Why I Turned on Socialism CLICK TO WATCH VIDEO : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggxxbz6ody0 By Jade Joddle Hey guys! This is a comfort zone video. It s me talking about a different kind of subject than I usually talk about on the channel. And it s just to stretch my own speaking skills to talk about a different kind of topic. And because it s not something I normally talk about, it s usually harder for me to speak about, and the perfectionist in by brain wants to stop and go back to the beginning. But, because it s a comfort zone video, and I m pushing my comfort zone, I m going to resist those feelings, like: Oh, I want to start again; it s not good enough. I don t claim to have all the answers, but in this video I m sharing my own opinions about socialism, and specifically I m talking about why I turned on socialism. So I used to think it was kind, it was good, it was helping people. I used to think like that about socialism. That the state, the government looks after, looks after, cares for poor people; makes sure that they ve got somewhere to live; and helps you if you haven t got a job and that kind of thing. I used to think that was kind. 1
And now I ve turned on it. Like I said, I don t claim to have all the answers, but I ll talk you through my thinking process. So, I grew up in England, a socialist country. Was I programmed to think this way? Was it a conclusion I reached myself, looking around at my life? I can t say. Looking around at the society, I had nothing else to compare it to. But I grew up in the understanding that socialism is kind. It s a caring ideology, because if someone is sick, if someone loses their job, you know, they re never gonna, things are never gonna to get that bad for them, because the state s going to be there. The state s going to be there to catch you if you fall that kind of thing. And personally, I grew up in a single parent family, so I think my outlook was definitely influenced by that thought of: Oh my God, if the state wasn t looking after us...if, you know, we didn t grow up on benefits, you know, how awful would it be? Would it be like Victorian times? Would we, would I be born in the workhouse, or would I, um... Would I have any shoes? That kind of thing, like: How bad would it be? So, yeah, my understanding about socialism for most of my life this is only a fairly recent change was that it s needed and it s good and it s kind. 2
And I think now it s funny to look at any ideology and assess it in terms of its kindness. Because I think they re all different systems, and I don t think morality comes into like these things, like how are we going to shape society, as I m going to get into now. So why and how have I turned on it, then? Especially because you could be watching this video and say, But you ve benefitted from it! And it comes down essentially to the one single point, which is: Are you actually helping people by creating this what can we call it? like, this safety net, that stops you ever falling down. Are we really, really, really helping people? Because...when you fall down in life, as I ve experienced myself, more than once, different times; when you fall down in life, you can, it can be a real learning experience for you. You can fall down, and you could say, Well, I m not doing that anymore. It s not actually great to be feeling like... You know when people talk about falling to rock bottom. They could be talking about financially, emotionally, blah blah blah. But falling to rock bottom can allow you to soar back up. Right? I went and experienced what it was like at the bottom: let s take an example. I m in Turkey at the moment, seeing people begging on the street, just like laying there on the floor with their hand out, or something. Maybe some people need to 3
experience laying on the floor with their...just laying on the floor with a bowl, you know, saying, I m hungry, or whatever, maybe they need to experience that for a while. So that after they say, Hmm, this is not actually that good for me. I m gonna try going around selling some tissues, instead. Right? Cause there are different ways that, in a destitute society, where people really are poor, there are different ways that people go about it. Some just lay on the floor, saying, I m helpless; I can t even lift my head. Give me, feel sorry for me, give me. And there are other people, perhaps also just as destitute, that go around saying, Do you want to buy these tissues? Do you want to by these tissues? Do you want to by these tissues? And don t misunderstand me: I m not saying I want, or approve of that level... I m not saying I want or justify or think it s good: that level of poverty, if it comes over to the UK. But there is something about allowing...allowing people to be hopeless and do nothing to fend for themselves or support themselves or their own children. There s something to be said about allowing them just to wallow in the not doing anything. There is something to be said for that. Because some people in the society will choose that: I m so helpless; I can t do anything; I m just...i m so poor! Some people would choose that. And other people will see what s 4
gonna: I haven t got any money, I haven t got any money, my money s gonna run out in two days time. I better go out and find some work, and I better do something. I better create some opportunity and do something. In a society where you don t have this big net sustaining people indefinitely, in a society where there isn t that: some people are gonna fall down, some people are gonna stay there; and some people are gonna fall down and say, It wasn t working for me, doing nothing, waiting for someone else to like pay for me or look after me or help me. It wasn t working for me. So I started to do something for myself. And what I m talking about now is: It s more about the person, and how a person feels about their life. Because, I think when you live life with your personal power in your hands, and you live your life like, I m gonna do that! I ve got willpower. All right, it s not easy; I don t see the exact way that I m going to get there. But I ve got willpower and determination. I m going to do it; I m gonna make it happen. That for me is a better life than just, like: Oh, I can t do anything, I haven t got a job. Oh, I haven t got a job, but oh well, because it s OK, the government pays 5
my rent. I looked for a job this week. I couldn t find a job this week. Oh, it s OK, the government pays my rent. And when you ve got the indefinite safety net there for people, even though it is changing in the UK, and benefits are getting less, and harder for people to claim benefits some term. There are still ways that people work the system. And anyone who thinks that they don t is either naïve or has never spent much time around people actually on benefits and living in those kind of communities. So when you... When you have been claiming benefits for a very, very long time, it becomes a lifestyle. And it becomes something hard or even impossible to get off of. And now I need to talk about the economics of the... Trying to talk about the economics of the situation. So let s take an expensive city like London. The rent is so expensive. Let s say you live in a council house or you live in a housing association house, and you had, you had children but your children have grown up or your children have gone to school a bit. Now...now you could start working. But the thing how the imbalanced system is, the way the imbalanced system is, means that even if you start working, and you do, you get a job. Maybe it s not a great job, maybe it s just an average job, or maybe it s a below average job that 6
doesn t pay a lot of money. You ll get a job and you ll go to work all week, potentially, and at the end of the week, you won t have that much more money than when you were just on benefits all the time. Because the benefits system props you up when you re not contributing. When you have a lot of kids, and you don t work, the benefit system props you up and gives you a house and makes it comfortable ish. All right? I m not saying really comfortable, but it makes it comfortable ish. You know how much money s coming in, you ve got enough for the bills, OK? And it can go on like that. But when it s time, when it s time for you to go to work, you will not have any more, you won t really have a lot more money in the low kinds of jobs. So the socialist system rewards people for having kids they can t afford. It rewards people to spread out having kids, so that they can avoid going to work, and that kind of thing. And over many years, it enables people to become totally unfit. Maybe they were in the first place, but it enables people to become totally unfit for work. Because they have anxieties about... They haven t really pushed their comfort zone, they ve just been in their house for many years; they haven t pushed their comfort zone. And now it s anxieties that take root of people. It enables people to have no training or skills whatsoever, because they ve not 7
been working for a long time. So I think that is a situation that we have in the UK now. We have the socialist system, which has enabled people for their whole lives and for many, many years, to be on benefits, under socialism. It s enabled them for their whole lives to not contribute...to not contribute, as in the sense of not looking after themselves through their life. It s enabled people to do that. And...is it actually helping them? And that s the point in my video. I don t believe you are helping someone, if you create for them this life where you never really need to put in that much effort outside of what you already have, you know, because the government s going to keep paying your rent. You don t really need anything more than you have now. Whereas I would say: The person who takes the opposite path, even though it is hard, and at least does some work, or works for themselves and looks after themselves, that kind of person always has the possibility to go home at the end of the day feeling like, I did something today; I achieved something. I feel better about myself. And you don t know about two years or five years form now. Maybe their job will be better; maybe they ll have more money. 8
Of course, the complication is: we are in the economic system which we do have, there aren t a lot of good jobs around for people at the bottom who don t have skills and qualifications. One of the reasons for that, I think, is because normal jobs actually, relatively speaking, have quite high minimum wages. And the people say, Oh no, no, no! But if they, without the minimum wage people couldn t afford to live. And that s true; that is true. But many jobs are just I don t know what the minimum wage is exactly in London, but I m just, let s just say it s around seven pounds. Many jobs that people do, or could do, they re just not actually worth seven pounds an hour. There could potentially be a job there for someone, but at seven pounds an hour, no, sorry, what you could possibly do is just not worth it. So in the socialist system, where the government is always like meddling, and trying to make it fair and things, it stops opportunities being created for jobs. Because, you know, a lot of people are not, are just not gonna be, their labor is just not going to be worth seven pounds an hour. And I say that, knowing how much people get paid in other countries around the world. I say that because I know how much people get paid in other countries around the world. Skilled people, unskilled people, they get paid a lot less. 9
Plus, people, um, plus working for myself, I know that it takes concerted effort to make even seven pounds an hour. It s actually quite hard to make money. Which people, in doing normal, regular jobs, in our expensive, Western economies, they don t, they don t realize that, because they take a job and they think, Oh, I get this much an hour, OK, good. Some get good wages. Many people don t; many people have no jobs. So socialism, in trying to correct things, I think, just makes more of a mess, you know. You try and help people: Oh, I ll make you comfortable, make you comfortable. Well, that stops people getting their act together and doing something for themselves and getting on with their lives. Socialism: Oh, we must help, we must help people. So you enable people to have more children than they can afford. You enable people to grow up just in poverty; you enable them the system to just perpetuate from generation to generation: another problem of socialism. And one other thing I wanted to talk about in terms of socialism: because people s work is too expensive now in Western economies, we get this crazy situation, which is like: We ll give you benefits, and we ll give you that, that roof over your head, but in exchange, you have to go and volunteer, volunteer, you 10
have to go and work for a private business to get experience. You have to go and actually do work for someone for free! You know, you don t, you don t get any money in your pocket. You re being paid in experience. Because, as I said, Western economies are too expensive, so there s no...that person s labour isn t actually worth seven pounds an hour. Or maybe, maybe in some sense, in some cases, it would be, but it s now being exploited. So, you know, why would an employer pay someone when, through the government, you can get someone to do that job for free. So you ve got the benefits, and your possibility is you can go and do some free work for some business and not get paid. I think people in many other countries in the world would just, you know, laugh at that idea. What? Going to work and not earning, not earning money? Like, what s that? What s that? You don t get that in countries where there isn t socialism. Work still has a relation to you...if you re gonna work for someone, work still has a relation between: I put in this much effort, I get this; or I work this many hours, I get this. That s what you get in countries where there is no socialism. But in our crazy countries where there is socialism, in the Western countries, we now get working for free. We get working for free, you know, for experience. But who knows how long that s gonna 11
take; is it indefinite working for free? Or is it a few years after you finish university? So, you get, it s sneaky, it s not even socialism then. You ve got people working for free. And as I said before, if you didn t have the minimum wage, if you could, you know, if businesses could pay people two pounds an hour, you know, pay you in turn two pounds an hour to do your emails or pay the person in the supermarket three pounds an hour to do the job, you know. I m not saying it s ideal, cause obviously, if you are right at the bottom, life s gonna be hard. But you still have the opportunity to put in more effort, get a different job and, importantly, work still has that relationship with putting money in your pocket at the end of the day. Um, as I said at the beginning of this video, I don t know all the answers, because if you take it, if you take socialism away, then it s like, Oh, what happens to all those people who ve been enabled not to support themselves? What happens if you take socialism away overnight? You probably can t take it away over night. And because there s all these like, ridiculous balances built into socialism, it s actually hard to see how it could be without it, you know. Oh wow! What would life actually be like if we didn t have to pay so much tax? And what would life actually be like if it were easier for people to start their own 12
businesses? Because you don t see a lot of that in Western economies either. Not like in the countries where they don t have socialism, you see entrepreneurs everywhere, more than on every street corner. People have still, you know, got that fire in their bellies to at least have a go in life, rather than say: Oh, just go home and look after me, look after me. Uh, it s a bit of a ramble, this video. But the main points are what I want to leave with: is just to question that belief that you have that socialism is good and kind. Because I think it s got many dark implications, and not necessarily happiness and sunshine and flowers for people living on it. You might not be living on it, you know. But it s easy to look down and think you re helping people if you re a socialist. You don t need it but, Oh, you know, I want to help them. Maybe you would be helping them more if you didn t support them indefinitely. So thank you for watching. And leave that we can have a little comment discussion about this. Do you think I m right? Do you think I m wrong? And I ll see you again soon. Bye! Check out my introvert speaking skills course CLICK HERE http://jadejoddle.com/introvert course/ 13