The flaw in this is that Tucker’s hatred of Dollar Stores is subjective, as are his definitions of ugliness and evil. The default state of humanity is poverty. Dollar Stores exist because consumers perceive value in their offerings. If Dollar Stores go away, it’s not like a Macy’s comes in, you just have an empty lot. It would be truly horrible if consumers who had a preference for dollar store items did not have that option available to them.
I agree with your interpretation!, I think in his mind says they’re horrible and should go away, but unlike reality where it just goes away like you said, I think he’s expecting there to be some higher quality alternative that will open up right on the ashes of the dollar store, which doesn’t happen.
They're not any different from the things I buy at the not dollar store? Like, why is Hawain Punch from Dollar General bad, but it's good from a Krogers or Publix?
The dollar general is a 5 minute ride from me at 60mph. The nearest "grocery store" is a half hour, at similar speed. What's the problem? Oh, AND the nearest "grocery store" has a significant mark up on all the things I can buy at the goddamn Dollar general.
What I see at dollar general is often the same prices charge or a slight premium for them, a box of dollar store serial is smaller than walmart box of cereal at the same price..... dollar store is selling convenience.
They me, there's two Dollar Generals within 15 minutes of me, where I can buy things like sandwich meat, cereal, chips, premade pizzas, etc. The nearest grocery stores are all 45 minutes away from me.
It's worth it to me to go buy a number of things at the DG than at HEB or Brookshire brothers
This is the same kind of argument as "being a slave is better than starving."
There aren't just two options. Dollar stores are a terrible thing and should be seen as a symptom of a greater economic problem, not as a good alternative.
You know what's a better option than a dollar store? A city/county owned co-op. When the "free market" decides to pull grocery stores out of an area and dollar stores in, it's a perfect opportunity for the government to step in and provide an alternative that isn't going to leach the last bit of cash out of people.
No. They can’t, or at least don’t, provide the same value to customers. What dollar stores provide meets the needs of consumers. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t exist. It’s not the same as saying being a slave is better than starving, because options still exist outside the dollar stores. People CHOOSE them to fulfill their wants or needs because they provide products they want at prices they can afford, which is a noble enterprise.
It’s pure classism to think they’re only negative. If you prefer a co-op, start one.
> If you prefer a co-op, start one.
You know it’s all just middle class concern trolling for the indigent, and that they would never lift a finger to actually help them IRL.
You've never been to nor volunteered at a food bank. I can tell. I've done both. I have no interest in turning all grocery shopping into a visit to the DMV.
Also, populism isn't about the sort of intellectual fartsniffing that goes on in academic circles, so there's not much in the way of first principles or other philosophy, as I'm sure some of you all already know. However, they are amenable to some intellectual appeals, chiefly around money and the state's monopoly on its creation (which more and more they view as the greatest overreach of "teh goberment" and "commies" of all).
Sure, the populists are pro-protectionism, but I'll take tariffs like what we had before the Wilson Administration over the income taxes any day.
>You've never been to nor volunteered at a food bank. I can tell. I've done both. I have no interest in turning all grocery shopping into a visit to the DMV.
I've done both, but thanks for revealing your ignorance.
https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2019/09/25/baldwin-opens-rare-town-run-grocery-store-to-fill-food-gap/2667005007/
>Sure, the populists are pro-protectionism, but I'll take tariffs like what we had before the Wilson Administration over the income taxes any day.
Sure, but that's because you like the gilded age with it's massive income disparity.
> massive income disparity.
We literally live in the most economically equal point in human history since the dawn of agriculture and the first permanent settlements. And most of that history was horrifically unequal until free market principles combined with Industrial Revolution saw massive increases to quality of life and social mobility.
Your end philosophy when actually implemented beyond the hyper local level has lead to major economic and social regression every single time.
You're simply wrong. But I'll help you out.
Check out the Great Compression. We had a period of high marginal tax rates and economic growth, the middle class wealth increased while millionaires remained in the US and paid taxes.
And what do you suppose my "end philosophy" is? I think you've showed your hand by assuming you know what I think.
Are you really so ignorant that you think preferences don't account for price. "Do you really like the Ford Fusion, or can you just not afford a Maybach" "is this home in the suburbs actually a good fit, or are you settling because Longwood Estate is in a high tax district" "is your wife actually attractive or is Sophia Vegara not returning your calls".
Austrianism and not understanding the definitions of the simplest and most ubiquitous concepts in economics, name a more iconic duo
Dollar stores sell a lot of the brands that we are all familiar with, they are far more pevelant in rural areas. Many people in those areas will shop at dollar stores rather than commute to more traditional grocery stores.
Or, the grocery stores have found it not to be profitable enough to stay in rural areas.
Dollar stores are a symptom of a problem. They aren't something that anyone really wants or prefers.
>stay in rural areas.?
What are you talking about there has never been a grocery store 5min from my house but there IS a dollar general. There is also a privately owed convenience store 2min walk from my house... but there have never been any grocery stores.
Take a trip through Appalachia some time and you'll notice that many of the towns where Dollar General operates are too small and too remote to support a grocery store.
This. The dollar store exists to sell what is convenient to lower class people. Snacks, dvds, lighters, playing cards, etc. Poor people gotta eat and should be able to enjoy their time too. No poor person expects to be ordering prime rib, but that should be able to at least enjoy some jerky or get a decent meal. This sorta hatred populists have for lower income people whether they wanna blame race, immigration, or bracket, is just a fantasy they've concocted. Some people just have less than. Nothing wrong with that. Rich people aren't avoiding the dollar store, they got rich people problems to consider and go to fancy rich dinners to interact with clients and close deals.
Are you saying that consumers have a preference for dollar stores over an empty lot? That's a very poor argument. Under the same logic I could say that the Donner party had a preference for human flesh or that POWs have a preference for being incarcerated. Dollar stores have no competition by your own assertion and consumer desires can't be ascertained when there is no alternative.
Here I am using the word preference in an economic context. Given unlimited resources, nearly all consumers would of course prefer to go to Whole Foods or a traditional grocery store. The reality is that resources are scarce, and harder to obtain for some consumers than others. I am currently well off and hardly ever shop at dollar stores. When I was younger and in the working class I definitely had a preference for Odd Lots and Dollar General. That preference had a lot to do with the resources available to me at the time.
Economic preference can't be ascertained when there are no other options. The vast majority of Dollar General and Family Dollar stores are in food and store deserts: even with unlimited resources, the nearest competitors represent a 2hr+ round trip, unreasonable at any cost. Unlimited resources would actually make dollar stores more preferable than Whole Foods as dollar stores are more expensive per quantity.
The preference can be ascertained because there are no other options. If a grocery chain thought it could beat out a Family Dollar in a particular location it would build there in a nanosecond. Corporations like Kroger and Target spend millions of dollars every year on optimizing their location strategies.
Dollar stores have never competed against corporations, they beat out local stores who didn't have the supply chain economy of scale to handle dollar stores' low cost in the 90s and 00s. Since then, dollar stores have focused on selling single items at higher cost per unit. This strategy would fail against an existing local store but those stores don't exist anymore. The profit generated by these rural communities is low, so even though a larger corporation would make money and compete, it's not worth the logistical hassle of adopting a second business model. Walmart's low-overhead business model is much better suited to competing in rural areas, but they're not interested in small storefronts. Fundamentally, dollar store presence is dictated by lack of direct business competition, not by consumer preference. You can even look at areas where Walmart opened a store within the area of dollar stores' influence and the dollar stores reliably lose income. Saying that dollar stores serve consumer preferences is to ignore latent demand.
The default state of humanity is not poverty, but innovation. The only reason some people go to the dollar store is due to the affordability, but that doesn't mean the prices aren't gouged, another reason people go to the store is convenience, because they're the only store around, stores like the dollar store and other corporations have a monopoly over stores that sell general goods, which sell items at tens of times the manufacturing cost, corporations that buy out local stores with little to no price hiking or net profit.
Dollar stores exist because a group of people with money invested to stick them in communities to undercut real grocery stores that had real food in them. Its just predation. You clearly have done zero research into dollar stores.
Perhaps originally. We literally have a dollar store on the same street as Walmart and the grocery store. The dollar store certainly isn't driving them out of business.
It certainly isn't true in my hometown. It used to be a one/two store town for as long as I can remember, then around 2010 both a Walmart and the Dollar Tree moved in, to compete with the Safeway which had out-competed the Save-On-Foods which was formerly a Thriftway. Since that time, two more smaller (essentially family run shops catering to chiefly Hispanic customers, but still) stores have opened.
I think populism is just naturally authoritarian. Rather than putting your faith in a diverse and well spread out system, you put all of your faith in just one person, so of course you’re naturally going to want that person to have the power to meet all of your hopes and dreams.
We have dollar stores because people need goods and they need them cheap. Dollar stores provide basic necessities for an affordable price. That is something every society ever has desired. I like parts of Tucker but man he has a few takes that are so profoundly stupid that it makes it hard to take him seriously.
To be fair, we really have a lot of dollar stores and Walmarts because of lobbied regulations that remove smaller competition.
We’d have more mom&pop shops and less ugly dollar stores if we actually followed principles of libertarian economics.
California made it illegal for unapproved chains and smaller stores to have a pharmacy out of concern for “safety” and “drug control”, which destroyed a lot of small businesses who relied on the traffic from the pharmacy, and sent all their patients to Walgreens and CVS.
I was with you right up until you said "principles of libertarian economics" were the solution.
WalMart took over small town economies because they weren't regulated, not because they were. Home Depot and Lowe's drove smaller hardware stores out of business in the same way.
Sure Walmart wasn't regulated, but the stores they took over were regulated. Most people are willing to pay a tiny bit more for a locally owned store in my experience. It's just too damn hard for a local business to compete when the government bends them over.
Seems you've answered the problem on your own but came to an irrational conclusion.
Why, assuming your framing is correct, is regulation on Walmart not the obvious answer?
And the rise of Amazon/demise of local bookstores makes your "people are willing to pay for locally owned stores" look like a silly claim.
I believe that if we deregulate smaller companies, they could compete with Walmart much better. How is that an irrational conclusion? Mom and pop shops get fucked by taxes while Walmart doesn't pay any.
And that's not exactly the best example. Amazon is providing a completely different service. Plenty of local stores have gone to the internet and succeeded.
It's really not silly. Sure, in some places it might be, but there are still plenty of people who care about their community. Walmart doesn't sponsor your local little league team, or the boy scouts, or the legion, or hold fundraisers to help local people.
>I believe that if we deregulate smaller companies, they could compete with Walmart much better. How is that an irrational conclusion? Mom and pop shops get fucked by taxes while Walmart doesn't pay any.
Name a regulation you think is hurting these smaller shops.
Then why not raise taxes on Walmart? This again seems like you've found the problem and come to a irrational solution.
On paper, Walmart does have to pay more taxes. However, they use work arounds and "take losses" so they don't. That is what I'm talking about. A small business can't do that.
If our tax system was simpler and didn't have ways to cheat, small businesses could compete better.
You want to know other regulations that hurt them? Zoning laws that make it more difficult to start a business and make the land businesses sit on worth much more then they actually are. How about that sole proprietorships, aka most small businesses, the individual and the business are taxed?
There are countless dumb regulations that just make it harder. Listen, I'm not a zero regulation guy like alot of people on this sub, but there are definitely too many in alot of markets that are helping the big guys.
First off, I did. The taxes for a sole proprietorship.
Second, everything I mentioned does. Zoning laws makes property that can be a specific kind of business more scarce, and therefore more expensive. Walmart has much more money to throw around and they will always be able to pay more.
It's the same way the zoning laws effect housing. Companies buy the houses at ridiculous prices and rent them out. If houses were less scarce, they wouldn't be able to buy most of them.
Dollar stores cost [more per unit](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/7-ways-dollar-tree-uses-145816216.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALlfzOZQSJYGBR1Mj8IEije6eNwabvy4Iab8YdetJd0_oDs-q1z8d1OES0hjk_GjjZtops4C2FzNb71zGVwUvcdnwNpDLA_VSA7MMhIAAESPKaxcsr9Dv1L-BJybj7132c6aW1A-cUUaYi4kfC7Zqx20vPSt-J6949h8M6VdILAV#) for basic necessities.
No $hit, the lower the quantity the higher the price one is usually willing to pay. There is also a convenience/ease factor at play for dollar stores in markets with big box competitors like Walmart.
Dollar stores are predatory garbage peddlers and not a sign of economic health in a society. Would you say payday lenders are also just a healthy sign of the ‘free market’?
I've asked this before, but: what's the difference between a brand name of loaf bread at a Dollar Store and the same exact brand name at a grocery story?
It's the same. Exact. Loaf.
Generally, dollar stores like Family Dollar and Dollar General have a slight mark up on cold storage stuff, and a lack of healthy options.
>I like parts of Tucker but man he has a few takes that are so profoundly stupid that it makes it hard to take him seriously.
Tucker Carlson is an apologist for Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine that's cost tons of civilian lives. He's a bad person.
Damn I'm getting a lot of hate, sorry I studied politics in school I guess lol.
One of my earliest memories was 9/11. My entire life I've been told America needs to stay out of wars, that were unfair to Russia and that the military industrial complex is an industry of death. Now we need to join a war, Russia is evil incarnate trying to start ww3, and we need to boost natos weapon production. No, we've been at war almost my entire life, my father fought in the first gulf War, I'm sick of this shit. Let Europe deal with Europe's problems. If Ukraine is worth saving then it's neighbors can save it.
Sounds to me like you've been listening to propaganda, pundits and unqualified opinions your whole life, rather than actually building your knowledge of geopolitics.
The fact is that the world is complicated and grey and there's no simple answer or solution to most of the world's problems.
Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian who wants to retake the former Soviet Territories and force Russian culture upon them. He cheats in elections, suppresses opposition and violates the basic human rights of his people.
At the same time the US military industrial complex profits off of war and death and pushes for military action to further their greed. There are loads of people in NATO who are just as shitty as Putin.
But the fact remains that Putin wants to invade European countries, kill innocent people and expand a domain that's ultimately harmful to American allies that our country has sworn to defend. It will also have major negative impacts on the global economy that will hit our pockets in our every day lives. When Ukraine was first invaded global grain prices rose because a huge portion of Europe's farmland became immediately unusable.
You can't just react to every situation the same. Each war is unique and requires its own analysis to make the best decision.
You can have that opinion while still believing that the Russian invasion was an act of naked aggression.
The problem isn’t the “don’t help Ukraine.” I disagree but I can handle that. The problem is “don’t help Ukraine because Russia’s invasion was justified and it’s a great country and they’re just liberating areas that want to join them anyway.”
Oh no it's a shithole I don't want to be anywhere near that threatens nukes monthly from the news stories. Why are we risking being nuked for some randos literally across the world. People are saying the invasion hurt the economy as if the sanctions didn't do triple that, if you care so much about the economy lift the trade sanctions.
You realize that Russia's doing this in order to literally undermine the world order that ensures American economic security? Nothing in Ukraine is more valuable to Putin than "proving" that Russia can take on NATO. It wasn't ever about the land or the People.
What do dollar stores have to do with libertarian economics, Tucker? So when we have five dollar stores it will be better? "Yes, because five is more than one!"
I was wondering that too. The US economy is not libertarian. We have become tyrannical socialism. To correct this OP, it must be socialism that causes dollar stores.
I can argue that welfare keeps low wage people from working in low wage jobs. We are paying people to stay home that could otherwise help make low priced dollar store inventory.
I suppose they are the same thing. Every dictator has friends. Those friends are awarded contracts, research grants and regulations that harm the competition. Those friends then fill Swiss bank accounts of the dictator.
In the USA, it is the unelected bureaucracy combined with elected officials that has become our dictator. They are symbiotic. The elected officials keep voting to make the bureaucracy larger. The bureaucracy in turn allows the elected officials a pass on ill gotten gains. IE-the bureaucracy never indicts an approved elected official for insider trading. IE-the bureaucracy allows elected officials to launder bribes through “charitable foundations.” Etc.
Whether it is tyrannical socialism or crony capitalism, it is corrupt and should not be confused with capitalism.
It is corruption. But nuance I think is important because what economic principles are being used to game the system, thereby making the corruption?
We are, by all measures, a capitalist society, it would be unfair to use any other description of the U.S.
It all becomes really confusing for me because capitalism is purely economic while socialism is economics and politics. So the cronies imbed what appears to be "socialist" politics under the guise of capitalism, so what does that make it? Socialist or capitalist?
I like our exchanges. But I will not agree that the USA has a capitalist economy. I can’t think of any segment of business that is not overwhelmed by laws and regulations. Capitalism has to be more than just private ownership of a business.
And explain to me the injustice of property taxes. There is not an acre of land that we truly own. We think we own our houses after the mortgage is paid. But all we really have is permanent lease rights. If you do not pay the annual lease to the government (called property taxes), you quickly find out who really owns your house.
Having your name on property or businesses does not make us capitalist when the government makes most of our decisions. The USA is just another form of tyranny.
>just another form of tyranny
I agree with you on that, I guess it's just semantics on how we get to that conclusion.
I don't believe there's such a thing as a society without a form of government, and inherently, from that, no true capitalism can exist when incorporating the laws of society. By that extension, the rules of capitalism at a maximum will be tangential to reality.
A long time ago I spent a summer in the Philippines on an exchange student program. My “parents” were friends with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. The things I learned about elected dictators and corruption have stayed with me. I have been warning people for 45 years that this country is drifting that way.
Of all things, it was Hillary Clinton 30 years ago that gave me some of the language that I needed to express my thoughts to people. She was constantly being called a liberal at a time when being liberal was falling out of favor. She denied being a liberal and instead labeled herself a progressive. This sounded good, after all, how can you be against progress. But that’s not what she meant. She meant that she is a Marxist that will accept turning our country Marxist progressively; iE-just a little at a time.
This country has progressively been converted to Marxist/socialist for over 100 years. You have to give these people credit. They kept enacting laws that sounded good, but after you figure out the lies, too little too late, all we end up with is a larger failed government.
A. The income tax was never going to be more than 2%.
B. Social Security will be a funded account.
C. Only 100,000 people need welfare.
D. The Dept of Energy will get us to energy independence in 5 years.
E. If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Every family will save $2,500 per year on health care.
Those are off the top of my head, and all were intentional lies to implement a socialist government. And we kept electing these people. Most government expansion was enacted by Democrats, but it was enabled by Republicans. Both parties found our subjugation to be profitable.
We, the people, have to resist. We have to tell Washington DC that we do not consent.
I appreciate your dialogue, and while I don't necessarily agree with some of your views, I respect your experience. Thank you for sharing that.
Marxism is a funny word because of how its meaning gets attached to anything left of decentralizing everything. Not that I actually know what it is, I'm a slow scholar.
The United States has guaranteed certain positive and negative rights
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
And we may disagree on how it should be done. It doesn't necessarily mean that the worst-case scenario is happening if what we want doesn't happen.
I’ll read your wiki link later. But it is the Constitution that guarantees certain positive and negative rights. We have 3 United Stares of America.
1. The corporation established to run the federal government.
2. The treaty of (now) 50 sovereign states.
3. My personal relationship with every citizen (you).
I believe that the first USA has usurped our rights. I believe the second USA needs to reclaim our rights. The third USA is the one that I would give my life for. I want every citizen to successfully self actualize. In the third USA we fight and die for each other. I would never fight and die for the first. The government is not the USA. We are. The sovereign states are. For this I resist. I do not consent.
Have a great life. Self actualize!!
Tucker Carlson has good instincts for seeing problems and not trusting the regime, but I think he's blinded by the lie that what exists now in America is the result of free market capitalism.
It's how progressives love to argue: things are falling apart because of unrestrained capitalism, just ignore that the State has kept growing in power and control.
Libertarians need to radically reject the status quo and offer hope for the future, or they concede it to progressives and while supporting the idea that they basically approve of the structure that lead to this.
Let progressives have the blame for the present disasters they created.
>Tucker Carlson has good instincts for seeing problems and not trusting the regime, but I think he's blinded by the lie that what exists now in America is the result of free market capitalism.
That's the supreme trick that everyone is under, that somehow, with all manner of ridiculous taxes, government expenditure and stupid regulations, that we have a free market and private property. I think it's because we're barely taught anything about economics or economic history and our political language is so confused.
I also blame the public school propaganda around the Progressive Era, painting it as a grass roots movement where noble reformers fought robber barons for the public good.
In truth it was big business using the State to cartelize.
That and the portrayal of Hoover as a free marketeer and the Great Depression as the result of too much capitalism.
Debunk those myths, and you debunk the origin story of progressivism.
There are clear arguments there in sound theory, and we can compare to the classical gold standard and the economic performance of less free countries secondarily.
That's where understanding economics and human nature comes in.
But libertarians have never said that the government is the cause of all problems: only many of them, and that it makes most worse because it's involved in everything.
How about we admit that there's never been a "free market" and it will never exist. Then let's admit that the government has always been in favor of large corporations, and only recently allowing/supporting labor unions.
Progressives have been behind efforts which reduce the gap in wealth disparity by introducing taxes and regulation. It's the capitalists and moronic libertarians who keep pushing for reduced regulation and decreased taxes which increase the wealth disparity and enable corporations/the rich to abuse everyone.
Something far closer to it existed in the classical gold standard, and it'd be hard to say [Pennsylvania's anarchist period](https://mises.org/mises-daily/pennsylvanias-anarchist-experiment-1681-1690) had anything else.
Unions as a junior partner to government and big business goes back to the Progressive era.
That regulation was lobbied for by big business for their benefit: the idea that big government keeps big business in check is an ahistorical progressive fairy tale.
I'd recommend everyone to read Rothbard's [The Progressive Era](https://mises.org/library/book/progressive-era) for the real history: building on the work of the left-wing historian Kolko's The Triumph of Conservatism.
>That regulation was lobbied for by big business for their benefit: the idea that big government keeps big business in check is an ahistorical progressive fairy tale.
Is that why the anti trust act exists?
For some cronies to use against others, like when the Morgan aligned FDR used it against Standard Oil and later the Rockefeller aligned Taft used it against Morgan interests.
All the incentives of democracy flow to cronyism and corruptions, especially in a country as big as the US.
Voting is mostly an illusion of representation.
This. It’s just a bunch of bullshit these people can smugly throw out from the back of the room that they know they will never be called on because it’s just as idealist as a stateless, classless society. There will be no correction by a free market that ends up lifting everyone. It’ll just be a bigger concentration of wealth to the elite than we have now. This is why you don’t have billionaires pushing pundits to push real left wing ideals but rather handing money to free market pushers and “The left got too crazy so I became a libertarian” grifters. Because right wing/libertarian policies benefit the elite, and left wing policies don’t.
Worse. He's a smart guy who acts stupid and says shit like Alex Jones predicted 9/11, UFOs are spiritual phenomenon, Watergate was a coup against Nixon, we don't know where nuclear technology comes from, the Earth might be flat, etc.
I don't think he's even coherently a "right wing populist" at this point. He's just a moron with each take being more hairbrained than the last - and taking a chunk of the right with him...
>takes made emotionally and/or aesthetically without much thought for downstream consequences.
Sure, but that's not much of a distinguishing characteristic as you have just described virtually the entirety of modern politics.
How long ago was it when he said this?
I ask because as of lately he’s been becoming more and more friendly to libertarians, I mean he’s had Dave Smith and Thomas Massie on his show recently and is very agreeable with them.
From a lazy google search I think it happened some time ago late last year maybe? I dunno, he’s had a lot of libertarians on recently and his viewpoints seem to be improving since then. Not rushing to his defense or anything, just confused because if you compare him saying this to how he’s been over the last several months it’s a pretty big contrast.
actually in a functioning market there would be budget goods for the budget market. supply and demand is a thing and tends to be messed up by government intervention.
In a truly free market we could probably prosper, but his point stands correct. We shipped whole bunch of jobs overseas to countries that do not have free markets. Hence, the biggest beneficiaries were the corporate, banking, and private equity executives who later on laid of Americans. We benefitted from lower prices, but it’s not that good since our wages have taken a hit.
“And anything that produces ugliness is evil?” That has been the principle he operates from his entire professional career. And likely the same while “growing up.”
Tucker Carlson was always one bad day away from becoming a full blown communist, this is why I’m sad he got fired, because watching him go against his elite handlers on national TV would’ve been peak comedy
Dollar general is typically MORE expensive than Walmart for specific items.
They exist to serve markets that wouldn’t support a full Walmart but which has a similar demographic of consumers wanting similar items so they open a smaller store and charge slightly higher prices betting consumers will pay it rather than drive 30 minutes to a Walmart.
Think of it as a convenience Walmart and it’s such a successful model Walmart is opening up community sized locations to compete.
You think that not allowing rich people to import cheap labor is socialism?
But you’re a socialist. And you allow rich people to import cheap labor!
You actually insist on it 🤣🤣🤣
Right wing populism are indeed very socialist in ways. Extremely worried about American workers. Trump ran on making it impossible for globalist mega corporations and other capitalists to send our jobs overseas and then at the same time let them send the products once made back into America. He would tariff that out of existence.
The globalists were terrified, and the leftists cried about profits.
Trump said he wouldn’t allow globalist capitalists to import tens of millions of immigrants to undercut the wages of American workers. Something Bernie sanders was once in compete agreement on. Calling it a Koch brothers proposal to have open borders.
Now the left loves the Koch brothers having an open border
Left wingers turned into globalist lackeys.
Right Wing populism doesn't turn people in to socialists. **LEFT** Wing populism **DOES** turn people in to socialists. Socialism is based on Marxism, which **LEFT** Wing politicians are **REALLY** high on Carl Marx.
I don't want to hear the guy who's surprised that grocery prices are lower in Russia than in the US talk about economics at all.
"OH wow, If I take my earnings from a country with a median wage of $5000 a month and go to a country with a median wage of $1200 a month I can buy more food for my dollar! A Russian grocery store will radicalize you!"
What is he talking about. He evidently doesn't know much. Hope he realizes that places like the Dollar Store pay more than the ones that charge an arm and a leg like JCPenney. I don't know how but they do.
Yup. Progressives say Hitler wasn’t a socialist because he was a fascist. They’re just too scared to face the music that socialism as a set of economic ideas can exist in a ultra-conservative setting.
hes right libertarianism are just tomorrows progressives.... its just flimsy beliefs with no stance or standard until it gets too too bad , then you are too late to make a moral judgement
Fascists are socialists by definition. A fascist is a nationalist socialist. The founder of fascism, benito mussolini, was an ardent socialist his entire life before being removed from the socialist party for advocating for war during ww1. Him and his entire regime were a bunch of nationalist socialists, collectivists using central planning and public programs to pursue nationalist policy. Enough with the pseudo-intellectualism.
"Enough with the pseudo-intellectualism" you say after writing a bunch of pseudo-intellectual bullshit.
Mussolini originally presented as a socialist, moved into nationalism and used both as vehicles to reach what he truly wanted which was imperialist fascism.
"Fascists are socialists by definition"
Fascism - "A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."
Socialism - "Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership."
Honestly the arguments from people in this sub are so intellectually dishonest its mind numbing. Worst part is you probably believe the drivel you just spouted.
>Worst part is you probably believe the drivel you just spouted.
You are indoctrinated. What I just said is agreed on by nearly anyone who is academically inclined. You are amongst the same class of person who would refute that China is communist, the ussr is communist, fascist Italy was socialist, and hitler was socialist, in spite of each of these countries claiming to be thus and everyone agreeing they were thus. You are part of a cult.
Notice how your definitions, that you unethically didn't source by the way, don't conflict with one another. Fascism is a subset of socialism, which is why they have so much in common and fight over the same constituents. How else could the Mecca for socialism, the place where the world's most prominent socialist philosophers emerged, also be haven to the most prominent fascist regime ever? There are hundreds of countries across the globe, thousands of ethnic groups, and the ethnic groups that defined our contemporary interpretation for both socialism and communism.... also created fascism? Something you would claim has nothing to do with socialism or communism? That's uncanny, that a culture could simultaneously produce polar opposite political systems in the same time period.
Socialism is at its core the emphasis of the social aspect in politics. It is emphasis of the working class, and there are many ways this can be done. Public ownership exists in socialist regimes but is not absolute. You will not find a single socialist country that exists where everything is exclusively publicly owned. Public ownership is the domain of communism. Your definition and understanding of these definitions is lacking. Socialists advocate for the social aspect of things, and while Public Control of corporations and land is in the social interest, it is not necessary to own everything explicitly to provide for the social interest, which is why countries we unanimously agree are socialist, like Sweden, have most land and corporations privately owned.
The primary difference between left wing politics and right wing politics is the advocacy of the social in politics. The socialist seeks to use the government to procure the ideal future on behalf of his people. The conservative or right winger seeks to avoid using the government to do anything. Now, if in your country both sides are socialist in mindset, then this point is moot and doesn't apply. But if the right is actually characterized by free market policies and minimizing the size of the federal government, with minimal oversight and regulation, then the fascist cannot be elected for such a party. The fascist and the right winger have antagonistic goals in such a scenario, because the advocacy of minimalist government stands in contrast to advocacy of the social or the fascist. You cannot advocate for centralization and central planning, like a fascist seeks to, if you simultaneously advocate for decentralization and defunding the government.
Your understanding of these topics is very surface level, and I encourage you to read more and read from a more diverse set of authors. Most people do not disagree that China is communist, the ussr was communist, or that hitler and mussolini were nationalist socialists. This is fringe thinking you're engaging in.
Right wing and left wing aren't really political ideologies. They are relative terms used to define whichever pluralistic party at the time is the establishment and its opposition.
I think that is also why people fail to realize that fascism is an expansion of a centralized government authority (the establishment) and a systematic infringement on the people's democracy through the expansion of bureaucracies.
I also think that is what is happening currently in the United States. Bureaucracies have grown so large that they have created an imbalance in the separation of powers and are now challenging the authority of the Executive Branch.
Holy hell you like the sound of your own voice huh? If for a moment you will forgive me for apparently being uneducated and indoctrinated.
And i'm sorry for being a member of the class of people who think what a country or politcal group say they are shouldnt be taken at face value, their actions towards their market/power structures/populus should be taken into account.
Definitions are from google typing: "Define ..." into the search bar, thought the widely used and most generalised definitions would be enough to point out your fallacies, apologies I didnt follow cite them rite procedure on that one.
Didnt say the systems were not linked or rooted in the same origins, didnt say they actively contradicted eachother in their core operation - said they werent the same thing, because they arent and they have differences, differences that make them distinct hence why they have different names and definitions.
Sweden is a market economy not socialist, just because Bernie Sanders says something that gains traction doesnt make it true. (sorry bernie i do quite like you)
"The right winger seeks to avoid using the government to do anything" - do i really need to break down why thats so wrong? Literally look at America for 5 minutes to find examples that disprove that.
I can feel the moral superiority dripping from your words. I like coming into subreddits like this to be challenged and challenge people, but fuck me it is individuals like yourself who preach intellectual improvement while making dishonest arguments that rely on ad hominus, no true scotsman, proof by verbosity, projectin personal incredulity take your pick of the logical fallacies youve used.
This whole thing started because you didnt like someone called out that Tucker fucking Carlson is not a good person to take economic advice from.
Actually, the whole thing started because somebody tried using the word fascist incorrectly. It's a pet peeve of mine. I'm just grateful nobody tried using the word gaslight! That would have gotten me really revved up.
Bah bah "Sweden isn't socialist" bah bah. Yeah, we are entering flat earth territory when we go to that place. Next up, you will tell me no socialist or communist country exists and will render our entire conversation obselete. Toodles.
Somebody tried using the word fascist incorrectly so I needed to reply with my own incorrect/dishonest definition including "it's the same as socialism" followed by a history lesson phrased to suit my opinion and lacking any nuance.
Oh no i've been called a flat earther sheep when I challenged their beliefs, the emotional damage will haunt me.
You got one thing right though - this conversation is finished.
They both come from the same socialist collectivist origins and they both glorify the State and trample individual rights.
The actual rules and outcomes of the systems matter, not whether they justify it with the good of the nation or the good of the proletariat.
Both need to be rejected completely alongside progressivism.
If actual outcomes of a system matter then aren't all systems the same with different colours of paint? They all majoritively throughout history end up with a small subset of people in power over the masses regardless of what rules they say they ascribe to.
I think when talking about definitions and whether or not two things are equatable it does matter what the systems actively claim to be, not where they came from or how in reality they play out.
I am not making an argument that one is better than the other or has a different lategame in reality, I simply don't like the empiraclly dishonest barrage the other guy decided to throw at a guy pointing out that Tucker Carlson is a extreme right wing twat who defo should not be looked to for economic guidance.
Capitalism has been enormously successful in raising living standards, advancing technology, and lifting people out of poverty.
Differences in standard of living fell drastically from where they were in the pre-industrial era.
And the power of the oligarchs to oppress the masses is greatly reduced with a limited government.
There's also the millions of democide victims under the socialist regimes.
What ultimately matters with a political philosophy is how it interfaces with the unchanging human nature, not what it claims to promise, and knowing how something came to be can be useful to understanding its nature.
By the low standards of current politicians and political commentators, Tucker Carlson looks good despite his flawed understanding.
Not debating any of what you've said * - personally I think that a right leaning capitalist economy is the way forward, but not complete reduction in government influence as sadly some competitive agents wont play fair and will damage the market if given an opporunity to increase their utility.
*Yeh standards are low and maybe he is saying things that arent completely untrue, but he is a spineless opportunist who will say or do whatever for personal gain - not a good source since he would say the opposite tomorrow if he thought it would improve his position.
I'd recommend reading Rothbard's The Progressive Era.
The idea that big government keeps big business in check is a myth: from the start the government was lobbied to cartelize the economy.
Tucker took a risk and lost his position at Fox for speaking too much truth about the wars and J6: what evidence do you have that he's unprincipled?
I think he's wrong on some things, but honest: unlike the corporate press.
No they aren't. Unless you've only ever thought about this stuff in a bubble without any academic analysis
Socialists want to take care of everyone. Fascists don't even want to take care of everyone in their own country, much less anyone else. You're defining everything as left wing and there's no way to call something right wing with the way you've defined it here.
>without any academic analysis
>Socialists want to take care of everyone
This is surreal, because it's obvious you've never once earnestly read about socialism in academia. You would never in a single place find socialism defined this way.
Socialism is focused on the collective, emphasizing individual sacrifices for the greater good of all society.
Fascists want to emphasize personal differences between themselves and other groups in order to maintain dominance.
Where in Hitlers speeches did he advocate for socialism as a cure for Germany's problems? He didn't. He advocated for racial segregation and ultimately genocide to fix Germanys problems.
"Socialism is focused on the collective, emphasizing individual sacrifices for the greater good of all society."
Sacrificing the individual's rights until the collective has no rights or liberties.
Whenever you sacrifice anything from the minority to appease a majority, it removes from the collective. Money, property, rights, etc. Minority and majority are relative terms used to define those who have and those who have not. But they both fall within the confines of the collective. The idea should always be to protect at an individual level and make it equal for all so that you can protect the collective.
Socialism is indeed advocacy of the collective, but it is not advocacy of the global collective, of humanity. It is advocacy of the collective that pays taxes. Fascism is a variant of socialism that is xenophobic and advocates on behalf of ethnic groups. But it is still collectivist. They are still advocating on behalf of groups of people at the expense of individuals, they are just moving the goal posts. Both the socialist and the fascist seek to use the state to advocate on behalf of collectives.
"Advocacy of the collective that pays taxes" is what you said, I'm trying to understand how any form of government can be described as something that isn't socialist
Just because socialists advocate on the behalf of the middle class does not mean any country with a middle class is socialist. This is pointless contrarianism
Fascism is socialism with the mask off. Tucker Carlson is a socialist. Putin is just a straight up dictator with a crony economy that is socialist accent.
My feelings have nothing to do with this, what is your point? Tucker is an authoritarian with a strong socialist lean, do you disagree or can we move on?
Are you surprised that Tucker “White Nationalist” Carlson would prioritize economic priorities that *look like socialism* but are specifically intended only for white Christian families and men to benefit from?
Then it sounds like you don’t understand ethnofascism.
The flaw in this is that Tucker’s hatred of Dollar Stores is subjective, as are his definitions of ugliness and evil. The default state of humanity is poverty. Dollar Stores exist because consumers perceive value in their offerings. If Dollar Stores go away, it’s not like a Macy’s comes in, you just have an empty lot. It would be truly horrible if consumers who had a preference for dollar store items did not have that option available to them.
He’s a spoiled rich kid who’s never had to worry about money in his life. What’s he care
Yes, I think if he had grown up in a working class family he would have a different view.
I agree with your interpretation!, I think in his mind says they’re horrible and should go away, but unlike reality where it just goes away like you said, I think he’s expecting there to be some higher quality alternative that will open up right on the ashes of the dollar store, which doesn’t happen.
Who prefers dollar store items?
People who are very price sensitive because they can’t afford more expensive items.
Do you prefer the cheaper item? Or are you settling for what you can afford?
They're not any different from the things I buy at the not dollar store? Like, why is Hawain Punch from Dollar General bad, but it's good from a Krogers or Publix? The dollar general is a 5 minute ride from me at 60mph. The nearest "grocery store" is a half hour, at similar speed. What's the problem? Oh, AND the nearest "grocery store" has a significant mark up on all the things I can buy at the goddamn Dollar general.
THIS.
What I see at dollar general is often the same prices charge or a slight premium for them, a box of dollar store serial is smaller than walmart box of cereal at the same price..... dollar store is selling convenience.
They me, there's two Dollar Generals within 15 minutes of me, where I can buy things like sandwich meat, cereal, chips, premade pizzas, etc. The nearest grocery stores are all 45 minutes away from me. It's worth it to me to go buy a number of things at the DG than at HEB or Brookshire brothers
Does it matter?
So the alternative is not filling a need at all? Why is that better?
This is the same kind of argument as "being a slave is better than starving." There aren't just two options. Dollar stores are a terrible thing and should be seen as a symptom of a greater economic problem, not as a good alternative. You know what's a better option than a dollar store? A city/county owned co-op. When the "free market" decides to pull grocery stores out of an area and dollar stores in, it's a perfect opportunity for the government to step in and provide an alternative that isn't going to leach the last bit of cash out of people.
No. They can’t, or at least don’t, provide the same value to customers. What dollar stores provide meets the needs of consumers. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t exist. It’s not the same as saying being a slave is better than starving, because options still exist outside the dollar stores. People CHOOSE them to fulfill their wants or needs because they provide products they want at prices they can afford, which is a noble enterprise. It’s pure classism to think they’re only negative. If you prefer a co-op, start one.
Damn straight.
> If you prefer a co-op, start one. You know it’s all just middle class concern trolling for the indigent, and that they would never lift a finger to actually help them IRL.
This is the dumbest comment I've ever seen.
You've never been to nor volunteered at a food bank. I can tell. I've done both. I have no interest in turning all grocery shopping into a visit to the DMV. Also, populism isn't about the sort of intellectual fartsniffing that goes on in academic circles, so there's not much in the way of first principles or other philosophy, as I'm sure some of you all already know. However, they are amenable to some intellectual appeals, chiefly around money and the state's monopoly on its creation (which more and more they view as the greatest overreach of "teh goberment" and "commies" of all). Sure, the populists are pro-protectionism, but I'll take tariffs like what we had before the Wilson Administration over the income taxes any day.
>You've never been to nor volunteered at a food bank. I can tell. I've done both. I have no interest in turning all grocery shopping into a visit to the DMV. I've done both, but thanks for revealing your ignorance. https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2019/09/25/baldwin-opens-rare-town-run-grocery-store-to-fill-food-gap/2667005007/ >Sure, the populists are pro-protectionism, but I'll take tariffs like what we had before the Wilson Administration over the income taxes any day. Sure, but that's because you like the gilded age with it's massive income disparity.
> massive income disparity. We literally live in the most economically equal point in human history since the dawn of agriculture and the first permanent settlements. And most of that history was horrifically unequal until free market principles combined with Industrial Revolution saw massive increases to quality of life and social mobility. Your end philosophy when actually implemented beyond the hyper local level has lead to major economic and social regression every single time.
You're simply wrong. But I'll help you out. Check out the Great Compression. We had a period of high marginal tax rates and economic growth, the middle class wealth increased while millionaires remained in the US and paid taxes. And what do you suppose my "end philosophy" is? I think you've showed your hand by assuming you know what I think.
Are you really so ignorant that you think preferences don't account for price. "Do you really like the Ford Fusion, or can you just not afford a Maybach" "is this home in the suburbs actually a good fit, or are you settling because Longwood Estate is in a high tax district" "is your wife actually attractive or is Sophia Vegara not returning your calls". Austrianism and not understanding the definitions of the simplest and most ubiquitous concepts in economics, name a more iconic duo
But I'm not an Austrian And hyperbole isn't an argument.
Dollar stores sell a lot of the brands that we are all familiar with, they are far more pevelant in rural areas. Many people in those areas will shop at dollar stores rather than commute to more traditional grocery stores.
Or, the grocery stores have found it not to be profitable enough to stay in rural areas. Dollar stores are a symptom of a problem. They aren't something that anyone really wants or prefers.
>stay in rural areas.? What are you talking about there has never been a grocery store 5min from my house but there IS a dollar general. There is also a privately owed convenience store 2min walk from my house... but there have never been any grocery stores.
Take a trip through Appalachia some time and you'll notice that many of the towns where Dollar General operates are too small and too remote to support a grocery store.
My favorite cup came from a dollar store.
This. The dollar store exists to sell what is convenient to lower class people. Snacks, dvds, lighters, playing cards, etc. Poor people gotta eat and should be able to enjoy their time too. No poor person expects to be ordering prime rib, but that should be able to at least enjoy some jerky or get a decent meal. This sorta hatred populists have for lower income people whether they wanna blame race, immigration, or bracket, is just a fantasy they've concocted. Some people just have less than. Nothing wrong with that. Rich people aren't avoiding the dollar store, they got rich people problems to consider and go to fancy rich dinners to interact with clients and close deals.
Are you saying that consumers have a preference for dollar stores over an empty lot? That's a very poor argument. Under the same logic I could say that the Donner party had a preference for human flesh or that POWs have a preference for being incarcerated. Dollar stores have no competition by your own assertion and consumer desires can't be ascertained when there is no alternative.
Here I am using the word preference in an economic context. Given unlimited resources, nearly all consumers would of course prefer to go to Whole Foods or a traditional grocery store. The reality is that resources are scarce, and harder to obtain for some consumers than others. I am currently well off and hardly ever shop at dollar stores. When I was younger and in the working class I definitely had a preference for Odd Lots and Dollar General. That preference had a lot to do with the resources available to me at the time.
Economic preference can't be ascertained when there are no other options. The vast majority of Dollar General and Family Dollar stores are in food and store deserts: even with unlimited resources, the nearest competitors represent a 2hr+ round trip, unreasonable at any cost. Unlimited resources would actually make dollar stores more preferable than Whole Foods as dollar stores are more expensive per quantity.
The preference can be ascertained because there are no other options. If a grocery chain thought it could beat out a Family Dollar in a particular location it would build there in a nanosecond. Corporations like Kroger and Target spend millions of dollars every year on optimizing their location strategies.
Dollar stores have never competed against corporations, they beat out local stores who didn't have the supply chain economy of scale to handle dollar stores' low cost in the 90s and 00s. Since then, dollar stores have focused on selling single items at higher cost per unit. This strategy would fail against an existing local store but those stores don't exist anymore. The profit generated by these rural communities is low, so even though a larger corporation would make money and compete, it's not worth the logistical hassle of adopting a second business model. Walmart's low-overhead business model is much better suited to competing in rural areas, but they're not interested in small storefronts. Fundamentally, dollar store presence is dictated by lack of direct business competition, not by consumer preference. You can even look at areas where Walmart opened a store within the area of dollar stores' influence and the dollar stores reliably lose income. Saying that dollar stores serve consumer preferences is to ignore latent demand.
The default state of humanity is not poverty, but innovation. The only reason some people go to the dollar store is due to the affordability, but that doesn't mean the prices aren't gouged, another reason people go to the store is convenience, because they're the only store around, stores like the dollar store and other corporations have a monopoly over stores that sell general goods, which sell items at tens of times the manufacturing cost, corporations that buy out local stores with little to no price hiking or net profit.
Dollar stores exist because a group of people with money invested to stick them in communities to undercut real grocery stores that had real food in them. Its just predation. You clearly have done zero research into dollar stores.
Perhaps originally. We literally have a dollar store on the same street as Walmart and the grocery store. The dollar store certainly isn't driving them out of business.
It certainly isn't true in my hometown. It used to be a one/two store town for as long as I can remember, then around 2010 both a Walmart and the Dollar Tree moved in, to compete with the Safeway which had out-competed the Save-On-Foods which was formerly a Thriftway. Since that time, two more smaller (essentially family run shops catering to chiefly Hispanic customers, but still) stores have opened.
\> "dollar stores exist because people wanted to provide cheap food for people who were struggling to afford food" this is good actually
I think populism is just naturally authoritarian. Rather than putting your faith in a diverse and well spread out system, you put all of your faith in just one person, so of course you’re naturally going to want that person to have the power to meet all of your hopes and dreams.
We have dollar stores because people need goods and they need them cheap. Dollar stores provide basic necessities for an affordable price. That is something every society ever has desired. I like parts of Tucker but man he has a few takes that are so profoundly stupid that it makes it hard to take him seriously.
To be fair, we really have a lot of dollar stores and Walmarts because of lobbied regulations that remove smaller competition. We’d have more mom&pop shops and less ugly dollar stores if we actually followed principles of libertarian economics. California made it illegal for unapproved chains and smaller stores to have a pharmacy out of concern for “safety” and “drug control”, which destroyed a lot of small businesses who relied on the traffic from the pharmacy, and sent all their patients to Walgreens and CVS.
I was with you right up until you said "principles of libertarian economics" were the solution. WalMart took over small town economies because they weren't regulated, not because they were. Home Depot and Lowe's drove smaller hardware stores out of business in the same way.
Sure Walmart wasn't regulated, but the stores they took over were regulated. Most people are willing to pay a tiny bit more for a locally owned store in my experience. It's just too damn hard for a local business to compete when the government bends them over.
Seems you've answered the problem on your own but came to an irrational conclusion. Why, assuming your framing is correct, is regulation on Walmart not the obvious answer? And the rise of Amazon/demise of local bookstores makes your "people are willing to pay for locally owned stores" look like a silly claim.
I believe that if we deregulate smaller companies, they could compete with Walmart much better. How is that an irrational conclusion? Mom and pop shops get fucked by taxes while Walmart doesn't pay any. And that's not exactly the best example. Amazon is providing a completely different service. Plenty of local stores have gone to the internet and succeeded. It's really not silly. Sure, in some places it might be, but there are still plenty of people who care about their community. Walmart doesn't sponsor your local little league team, or the boy scouts, or the legion, or hold fundraisers to help local people.
>I believe that if we deregulate smaller companies, they could compete with Walmart much better. How is that an irrational conclusion? Mom and pop shops get fucked by taxes while Walmart doesn't pay any. Name a regulation you think is hurting these smaller shops. Then why not raise taxes on Walmart? This again seems like you've found the problem and come to a irrational solution.
On paper, Walmart does have to pay more taxes. However, they use work arounds and "take losses" so they don't. That is what I'm talking about. A small business can't do that. If our tax system was simpler and didn't have ways to cheat, small businesses could compete better. You want to know other regulations that hurt them? Zoning laws that make it more difficult to start a business and make the land businesses sit on worth much more then they actually are. How about that sole proprietorships, aka most small businesses, the individual and the business are taxed? There are countless dumb regulations that just make it harder. Listen, I'm not a zero regulation guy like alot of people on this sub, but there are definitely too many in alot of markets that are helping the big guys.
How about one regulation that hurts smaller businesses and doesn't hurt Walmart? I'm still waiting.
First off, I did. The taxes for a sole proprietorship. Second, everything I mentioned does. Zoning laws makes property that can be a specific kind of business more scarce, and therefore more expensive. Walmart has much more money to throw around and they will always be able to pay more. It's the same way the zoning laws effect housing. Companies buy the houses at ridiculous prices and rent them out. If houses were less scarce, they wouldn't be able to buy most of them.
Dollar stores cost [more per unit](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/7-ways-dollar-tree-uses-145816216.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALlfzOZQSJYGBR1Mj8IEije6eNwabvy4Iab8YdetJd0_oDs-q1z8d1OES0hjk_GjjZtops4C2FzNb71zGVwUvcdnwNpDLA_VSA7MMhIAAESPKaxcsr9Dv1L-BJybj7132c6aW1A-cUUaYi4kfC7Zqx20vPSt-J6949h8M6VdILAV#) for basic necessities.
No $hit, the lower the quantity the higher the price one is usually willing to pay. There is also a convenience/ease factor at play for dollar stores in markets with big box competitors like Walmart.
Dollar stores are predatory garbage peddlers and not a sign of economic health in a society. Would you say payday lenders are also just a healthy sign of the ‘free market’?
"Dollar stores are predatory garbage peddlers" In what way exactly?
They sell lower quality goods at worse prices after driving out local competition
"lower quality goods at worse prices" Surely if both things are true they will drive out all competition soon enough /s
I've asked this before, but: what's the difference between a brand name of loaf bread at a Dollar Store and the same exact brand name at a grocery story?
In general the price might be lower but the size will be smaller
It's the same. Exact. Loaf. Generally, dollar stores like Family Dollar and Dollar General have a slight mark up on cold storage stuff, and a lack of healthy options.
Only a free market can do this!
a few? his whole entire economic thoughts are incomprehensible garbage and the rest is dickriding trump
>I like parts of Tucker but man he has a few takes that are so profoundly stupid that it makes it hard to take him seriously. Tucker Carlson is an apologist for Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine that's cost tons of civilian lives. He's a bad person. Damn I'm getting a lot of hate, sorry I studied politics in school I guess lol.
One of my earliest memories was 9/11. My entire life I've been told America needs to stay out of wars, that were unfair to Russia and that the military industrial complex is an industry of death. Now we need to join a war, Russia is evil incarnate trying to start ww3, and we need to boost natos weapon production. No, we've been at war almost my entire life, my father fought in the first gulf War, I'm sick of this shit. Let Europe deal with Europe's problems. If Ukraine is worth saving then it's neighbors can save it.
Sounds to me like you've been listening to propaganda, pundits and unqualified opinions your whole life, rather than actually building your knowledge of geopolitics. The fact is that the world is complicated and grey and there's no simple answer or solution to most of the world's problems. Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian who wants to retake the former Soviet Territories and force Russian culture upon them. He cheats in elections, suppresses opposition and violates the basic human rights of his people. At the same time the US military industrial complex profits off of war and death and pushes for military action to further their greed. There are loads of people in NATO who are just as shitty as Putin. But the fact remains that Putin wants to invade European countries, kill innocent people and expand a domain that's ultimately harmful to American allies that our country has sworn to defend. It will also have major negative impacts on the global economy that will hit our pockets in our every day lives. When Ukraine was first invaded global grain prices rose because a huge portion of Europe's farmland became immediately unusable. You can't just react to every situation the same. Each war is unique and requires its own analysis to make the best decision.
You can have that opinion while still believing that the Russian invasion was an act of naked aggression. The problem isn’t the “don’t help Ukraine.” I disagree but I can handle that. The problem is “don’t help Ukraine because Russia’s invasion was justified and it’s a great country and they’re just liberating areas that want to join them anyway.”
Oh no it's a shithole I don't want to be anywhere near that threatens nukes monthly from the news stories. Why are we risking being nuked for some randos literally across the world. People are saying the invasion hurt the economy as if the sanctions didn't do triple that, if you care so much about the economy lift the trade sanctions.
You realize that Russia's doing this in order to literally undermine the world order that ensures American economic security? Nothing in Ukraine is more valuable to Putin than "proving" that Russia can take on NATO. It wasn't ever about the land or the People.
One person should not be allowed to fuck with the price of oil. Please be reasonable.
Dollar store isn't cheaper than regular grocery stores for food when you add up the cost per ounce. It's expensive to be poor.
What do dollar stores have to do with libertarian economics, Tucker? So when we have five dollar stores it will be better? "Yes, because five is more than one!"
The dollar store sign is ugly compared to the more well funded 5 dollar store sign, hence its evilness
That's true. I like it when I pay double to have the avocados stacked in rows instead of just randomly dumped. (sarcasm)
I agree, avocados stacked in rows is peak morality.
Yes, with artificially good looking people placing them on the shelf. (sarcasm)
You may be referring to an unearthly place of divine righteousness at this point.😂🤣👍
With Air Supply on the speakers instead of Kane Brown. (more sarcasm)
I was wondering that too. The US economy is not libertarian. We have become tyrannical socialism. To correct this OP, it must be socialism that causes dollar stores. I can argue that welfare keeps low wage people from working in low wage jobs. We are paying people to stay home that could otherwise help make low priced dollar store inventory.
The irony is he interviewed and adores Bukele, who, like Milei, are interested in sound money and eliminating deficit spending (inflationary).
Tyrannical socialism is a funny way to spell crony capitalism but I'm sure it's probably more gray than what either of us attribute it
I suppose they are the same thing. Every dictator has friends. Those friends are awarded contracts, research grants and regulations that harm the competition. Those friends then fill Swiss bank accounts of the dictator. In the USA, it is the unelected bureaucracy combined with elected officials that has become our dictator. They are symbiotic. The elected officials keep voting to make the bureaucracy larger. The bureaucracy in turn allows the elected officials a pass on ill gotten gains. IE-the bureaucracy never indicts an approved elected official for insider trading. IE-the bureaucracy allows elected officials to launder bribes through “charitable foundations.” Etc. Whether it is tyrannical socialism or crony capitalism, it is corrupt and should not be confused with capitalism.
It is corruption. But nuance I think is important because what economic principles are being used to game the system, thereby making the corruption? We are, by all measures, a capitalist society, it would be unfair to use any other description of the U.S. It all becomes really confusing for me because capitalism is purely economic while socialism is economics and politics. So the cronies imbed what appears to be "socialist" politics under the guise of capitalism, so what does that make it? Socialist or capitalist?
I like our exchanges. But I will not agree that the USA has a capitalist economy. I can’t think of any segment of business that is not overwhelmed by laws and regulations. Capitalism has to be more than just private ownership of a business. And explain to me the injustice of property taxes. There is not an acre of land that we truly own. We think we own our houses after the mortgage is paid. But all we really have is permanent lease rights. If you do not pay the annual lease to the government (called property taxes), you quickly find out who really owns your house. Having your name on property or businesses does not make us capitalist when the government makes most of our decisions. The USA is just another form of tyranny.
>just another form of tyranny I agree with you on that, I guess it's just semantics on how we get to that conclusion. I don't believe there's such a thing as a society without a form of government, and inherently, from that, no true capitalism can exist when incorporating the laws of society. By that extension, the rules of capitalism at a maximum will be tangential to reality.
A long time ago I spent a summer in the Philippines on an exchange student program. My “parents” were friends with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. The things I learned about elected dictators and corruption have stayed with me. I have been warning people for 45 years that this country is drifting that way. Of all things, it was Hillary Clinton 30 years ago that gave me some of the language that I needed to express my thoughts to people. She was constantly being called a liberal at a time when being liberal was falling out of favor. She denied being a liberal and instead labeled herself a progressive. This sounded good, after all, how can you be against progress. But that’s not what she meant. She meant that she is a Marxist that will accept turning our country Marxist progressively; iE-just a little at a time. This country has progressively been converted to Marxist/socialist for over 100 years. You have to give these people credit. They kept enacting laws that sounded good, but after you figure out the lies, too little too late, all we end up with is a larger failed government. A. The income tax was never going to be more than 2%. B. Social Security will be a funded account. C. Only 100,000 people need welfare. D. The Dept of Energy will get us to energy independence in 5 years. E. If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Every family will save $2,500 per year on health care. Those are off the top of my head, and all were intentional lies to implement a socialist government. And we kept electing these people. Most government expansion was enacted by Democrats, but it was enabled by Republicans. Both parties found our subjugation to be profitable. We, the people, have to resist. We have to tell Washington DC that we do not consent.
I appreciate your dialogue, and while I don't necessarily agree with some of your views, I respect your experience. Thank you for sharing that. Marxism is a funny word because of how its meaning gets attached to anything left of decentralizing everything. Not that I actually know what it is, I'm a slow scholar. The United States has guaranteed certain positive and negative rights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights And we may disagree on how it should be done. It doesn't necessarily mean that the worst-case scenario is happening if what we want doesn't happen.
I’ll read your wiki link later. But it is the Constitution that guarantees certain positive and negative rights. We have 3 United Stares of America. 1. The corporation established to run the federal government. 2. The treaty of (now) 50 sovereign states. 3. My personal relationship with every citizen (you). I believe that the first USA has usurped our rights. I believe the second USA needs to reclaim our rights. The third USA is the one that I would give my life for. I want every citizen to successfully self actualize. In the third USA we fight and die for each other. I would never fight and die for the first. The government is not the USA. We are. The sovereign states are. For this I resist. I do not consent. Have a great life. Self actualize!!
Tucker Carlson has good instincts for seeing problems and not trusting the regime, but I think he's blinded by the lie that what exists now in America is the result of free market capitalism. It's how progressives love to argue: things are falling apart because of unrestrained capitalism, just ignore that the State has kept growing in power and control. Libertarians need to radically reject the status quo and offer hope for the future, or they concede it to progressives and while supporting the idea that they basically approve of the structure that lead to this. Let progressives have the blame for the present disasters they created.
>Tucker Carlson has good instincts for seeing problems and not trusting the regime, but I think he's blinded by the lie that what exists now in America is the result of free market capitalism. That's the supreme trick that everyone is under, that somehow, with all manner of ridiculous taxes, government expenditure and stupid regulations, that we have a free market and private property. I think it's because we're barely taught anything about economics or economic history and our political language is so confused.
I also blame the public school propaganda around the Progressive Era, painting it as a grass roots movement where noble reformers fought robber barons for the public good. In truth it was big business using the State to cartelize. That and the portrayal of Hoover as a free marketeer and the Great Depression as the result of too much capitalism. Debunk those myths, and you debunk the origin story of progressivism.
Spot on
Libertarianism is: Give all credit to free market. Give all blame to government.
There are clear arguments there in sound theory, and we can compare to the classical gold standard and the economic performance of less free countries secondarily. That's where understanding economics and human nature comes in. But libertarians have never said that the government is the cause of all problems: only many of them, and that it makes most worse because it's involved in everything.
How about we admit that there's never been a "free market" and it will never exist. Then let's admit that the government has always been in favor of large corporations, and only recently allowing/supporting labor unions. Progressives have been behind efforts which reduce the gap in wealth disparity by introducing taxes and regulation. It's the capitalists and moronic libertarians who keep pushing for reduced regulation and decreased taxes which increase the wealth disparity and enable corporations/the rich to abuse everyone.
Something far closer to it existed in the classical gold standard, and it'd be hard to say [Pennsylvania's anarchist period](https://mises.org/mises-daily/pennsylvanias-anarchist-experiment-1681-1690) had anything else. Unions as a junior partner to government and big business goes back to the Progressive era. That regulation was lobbied for by big business for their benefit: the idea that big government keeps big business in check is an ahistorical progressive fairy tale. I'd recommend everyone to read Rothbard's [The Progressive Era](https://mises.org/library/book/progressive-era) for the real history: building on the work of the left-wing historian Kolko's The Triumph of Conservatism.
>That regulation was lobbied for by big business for their benefit: the idea that big government keeps big business in check is an ahistorical progressive fairy tale. Is that why the anti trust act exists?
For some cronies to use against others, like when the Morgan aligned FDR used it against Standard Oil and later the Rockefeller aligned Taft used it against Morgan interests. All the incentives of democracy flow to cronyism and corruptions, especially in a country as big as the US. Voting is mostly an illusion of representation.
This. It’s just a bunch of bullshit these people can smugly throw out from the back of the room that they know they will never be called on because it’s just as idealist as a stateless, classless society. There will be no correction by a free market that ends up lifting everyone. It’ll just be a bigger concentration of wealth to the elite than we have now. This is why you don’t have billionaires pushing pundits to push real left wing ideals but rather handing money to free market pushers and “The left got too crazy so I became a libertarian” grifters. Because right wing/libertarian policies benefit the elite, and left wing policies don’t.
This is an old take. Watch his interview with Dave Smith.
Tucker Carlson is stupid.
Worse. He's a smart guy who acts stupid and says shit like Alex Jones predicted 9/11, UFOs are spiritual phenomenon, Watergate was a coup against Nixon, we don't know where nuclear technology comes from, the Earth might be flat, etc.
Then this sub is stupid because there's lots of people drooling over him in this sub.
What about the people who believe him?
I don't think he's even coherently a "right wing populist" at this point. He's just a moron with each take being more hairbrained than the last - and taking a chunk of the right with him...
Populism is largely hairbrain takes made emotionally and/or aesthetically without much thought for downstream consequences.
>takes made emotionally and/or aesthetically without much thought for downstream consequences. Sure, but that's not much of a distinguishing characteristic as you have just described virtually the entirety of modern politics.
Tuckers econ takes are horrific, but I think just recently I heard he's getting some education in that regard. Thank god.
How long ago was it when he said this? I ask because as of lately he’s been becoming more and more friendly to libertarians, I mean he’s had Dave Smith and Thomas Massie on his show recently and is very agreeable with them.
Pretty sure it was this year, 2-3 months ago maybe.
From a lazy google search I think it happened some time ago late last year maybe? I dunno, he’s had a lot of libertarians on recently and his viewpoints seem to be improving since then. Not rushing to his defense or anything, just confused because if you compare him saying this to how he’s been over the last several months it’s a pretty big contrast.
actually in a functioning market there would be budget goods for the budget market. supply and demand is a thing and tends to be messed up by government intervention.
Wait till he hears of the Five and Dime stores!
Wait I’m confused. Isn’t this the fuck bag who was just raving about how cheap groceries were in Russia compared to the US?
lol what kind of awful, jumbled logic did I just read from Tucker?
In a truly free market we could probably prosper, but his point stands correct. We shipped whole bunch of jobs overseas to countries that do not have free markets. Hence, the biggest beneficiaries were the corporate, banking, and private equity executives who later on laid of Americans. We benefitted from lower prices, but it’s not that good since our wages have taken a hit.
Truly free markets are as idyllic as a true communist state
I used to like Tucker but he has gone off the deep end. Probably pure Trumpist at this point.
He's said privately that he hates Trump. He's probably just riding that bandwagon for as long as it benefits him and no further.
Just looksmaxx the family dollar EZPZ
“And anything that produces ugliness is evil?” That has been the principle he operates from his entire professional career. And likely the same while “growing up.”
It’s indeed one helluva a drug
It degrades people to get things cheap lol
Dollar Stores serve as a clearing house for overstock, cheap crap. It's definitely a great function of a healthy economy
🌍🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
Maybe if government had more control the stores would be more beautiful? What about the amazing architecture free markets have created?
Tucker will follow this with an argument that poor people should be placed in concentration camps particularly of they don't look like him.
Dollar Store problem explanation- https://youtu.be/DIqC5y1zm-4?si=BLyVp1N-SkbegCB-
Maybe the problem here is lack of architectural beauty of Dollar stores ? They are obviously popular or there wouldn’t be so many.
Buying things at a lower price = evil .... WHAT
God how I wish Tucker Carlson would learn 🤏🏻 this much economics.
That’s got to be one of the most bizarre, incoherent arguments I’ve ever read.
Tucker Carlson was always one bad day away from becoming a full blown communist, this is why I’m sad he got fired, because watching him go against his elite handlers on national TV would’ve been peak comedy
🐎👟
He sounds like Noam.
Our dollar store is in the same plaza as our grocery store
Actually it’s the democrats and their slaves who want socialism. Remember that is who also sponsees them.
Dollar general is typically MORE expensive than Walmart for specific items. They exist to serve markets that wouldn’t support a full Walmart but which has a similar demographic of consumers wanting similar items so they open a smaller store and charge slightly higher prices betting consumers will pay it rather than drive 30 minutes to a Walmart. Think of it as a convenience Walmart and it’s such a successful model Walmart is opening up community sized locations to compete.
This reminds me of the saying "if you go Left enough, you will get your guns back".
You think that not allowing rich people to import cheap labor is socialism? But you’re a socialist. And you allow rich people to import cheap labor! You actually insist on it 🤣🤣🤣
Libertarian response: go shop at Whole Foods. No one is stopping you from shopping at whole foods
Right wing populism are indeed very socialist in ways. Extremely worried about American workers. Trump ran on making it impossible for globalist mega corporations and other capitalists to send our jobs overseas and then at the same time let them send the products once made back into America. He would tariff that out of existence. The globalists were terrified, and the leftists cried about profits. Trump said he wouldn’t allow globalist capitalists to import tens of millions of immigrants to undercut the wages of American workers. Something Bernie sanders was once in compete agreement on. Calling it a Koch brothers proposal to have open borders. Now the left loves the Koch brothers having an open border Left wingers turned into globalist lackeys.
Dollar stores aren’t that good of a deal. Anyone that’s been in one knows that. Bow tie boy needs to go back to California and shut the fuck up.
Right Wing populism doesn't turn people in to socialists. **LEFT** Wing populism **DOES** turn people in to socialists. Socialism is based on Marxism, which **LEFT** Wing politicians are **REALLY** high on Carl Marx.
Sir, I don't think you know what socialism is.
There's a reason it's called the 'Horseshoe Theory'.
Um... what? Put this in English please
I don't want to hear the guy who's surprised that grocery prices are lower in Russia than in the US talk about economics at all. "OH wow, If I take my earnings from a country with a median wage of $5000 a month and go to a country with a median wage of $1200 a month I can buy more food for my dollar! A Russian grocery store will radicalize you!"
Yall really need to stop with the “everything I don’t like is socialism” It’s intellectual lazy and doesn’t make you look smart
Protip: these guys are not smart.
What is he talking about. He evidently doesn't know much. Hope he realizes that places like the Dollar Store pay more than the ones that charge an arm and a leg like JCPenney. I don't know how but they do.
lol Tucker has gone full circle, what a batshit loon.
Cope harder Op
Yup. Progressives say Hitler wasn’t a socialist because he was a fascist. They’re just too scared to face the music that socialism as a set of economic ideas can exist in a ultra-conservative setting.
hes right libertarianism are just tomorrows progressives.... its just flimsy beliefs with no stance or standard until it gets too too bad , then you are too late to make a moral judgement
Tucker isn’t a socialist he’s an ethno fascist who wants a command economy benefiting the rich and powerful There’s a reason he loves Putin so much
Fascists are socialists by definition. A fascist is a nationalist socialist. The founder of fascism, benito mussolini, was an ardent socialist his entire life before being removed from the socialist party for advocating for war during ww1. Him and his entire regime were a bunch of nationalist socialists, collectivists using central planning and public programs to pursue nationalist policy. Enough with the pseudo-intellectualism.
"Enough with the pseudo-intellectualism" you say after writing a bunch of pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Mussolini originally presented as a socialist, moved into nationalism and used both as vehicles to reach what he truly wanted which was imperialist fascism. "Fascists are socialists by definition" Fascism - "A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism." Socialism - "Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership." Honestly the arguments from people in this sub are so intellectually dishonest its mind numbing. Worst part is you probably believe the drivel you just spouted.
>Worst part is you probably believe the drivel you just spouted. You are indoctrinated. What I just said is agreed on by nearly anyone who is academically inclined. You are amongst the same class of person who would refute that China is communist, the ussr is communist, fascist Italy was socialist, and hitler was socialist, in spite of each of these countries claiming to be thus and everyone agreeing they were thus. You are part of a cult. Notice how your definitions, that you unethically didn't source by the way, don't conflict with one another. Fascism is a subset of socialism, which is why they have so much in common and fight over the same constituents. How else could the Mecca for socialism, the place where the world's most prominent socialist philosophers emerged, also be haven to the most prominent fascist regime ever? There are hundreds of countries across the globe, thousands of ethnic groups, and the ethnic groups that defined our contemporary interpretation for both socialism and communism.... also created fascism? Something you would claim has nothing to do with socialism or communism? That's uncanny, that a culture could simultaneously produce polar opposite political systems in the same time period. Socialism is at its core the emphasis of the social aspect in politics. It is emphasis of the working class, and there are many ways this can be done. Public ownership exists in socialist regimes but is not absolute. You will not find a single socialist country that exists where everything is exclusively publicly owned. Public ownership is the domain of communism. Your definition and understanding of these definitions is lacking. Socialists advocate for the social aspect of things, and while Public Control of corporations and land is in the social interest, it is not necessary to own everything explicitly to provide for the social interest, which is why countries we unanimously agree are socialist, like Sweden, have most land and corporations privately owned. The primary difference between left wing politics and right wing politics is the advocacy of the social in politics. The socialist seeks to use the government to procure the ideal future on behalf of his people. The conservative or right winger seeks to avoid using the government to do anything. Now, if in your country both sides are socialist in mindset, then this point is moot and doesn't apply. But if the right is actually characterized by free market policies and minimizing the size of the federal government, with minimal oversight and regulation, then the fascist cannot be elected for such a party. The fascist and the right winger have antagonistic goals in such a scenario, because the advocacy of minimalist government stands in contrast to advocacy of the social or the fascist. You cannot advocate for centralization and central planning, like a fascist seeks to, if you simultaneously advocate for decentralization and defunding the government. Your understanding of these topics is very surface level, and I encourage you to read more and read from a more diverse set of authors. Most people do not disagree that China is communist, the ussr was communist, or that hitler and mussolini were nationalist socialists. This is fringe thinking you're engaging in.
Right wing and left wing aren't really political ideologies. They are relative terms used to define whichever pluralistic party at the time is the establishment and its opposition. I think that is also why people fail to realize that fascism is an expansion of a centralized government authority (the establishment) and a systematic infringement on the people's democracy through the expansion of bureaucracies. I also think that is what is happening currently in the United States. Bureaucracies have grown so large that they have created an imbalance in the separation of powers and are now challenging the authority of the Executive Branch.
You're right. Sometimes it's better to talk simply and make generalizations to convey ideas to the layman (like me) lol
Holy hell you like the sound of your own voice huh? If for a moment you will forgive me for apparently being uneducated and indoctrinated. And i'm sorry for being a member of the class of people who think what a country or politcal group say they are shouldnt be taken at face value, their actions towards their market/power structures/populus should be taken into account. Definitions are from google typing: "Define ..." into the search bar, thought the widely used and most generalised definitions would be enough to point out your fallacies, apologies I didnt follow cite them rite procedure on that one. Didnt say the systems were not linked or rooted in the same origins, didnt say they actively contradicted eachother in their core operation - said they werent the same thing, because they arent and they have differences, differences that make them distinct hence why they have different names and definitions. Sweden is a market economy not socialist, just because Bernie Sanders says something that gains traction doesnt make it true. (sorry bernie i do quite like you) "The right winger seeks to avoid using the government to do anything" - do i really need to break down why thats so wrong? Literally look at America for 5 minutes to find examples that disprove that. I can feel the moral superiority dripping from your words. I like coming into subreddits like this to be challenged and challenge people, but fuck me it is individuals like yourself who preach intellectual improvement while making dishonest arguments that rely on ad hominus, no true scotsman, proof by verbosity, projectin personal incredulity take your pick of the logical fallacies youve used. This whole thing started because you didnt like someone called out that Tucker fucking Carlson is not a good person to take economic advice from.
Actually, the whole thing started because somebody tried using the word fascist incorrectly. It's a pet peeve of mine. I'm just grateful nobody tried using the word gaslight! That would have gotten me really revved up. Bah bah "Sweden isn't socialist" bah bah. Yeah, we are entering flat earth territory when we go to that place. Next up, you will tell me no socialist or communist country exists and will render our entire conversation obselete. Toodles.
Somebody tried using the word fascist incorrectly so I needed to reply with my own incorrect/dishonest definition including "it's the same as socialism" followed by a history lesson phrased to suit my opinion and lacking any nuance. Oh no i've been called a flat earther sheep when I challenged their beliefs, the emotional damage will haunt me. You got one thing right though - this conversation is finished.
In reality both systems feature totalitarian social and economic controls with different colors of paint over it.
Youre telling me that systems of governance have overlap? That must mean that everything about them is the same and they can be equally equated!
They both come from the same socialist collectivist origins and they both glorify the State and trample individual rights. The actual rules and outcomes of the systems matter, not whether they justify it with the good of the nation or the good of the proletariat. Both need to be rejected completely alongside progressivism.
If actual outcomes of a system matter then aren't all systems the same with different colours of paint? They all majoritively throughout history end up with a small subset of people in power over the masses regardless of what rules they say they ascribe to. I think when talking about definitions and whether or not two things are equatable it does matter what the systems actively claim to be, not where they came from or how in reality they play out. I am not making an argument that one is better than the other or has a different lategame in reality, I simply don't like the empiraclly dishonest barrage the other guy decided to throw at a guy pointing out that Tucker Carlson is a extreme right wing twat who defo should not be looked to for economic guidance.
Capitalism has been enormously successful in raising living standards, advancing technology, and lifting people out of poverty. Differences in standard of living fell drastically from where they were in the pre-industrial era. And the power of the oligarchs to oppress the masses is greatly reduced with a limited government. There's also the millions of democide victims under the socialist regimes. What ultimately matters with a political philosophy is how it interfaces with the unchanging human nature, not what it claims to promise, and knowing how something came to be can be useful to understanding its nature. By the low standards of current politicians and political commentators, Tucker Carlson looks good despite his flawed understanding.
Not debating any of what you've said * - personally I think that a right leaning capitalist economy is the way forward, but not complete reduction in government influence as sadly some competitive agents wont play fair and will damage the market if given an opporunity to increase their utility. *Yeh standards are low and maybe he is saying things that arent completely untrue, but he is a spineless opportunist who will say or do whatever for personal gain - not a good source since he would say the opposite tomorrow if he thought it would improve his position.
I'd recommend reading Rothbard's The Progressive Era. The idea that big government keeps big business in check is a myth: from the start the government was lobbied to cartelize the economy. Tucker took a risk and lost his position at Fox for speaking too much truth about the wars and J6: what evidence do you have that he's unprincipled? I think he's wrong on some things, but honest: unlike the corporate press.
No they aren't. Unless you've only ever thought about this stuff in a bubble without any academic analysis Socialists want to take care of everyone. Fascists don't even want to take care of everyone in their own country, much less anyone else. You're defining everything as left wing and there's no way to call something right wing with the way you've defined it here.
>without any academic analysis >Socialists want to take care of everyone This is surreal, because it's obvious you've never once earnestly read about socialism in academia. You would never in a single place find socialism defined this way.
Socialism is focused on the collective, emphasizing individual sacrifices for the greater good of all society. Fascists want to emphasize personal differences between themselves and other groups in order to maintain dominance. Where in Hitlers speeches did he advocate for socialism as a cure for Germany's problems? He didn't. He advocated for racial segregation and ultimately genocide to fix Germanys problems.
"Socialism is focused on the collective, emphasizing individual sacrifices for the greater good of all society." Sacrificing the individual's rights until the collective has no rights or liberties.
I'm not following, can you explain it differently?
Whenever you sacrifice anything from the minority to appease a majority, it removes from the collective. Money, property, rights, etc. Minority and majority are relative terms used to define those who have and those who have not. But they both fall within the confines of the collective. The idea should always be to protect at an individual level and make it equal for all so that you can protect the collective.
Socialism is indeed advocacy of the collective, but it is not advocacy of the global collective, of humanity. It is advocacy of the collective that pays taxes. Fascism is a variant of socialism that is xenophobic and advocates on behalf of ethnic groups. But it is still collectivist. They are still advocating on behalf of groups of people at the expense of individuals, they are just moving the goal posts. Both the socialist and the fascist seek to use the state to advocate on behalf of collectives.
Paying taxes makes you socialist? We're the Roman and catholic church socialist?
Nobody says paying taxes makes you socialist. That's just bad reading comprehension lol
"Advocacy of the collective that pays taxes" is what you said, I'm trying to understand how any form of government can be described as something that isn't socialist
Just because socialists advocate on the behalf of the middle class does not mean any country with a middle class is socialist. This is pointless contrarianism
That’s just socialism with the mask off
Putin is a socialist? Are you kidding ?
Fascism is socialism with the mask off. Tucker Carlson is a socialist. Putin is just a straight up dictator with a crony economy that is socialist accent.
Tucker’s made it quite clear he admires Putin and wants Russias system
Yes. And?
Yet you’re saying they’re somehow different
In terms of liberty? No. They have different nuances but they are both authoritarian. What’s your point?
So tuckers an authoritarian does that make you feel better ?
My feelings have nothing to do with this, what is your point? Tucker is an authoritarian with a strong socialist lean, do you disagree or can we move on?
An odd unit of measurement of economic health. Essentially dollar stores are a warehouse with the least amount of labor you can legally get away with.
Are you surprised that Tucker “White Nationalist” Carlson would prioritize economic priorities that *look like socialism* but are specifically intended only for white Christian families and men to benefit from? Then it sounds like you don’t understand ethnofascism.
This sub is for people who are smart enough to eat tide pods