We have a capitalist/socialist form of government, so to speak. The social programs, enumerated by Bobert, are, or should be, to maintain the infrastructure, and provide government services. Fine. However, if everything were government run, and owned, where would the money come from to pay for all this? Taxes?..From who?...The government owned and run system, who gets their revenues from borrowing????..and the interest comes from where?..more borrowing??
Now if capitalism goes berserk, where 'anything for a buck' means screwing people around, such as we have seen, and the bankers and Wall Street crowd, make their money, from transferring funds, from here to there, and a profit is gleaned every time it passes through their hands, NOTHING is produced, and no wealth is generated. Just money passing around! To argue one side, over the other, to where things get out of balance, lends itself to the two extremes 'duking' it out, and begins a remedial cycle of one side trying to 'fix' the damage from the other side of the extreme.....and remember, every paycheck, written by the government, comes from BORROWED money..and as it is now, our collected tax money only pays the interest for that BORROWED money. Either way, the productivity, of a nation, is being squelched and the people hurt.....and by the way, WHO is arranging this borrowing and lending??.......................capitalists!....and that system is corrupted...affecting the whole.
...and Bobert, who has just released a CD, FOR MONEY, should get that money for his efforts.
He could always share all his revenues to be divided to all the other participants of Mudcat, who are down on their finances, or to Mudcat itself, for providing the 'infrastructure' to advertize his product....I mean if it was purely 'socialistic'.....but in practice, I think he would object...the same way people also object, and fear the notion that all their creativity, and productiveness should be forcibly taken from them, and re-distributed...with NO say as to who and why.
Nor would he be too happy to have all his 'profits' gleaned from him, by greedy 'middlemen', who would make more than he, as the artist who WORKED for years, with his talent to produce his music.
That, my dearly beloved, is just common sense...

GfS