Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, during a Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Speaking to socialists, you get a sense of just how foggy society has gotten about what is considered right and wrong.

I had a “debate” with a socialist who was convinced that capitalism is the ultimate form of thievery as it takes labor from the workers in order to line the pockets of the rich. They essentially equate capitalist labor to slavery.

I don’t recall slaves being capable of negotiating compensation after choosing to work for a business. I don’t recall slaves having health benefits or even benefits that could extend to the family. In fact, if a slave had a child then there’s a strong chance that the child would be sold off for profit.

The labor market in America is far from slavery. Here, you can choose to work for a business or not. If the business decides you’re good enough to hire, the business and the worker can negotiate a level of compensation that works for you both. You can quit at any time, and what’s more, they can terminate your employment at any time. In certain situations, you may receive severance pay. In the meantime, the company may set you up with a health insurance plan that may extend to your family. After working there for a number of years, you may retire with the company providing retirement benefits.

Both you and the company are incentivized to do well and produce more. The more you produce together, the larger your business may grow, and the more your business may help you grow personally for your exemplary work. You may move up the ladder, achieving higher and higher positions, and one day, you may even run the company yourself.

An employer may be unfair to his employees, but it should be noted that the employee can quit at any time and go to a different business where he or she will be treated more fairly.

In a socialist system, much of this can’t happen.

In a socialist system, the business cannot negotiate with you as freely as they’d like. It has to adhere to the minimum wage regulations placed on it by the government. This limits its hiring capabilities and likely the hours that you can work. In a socialist system, the government provides healthcare but businesses must pay into the system thus limiting the amount of profit it makes. The business will have trouble growing if it grows at all. This means that there’s a strong possibility that you won’t grow either.

In a socialist system, the government controls many aspects of the business. With the government’s hands so deep into the business’s finances, it may begin to dictate some more of its policies, not just how little it can pay you. It may dip into hiring and firing practices as well, meaning that in order to fire an employee it must jump through a lot of red tape. The labor force may very well be unionized in a socialist system, making hiring and firing not a simple task. This can affect the performance of the business as bad employees can’t be let go in order to improve the business.

What’s more, in a socialist system, you may not be able to reap the benefits of producing more. A business’s production may be standardized in order to protect businesses that don’t have the capability of producing as much. Producing more may even get you penalized.

Another problem is that the government isn’t only taking a large portion of the business’s profits (in Venezuela, businesses face a 71 percent tax rate) it’s taking a large portion of your income as well. Even if you get a job, much of the money you make must still go to the government.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed raising the taxes on Americans, and not by a little:

Sanders would fund his radical proposals by raising taxes on you and everyone you know. Sanders has openly admitted that he wants to raise taxes on all Americans making more than $29,000 per year, and has bizarrely claimed that people would be “delighted to pay more in taxes.” The Sanders campaign has promised to repeal the Trump tax cuts, which would raise taxes on Americans in every state and Congressional district. Sanders has also pledged to “absolutely” raise the corporate rate from 21 to the Obama-era 35 percent, which would decimate economic growth and give the U.S. the highest corporate rate in the developed world.

Socialism is all about higher taxes, and it has to be in order to pay for all the “free” things it promises.

In other words, it’s going to take from you and your primary source of income in order to pay for things it’s promised to other people. You can’t make more if you want and your business is not likely to grow at a rate that would allow personal growth.

You’ll be paying more into the system than you’ll ever get out. Your “fair share,” the one you were looking for when you voted the system in, will be anything but fair to you.