told the class that some people had done poorly on the test, but over half of the students were trying hard. He made an offer to the class, by a majority vote he would remove the students who had done poorly from the class he also added that they the act would stay in place and any future under performed would be removed automatically as a deterrent from it happening again. Being removed meant an automatic failure for the semester, and being forced to retake the class again later. The students agreed to remove the poor performs, and so the professor did so. He also removed their results from the class grade, bringing it back up to an A again. The remaining students were happy about this.
Along came the fourth test, and the students noticed there were more questions than usual and were harder to answer. One student asked why this was. The professor proclaimed that the same amount of work was still required to complete the tests. Now, with less students, they would need to work harder to achieve the goal.
As time went on more students would fall behind and be removed.
By the end of the class, the professor congratulated the few remaining students on passing the class with a final grade of a C. He also wanted to let them know that their class had the highest failure rate and lowest average scoring class he had ever had. More students would have passed the class with higher grades than if they’d had ever adopted the class grade. All the choices were theirs to make, and this is what they sow.

[CerriGabriel]

Never thought I would see an American channel like yours, there is hope for your society after all

[MiserableMuon]

"What makes you depressed?
Seeing stupid people happy" - Slavoj Žižek.

[SydneyLawton]

I have never been a "capitalist" - but I definitely had some capitalist programming and propaganda that stunted my thought process for many parts of my life. I've had a disability since high school, and my sister is also disabled, so I've always been an advocate for social support systems if for no other reason than wanting to make sure my sister and myself didn't have to put ourselves at risk to survive.

I discovered your channel this year, and am happy to say that it has helped me immensely with putting words to the disconnected thoughts I've had, and further pushed me away from trying to "make it work" the way it does now. I'm much more educated on Socialism and can do a better job of talking to others about why it's not a bad thing by remembering what you've discussed on this channel. I guess what I'm trying to say in way more words than probably necessary is: Thank you. Thank you for making this channel, for sharing your knowledge, and for encouraging myself and others to, if you'll pardon the pun, give Socialism a Second Thought. :)

[TheSpecter]

I managed to convince my grandfather of the necessity of socialism with a combination of your videos and Dr. Richard Wolff. My grandmother was a former black Panther is also on board. Now I just gotta convince the other side of my family who are MAGA chuds. Dark Souls type boss battle.

[faequeenapril]

With the point on climate change, I'm an environmental scientist and socialist solutions always pop up, it is our best way forward and it is the capitalists that is stopping our best efforts to mitigate climate change. Scientific research doesnt happen UNLESS ITS PROFITABLE and thats wrong on every level, there is so much we can do and thats why I do also believe that socialism is the only way forward.

[missshroom]

There is a restaurant owner who decided to spilt his companies profits with his employees…they ended up making around 84 dollars a hour. All of them..equally. They said the work environment was incredible in so many different and surprising ways

[EdwardK]

Yo I actually cited your video on means testing in an essay that I wrote on poverty in the United Staets, and I got a 95% on that essay! Thank you!

[AshtonSnapp]

Autistic person here. I had a job that I didn’t want from the end of October 2022 to the first half of September 2023. I was a cellphone salesperson, and I got fired for poor performance. This is partially because I didn’t want to sell things to people that didn’t want them. If someone didn’t want to switch to postpaid, even if it would potentially save them some money, I wouldn’t try to sell it to them. I would also avoid using the word “free” even if the advertising did, as customers would still have to pay taxes and pay for the phone service. But, this all around made it so I wasn’t selling as many phones and postpaid phone plans as the company I worked for (which I shall not name) wanted me to. So I ended up getting fired.

Now I’m trying to find a new job because everyone is saying I have to, and it sucks because there are just no good jobs out there.

I just want to make stuff. So why do I have to put up with people and companies that don’t care about me?

[Veovisce]

One of the many great things about JT's vids is that they're so damn "sendable." They're just about perfect as a thing to kindly but firmly counter the capitalist propaganda so many people, including my loved ones, have so thoroughly absorbed and swallowed. I'm going to send this to members of my family who are otherwise reasonable people, but still cling to the idea that capitalism is "just how the world is." This video and some of the others are *spot on* when it comes to flipping that nihilistic nonsense around on itself and showing that a real-world alternative is not only possible, but achievable, and infinitely better for us all than the current "way the world works."

I will be sending this to the (very few sadly) people I know. This vid is like... chef's-kiss-level good for that, Thanks, JT, seriously.

[mppp]

The fact that so many people are seeing this is restoring my faith in humanity! Sometimes it gets depressing because selfish people yell really loud.

[abrahamel-gothamy]

Great video. Could you make a, “I’m a new socialist; what should i do next?”, video? Like how do you find other people like you? How do you get involved? How to do pressure politicians into passing good legislation? How do you determine wether a certain legislation or decision was more socialist or not?

[carlaldric]

Starting early is the best way of getting ahead to build wealth, investing remains a priority. The stock market has plenty of opportunities to earn a decent payouts, with the right skills and proper understanding of how the market works.

[sci-fi.tsunami]

I don't know much about Socialism. What I do know is that I thoroughly detest Capitalism.