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Because they're not rich enough to (1) afford ubiquitous personal car transportation, (2) isolate themselves from the effects of luxury beliefs like "we should prioritize the feelings and welfare of criminals over having orderly public places"
Right, rich enough to afford personal cars for most people, and luxury beliefs allying the guilty-feeling, effeminized elites and the underclasses.
This makes a lot of sense, but I know a number of residents of SF, Oakland and other places like that, who aren't in any way rich enough to avoid the effects of the luxury beliefs, and they still largely support the policies that led to them. I mean, they're certainly not happy about people pooping on the streets or open drug markets, not to mention unending car breakins and other criminality, but somehow they never make the conclusion the policies they support are responsible for it. They just think it's "wrong Socialism" and as soon as they figure out how to make "true Socialism, that has never been tried" - which is right around the corner, we only need to tweak a couple of things and spend a couple of billions more - and it all will be fixed.
I guess my question is where do these magical beliefs come from? They seem to be ubiquitous among Reddit users but also white collar progressives in general. I'd like to blame midwit tier intelligence, but I don't think that's it. In fact, I would guess that intelligence and socialist beliefs are positively correlated.
Why is socialist worldview so appealing, even when (or especially when) it fails time and time again? And why is the more practical worldview (that people respond to incentives) so looked down upon?
I'm not sure that it's the socialist worldview that is so appealing as much as the fact that the people looking at alternatives are demonized as evil Nazis. Go look at imgur nowadays and you'll see the hivemind in action. 100% of non-progressive ideas are presented as evil with "the cruelty is the point" NPC comments updooting each other. Lefty tweets are presented as indisputable facts. To people in that bubble, it must look like only the progressive left is even trying to be compassionate and solve the problem and that everyone who isn't on the progressive left just loves oppressing black and brown bodies for fun and profit. Because of that, I'm not even sure that the people you're describing would even call their own thinking a "socialist worldview." From their perspective in the bubble, it's just the reality of caring people trying their best to fight against the forces of evil. Consider the recent tweets trying to use the barter system to defend "socialism". To the extent they would label their worldview "socialism", it's not related to the political system debated for a century and is instead just a mishmash of the hivemind on the current thing. It's not easy to break out of that mindset when everyone you know agrees with it.
I'm curious about the "'retvrn to barter' as socialism" thing. My impression is that that sort of thing did actually happen in the Soviet Union between citizens.
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