When Socialism Fails

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
People are rioting because they happen like what most here in the US would call “socialism”…[/quote]

Of course they like it. 30+ days paid vacations the first year they start working, early retirement, socialized aka “free” medical care, hefty government-provided pensions etc etc.

From what I’ve heard the “notorious” Greek students rioted because the government cut the age of eligibility for the free meal plans that they were eligible to be on until the age of 30 (lol) to 25 or smth along those lines.
They all feel entitled to all this, because it’s the government-provided benefit.

22

[quote]ReignIB wrote:

Of course they like it. 30+ days paid vacations the first year they start working, early retirement, socialized aka “free” medical care, hefty government-provided pensions…
They all feel entitled to all this, because it’s the government-provided benefit.[/quote]

Why is so wrong so feeling entitled to a good quality of life? It’s 2010, I’d like to think that we could figure out to run an efficient economy that allows people to live decent lives. There’s more important things in life than GDP growth.

“The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation days and paid holidays,” said John Schmitt, senior economist and co-author of the report. “Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn’t worked. It’s a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don’t get any paid vacation or paid holidays.”

The sum of the average paid vacation and paid holidays provided to U.S. workers in the private sector - 15 in total - would not meet even the minimum required by law in 19 other rich countries.

Is that really something we should be proud of?

23

…everyone is looking out for number 1, and yet somehow, because we’re workers, we’re supposed to like being the bitch to corporate business? Fuck that. I work to live; that’s it. I’m not a drone… [or at least, that’s what i like to think]…

24

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
John,

You have to understand, Europeans believe it’s the government’s job to provide. So yes, in their minds, the reduction of govt programs and entitlements is a step towards capitalism. But what Europe is realizing is that their system is unsustainable. You cannot have 1/3 (or more) of your country’s population working for the government, then having retirement and pensions kick in at the age of 50. Add this to socialized medicine and university education, and people wonder how they took the fast lane to bankruptcy. Now, you have people in Greece rioting, 20% unemployment in Spain (not to mention the contribution of the “green jobs” bullshit which cost them 2 jobs for every “green job” created.)

If Americans want to know why people move so slow in Europe, why the customer service is fucking horseshit in Europe, it’s because there is no reason to work hard. What’s the point of working for a raise, when you’re taxed at maybe 60% (or more) depending the country?

[/quote]

I can only say that you’re right. Currently there’s a big strike in my country (Slovenia). Public workers want a fuckin raise!!! While everybody in the private sector is cutting money and people are losing their jobs, they (people working for the government) are acting like there’s no actual crisis. And of course their strike hinders our economy (everyday losses of millions of euros), so I’m just waiting when will they come to their senses and when will the government cut their numbers (there are far too many public workers here).

25

[quote]molnes wrote:

[quote]John S. wrote:
So you guys believe that people rioting over the government cutting benefits is capitalism, that actually explains alot.[/quote]
They have to cut because of the financial crisis which everyone knows occured due to the deregulation of the financial markets.[/quote]

You should know by now that “what everyone knows” is almost always wrong.

26

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…everyone is looking out for number 1, and yet somehow, because we’re workers, we’re supposed to like being the bitch to corporate business? Fuck that. I work to live; that’s it. I’m not a drone… [or at least, that’s what i like to think]…[/quote]

You are a bitch to corporate business?

May I ask who takes away more than half of your money whether you want to or not?

And who provides food, clothes and shelter in abundance?

Whose bitch are you Ephrem?

27

Good one, but still not true.

Take any big european politician.
Look at his jobs.

And now I ask you:
What is he, first and foremost, a politician, or a lobbyist?

28

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Good one, but still not true.

Take any big european politician.
Look at his jobs.

And now I ask you:
What is he, first and foremost, a politician, or a lobbyist?[/quote]

…i always say, “If you want to know in whose pockets the politician was during his carriere, just look where he gets his money from after he retires.” So many dutch politicians end up on multinationals boards of comissionars; a ton of money for a few days work a year…

29

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…everyone is looking out for number 1, and yet somehow, because we’re workers, we’re supposed to like being the bitch to corporate business? Fuck that. I work to live; that’s it. I’m not a drone… [or at least, that’s what i like to think]…[/quote]

You are a bitch to corporate business?

May I ask who takes away more than half of your money whether you want to or not?

And who provides food, clothes and shelter in abundance?

Whose bitch are you Ephrem?

[/quote]

…you have a stick up your ass about taxes. I don’t.

I’m glad i have job security instead of “right to work”. You probably don’t.

I provide food, clothes and shelter by working for every euro i earn. “Subsidizing” my income didn’t pan out like i hoped. Do you still “subsidize” your income?

I’m a bitch to my employer and the state, but that doesn’t mean i go around defending my overlords. Do you?

30

[quote]John S. wrote:
Really, these country’s where laissez-faire capitalistic country’s.

If you think Europe had capitalism that proves just how little you know about capitalism. They where much closer to socialism then capitalism.[/quote]

In some respects it is almost amusing how many nations are labeled “capitalist” when in reality laissez-faire capitalism is nowhere close to existing in any nation. Just as importantly, what exists in these nations is indeed forms of socialism in varying degrees. However, these nations are probably even better described, to some extent, as neomercantilist or corporatist.

31

[quote]molnes wrote:

They have to cut because of the financial crisis which everyone knows occurred due to the deregulation of the financial markets.[/quote]

It is quite amazing how often the above canard is repeated. Television is perhaps the worst place to obtain ones information.

32

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
…
Why is so wrong so feeling entitled to a good quality of life? It’s 2010, I’d like to think that we could figure out to run an efficient economy that allows people to live decent lives. There’s more important things in life than GDP growth.
…
[/quote]

Because when you are entitled it means that you don’t have to work for it.

Now…How does these entitlemnt shit really works??? Easy.
The gov’t taxes the shit out of companies and indivials that work, plus it borrows a lot from banks and other goverments to pay for the un-earned entitlements.

This creates 2 things:
(1) The only companies that can survive in such a high-tax, high-regulation enviroment are BIG companies that have Economies of Scale on their side, and have political connections (to secure monopolies and high tariffs for foreing competition).
(2) High cost of living, hard to find jobs for the common mans with an entitlement complex… which leads to protests.

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:

“The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation days and paid holidays,” said John Schmitt, senior economist and co-author of the report. “Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn’t worked. It’s a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don’t get any paid vacation or paid holidays.”
[/quote]

But here is the other side of the story… It is becuase the US does NOT guarantee such entitlements that allow it economy to be most advanced :wink:

You can’t have a high GDP and high taxes/high regulation. In other words… you can’t have it both ways.

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
The sum of the average paid vacation and paid holidays provided to U.S. workers in the private sector - 15 in total - would not meet even the minimum required by law in 19 other rich countries.
[/quote]

In Europe, Kings and Parliamentary Gov’ts have led its citizens to believe that the gov’t is a godly structure that has the power to provide or take everything, depending on who runs it. The US is the opposite.

So in the 1960’s those entitlements were enacted by parties looking to secure POPULAR votes. And those parties told people that they will make a more “efficient” gov’t, and therefore they wil provide the entitlements.

Moreover, those European countries are parliamentary democracies, where the Legislative and the Executive belong to the same party at any one time. So opposition can do shit. The opposition can only gain relevance once the existing party has fucked up the country’s economy so bad that people are fed up.
—>which is why there has been a surge of right wing gov’ts in Europe lately (and Zapatero’s days are counted)

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
Is that really something we should be proud of?
[/qoute]

Hell Yeah.

33

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:

[quote]ReignIB wrote:

Of course they like it. 30+ days paid vacations the first year they start working, early retirement, socialized aka “free” medical care, hefty government-provided pensions…
They all feel entitled to all this, because it’s the government-provided benefit.[/quote]

Why is so wrong so feeling entitled to a good quality of life? …[/quote]

I’m not saying it’s wrong, it’s just not sustainable apparently.
Somebody is paying for it through taxation or other means of “wealth redistribution”.

That said - I pretty much guarantee you that a welfare recipient in Europe or North America enjoys a higher quality of life than a hard working peasant or a factory worker in most 3rd world countries.

34

you and your starting stupid fucking threads, this isnt a question of socialism failing
its incompetent governments running countries into the ground just like whats happening in the states except despite being in waaaayyy worse shape than europe (debt wise) the US is actually managing to stay afloat for now

35

I’ll accept that people can be against entitlements, but you should recognize that it is an idealogical thing rather than a “our system works so well and theirs sucks” thing. The United States has doubled it’s debt in the past decade and is on a clearly unsustainble path economy-wise, all while not providing free health care and other European style entitlements.

I’m not saying entitlements lead to prosperity in all cases; I recognize entitlements can be expensive and can lead to problems if done in excess, but the same could be said about our military programs. Many people in the United States have been convinced that economic growth is the holy grail and that social programs are the devil, when the reality is that we need balance between the two. It’s wrong to point to either one as the sole source of economic problems.

[quote]Neospartan wrote:

The only companies that can survive in such a high-tax, high-regulation enviroment are BIG companies that have Economies of Scale on their side, and have political connections (to secure monopolies and high tariffs for foreing competition)…

You can’t have a high GDP and high taxes/high regulation. In other words… you can’t have it both ways.
[/quote]

You’re wrong on that one. If you look at the our country’s history, the exact opposite is actually the case. In this so called “high-tax, high-regulation environment” we had incredible success. Business in general was wildly successful in that environment, but it was many smaller businesses rather than the “BIG companies” that we have today.

The period from the late 1940’s till the early 1970’s is actually refered to as “golden age of capitalim” it was so successful. This “golden age” included top tax rates of 91% though the 1950’s and then it stayed at around 70% after 1965 till Reagan. Regulation also played a big role in this “golden age” because it prevented the concentration of capital like we are seeing today. The “BIG companies” came after the “high-tax, high-regulation environment,” not the other way around.

36

[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
The period from the late 1940’s till the early 1970’s is actually refered to as “golden age of capitalim” it was so successful. This “golden age” included top tax rates of 91% though the 1950’s and then it stayed at around 70% after 1965 till Reagan. Regulation also played a big role in this “golden age” because it prevented the concentration of capital like we are seeing today. The “BIG companies” came after the “high-tax, high-regulation environment,” not the other way around.[/quote]
Yet most people here would probably claim that the problem today is too much regulation and taxes. If deregulation and less taxes doesn’t work, the answer of the right is even less taxes (especially for the really rich people) and even less regulation. That works out great for the top 1%, but really bad for everyone else.

37

Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).

We will have National Socialism in this country, where everyone lives for the nation (hence the name). Our only hope is that it will incorporate Christianity, much as Muslims incorporate Islam into their countries. Otherwise we will get Soviet Socialism, which is way worse.

38

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Socialism has to always evolve into National Socialism…or Soviet Socialism (as in USSR).
[/quote]
Wrong. If you look at countries like Sweden, Finland or Norway (granted Norway has a lot of oil, so we are kinda “cheating”) they are nothing close to “National Socialism” or “Soviet Socialism”, which by the way has nothing to do with true socialism.

These countries are just states with solid economies, good entitlement programs, high life expectancy, the best social mobility in the world (a lot better than the US, which has poor social mobility) and generally they perform well on just about any statistic in terms of living standard. These countries are also the most secular countries in the world. In Sweden and Norway about 70-80% of the population are agnostics or atheists.

39

[quote]molnes wrote:
These countries are also the most secular countries in the world. In Sweden and Norway about 70-80% of the population are agnostics or atheists. [/quote]

Rand is spinning in her grave. Just thinking about a recent thread.

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