Under some definitions (such as Lenin’s), yes, sort of.* But that’s not how the term had been historically used.
That’s not the “end goal” of communism; that is communism. (And it’s also socialism, in a Marxian sense; Marx and Engels used the two terms interchangeably.)
Hands up everyone in this thread who didn’t benefit from socialised schooling!
[QUOTE=psychonaut]
Under some definitions (such as Lenin’s), yes. But that’s not how the term had been historically used.
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Do you have a cite demonstrating that, historically some other definition of socialism contradicts what I wrote? I’ve checked multiple different places and all seem to go along with a variant on this theme from Britannica.com:
Honestly, what I think is more the reality is that today, the term ‘socialism’ has undergone a definition change in many people’s minds, and today what it means is basically something along the lines of public social programs on top of an underlying capitalist economic framework. But that is definitely NOT what it meant, historically. Though I’m willing to look at any cites to the contrary you might have. Same goes for Beren Erchamion.
Yet the folks who formulated the early ideology of Communism as a political system knew it wouldn’t all happen instantly…there would be stages of progression with an end goal of no states at all. At least that’s how I rather vaguely recall this from my political science classes 30 years ago.
That is looking at the word through rose-colored glasses. For health insurance, in the real world and not some libertarian eutopian fantasy world, the free market sucks big time. First, the alignment of interests between seller and buyer is horrible…Sick people are the ones who most want insurance and the insurance market only wants to insure healthy people. It’s analogous to what would be true if the only people who car dealers wanted to sell cars to were those who didn’t have licenses to drive. Free markets work pretty well for cars (with appropriate safety regulations, lemon laws, etc.), not for health insurance.
Second of all, there are huge inefficiencies associated with the bureaucracy of billing insurance companies (and insurance companies trying their best to avoid paying the bills). As a doctor in Canada explained to me a long time ago, in his practice of several doctors, they had one administrative person who spent part of her time on billing, among other things. He said an equivalent practice in the U.S. has several people who work full time on that.
I don’t know what you mean by “rail-friendly”, but AFAIK passenger rail systems are pretty much always expensive money sinks.
You then do not know in fact. In the dense population concentration in the Western Europe, the rail systems are economically sustainable. The French TGV for the main lines - there are the money losing lines that were built to the political purposes of serving the non dense areas, which was a dumb thing to do, but the original focus is quite economically sustainable.
of course just like the public roads maintained as an infrastructure cost, the maintaining of the rails is a separate analysis. But the operations of the passenger trains, in the right population density and distance can be economical, although if one is incompetent it can be done as a loss
No it is not utter nonsense if one does not feel like taking the nonsense of the communist theorizing and wishing for the magical no state unicorn seriously.
This statement is merely ideological assertion and not the actual economics. It is really one the mirror image of our communist’s assertion about the state withering away.
The market system is generally the most efficient means overall, when the proper conditions of a specific market such as the information transparency are in place.
A health care market may or may not depending on the structure be allocating well and “hard nosed efficiently” the resources available to it. It depend on the market structure, the information - of this the price but not only the price - efficiency and the transparency and the potential “market power” of the actors.
A simplistic assertion that for a given market the free market (it is assumed you speak of the naive idealized version popular among some circles) is automatically the best solution is not different than the Communists position, inverted.
the evidence of the economic track record for the American health system and the poor performance (from the worse general public health indicators and the under performance on the life span of the USA case) compared to the other developed countries and that the American system is taking up a very signifcantly larger portion of the GDP of the country is a clear indication that there is not the optimal allocation of the resources.
[QUOTE=Ramira]
the evidence of the economic track record for the American health system and the poor performance (from the worse general public health indicators and the under performance on the life span of the USA case) compared to the other developed countries and that the American system is taking up a very signifcantly larger portion of the GDP of the country is a clear indication that there is not the optimal allocation of the resources.
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Overall, I agree with your point, but this isn’t a good example. The US healthcare system isn’t a free market system. I’d say it’s more a legacy system, with aspects of single payer, public funded, and private aspects, all muddled together. You can’t point at it and say that because it’s so dysfunctional that proves that free market healthcare doesn’t work. Me, I point at it as a system which evolved over a long period of time and over that time it’s been tweaked and added onto by a changing population with changing expectations and is merely with us still due to inertia and the fact that, for the majority of citizens it does an adequate job.
I did not say a free market system in the health care does not work.Indeed I said nothing on that.
I simply noted that Shodan’s response in relationship to a naïve and idealized view of ‘free markets’ from more political ideological view than economic analysis was not a real economic response, but political ideological, an inversion of the Communists thinking.
There is of course no such thing as a pure system example. The French system of the Mutually owned [by the adherents or subscribers, like your Vanguard retirement funds] health insurances (les mutuelles) is an example of a more effective mixed system that still uses the aspects of the market while having a regulated mandate.
The poor performance of the American system in comparison with other developed country systems in the price and the health outcomes at the macro level is an indictment of the American structure which delivers in the aggregate mediocre results at a price much, much higher than any other wealthy country.
To say it does an “adequate job” when your aggregate indicators of the health are at the level of a high end middle income country and not a wealthy peer country, and you pay more per capita than any other country in the world, this is strange.
Since Americans in the majority seem to have only the weakest stereotyped ideas about the European health care for example on the basis of the bad stereotypes from the 1970s and progandistic exaggerations of past real problems, they are likely to be trapped in the America is Best propagandistic thinking without knowing how ineffective economically their system is.
It is your business in the end, but as a liberal economist – it means in your terms a free market economist – I do not like to see the naïve and the unlearned statements about the free markets that are coming from the purely ideological and not the economic analysis, as I think it discredits the free market approach by adopting a kind of Communist ideological thinking that is contrary to the free market economic pragmatism that is one of the best things that the Anglosaxon world brought to the world. I am a great fan of the Anglosaxon free market pragmatism.
The genuine free market analysis is the economic analysis and tries to understand if the necessary factors for the good operation of the free market are available – and if they are not can they be generated by a regulation or a rules making that excludes the ‘negative equilibrium’ and finally if not, then the government take-over of the function or the service or the operation as the last resort. Of course this is not the black and white question, but to adopt the inversion of the Communists (capitalism and markets always bad) is only to replicate their error without learning any thing. The remark of Shodan showed only an inverted Communist type ideological analysis.
Unless you know of a study, I think it’s safe to say that this is untrue. If you look at charts of when countries moved to UHC, there’s no change in their spending nor its trajectory. You can’t tell, by looking at the charts, where any changes were made. There’s only one case where you can note a trajectory change.
The US spends double what other countries pay, but it’s on a different trajectory than the rest of the world. We started to head off, as I recall, sometime in the 60s, just after the tax exemption for employer-based health care was enacted.
Based on the trajectory, there’s no reason to expect that the difference between us and the rest of the world will maintain a 2:1 ratio. In another 40 years, it could be 3:1.
Single-payer or even individual payer health care both have the advantage that they want to pay the least they can for the most cost-effective health plan. Employer-perk health care is reviewed by an HR department for whether the plan is more or less likely to entice desirable employees, compared to what competitors are offering. It’s a one-way road to hell that has nothing to do with socialism or non-socialism. It’s purely a matter of wonky market forces.
[QUOTE=Ramira]
To say it does an “adequate job” when your aggregate indicators of the health are at the level of a high end middle income country and not a wealthy peer country, and you pay more per capita than any other country in the world, this is strange.
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It’s not strange at all. I said for THE MAJORITY of citizens, and that it was ‘adequate’…and both of those are true. Health indicators come from the minority who don’t get the same level of care, by and large (and other factors such as the American diet which is pretty bad). Do we get the optimal outcome? No…we don’t. Cost to benefit, are we getting the best bang for the buck? Again, no. Does it cover everyone? No, it doesn’t. But for the majority of citizens who get healthcare through their work? Yes, it’s ‘adequate’…which is why there hasn’t been any large moves for major change.
This is horseshit. I probably know as much about the various European healthcare systems, and Canada as you do. You can play this ‘you are an ignorant American’ bit on someone else. Also, less straw next time, please…I never said anything about ‘America is best’ wrt healthcare.
If you want to have a straw free discussion about healthcare I’m all for it…or we can talk about the actual OP if you like. I can show you my sources for my take on the various European systems, we can discuss pros and cons and talk about the various short comings of the US system. We can even get into the historical reasons WHY our healthcare system is what it is.
Again, same thing. You seem to be leaping to conclusions and making all sorts of unfounded assumptions here.
Average indicators do not come from “a minority” that is a numerical illiteracy. Even the argument it is a minority of extremely bad outcomes that skews the results does not stand up against the the income normalised distributions.
??
Since I was not saying anything about you or your responses, I have no idea what your response is about.
I would not say that it is at all adequate. The number of medical bankruptcies would indicate that the care is less than adequate. The possibility that you’ll end up denied healthcare due to some decision by an insurance bureaucrat is not compatible with the term adequate, in my opinion.
Ramira is right. If you have good knowledge of non-US healthcare systems you are absolutely not in the majority, and I have no idea how you can think yourself representative of the majority on that. In fact, I think most people who talk to people outside the US about healthcare on message boards know more than the majority does.
Seems exceptionally accurate to me. Perhaps you could point out some of the things you disagree with?
[QUOTE=Ramira]
Average indicators do not come from “a minority” that is a numerical illiteracy. Even the argument it is a minority of extremely bad outcomes that skews the results does not stand up against the the income normalised distributions.
[/QUOTE]
I assumed you were talking about average life expectancy in the US is lower than in other industrialized nations. What are you talking about? Do you have a cite or can you go into detail on what you were referring too?
You seemed to be directing your responses to me. If not, my apologies.
[QUOTE=Grim Render]
I would not say that it is at all adequate. The number of medical bankruptcies would indicate that the care is less than adequate. The possibility that you’ll end up denied healthcare due to some decision by an insurance bureaucrat is not compatible with the term adequate, in my opinion.
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Let’s see the evidence then. Is the number of bankruptcies due to bad outcomes with our health care system affecting the majority of the users of our health care system? If so, then you have a case. If not, then I advise you to look up the words ‘majority’ and ‘adequate’. I really don’t know why I’m getting so much push back on this. The US health care system is neither the best in the world nor is it some non-functional death machine. For the majority of Americans who get it through their work, it’s…adequate. The real issues aren’t in the care given, but in the inefficiencies in the system, and the fact that for the minority of people who DON’T get it through their work it mainly fails them, providing only emergency services at best (until they are 65, and even then unless you go with more than Part A you aren’t getting very good care). We pay to much for what we are getting…but what we are getting, wrt the folks getting it is adequate…otherwise there would be a far greater push for change. Now, granted, even this seems to be shifting, and I’d say we have been on the cusp of a downgrade even for the majority of overall care…but it hasn’t happened yet, and arguably under Obamacare some of the areas where we had deficiencies have come up (marginally).
I never said I was representative of the majority…I said I wasn’t ignorant of health care systems in other countries. Ramira seemed to be implying I was, though the second section of the latest post makes me question that I was reading the original post correctly. I’ll await clarification on that.
I would agree that most Americans DON’T know a lot about heath care systems in other countries (most assume they are all ‘socialist’, whatever that means to them, not realizing that many have private as well as public aspects). There is also a ton of misinformation about our own system as well as systems in other countries. This is on BOTH sides of the political line, though I think there is more ignorance on the right and conservative/Republican side than the left and liberal/Democratic side. Just MHO though on that.
I don’t consider myself to, in general to make ‘naïve and the unlearned statements about the free markets’. Of course, YMMV and you might think the same. 
Thought I would link to this video asking why US costs are so high, since we seem to have moved to talking about health care. I did a thread a few years ago with links to a channel I follow that talks about health care, and they did a series comparing the US and other major nations health care. It’s worth watching if you want a good thumbnail overview of the various healthcare systems such as Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, England, France, Canada and, of course, the US.
XT, I think you were the only one that thought the phrase “Americans in the majority” referred to you personally:) From everything I know, Ramira was entirely correct…about the majority.
While I don’t know what Ramira was referring to, there are a number of public health indicators used for comparisons between nations. Infant mortality, years lived in good health, maternal mortality, years lost to ill health, amenable mortality… the US generally cluster in the lowest 25 % of the developed world on all of these.
The majority of bankruptcies do not need to be due to bad outcomes. Just due to medical bills. As for cites, here is the American Journal of Medicine and Health Affairs. And a follow-up.
About 10 in every 1000 people file for personal bankruptcy in the USA every year. Medical bills contribute in about 60 % of cases and can be said to be sole cause in more than 30 %, depending a bit on your definitions. Over a lifetime, it would seem very likely that a person or someone close to said person will be affected.
75 % of these people were insured. And this does not count people who struggle with medical bills but avoid bankruptcy. So yes, the insured are affected.
And frankly -if there is a realistic risk of personal bankruptcy due to medical bill built into a system- then that system cannot qualify as anywhere near adequate. This is probably why you are getting pushback, it seems rather fundamental to people who haven’t grown up with that. And the reason there isn’t much drive to change it is the lack of comparative knowledge of healthcare systems, and how poorly the US system stacks up.
The video is a broadly correct low-level popularization, although I believe he goes very light on the costs imposed by the excess bureaucracy generated by the US large number of actors and lack of standardization.
One of those do not belong with the others. You can realize vast savings if your entire population lives within range of one city. Look at the healthcare costs of Andorra, Lichtenstein, San Marino, etc. They are all in a completely different band from full-sized nations despite having very different systems.
Pol Pot wouldn’t be considered “left-wing” by modern internal USA standards. His base was rural and poor, his targets were educated urbanites, and he prized agrarianism (with guns!) over technology and education. He was supported by the Beijing government, yes, but this was after Nixon went to China. And he was run out of power by a client of the USSR.
Pol Pot, in the USA today, would logically count as a far* right *wing politician.
Stalin, though, Stalin was a state socialist.
That should not be confused with saying that the free market is more efficient in ensuring that everyone has resources allocated to them. Answer me the very simple question of what happens to people who fall off of health care’s perfectly competitive supply and demand graph?
The other common misconception (or delusion) by “free marketers” is that the “hard-nosed cost-benefit analysis” of Corporate America always produces the most favorable outcome to society without government intervention. A number of high profile incidents involving AIG, Archer Daniels Midland, Arthur Andersen, Bear Sterns, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, BP, Enron, Lehman Brothers, Tyco, United Airlines, Wells Fargo, WorldCom so on and so forth.
Corporate scandals aside, what do you think happens in a society driven by the “hard-nosed cost-benefit analysis that is preferred by people with their own money at stake” when a significant amount of wealth is concentrated within a small group of people?
I’m guessing roughly the same thing that happens when socialist governments run out of other people’s money and can no longer maintain their promises - people get hurt.
No one is arguing for a perfect system. Capitalism certainly has winners and loses, and it has to be that way. The trick in modern society is to figure out a way to provide enough of a social safety net to maintain a civil society and to help up those who fall the hardest, while not totally destroying the engine that provides the wealth and taxes in the first place.
You can always make this kind of argument if you are assuming that your opponents believe their solution is perfect. After all, I could say to use that it’s a delusion to think that government will always come up with the exact set of laws, subsidies and social programs such that there will never be abuse of the system, that no one will ever have their decisions changed negatively because of moral hazard, and that economic production will be optimized.
I doubt that you would ever make such an argument on behalf of government, and people who believe the free market works better than big government don’t believe the free market is perfect either. They just believe that on-balance, free markets are better at economic coordination and allocation than are central planners.
Yep. There are bad businesses in the world. Wow. Shall we start listing the failings of governments that have promised the people largess in exchange for power and a reduction in personal liberty? We can start with Venezuela.
When a business is corrupt, people lose money. When government is corrupt, people lose liberty, privacy, and maybe even their lives.
If I find I am dealing with a corrupt business, I have legal recourse, and I have the recourse of the marketplace - I can take my business elsewhere. If my government is corrupt, I have no options.
You get Amazon? SpaceX? Blue Origin? Venture Capitalists building the internet and the modern cell phone system? The Allen Telescope Array? A 2 billion dollar aging research lab? Carnegie Hall? The Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Center? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Tesla Motors? Apple? Facebook? Genentech? Celera? The Lunar X-Prize? The Bloomberg Public Health Initiative?
All of these businesses and philanthropic efforts were funded by billionaires and venture capitalists, and this just scratches the surface - stuff I could cite quickly off the top of my head.
A world in which people were not free to amass large amounts of capital is a world which would not be anything like what we have now. It would be a poorer, less advanced, duller world.
The top 50 philanthropists in the U.S. gave 11.7 billion dollars to charity in 2015, and collectively have given over 127 billion dollars in total. That’s not business investment, that’s direct charity. And that’s just 50 people. Many billionaires have taken up the Gates challenge and are donating their entire wealth to charity upon their death.
I think they’re doing a hell of a lot more for society with that money than governments would. SpaceX reinvented the rocket business, after 40 years of NASA spinning its wheels in LEO with white elephant rocket programs. Celera beat the Human Genome Project by three years with a fraction of the funding.
We desperately need individual innovators with capital to try out-of-the-box solutions. If you leave all big projects and solutions to governments, you’ll never have the kind of dynamic economy and technological growth that we get from millions of innovators exploring the idea space. And the only way you can get those innovators is to allow them to keep their money so they can invest it in their ideas and profit from them when they hit pay-dirt.
The ideological naive capitalism hero worship is very nice.
It is not very helpful to understand the eocnomics of and the market dynamics for the provision of the health care or the comparative systems advantage.
I am a conservative and favor a national healthcare plan. I think we are logically past the point where we can even argue otherwise. If a life can be held hostage legally it will be and this is what we have now. I would favor a specific tax to cover this graded on a scale based on earnings.
I would also favor more support for advanced education as long as the student did his part.