Sometimes people say I must have my economic opinions because my family is rich
To set this straight: my family sometimes had trouble affording food. I couldn't afford college. As an adult I went hungry because I couldn't afford food. I worked on a factory floor for a year.
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I went into sex work when I was homeless, sleeping on a friend's couch, and desperate for money but I didn't want to go back to working at the factory.
I still had libertarian-leaning economic views even when I was scraping change off the ground to eat.
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I was like "I'm willing to do anything to survive." I remember applying to a job working in poop sewage because I was so determined. I think that my belief in the intense "libertarianish" ideals helped motivate me; if I'd been upset nobody was helping me it would have been worse.
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and to be clear libertarianism has its problems, but the general attitude - intense 'It's you. You have to do this. Nobody else is here for you. The pain is part of life' resulted in such intense blossoming and drive. It's a difficult but useful attitude to hold about the world.
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I'm afraid of the impact of the messaging that other people are responsible for your wellbeing. It seems like it has a bad effect on motivation and drive. It seems like it would redirect energy into anger at the people who aren't helping you, instead of helping yourself.
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How do you feel about the fact that the most successful societies on Earth by almost every metric have high taxation and strong welfare states? Or the fact that Japan, Taiwan, Korea and China developed so quickly due to land redistribution and economic planning?
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It's impossible to create a society compatible with all of its citizens, because people are too different.
Political ideologies never answer the question of what to do with those who are incompatible with the "one-size-fits-all" agenda.
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I’d get the same response when I’d say I supported social programs. You don’t need to come from wealth to support societal fairness and a social safety net.
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I was still a libertarian when I was eating out of a food pantry and getting started in sex work. But as I have gotten more financially secure, I have only gotten farther and farther left.
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