> Remember, most socialists are upper middle class and above.

I don't buy this. I also think that the size of the middle class in the US is grossly overestimated. IMO, if you get a W2 because your income is based on wages or a salary, you're working class. Middle-class people own small businesses and have no boss besides their customers.

Yes, I get that this isn't the standard definition. I don't particularly care.

> For some reasons every socialist I talk to actually think a 15-25 hours week of work is sufficient for society to function...

This is partly based on predictions made by John Maynard Keynes, an economist of whom you might have heard.

https://www.openculture.com/2020/06/when-john-maynard-keynes...

He expected that labor-saving technology would advance to the point where human needs could easily be fulfilled. However, I suspect he rather badly underestimated the human capacity to mistake desires for needs and to create new desires where none previously existed.

Also, I don't think he saw neoliberalism coming in the 1970s, which badly eroded the power of workers to organize and claim their rightful share of the wealth their work made possible.

> ...I never really got a good explanation how productivity will increase to accommodate such a drastic drop in labor outside of theoretical predictions.

Is it really your acquaintances' job to explain this to you? The theory is all published in books, some of which are even in the public domain and should therefore be freely available.

> Corporations can move, and re-invest their profits.

Corporations are not sovereign. They exist at the pleasure of the governments that issue their papers of incorporation. The state of Delaware giveth, and it can taketh away just as easily (and it should rather more often than it does).

Being shielded from personal financial liability so that you can't lose more than you've invested in the business is a privilege, and one our governments give out as if it were candy. This is a policy choice, and one that can (and perhaps should) be changed.

Rich people, like governments, exist on sufferance. If they abuse their position in too egregious a fashion, the people will protest. If their protests go unheard, they will eventually remember they have the right of revolution.

> Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

It might be worthwhile to remember that the American revolution in 1776 was as much a revolt against the special privileges granted to the British East India Company as it was against lack of representation in Parliament and the alleged tyranny of King George III, and it was only after non-violent and legal remedies had been exhausted that revolution became a popular cause.

> Such high profit taxes are usually counter-productive.

You think 25% tax on profit is high? It has been 50% before, and businesspeople should be on their knees thanking Mammon that the tax is levied on profits instead of revenue — that they pay taxes on their net instead of their gross.

https://www.epi.org/publication/ib364-corporate-tax-rates-an...

> Positive rights lead to slavery or worker revolts and shortage.

I'm not convinced that positive rights lead to slavery. I know F. A. Hayek made this argument in The Road to Serfdom, but I'm not convinced this is the case. Nor am I convinced that worker revolts are a bad thing.

In fact, I think part of the problem is that we've gone without worker revolts for entirely too long, and that resentments and frustrations that could have been aired and resolved have instead gone unaired and unresolved, building up and festering to the point where their release threatens a crisis.

That's why I say every day is a good day for a strike. I honestly believe that defiance is what makes us human, and that the reason every toddler seems to count "no" among their first words is that the ability to say "no" is — more than our capacity for creating and using tools — the very quality that makes us human. It's the first step toward individuation and self-actualization.

> We are living this right now in Canada, nurses are tired of doing obligatory overtime.

And in the US, we have closed drive-thru fast food joints and dollar stores because of workers staging wildcat strikes. That's not because of "free healthcare" in Canada or excessively cushy unemployment benefits in the US. It's because not only are there not enough nurses to handle the load, but the available nurses aren't getting paid enough to deal with the downsides of their job — not least of which is the risk of getting COVID themselves because people won't vaccinate, won't wear masks, and there isn't always enough PPE to go around.

When people quit their jobs, they're saying "my life matters". Their life means more to them than your convenience, and why shouldn't it? They only get one life, just like you. Why shouldn't they value their own lives as highly as you value yours?

People say "nobody wants to work anymore", but I think the reality is that nobody ever wanted to work. I don't think anybody actually dreams of labor unless they're having a nightmare. We work out of necessity. That's why we expect to get paid for it and why most people react to talk of "intrinsic motivation" with suspicion if not (suppressed with varying degrees of success) hostility.

If it were fun we'd call it "play" and do it for the sheer joy of it.

> The US health care system is inefficient due to litigation and regulations pushed by lobbying to maintain private monopolies.

Not to mention a lack of price transparency and our dependence on employer-provided group health insurance. Health insurance should be for catastrophic events like cancer, not routine preventative care — which ought to be paid for out of taxes as an investment in the people and a public good.

We used to understand this, but years of right-wing propaganda financed by billionaires seems to have buried this knowledge.

> High minimum wage will just accelerate automation and the disappearance of low-skills jobs.

I don't see anything wrong with this. Any work that can be done by machines should be, because work sucks.

This is why I think we should be demanding universal basic income as a form of economic suffrage. It's the 21st century; I don't think there's any excuse for anybody to live in poverty.

I think Elon Musk not getting his own galaxy-class starship is a fair price to pay for no American to ever have to fear homelessness or hunger.