It’s unlikely — especially with the big-business administration currently running the country — that the United States will ever make a complete switch to socialism. However, socialism is the closest thing, realistically, to a Utopian society.

A working definition of socialism is “a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” Many people hate socialism because they think it’s the same thing as Communism, but it’s not.

A simple and funny explanation helps clear up the differences between communism, capitalism and socialism. Communism is where you have one cow and the government takes it and sells you some milk. Capitalism is where you have two cows and you sell one to buy a bull. Socialism is where there’s a cow farm that everyone goes to and you get as much milk as you need.

China, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, New Zealand and Belgium are all socialist countries. In these countries, unemployment and homeless rates are very low and college graduate rates are very high. America runs on capitalism and is in permanent debt to China. In America, small businesses struggle because you apparently must spend money to make money and competition with big business usually edges them out. But in places like Sweden, small businesses are the foundation of their economy and are extremely successful. Since everyone has what they need in socialist societies, class systems begin to fade. In this sense, It’s the opposite of Capitalism. Capitalism thins out the middle class, making everyone either rich or poor. Socialism increases the middle class, because no one company can monopolize all the money and resources. The biggest problem with socialism, that I’m aware of, is that it gives government more control, but is it necessarily a bad thing for a people to need it’s government?

People who hate taxes usually say it’s because they view taxation as stealing. Really, taxation is how the government pays for things we need, like hospitals, schools, police officers, firemen and the military. In Canada, teachers can make up to a hundred thousand dollars a year, once they hit tenure. Most teachers in America make thirty thousand dollars a year, and rarely make more than fifty thousand. The average police officer in America makes fifty-five thousand dollars a year, while they make seventy thousand in Canada.

In a socialist society, everyone can afford education and health care. In America, people who don’t know better tend to hate universal health coverage like Obamacare. That is, until they need it. Having to pay a little more every paycheck so that poor people can have health coverage might sound unfair, until you’re the one in need of an expensive surgery you’d have no way to pay for if it weren’t for taxes.

“It’s not fair that my hard-earned money allows lazy homeless people to remain jobless,” critics decry. “Why should I have to pay for other people’s medical problems and poor work ethics?” Newsflash, this system benefits you as well. You would get just as many advantages as everyone else.

Per the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights, everyone on the planet has a right to the things they need to survive, like food, a home or the ability to be seen by a doctor if they break their arm. If a little bit more of my paycheck has to go toward paying for a roof to go over a struggling families’ head, then I’m happy with that. Allowing for other people to have a home won’t take mine away from me. I would rather share my cow and get all the milk I need than watch my neighbors starve because they don’t have a cow at all.

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