First of all I know that there is social mobility. My grandparents and my parents were born poor, and now my grandparents are quite rich and my parents are well to do as well. I also know that this is a common theme, because I know a lot of people from upper middle class / lower upper class families and it is not at all uncommon that their parents were born poor and became wealthy. A grandparent of one of my friends ran away from an abusive home when he was a teenager, and worked his way up to being a multimillionaire, and a job provider! His grandchildren have been quite wealthy for their entire lives, and all of them have high paying jobs and received excellent educations. Going from living on the street as a run away from a poor abusive family to having millions of dollars sure seems like quite a lot of social mobility to me, so I really have not got a clue where you get the idea that there is no social mobility from? In a socialist world he would not have been rewarded for his work as much, because he would be forced to fund other people with his money. There is social mobility if you are a hard worker or if you are skilled / intelligent. If you are not willing to work hard or if you are not above average intelligence / skilled at some specialty, then there is not as much mobility. In a free market people are paid for their abilities, it is called a job market. Rewarding skilled people only makes sense, why should someone with rare and sought after abilities be paid the same amount as someone who hasn't got rare and sought after abilities? When the government forces this to happen it just takes motivation away from people who have skills that are in high demand and short supply. It is bad for society as a whole. I am well aware of socialism and communism, although they do have many different forms. Basically socialism is a watered down version of communism. Socialism is a collectivist leaning ideology that puts 'the good of society' over the good of the individual, hence the name socialism. Socialists believe in wealth redistribution, they think that healthcare should be paid for by society for society rather than by individuals for individuals. This is accomplished with high tax rates, which essentially boils down to by shoving guns in peoples faces (particularly rich people) , taking their money, and using it to fund social programs. Communism is the epitome of collectivism, it is socialism taken to its most extreme. In a communist society there is not even money, rather goods are distributed by a central agency 'from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs'. There are no longer owners of shoe factories hiring people to make shoes which are sold to consumers, rather the armed communist gangs raid the shoe factory and kill the owner, then they force people to make shoes which are then distributed through out the society. That is communism in a nut shell. It is impossible to have communism without initiating force because nobody in their right mind wants to be a slave to the collective, it is also impossible to have communism without a strong centralized government to manage the redistribution of wealth, which makes anarcho-communism a complete misnomer.