But what about the tens of millions who died in the name of capitalism. In India under the domination of the British East India Company, in the Congo under the despotic rule of a Belgian king, in South America in order to allow the United Fruit Company to continue to exploit the locals.
You cannot criticize one without considering the other, because when it comes down to it a tremendous number of people have suffered and died so that the few in power can continue in power.
And please remember, if you are afraid of socialism, if you cannot stand communism it has nothing to do with Stalin or Mao or any of those people. It comes from century old propaganda put forth by the ruling classes who were going out of their minds with fear that the hoi polloi would haul out the guillotines and take a little off the top. And I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be manipulated by long dead despots.
Sure I can. Socialism is the world champ at corruption and death, killing more in the 20th century than anything else. It has turned into murderous dictatorships every time it has been tried. I think the Nazis get second place.
Capitalism doesn’t always fail. It’s a terrible system. It’s just that it is thousands of times less terrible than anything else.
My #1 priority in voting is to maximize individual freedom, and keep government to the necessary evil minimum that I can. I want it to have less control. Less power. I don’t want it in charge of my health or anything else.
Personally, I think we are being incredibly shortsighted at the societal level in our greedy grasping after “free stuff”. We all pay for it by giving up freedom and through higher taxes. We give more control to the governmental machine which history has shown us over and over again, serves itself. These things always end Up going bad if you give them too much power.
Plus, I think we are making great strides medically. Feeding everybody in this country was a big deal 100 years ago. Now we suffer by being too fat. We basically figured out food and turned it into such a cheap commodity that even the poor can eat like kings only dreamed of.
We are figuring out healthcare, too.
It actually comes from Marx and Engel. Regardless of the motives of any of the Czar, it turned out he was right.
It’s pretty simple. In measuring bad ideas, I just look at the death toll for the 20th century.
Socialism communism is the #1 worst idea ever.
I figure that anybody who is so vacuously ignorant of history as to identify with socialism or thinks that a “socialist” flavored anything is a good idea has done me a favor, in much the same way that anybody who identifies as a nazi or offers a “fascist” flavored something has done me a favor. They are straight up telling me that they are the enemy.
When do you suspect the governments of the UK, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are going to start mass murdering their citizens? Ballpark? 5 years? 20?
For some reason, they don’t seem to count, even though those models are explicitly the ones that American socialists like Bernie and AOC advocate emulating.
I’ll just repeat – it shouldn’t be scary to want to emulate Canada. Emulating Canada does not lead to Venezuela.
Can you point to specific programs or policies, especially economic policies that indicate that Finland is socialist? Not social programs, but actual socialist policies? Because it looks like Finland is a capitalist country with a market economy that happens to have a lot of social programs…and that doesn’t make it socialist.
To me, this is the crux of the problem. While patting themselves on the back about stupid Americans who hate socialist because reasons, most progressives (hell, most people) don’t actually understand what socialist is…and what it isn’t. Or even who is or who isn’t a socialist country. The Nordic countries are not socialist, yet are used often to tout how great socialist is. Countries that are actually socialist, by and large, are almost never used as examples of what countries should aspire too…even when they are (in very rare instances) fairly successful (China springs to mind).
Socialism is a failed experiment from both an economic and political perspective. It sucks, in short. Social PROGRAMS, however, have been very successful and are used by pretty much every successful country on the planted (granted, by many failed countries too). Ironically, successful socialist countries (like China) often don’t always have great social programs. I’m all for (some) social programs and think that, in the US we could do more, but I definitely do NOT want a socialist political or economic system…and basically neither do most countries at this point. Including the Nordic countries held up as socialist.
So you’re comparing the worst examples of socialism with a vaguely apologetic version of capitalism. Got it.
Pre-Obamacare, an average of 40,000 Americans died each year for lack of access to affordable healthcare. They didn’t need a capitalist government to kill them; they just died on their own - but their death count goes on the tab for capitalism. And beyond that, millions have suffered deep financial hardships due to medical costs - can we also count the lives shortened by that? How many lives has “socialism” saved in countries with UHC?
This idea that less government means more “individual freedom” is a fantasy. All it usually means is that people become victims and thralls to other forces - capitalist forces - and unlike the government they have no say in it. Being worked to death for pittance wages in poor health and safety conditions is not freedom. Being made literal wage slaves indebted to the “company store” is not freedom. Being beaten up and/or killed for daring to try and form a union to push back against those practices is not freedom. Freedom to starve, suffer and die at the hands of the powerful is not freedom. These are things that unfettered capitalism brought us, and that government has (eventually) saved us from.
This just shows that this is about semantics. Do you have any doubt that a hypothetical “Social Democratic Party” in the US, with significant support, would be tarred and associated with Venezuela by the Republicans, even if they’re adovcating policies similar to Finland?
That’s what this is about, IMO. Policies like Finland and Canada would be quite popular in the US, and the Republican Party leadership is so terrified of such policies that they’re willing to slander and lie and associate these policies with failed klepto-states like Venezuela. And they’ve convinced lots of rank-and-file Republicans that this is “real talk” and fighting evil, when in fact it’s dishonest bullshit.
So what makes America inferior to the UK, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland? Why can they successfully do things that are impossible for us? Why do you think America is so much less capable than these other countries? Can you explain your disdain for your country?
Person 2: “Norway is socialist and they’re doing great.”
Person 1: “They’re not socialist! They’re capitalist countries with strong welfare policies.”
Person 2: “Then let’s adopt those policies.”
Person 1: “NO, THAT’S SOCIALISM!”
It’s funny how UHC, for example, is merely a “social program” until someone suggests America implement it, at which point it becomes a sign of EVIL SOCIALISM that will lead to the US becoming Venezuela - even though most countries with UHC are ticking along just fine. And it’s this cognitive dissonance among the right that is what’s making this conversation impossible - social programs are opposed on the grounds that they represent socialism, but simultaneously they don’t represent socialism because they have been shown to work in other countries.
XT has given a good answer to Airbeck’s question on many occasions: your political system, which values gridlock, makes it very difficult to implement major new government initiatives. Parliamentary systems are generally more efficient at implementing new programmes, because they have clear electoral mandates, rather than the divided authority which is the hallmark of the US system.
That’s the point, they don’t want to have this conversation, so they shut it down with this Venezuela and Communism talk. It’s not about having a debate, it’s about driving the debate over the cliff so we can’t even discuss it. I think they know how popular these things can be, so they feel the only choice is to abort the discussion before it gets off the ground.
If so they only followed part of the story, relying on the relative windfall wealth of income from oil for consumption rather than real investment (unlike social democratic Norway, which locked away its oil income into a “sovereign wealth fund” rather than simply letting it subsidise general running costs).
Venezuela’s current plight has less to do with socialism than with the election of a strongman demagogue who used his power to divert public funds to his supporters despite the extreme negative impact to the economy, undermined the rule of law to repress his opponents, their supporters and the free press, and subverted the electoral system. Hmm…that approach sounds vaguely familiar…
This reminds me a lot of a strawman argument, seeing as how I’ve never said most of this. Not sure why you used my post to demonstrate issues I haven’t brought up while ignoring the actual gist of the post but…oh, well, I guess I DO know, because attacking a strawman is so much easier. Carry on. Though, note the irony…
With any program that gives you free stuff, the beneficiary will love it. That says nothing about its overall desirability.
The problems with healthcare in the United States are due to the socialist aspects of it: overregulation, limitation of supply, drug laws, no price transparency because of third party payments, and the fact that the poor and the elderly already have socialized medicine.
The insurance model is terrible for most healthcare items like contraception or routine doctor visits. Those things that we all need cannot be insured against anymore than buying food insurance would be a good idea such that when I go to the grocery store, I pay a co-pay, but only get the foods that an insurance company nutritionist believes is appropriate.
These other first world countries are also able to afford more social programs because they enjoy living in a relatively peaceful world because the US carries the weight of having such a large military. When North Korea tests a new nuke, does Norway or Finland do anything? Nope, United States. When things flare up in the Middle East, is Canada front and center? Nope, the US.
Also, innovations in prescription drugs and other procedures only come to fruition because these companies can recoup their R&D costs through the “private” healthcare market in the United States.
When 85+% of people in the US are happy with the current system, and there is a safety net for the poor and elderly, why scrap the system for something in the hopes of improving it?
Depends. I’ve seen some stuff that Bernie wants to do that is more like the old 70’s era western European socialism than the current model. I think that it’s not just Republicans or conservatives who have a hard time understanding what socialism is or isn’t, or who is or isn’t a socialist country. Sure, it’s about semantics…and about lack of understanding of what, precisely, people are advocating. If they ARE advocating socialism (either economic or political) than that certainly means something. If they are advocating the Nordic model then, you know, they should say that, because the Nordic model is NOT socialism. If they are advocating the Canadian system, same thing…advocate for that, or for aspects of it that are desired, don’t try and lump it in with socialism since, again, Canada isn’t a socialist country. There are arguments against the Nordic model or other models when looked at with respect to a country the size of the US, but they are certainly different arguments (that can and have been debated well wrt the good parts of those models btw) than those used against actual socialism.
Well, of course you did not say it, and what is clear is that **Gyrate **did not say that you made that straw man argument.
What is clear to me that the point that **Gyrate **made really did hit the nail in the head, most of the conservatives have demonstrated that their intention is to never consider that a lot of what the American people are getting is a very ugly deal in issues like health care.
