Socialism is the revenge of the incompetent. It is the vain hope that, "because I am incompetent to make it in the market, I can use political power to coerce from the productive an income for myself." The socialist then adds a fake veneer of altruism to that little plan by saying, "and we'll take care of The Poor," or The Environment, or whatever the self-aggrandizing ruse happens to be today. Our satisfied leftist then goes and gets a safe government job enforcing just that.
The viciousness arises from that same self-hatred, that there is no propitiation or redemption for being one's incompetent self, and thus the demand for inflicting punishment upon the rest of humanity requires endless repetition to relieve the pain. This is of course only possible when government has the power to accommodate such sub-conscious desires, with the political pean to the democratic whim. To build that power then only requires a plurality of incompetents. All that remains is to collect these lemmings into an appropriate collection of "interest groups," that can be manipulated into exercising the VERY profitable strategies of their sponsoring mentors.
Socialism is the revenge of the incompetent. It is the vain hope that, "because I am incompetent to make it in the market, I can use political power to coerce from the productive an income for myself."
That's more close to the Marxist version.
But socialism may also arise from the liberal guilt of precisely those who are competetent and do very well. This is the largest factor for many multi-millionairs to vote Democratic. There was a famous robber baron (I do not recall his name) in Russia who financed Lenin becasue he believed in his, extreme version of socialism.
This liberal guilt rather that the evny of the proletariat is what leads the present-day Europe to socialism as well. And even among the American middle class, one often hears, "We are so fortunate in this country..."
The socialist then adds a fake veneer of altruism... To disagree with socialists, you do not need to villify them. For many of them, this veneer was not fake.
...to that little plan by saying, "and we'll take care of The Poor," or The Environment One has to differentiate private and public goods. Unfortunately, it is not commonly known that markets have a sever limitation in that they cannot lead to the production of public goods, such as police, public roads, etc. Protection of environmebnt is one of them; it can be provided by the government, not markets.
or whatever the self-aggrandizing ruse happens to be today. Nothing self-agrondising about any of the ebove. There is an equity-efficienct dilemma that does not have a solution: whatever improves fairness and equality in society also removes incentives for production. The problem is where one draws a line between equity and efficiency. The markets take care of efficiency --- and only in production of private goods.