Home Cultural Issues Other Cultural Issues Prager 5 Minute Videos Socialism Makes People Selfish | 5 Minute Video
Prager 5 Minute Videos

Socialism Makes People Selfish | 5 Minute Video

48
1
0



Which is better: socialism or capitalism? Does one make people kinder and more caring, while the other makes people greedy and more selfish? In this video, Dennis Prager explains the moral differences between socialism and capitalism, and why anyone who wants a kind and generous society must support one and oppose the other.
Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2ylo1Yt

Joining PragerU is free! Sign up now to get all our videos as soon as they’re released. http://prageru.com/signup

Download Pragerpedia on your iPhone or Android! Thousands of sources and facts at your fingertips.

iPhone: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsnbG
Android: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsS5e

Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter, exclusive early access to our videos, and an annual TownHall phone call with Dennis Prager! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys

Join PragerU’s text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru

Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful.

VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com

FOLLOW us!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru
Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/
PragerU is on Snapchat!

JOIN PragerFORCE!

For Students: http://l.prageru.com/29SgPaX
JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2c8vsff

Script:

In the contemporary world, it’s taken as a given that capitalism, with its free market and profit motive, is based on selfishness and produces selfishness. Socialism is based on selflessness and produces selflessness.

Well, the opposite is true.

Whatever its intentions, socialism produces far more selfish individuals and a far more selfish society than a free-market economy does. And once this widespread selfishness catches on, it is almost impossible to undo it.

Here’s an illustration: In 2010 the United States President, Barack Obama, addressed a large audience of college students. At one point in his speech, he announced that young people will now be able to remain on their parents’ health insurance plan until age 26. I don’t ever recall hearing a louder, more thunderous, or more sustained applause than I did then. Had the president announced that a cure for cancer had been discovered, it is highly doubtful that the applause would have been as loud or as long.

But what were they so happy about? To be told that you can now remain dependent on your parents until age 26 should strike a young person as demeaning, not liberating.

Throughout American history and, for that matter, all of Western history, the great goal of young people was to become a mature adult – beginning with being independent of Mom and Dad. Socialism and the welfare state destroy this aspiration.

In various European countries and now increasingly in the US, it is becoming common for young people to live with their parents well into their 30s and not infrequently beyond. And why not? In the welfare state, taking care of yourself is no longer a virtue.

Why? Because the government will take care of you.

Therefore: Socialism enables — and as a result produces — people whose preoccupations become more and more self-centered:

How many benefits will I receive from the government?
Will the government pay for my education?
Will the government pay for my health care?
What is the youngest age at which I can retire?
How much paid vacation time can I get?
How many days can I call in sick and still get paid?
How many weeks of paid paternity or maternity leave am I entitled to?

The list gets longer with every election of a liberal or progressive or left-wing party.

For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/socialism-makes-people-selfish

source

Click to rate this post!
[Total: 0 Average: 0]
Post Views: 1
Tags bernie sanderscapitalismcommunismdemocratic socialismdennis pragerhillary clintonJill SteinOccupyprager universityprageruSelfishsocialismsweden
Previous Post
1723734638_maxresdefault.jpg

Books of Ezra-Nehemiah Summary: A Complete Animated Overview

Next Post
1729796802_maxresdefault.jpg

Who’s More Compassionate: The Left or the Right? | 5 Minute Video

Related posts

Leave your comment

48 Comments

  1. In some extreme situations being able to remain on the parents plan longer can really help people who would be screwed otherwise. However, they wouldn't be screwed otherwise without the insane socialist policies the left has been implementing for decades.
    Their classic strategy, create crisis, and demand more power to save us from the crisis they intentionally made

  3. Such reversal of reality amounts to pure Corporate propaganda!.. Young people end up enslaved by student loans and work in cafes and rubbish jobs to survive even if they have superb qualifications. They are told that they are "over qualified' Really!!! What hope are they given with immigration supplies the greedy's with a cheap labour force so that they can increase their capital gains. A form of modern enslavement. Socialism is about caring for us all. Capitalism relies on wealthy lobbyists being granted favourable policies. Gun Lobbyists, cigarette companies, Pharaceutical conglomerates, mining rights that damage the ecology. There was a fairer system in place before our population has hsd its disposable income stretched to not having the ability to save for a home for instance, Propping up failed banks and businesses is all about a form of highway robbery. Global asset stripping is all about the enrichment to those that are not entitled. Propaganda does not work!! Rosie Dingwall New Zealand

  5. Can someone please explain to me how people would stop clapping for a cure for cancer? The only people who don't want that are the giant corporations (capitalists) benefitting from treating cancer until death and milking families of their entire family tree's wealth.

  13. Wait so 2:24 ur basically saying people should die because they cant afford healthcare to prove ur point about classical liberalism. and 2:30 ur basically saying paid holiday is bad, when every other country in the world has it. In my country if u work full time u are guaranteed 4 weeks paid leave a year, its good for mental health and work productivity. Jesus christ right wingers are f—ked up

  14. Under right wing capitalism the USA has a centralised authority restricting freedoms !
    The left is slightly less capitalist, but both are under Corporate Control ( $$$$$s )

    Individual freedom is an Illusion – We are all under ` marketing ` surveillance / propaganda !

    Media is funded & regulated by Greedy Corporates, often with links to the CIA / mafia : (
    Media supports wars for profit, limits action on climate change, blocks any investigation into Epsteins clients, etc,
    & controls by creating conflict, confusion & fear !

    Freedom ? ? LOL : )
    .

  15. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣as a communist this is one of the stupidest things i heard from any anti-communist if you know a little bit about socialism you wouldn't say such stupid shit this is ridicilous this is like the argument sOcIaLiSm iS wHeN gOvReMeNt dOeS sTuF how is it selfish to have right to free education and free health care when i work 8 hours a day how is that not a human right and also aren't you liberals always saying that it is authoritarian system where govrement is like everything and now you are saying that we are selfish because we want rights as a part of working class majority and also it's not only in socialist countries it's also in capitalist countries like Finland and also did you just called Obama socialist because if you really think that you are not serious as a Serbian you americans are dumb asf

  22. If you are right oriented neoliberal capitalist you always promote anti socialist agenda because you are afraid to loose your economic power over common people I mean workers and future workers. In Europe in capitalism states we have decades social solidarity heath sistem free for students up to 26 years free non payed education system for students, and meny free benifites wich you critisized in your video. Yes young people have opportunity to study and educate and live at home somethines till 26 or more. But it is notihing wrong with that. They have also opportunity to work and study till they finish college or university. But we in Europe have another problem. This problem has been imported from USA and is common in last decade. Real estate investment into to properties wich are empty as a sitting long term investment to higher prices of flats or condons and their valute on market or they are renting for turist renting instead to be availabe for normal rent prices to younger peoples who start to work and wish to living indenpendently. As always capitalism do not help anywone insted owner of capital. So if conutryes doesnt have a large real estate social state property fonds many young people in Europe can not afford renting a home so they are force to start and living at home longer they should.

  23. The title alone here is a lie and deceptive im a mechanic and a family man forced to work 60+ hrs a week to provide little more then the bare essentials for my family in this capitalist hellscape i my socialism isint a mark or selfishness or laziness but a desire to biuld a world were my children and parents3amd thenrest of humanity dont need to bust ass for crumbs anymore

  24. i was out of school working taking care of myself at 15. lived at home still but moved away few months at 16 but went back when i started college at 17. started business in college and had own house by early 20s.

  29. At no point in the entire history of socialism does Marx or Engels say that laziness is a good thing. At no point was the goal of it to basically bribe the lower class into making socialism real. The point of it is to get the wealth they created back. The rich corporations do not make new wealth by most any source but the workers who facilitate it. As such, excess wealth from the company that doesn’t go into the hands of the workers is considered stealing, because the CEOs and board members who run it do not do the work nor do they earn enough to make the ludicrous amounts of money they do. That’s why socialists argue that the workers should own the means of production. The government is viewed as a tool to redistribute that wealth and reassign the power to the workers. The government is not to be viewed as a god-like entity, nor are its politicians. Social welfare is a capitalist type of thing, though it aligns with certain socialist beliefs, that’s not the main goal here. The point is the self-determination of workers, because the workers tend to be the smarter ones when it comes to actually running a business well, and as such, should elect the managers, or decide collectively what is to be done with the company’s funds. This doesn’t apply to small businesses, but the big ones. Government welfare can exist, sure, but that’s never been the entire scope of the ideals of socialism, and what you commonly associate socialist welfare for is the welfare state of social democracy, a capitalist system at its core. To all those watching this video, just ignore Dennis, he’s failed miserably to even define socialism or even his own economic system, let alone describe what is and isn’t socialist.

  31. One link that connects Socialism with Narcissism is that due to it's blind, homogenic definition of equality, it fails to recognize that not all humans THINK alike. We all have different values, beliefs and ideals, and we all see things differently. Recognizing that requires empathy, and far too many socialist "advocates". Have demonstrated a fairly similar lack of empathy.

    Terms such as happiness, prosperity, comfort, freedom, modest and excessive are all highly subjective terms, meaning they mean different things to different people. One of the reasons Socialism always fails is not only does it fail to recognize this, but it forces a single homogenic definition onto everyone else regardless of personal beliefs. As we've seen everywhere from East Germany to Venezuela, many people don't take too kindly to being treated as such.

    This concept also sheds light on why Socialism appeals to narcissists. In simple terms, the idea of everyone getting everything for free and living happily ever after, as illogical as it sounds, is something they develop strong attachments to solely as a comfort to themselves.

  36. this video is very poorly researched & and is straight up disinformation.

    1st of all, capitalism doesn't mean markets, a market just means exchange based on supply and demand, capitalism is just the private ownership of the means of production's, market socialism can exist and non market capitalism can exist, its about ownership of the means of productions, not how they are given/sold/exchanged

    2nd of all, socialism means that the means of productions are owned socially, rather than by a private boss, market socialism would mean the employees would democratically control the workplace, rather than an unelected boss, in the framework of a market economy, in this video, you described "social democracy/social liberalism" an idea of a strong tax state in which the government pays for various robust programs and services, hoping to "give back" to the populous.

    3rd of all, you provided no sources for why social democracy makes people selfish, you are straight up theorizing, nor have you made any distinction between an entitlement and a right, If you have a source, i'd be happy to see it.

    sources: https://www.annenbergclassroom.org/glossary_term/social-democracy/ https://www.dictionary.com/browse/socialism

  42. I don't see the problem with free academic education. You can't face it, but German and engineers from most of Europe, and even from Israel(my country, in which by the way, academic education is quite affordable for most citizens) are better engineers than the Americans. I heard enough people from Silicon Valley that say that "there are to many CEOs and too few real engineers". Want to tell me I am wrong, first check Syllabus of electrical engineering degree from MIT ocw and any Syllabus of the average German university to start with. And if you say that you can just enter internship and get a job, check how many of those internship require you to be a student or to have degree. Capitalists just go with how the US outperforms Europe, but take Texas for example: the average salary after tax may be 70000 USD a year, but the median is just about 39000 USD(which is about 3000USD per month, which isn't a lot more than most of western Europe), relatively to the fact that most rental sites that I saw have prices starting from about 2000USD, it isn't considered by me a good salary.

  44. both systems allow greed to many extents socially. capitalism forces you to earn more by doing more and so reducing selfishness, but wars all the time on many basic living needs, and systematics slavery, complexity of wars. socialism allows direct negotiation benefits between all people and governments, and people do not fool in socialism as they know greed destroys socialists, At the end of the day we all must work for ourselves and others. so the basic welfare of socialists remains from top to bottom when capitalism is a part of sociality.

  46. It's in these times when we've had strikes going on for months because big companies refuse to pay their workers a fair wage that I wonder if these people actually believe anything they're saying or if they're just trying to get us to believe it so they can continue being selfish without consequence

  47. It's good that young people learn to more independent, stand on their own feet but instead of living away from parents, the young should take care of old. The elders have done their part now it's time for young to give back the care they received.

  48. The rich work to stop the inheritance tax to help their children live a pampered life = good. Everything for the oligarchs.

    Working people get to keep their children on their insurance until they are 26 = bad, you don't even get crumbs, working people.