Socialism. Why it never works. No matter how many times we try it.

A few years ago I was in full-throw socialism. I had just finished my three year tenure in a job that I loved working with people that I really admired. I would call us the team of miracles. Technically, all of us shouldn't have been alive. 

There was me; I should have been found face down in a gutter choked on my own vomit through a hard week on the vodka. Before I stopped drinking I was close to having vodka in my cornflakes. Then there was my friend that sat across the room from me -- he had problems with his cardiovascular system that he should have been in a grave before he reached adolescence. But there he was, plugging along at it, 10 years older than me. I only visited him a couple of weeks ago and he's fighting fit.

We were all like that. A team of fighters. We were a team that had faced unimaginable odds and crawled out of the shit smiling and lived to tell the tale. Our jobs were simple; we had to support others on their journeys too. Whatever it was that they were facing we had to give us much help as we could within the boundaries that we were allowed. It taught me a lot about people in general working there. And also there was so much room for self reflection.

As the doors closed behind me I left to make my fortune online. The CEO at that place had gently suggested that I try and take my skills to a new avenue, and that is what I did. I was moving from ten years of helping people and working with the most disadvantaged in society to working mainly at home.

Did you know your surroundings shape your opinion of the world? I didn't understand that until recently. Ten years of working with the poorest society has to offer will do that to you. In my mind, the disadvantaged was disproportionately stacked in the United Kingdom and that most people, if not nearly all of them needed help in some form. I've always been a fixer of some kind; always trying to heal the world into a better place. But those surroundings shape you. Like I said in my last post here, it can often be hard to go outside and meet people that aren't like you. I always seem to attract a certain type of person, and similarly, I always seem to be attracted to a certain type of person.

Truth is people are fine left to their own devices. If there's one thing I've learned about the human race is that we are remarkably robust, and super efficient at overcoming some of the harshest of life's problems.

Anyway, in my mind the poor was disproportionate in the UK and we needed more socialism. We needed more money to help those in need. I had to leave my last job because the funding pots were always drying up, until there was none left for anyone. I don't even think the building I worked in exists as a charity anymore. And in knowing that, socialism was the answer to me. People needed more equality to get their needs met.

With that mindset I then fell into Feminism. Fighting for the oppressed and marginalised was a worthy cause, as it seemed to be what I have been doing for most of my life. I was a feminism writer back in the day -- the whole nine yards. Giving it the men need to be better, and that rich people need to be relieved of their money, and that conservatives were incredibly selfish. I had a very childlike view of the world -- that with more love we could all be dancing happily together in big circles. Kind of like John Lennon's song "Imagine" -- awesome song, but written by a man that clearly didn't understand humanity.

Ask any evolutionary biologist; they'll tell you. They will document the ways in which humans weren't created equal for you, and that no matter how equal we try and make ourselves there will always be a few that ruin the show. Humans are diverse, and some are just opportunistic and will "carpe diem" any chance they can get.

To absolutely attain equality then everyone needs to be working towards it. That's why a nicer word would be Volantaryism.

For me it all began to fall apart when the more I delved deep into the world of inequality the more vocal these radical, yet somehow mainstream leftists were becoming. Suddenly, and almost instantly I went from being understood that the hurdles that I had overcome were hard and difficult, to that because I was white and male I didn't understand what inequality looked like, and through no fault of my own I just didn't understand. It took me back because I had been fighting the type of stuff most of my life, and now it was being turned on me. Because of things I couldn't change in my life I was slowly being strangled.

The one thing that angered me most was the focus on men. And that a bunch of people that weren't men, or didn't have a good father figure in their lives suddenly held the reigns as to what good men should be, and that anyone that tried to fight that narrative became instant social rejects. I hated that at my core -- because if there's a bunch of people that really shouldn't be speaking from authority on healthy masculinity, it shouldn't be men that have no had good father role models, and women that don't like men.

Alas, I began the man cave and this was the death knell for any type of socialism left in me. I created my own coin, and after I created my own coin I had to think of things I had never even considered before -- like the economy. My first thought was to give everyone a share; I wanted everyone to have our coin because I wanted everyone to get something. BUT, now that everyone had it, then no-one was in a rush to have it. So I had killed demand before it had even started. So I decided to try for a working economy.

But then people are lazy. If you don't give them reason to buy or use the coin then they won't. If you look at people in general, most of us are self interested. Very few will give our valuable skills away for nothing, me included. There's always something to benefit us by doing what we do.

We lacked any sort of investors whatsoever.

Looking at that it made me think about socialism and how it's dependent on funding. It's not something that pays for itself. Without big money then there is no socialism. An economy needs big investment to sustain its price and stimulate daily use.

And then it took me down the path of understanding that socialism needs people to believe in it to work. The communist utopias that John Lennon dreamt about have to have 100% co-operation. It only takes one rebel to filter an idea down the grape-vine for it to have a devastating effect on the totalitarian co-operation. 

Imagine all the people dancing hand in hand?

 -- it only takes one of those people dancing hand in hand to think,

This is insane, why the fuck am I doing this? Dancing hand in hand? Why don't I just shoot them all in their fucking faces?

And that's why all the communist countries have the biggest propaganda and the harshest of penalties for speaking out of turn. To do so may spark dissent -- and that's the last thing the leaders want.

Because almost always, those are the people that benefit from it.

Oh I dunno - check out Whaleshares if you don't believe me.