My country's current president had the exact same idea: install socialism in Brazil slowly to get people used to it so they don't launch a counter-revolution.
We are currently a dictatorship of the judiciary and very much en route to become a Venezuela tier country.
People work nearly half a year just to pay taxes and I'm not even accounting for inflation.
The future already seems hopeless and bleak and he hasn't even fully won yet.
> If done carefully while rewarding entrepreneurial initiative and penalizing rent seeking
"Careful" is the understatement of the century. Many a socialist has tried, only to discover they are on the wrong end of the Laffer curve.
Nobody really enjoys being utterly crushed by taxes in order to pay for the welfare of people they couldn't care less about.
Taxes are tolerated because people believe they will indirectly benefit from it. Taxpayers expect taxes to be converted into useful infrastructure and services for everyone, themselves included.
Socialism in practice is actually just wealth redistribution: taking from productive people to give to the poor and unproductive. Quite literally. Very often they find a way to exclude you based on your means. If you're rich or even middle class, it's not for you.
> Socialism in practice is actually just wealth redistribution: taking from productive people to give to the poor and unproductive.
This is wrong. Poor people can be productive. If salary inequality is high, the workers earn bare minimum doing most of the job while managers get their bonuses. Landlords may capture significant share of their income despite being absolutely unproductive. In such cases socialist policies may simply minimize inverse redistribution (exploitation).
