this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2026
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The issue isn't that I don't like socialism as most proponents describe it. I also like Hogwarts as the books describe it. The issue is I still think trying to build Hogwarts is dumb. Just like trying to implementing socialism the way people described it to me. It just clearly wouldn't work, because people don't magically stop being selifsh and greedy for money and power when you change economic systems.
I've said this a few times before, but it's wrong to think that most people are greedy/selfish. The capitalist class and the political figures they buy are extreme outliers. We over-index on them due to a mix of negativity bias and the fact that they say everyone is greedy to justify their own positions of power.
Just think about it: Humans are an inherently cooperative species. We developed language so that we could work more effectively in groups and slowly built up complex social relationships that lead to us becoming wildly successful. The fact that some psychopaths learned to take advantage of our group dynamics shouldn't damn everyone they are exploiting.
This isn't even about being selfless/altruistic: The vast majority of us just straight up do better when we support each other. Even if the other person doesn't directly reciprocate, living in a society where it is the norm to help others comes around to help you at some point.
But beyond that, there just isn't a lot of value in essentializing people like that. Very little about modern society is natural. We aren't born knowing how to do math or drive cars, but we have the capacity to learn those things. We've grown through social evolution, not biological. That's why a critical part of building socialism is raising class consciousness. We aren't just changing the structure of society, we're changing the people to be able to create that new structure. Just as serfs learned that they need not be subservient to their lords before they were able to self govern, we must teach people that they have the power and the right to turn over the current hierarchy and create something better.
You are right - one has to look at ALL of human history. Most of it was in cooperation. Give, take, share and everyone has plenty. Feudalism and after that capitalism have shrunk our peer group further and further and told us selfishness is the core of the human psychology - it is not and we will overcome this.