Why Socialism makes Government Corruption worse. 

After much procrastination THE MERCH STORE is finally here! mentiswave-merch.printify.me/products Also subscribestar is open with some extra content!: www.subscribestar.com/mentiswave

Second Thought literally has a video called: Why '"Hearing Both Sides'" Is Dangerous. That's pretty fucking telling 💀

"J-just trust us bro give us the power we pinky promise to give that power back once we fixed it" - - Governments that can't even fix potholes.

Nancy saying "it's a free market" is perfect for her. It makes people complain about a "free market" that doesn't exist, and then people like her can take even more power.

Oh god, did he seriously use Cuba as an example for "good" democracy?

I can't believe that No Thought heard Nancy Pelosi say "it's a free market" and he actually thought, "yeah... that's what this is..." unironically

This is a little off topic, but what I find interesting about Marxist Socialist BreadTubers is that they will often display the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark) as good examples of Socialism working correctly. However, the problem is that not only do these countries actually operate via mixed-market economies and not by planned economies, but also, they utilise an economic model known as Tripartism (form of Neo-Corporatism) which relies heavily on class cooperation between the worker unions, employer associations and the State in order to come to an agreement between different interests. Whilst it is understandable for them to look up to these particular countries, due to them being some of the most equal countries in the world, doesn’t the class cooperation of the Scandinavian model completely contradict the belief of class struggle in the Marxian sense?

I like how socialists always try to point out flaws in "le capitalism" but never say how socialism would solve it except "It would give power to le people" and other bs like that. At most they'll say something about Finland or Sweden, but newsflash bud, those are still neoliberal economies, just with good social welfare and unions

Hello! Chilean here! The vote for a new constitution was overwhelmingly approved, followed by a 90% vs 10% voting split between left leaning and right leaning members chosen to write it. With this gigantic majority, the chilean solcialist and communist party got a bit... greedy. You see, this all started because of a long and big manifestation about economic discontent. In a few words, Chile had one of the greatest wealth growths of a country in almost the history of mankind. In 30 years, we went from 40-50% to only 10% poberty (while also having greatly raised the standard "poberty line" from back then. If we used the old one, we have like 1% poberty...). But some people got a bit salty that while nobody was starving now, some people were eating caviar and driving expensive cars. Jealousy, basically. So yeah, with that hate filled mindset, they wanted to rewrite the constitution. Now this is where the extreme left dropped the ball. You see, they got "on" the tail of the bandwagon of economic discontent. But failed to recognize that more than 50% of the chilean economy are a bunch of family or small business owners. So when they wrote a full no-stop socialist constitution, with clauses that permitted the creation of communism, it was voted out by 60% of the people on the "exit" referendum. Of course, we already voted to HAVE a new constitution, so people had to vote for the NEW elected writers that are going to try and write the constitution. But this time, people were a bit annoyed with how their entire movement was hijacked by socialists.. so they (get this) *voted for 90% right wing constitution writers* Yes, the politics of my country are a joke. Leave it to the socialists to push a new constitution cause it was "too right leaning", only for a referendum being passed to make it even MORE right leaning. Hilarious Update cause some people asked for it: The new constitution writers, that are mostly right wing, but more importantly, "moderates", have written a Europe-like constitution. However, the country is still pretty polarized, so the extreme left AND the extreme right, are voting against it, while those closer to the center are voting in favor of it. This can be explained with horseshoe theory, for you see, the proposed constitution isn't "authoritarian enough", because it takes a lot of power from the government, and fragments it, instead of concentrating it. I can now confirm, that my country's politics are an even bigger joke than I expected. I can't wait to hear the punchline! Final Update: The new "right-wing" constitution was rejected as well. though not by much. So in short, we still have the old constitution, but with a twist!!! You see, during this whole ordeal, those that wanted to keep the old constitution cause making a new one was too risky, lowered the votes required to change parts of the constitution from 2/3, to 4/5. So now we are on the process of slowly but surely updating our old consitution... which was what we were doing BEFORE the massive riots started. Brilliant. We just wasted 2 years on a problem I have no doubts will resurface again after a couple of years...

The funniest part is that the only monopoly to arise without state backing, Standard Oil, had none of the negatives that are typical of monopolies because Rockerfeller knew that if he put them into place rail companies would just open their own oil companies to compete with him.

"big business benefit from lack of competition, hence they will lobby for more regulation"

Just remember, FDR made government employee jobs permanent when he signed in all those laws. Creating an unelected bureaucracy that the average citizen has to deal with.

Any government official found to be accepting bribes or insider trading ought to be barred from holding any office and sentenced to a minimum 10 years in prison without parole, as well as having all of their earnings seized and given back to the people in the form of some sort of "apology tax return".

"They're oppressing us! So let's overthrow and oppress them! Because that's the only logical thing!"

The problem is that libertarians aren't talking about capitalism. They're talking about a free market. Using the term capitalism (a term made up by Marx) is essentially giving yourself a huge handicap

Like what they're doing in Cuba? Because it works so well for them, right? In fact, it works so well that Cubans are willing to make rafts out of mattresses in order to escape their home country. I can't believe he used that as an example!

"Workplaces can be run without management entirely." - Second Thought I really should have been sitting down for that part. How dumb can one person be?

Dude said "capitalists are afraid of workers", doesn't that assume that workers aren't/can't be capitalists and that capitalists aren't/can't be workers? However, the people he showcased while saying that...all work, wut...

I remember Socialists coming into the local environmentalism groups (and they have legitimite issues against the local nuclear waste facilities (plural), because those are run like leaking septic tanks for which the duct tape is considered too expensive - so it is a corruption problem that turned into an environmental problem that understandably makes people rather aversive of anything to do with the nuclear industry complex at large), and trying to make everything about "redistribution." How that solves the health hazards? No clue. I can bring up half a dozen more such instances about completely different things that Socialist activists always tried to hijack and their proposed solution that everyone should abide by was "redistribution" (Umverteilung). Like, okay, if we can redistribute the leaking highly radioactive trash to the politicians' homes and dump it into parliament, I'm totes fine with that, but that's not what they mean when they say "redistribution." Many movements with legitimate interests that do not have as pressing and everlasting issues on their literal homes' doorsteps, simply die off after the Socialist Craptivists get into them, for they are so obnoxious, spiteful, irrational and power hungry, bullying themselves into the leading position and sniping off those who don't blindly go along with them as much as they can... that noone's left eventually. The Left DESTROYS any meaningful single-issue movements that are against corruption of government or industry, etc, by wanting to control them all. Some of the zombies survive and end up just another mouthpiece of the same propaganda they repeat ad nauseam everywhere else, while not dealing with the actual issue the respective group was founded against anymore at all (that would also potentially lead to solving the problem and thus that group not being needed anymore, and thus losing a zombie-mouthpiece). Socialists are a political parasite and nothing else.

14:50 "While democracy seeks to even out the power amongst society and make sure people aren't able to coerce one another into acting against their interests" This is THE BIGGEST LIE I heard anyone say about Democracy.

I once facted checked one of ST's videos for my students. The one on cuba. I think I gave up after 17 misquotes, lies, and misrepresentations

Weird. He keeps saying "capitalism" and showing these images of *oligarchic collectivists* expecting me to make any connection between the two.

Lol I remember the first time encountering one of the videos from this channel via the algorithm. I remember it being a well laid out video until the very last two minutes when he blew his load and started telling everyone to vote for socialist policies to “fix the problem”. The videos take a harsh 180 degree turn and go from relatively unbiased dissection of an issue for 90% of the video to absurdly biased logical fallacies in last 10%. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a right wing video that has done this kind of subversive jumpscare tactic. But it seems to be way more common in the left wing nowadays because they think this is how you convince people to join their dumb ideology. Pretty much cult recruitment tactics.

I'd like to add a bit of a correction. They're not picking a winning company, they're MAKING a company win to get rich. Thats the problem.

I opened my own business, a gourmet mushroom farm. Theres basically no regulations, licenses, or permits required for this where I live (aside from being safe with handling and common sense things of course). You just have to find a niche where you can break into a market, or create your own market for something that people want. So long as it's something good and people want it, if you have perseverance you can do it

This makes me remember about a time when I learned about what caused the Gilded Age a century ago. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't really caused and exacerbated by deregulation but rather through government regulation that was designed to favor large and profitable corporations while hurting smaller businesses, and preventing competition by raising the barrier of entry. The state could solve something like that with laws that forbid corporations from lobbying and giving insider information to the state. However a far better way to do it be to not give the state so much regulatory power that can and is often abused

It's mystifying how some people think a FREE market can exist, much less that most modern economies are free markets when governments are constantly playing macro and micro level economic games.

Classic case of "a solution in search of a problem." To be fair i can't recall a time socialism/communism wasn't the solution.

"Capitalism is when the government does stuff." It's what they seriously seem to believe yet they try to meme "Socialism is when the government does stuff", when in that case it's actually true by definition. So really they just meme themselves.

15:45 Just like when they say "Our Democracy," they don't mean "everyone's Democracy," but "Democracy is when we are in power and get our way!"

Insider trading is illegal But if you're a politician you can do it and not get arrested a normal person gets arrested. Does that sound fair?

The whole idea of socialism reducing corruption is ridiculous once you think about it for more than fove seconds "Government people are abusing their power" "I agree. What's your solution?" "Give them more control over the economy"

Imagine having an issue with the government having too much power, and your solution is to give them more power. These are the easiest people to manipulate and it's really annoying to have to hear them so much.

YES. Second Thought is probably the most pretentious breadtuber next to Vaush.

Socalist always make the mistake of assuming the government is run by people like then when really its run by the same kind of minority of elites they complain about with companys. Companys and governemnts are the same thing, they are entities that don't share the same goals as the people working in them. The point of a corporation is to amass more and more wealth, the point of government is to amass more and more power and control.

Second Thought been real quiet since this dropped

Socialist: I believe in universal health care. "What if a 1930's German walked into a hospital? Would you support paying for his health care?" Socialist: [Incoherent waffling until you forget the question]

A lot of people don't seem to understand the difference between social programs vs socialism.

Despite the fact that the constitution does limit DC's regulatory powers to interstate commerce, politicians in DC regularly ignore this and regulate anyway. Most federal, economic regulation is unconstitutional by this alone

Anyone advocating for a business to be run democratically has never talked to a single coworker ever. Seriously, at the warehouse I worked my coworkers were demanding a walkout because there was a lot of work. What do you expect! I had lots of problems with the management there, but to leave major decisions in the hands of a bunch of stoners? Idiocy.

When my country was run by the social democrats, corruption reached an all time high

This channel is criminally underrated.

You explain these points very solidly. And the fact that you even could catch Second Thought omitting info in his own source is just the icing on the cake. It is disingenuous as best to call a system "free market" when not only you know that the powers that be can rig the race, but when you explicitly know they rig it im favor of the "racers" that are more profitable. Isn't this what is called oligarchy instead or am I mixing concepts up?

People will blame capitalism for things like oil extraction and corruption, and then completely ignore the fact that not a single socialist nation was ever environmentalist or free of corruption, unto the point some of the world's worst environmental disasters occurred in socialist Nations.

As a saying goes "you can be socialist in capitalist society but you can't be socialist in socialist society"

Because socialism can only work with a strong, powerful government and thus they make the government more and more powerful. The more powerful the government is, the more corrupt it can be, and if something can go wrong it will, that's why there are laws.

Socialism is just a big monopoly. Socially, politicaly and economically.

US is not a democracy, it is a republic. It is the same but different.

The concept of "socialism will fix cronyism" is one of the most laughable things I have ever heard. I'm from a former socialist country in Easter Europe, and the only reason my older brother got to go to a specific school (closer to where we lived) was because my father was able to get 5 bags of cement FROM the factory he worked in, to give to a friend who worked in the local school board. CRONYISM WAS THE BIGGEST PART OF SOCIALIST LIFE, AND ITS REMNANTS STILL EXIST TODAY. You cannot get anything done, in a timely manner if you don't know anyone.

To be fair on positions by lottery, he did mention that jury duty was done by lottery and I dont know about you but I think lottery for jury duty is much better than attempts by the government towards meritocracy because it seems impractically impossible

Did he really just say companies can be run without management, as a construction worker this would fail and was tried in China and failed he can't be that stupid

so the argument is when the government becomes the business owner suddenly corruption vanishes which eastern Europe takes issue with considering the rampant corruption they suffered.

Second Thought, they became full tankie a few months ago.

Any attempt at a violent revolution, depending on the size of the revolution and the scope of its objectives, without significant outside assistance, will simply crumble before a well coordinated counterinsurgency, resulting in all insurgents either arrested or killed, with an awful lot of casualties in between.

Trying to stop government corruption by making the government stronger is like trying to stop a man with a hammer from smashing all the plates in a store by giving him a bigger hammer.

"This corruption. It's terrible...that I'm not controlling it."

Socialists: politicians are corrupt? To solve it we need to give them more power.

"Fascism should more accurately be called Corporatism because it is the union of State and Corporate power." ~ Giovanni Gentile

Isn't it interesting how he equates the wealthy with capitalists?

Using the term "capitalist" to exclusively refer to wealthy business owners is like using "Christian" to exclusively refer to priests and ministers.

I mean WITH private property right I as the owner of say a farm could work towards helping those who need food even though I’m not making a “profit”hell I’d argue I am making a profit in a sense because I’m helping people & that feels good,people who may help me help others

They always teach in school that the economy was rife with corruption and monopolies durring the industrial revolution (the twenties and before), and that the economy was very deregulated at the time. Does that mean both systems allow monopolies or is that just a lie?

Second Thought dropped his old format of montages of stock footage over baseless claims and empty bromides?

Throughout human history, governments have only served four functions: 1) Transfer wealth and resources from the ruled to the rulers, either by direct force or implied threat of it 2) Give some of that tax plunder to supporters of the government to buy their continued support 3) Keep just enough of the population of the ruled compliant, functional, and productive enough to keep the racket going 4) Protect human resources from destruction or capture by the competition, while looking to do just that to them The only differences between every system of government humans have ever devised are in the fine details of how much force they use, what extent they go to in order to maintain productivity, and how their rulers get replaced. The "laws" governments put forth are merely an imposition of the will of the rulers. If rulers are of good character the law serves justice. If rulers are corrupt the law abets corruption. If the rulers are wicked the law serves evil. If the rulers are psychopaths, the law protects psychopaths from consequences and punishes anyone who protects themselves. Government is organized crime perfected, it always has been, and it always will be until humanity finally abolishes it. It produces nothing of value. It cannot give without taking. It cannot help without hurting. It cannot do good without doing evil in greater measure. And value is lost in every exchange.

I've been trying to not say capitalism anymore after i learned that capitalism was coined by Marx in das capital and just meins "jewish culture" and capitalist means "jewish person" and is the definition that hitler was using 😬

Been waiting for another Mentis video 👌 not disappointed

"It will work this time, trust me bro" What a socialist about to fail would say

Can you do a video explaining Neoliberalism?

Love it when he uses Cuba as a positive example

"Feeding the poor will never be as profitable as overproducing for the wealthy," which is why McDonalds is infinitely more profitable than the fanciest restaurants? Like, yeah, literal charity is never profitable, but catering to the wealthy is not necessarily the most viable business plan. Unless he's talking about how Americans are wealthy in global terms, but then he'd have to admit things that I don't think he wants to. Moreover, overproduction is necessary because if you underpredict need, you will underproduce, and then the most wealthy or privileged will snatch up what food there is. Overproducing is how you make sure the poor have food.

This is amazing You just converted me into a capitalist

"Big business loves regulation, and regulation is larger under more expansive government, therefore regulation as a general principle actually favors big business" this is a distortion, because big businesses love CERTAIN kinds of regulation that can be used to weaken competition, that doesn't mean business favor ALL regulation, so your point is speculative not evidenced, and there's no evidence suggesting certain kinds of regulation that aren't just put in place by political shills paying off campaign donations and promises from big businesses would be well received, in fact it seems obvious they wouldn't be.

Can you make a response to Slate Star Codex article „Meditations on Moloch“ (and/ or „the non-libertarian FAQ“) and the idea of multipolar traps?

I like the beat for beat debate. Really helps for those of us without a background in humanities and macro-economics.

I'm from Poland. I know my own history. Anyone who claim that socialism don't encourage corruption is clown to me.

basically, if government corruption is the problem. Why would you want to hand the corrupt people more power?

Its just trendy to hate capitalism

I miss the days were second thought was apolitical in his videos

So according to Second Thoughts if you have a problem with foxes attacking your chickens, the solution is using foxes to guard the hen house.

Should employees have a say in how the business is run? Not really. But an employer would be a fool to not listen to employees when they tell their bosses what would make their jobs easier. Also there's no excuse to not have a stool for cashiers to sit on. I have no idea what the boomer obsession is with making people stand for 8 hours in one spot.

When was the last you saw a skinny poor person in the US?

Such a well done video. Thank you for your work!

The fact that you only have a few more than 20k subscribers and Second Thought has more than 5 million is utterly outrageous.

How is it those socialists point out so called capitalism flaws that are more likely to happen in socialist/communist countries?

The idea that it would be a good idea to select members of a democratic body the same way we select people for jury duty is kind of hilarious. I mean, it's not like people are always trying to get out of jury duty by, say, pretending to be a massive racist. Because literally nobody likes jury duty.

Great video, What editor do you use for your videos? your twitter gives a clue, but id like to know.

Regulatory control is bad because it sets everyone up for the "prisoners delema" a game which in the long run everyone losses, if you dont cheat first then you lose.

Actually, it isn't right that Socialism is opposed to the free market. There is market socialism, there is left-wing libertarianism (which, in fact, is just another form of socialism). There is, after all, Anarchism, which treats both capitalists and the state badly. What is indeed an almost inseparable object of Socialist criticism is private ownership of the means of production.

The ironic (or, perhaps, unironic) thing is, those arms of the government in which have a bit less "red tape" and more freedom (as was suggested) often are much better at getting their jobs done correctly (see: the CSB).

Love your work. Very concise and informative. I do think we need some regulations though. To ensure honesty and transparency (to prevent the return of the snake-oil salesman) and regarding products targeted at children due to their undeveloped minds and subsequent inability to make informed decisions even when presented with all the information. Our current model has definitely gone off the rails with regulatory power, but I don't think getting rid of regulations entirely is the answer either.

Wow, the socialists reeeeee in this comment section is audible. 😂

blame politicians and people's gullibility or blame big business and consumer's gullibility...

Things vary along different societies. In America, socialism would never work due to the strong individualist culture that's developed. In Asia and Eastern Europe, a collectivist ideology can function way more properly than an individualistic capitalist system

You go over the "less government regulation = less corruption, less perverse incentives and less barrier to entry" solution quickly. Yet government intervention is crucial for: Proposing anti-trust laws and regulations, safety regulations, minimum wage, employee protection, etc. If governments don't intervene in these parts of businesses you could argue: "Employees will leave bad employers, so the market will regulate these businesses away automatically." Which is partially true, but only works if the employee has the option to safely find a different job to sustain themselves. When employees can barely sustain themselves and are exploited so far as that they don't even have the time or energy left to find better employment, where does the "self regulating market for employment" go? When the business is the only available job within reach and the mobility of the employee is not enough to travel elsewhere to find a better job, there is no choice for them to make. I can list many more scenarios, but I assume you get the point. A less regulated market does not automatically make a fairer and healthier market. You also conclude that the logical endpoint of SecondThought 's ideas would simply lead to corruption just the same, but only more weighted towards the government. Where they control al business. Which is unfair, as even in the snippets you show in this video he also mentions things like Co-ops, where employees become partial owners of the business, not the government. Also what you describe is Communism, which is a subtle difference from Socialism. At that point you lump all other alternatives to Capitalism under the same umbrella, like the more "trendy" De-Growth movement, or Cyclical economic and social models in contrast to the growth based economy like Capitalism. While SecondThought doesn't have a very robust way of counteracting corruption, neither did I get a very solid argument throughout your whole video for how you would counteract corruption. To not just bash others without attempting to provide my own solution: If you want a Government less influenced by businesses, you can start by limiting the ability to influence politicians with money. Severely limit, or remove the ability for companies to fund election campaigns and replace it with a fair budget out of the national treasury. This also opens up the path for new parties to get a foot in the door who have difficulty attracting large donations. And also limits how campaigns can be won by just having more money to spend to influence people. "But why should my tax dollars be wasted on this?" Because it's in the voters best intrest to have a fair playing field for all parties. When you are the one paying for their campaigns, it also gives them the incentive to fight for YOUR behave instead of some company. Completely banning lobbying is tough to pull off, so the better route to take is better transparency of lobbying. Require all lobby activities to be publicly disclosed. A green party quickly loses credibility if they're being heavily influenced by some oil company, for example. And it's a terrible look for a respected company to be ousted as backer for some populist or extremist party. It's only part of the problem, inner government corruption doesn't get tackled well by this, but it's at least a good point to start.

Yeah but those examples werent real socialism. Real socialism hAsNt bEeN tRiEd eItHeR

So basically, the reason of the crisis described in the start of the video, is that we currently live in a system where the distribution of resources is almost exclusively determined by profit-seeking, which is OBVIOUSLY not capitalism.

I’m not sure what a breadtuber is but this video explains regulatory capture really well, and also explains why monopolies are a product of government intervention really well, instead of a product of capitalism, as is commonly understood.

It always disturbs me how these people can look at lobbying, by definition antithetical to a free market, and use that to justify hating the free market. That's like hating water because fire is too hot.

names fossil fuel extraction as something terrible, then talks about things everyone needs... NEWS FLASH WE ALL NEED FOSSIL FUELS!

SecondThought: "Like any political concept though, things get complicated when you move from the page to the real world" Yeah... So, why does it seem impossible for you to apply that very same concept to Socialism?? It all sounds great on paper but, has never worked in practice...