Why on Earth would I want decisions made by “capital or those engaging in commerce”?
Why on Earth would I prioritize the interests of venture capital over employees?
What is Sam on about?
Yes, statist mythologies birthed out of postwar propaganda will continue to be believed. It’s a quasi-religious recitation of sacred narratives. Nevertheless, I will squash the myth for those with less…faith.
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/look-behind-marshall-plan-mythology
“Even in these circumstances, however, there is no convincing evidence that the Marshall Plan caused Europe’s growth. For instance, U.S. assistance never exceeded 5% of the GDP of the recipient nations. As Cowen points out, “The assistance totals were minuscule compared to the growth that occurred in the 1950s.”
Moreover, receipt of aid did not track with economic recovery. France, Germany and Italy began to grow before the onset of the Marshall Plan, while Austria and Greece expanded slowly until near the program’s end. Great Britain, the largest aid recipient, performed most poorly.”
As for modern attempts at aid, let’s look at some numbers.
1
Egypt
5,505,650
2
Afghanistan
5,265,950
3
Vietnam
4,084,770
4
Myanmar
3,934,810
5
Ethiopia
3,826,250
6
Syria
3,626,750
7
Tanzania
3,430,280
8
Kenya
3,236,280
9
Turkey
2,740,590
10
Bangladesh
2,669,110
11
Congo, Dem. Rep.
2,572,220
12
Nigeria
2,529,480
13
India
2,435,680
14
Mozambique
2,314,140
15
Pakistan
2,174,110
16
Morocco
1,966,140
17
Uganda
1,692,560
18
Iraq
1,541,400
19
South Sudan
1,447,460
20
Jordan
1,407,900
21
Mali
1,391,300
22
Ghana
1,330,510
23
South Africa
1,292,950
24
Cote d’Ivoire
1,262,000
25
Haiti
1,170,550
Interesting graphic here:
Happy Independence Day.
Is food a consumer good? Healthcare? Education? I’m sure they are calling for an end to food stamps and public schooling and promoting free markets in healthcare.
Tell me - how do you get to all businesses being run as ‘worker co-ops’ without central planning? How do you get those businessmen and women to give up their countries without an authoritarian government?
And if government is going to nationalize big industry, how does that happen without government seizure and central planning?
The ‘Democratic’ part of Democratic Socialism is a smokescreen. Democracy and socialism are not compatible, other than as a pure tyranny of the majority. Because it doesn’t matter if those business people voted against having their property taken from them by force - the majority said so, so here come the men with guns.
This is why countries like Venezuela manage to elect socialists democratically, but once in power the socialists immediately work on ‘reforms’ that make it impossible for them to be removed from power. As the old saying goes, “One man, one vote… Once.”
The left does the same shell game with the border dispute. Accuse them of wanting open borders and they go, “No way! We just want reasonable legal immigration.” But then they advocate for doxxing ICE workers, vote against border protections of any sort, create ‘sanctuary cities’ that will protect illegal aliens from ICE, yada yada.
Socialism can be done well and it can be done poorly. Venezuela did it very poorly. We do it well with some of our socialized institutions – particularly things like firefighting and active military health care (veterans’ health care is much more inconsistent). Many other countries have solid socialized health care systems.
Every time it has been tried with a autocratic, instead of democratic, leadership it has failed.
Get it straight. “Socialism” means that the economy is ‘fundamentally transformed’ to take capital and businesses away from capitalists and transition it to the ‘workers’. This is explicitly what the DSA believes. They want workers to run businesses as co-ops or collectives, while large infrastructure is controlled by the government.
Among the platforms of the left now are a universal basic income for everyone, much higher taxes on the wealthy (70-90%, depending on who you ask), free college for all, free healthcare for all. Name a successful ‘socialist’ country that has done those things, while nationalizing the energy, communications, and transportation infrastructures of the country.
And as extreme as that is, the DSA sees these things not as an end-game, but as a transitionary stage to the real end goal of total worker and government control of the economy. Not so different than what Lenin wanted. He even claimed it was ‘democratic’.
What you are calling ‘socialist’ are social democracies like Sweden or Norway. Those are countries that are strongly capitalist, but which provide a slightly larger safety net. They are not fundamentally different in the way the Democratic Socialists want.
Canada, for example, spends less on government health care than does the US. Our taxes are less progressive than America’s. Until Trudeau was elected, our government spending as a percentage of GDP was slightly below the US. We allow full parental choice in where to send your kid to school. The provinces have more autonomy than US states do, and we have strong property rights. There is nothing at all ‘socialist’ about Canada. At least, not any more. The first Trudeau tried it in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and his nationalization of aspects of the country and his high spending and taxes nearly ruined us. It took two decades of ‘austerity’ by both liberal and conservative governments to dig us out of that mess, along with selling off most of our crown corporations because they didn’t work well.
As for universal income, Alberta already paved that way. We were the only ‘social credit’ government in the world for a long time. We gave it up, because it didn’t work.
Another aspect of the shell game the left keeps playing is that they advocate for socialism, then when people call them on it they point to Scandinavia and Canada and other countries as examples of how it can ‘work’, despite the fact that none of those countries are socialist. Either own the term, or reject socialists in the DSA and elsewhere, and explicitly support something more moderate, such as a gradual expansion of social programs if that’s all you truly want.
'Cause if a member of the KKK came to me and said they have a good libertarian economic plan, I wouldn’t ignore the racism because I liked the economics. And if I were calling myself a Nazi, you’d never let me get away with saying that MY definition of Naziism was more like New Zealand than Nazi Germany. Because it would be ridiculous.
Also, it would be nice if the ‘moderate’ left would police its own. The next time you see communists with hammers and sickles on their flags marching in one of your parades, you should maybe call them out. Likewise, if you see some idiot in a Mao cap or wearing a Che Guevera T-shirt, you should give them the same treatment you’d give someone wearing a Swastika, because Communism is every bit as evil as Naziism. Both racked up a body count of many millions, although the Communists killed more and are still killing people today.
So long as you tolerate the communists and socialists on your side, people are going to assume you are okay with them, just as they’d assume that Republicans who let Nazis march with them were okay with Nazism, even if they didn’t overtly support it.
Every time it’s been tried with a Democratic leadership, the leadership became autocratic. You can elect socialists at the ballot box, but the only way to get rid of them is with a gun. Ask the Venezuelans.
Oh, and where are the well functioning socialist countries with a democratic government? Did the business people who had their companies expropriated vote for that? Or do we have to break a few eggs to make an omelette? Is absolute tyranny of the majority okay? If the Hutu had won a referendum on whether the Tutsi should be hacked to death by the millions, would that make it okay? I mean, it would be ‘democratic genocide’, so who could argue with that other than, you know, the Tutsi?
Tyranny of the majority is why we don’t use democracy to determine things like whose property should be taken from them for the ‘greater good’. That’s why we have constitutions and why the constitutions of liberal democracies specifically center around the rights of individuals and not collectives.
Yeah, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are all autocratic…ooops. Nope.:dubious:
Perhaps you could start a new thread and we could take this hijack elsewhere?
Not a single one of those countries is socialist.
Just a difference in understanding of what “socialist” necessarily means. I see no reason to accede to the Republican definition when there are so many others who identify as such but have different beliefs. The younger generation doesn’t see it as so scary, mostly because they see it as a different thing.
Exactly. To young people the choice is between Socialism, as they conceive it, and Capitalism, as it’s currently being practiced. They know the latter will not meet their needs, so they opt for the former. They know that under the “gig” economy they’ll never have a job that offers health care. They know that with a mountain of student loan debt, they’ll never be able to afford to buy a house. Etc, etc. They embrace “Democratic Socialism” because they like the concept of Democracy and aren’t old enough to know that “Democratic Capitalism” was a thing once in this country.
From their website:
Given the definition of the problem given in the OP, the solution seems rather obvious. If you’re understaffed, hire more people.If you’re overcrowded, stop incarcerating so many people and let out the ones you’ve got. The majority are not violent offenders or a flight risk, so don’t treat them as such.
This isn’t comprehensive immigration reform, mind you. But it does address the immediate issues brought up by the OP.
Though I will add that, counterintuitively, some people would also probably need to be fired and replaced. You need people who are on the same page, who actually see the overcrowding and inhumane conditions as a problem. Hopefully this will involve mostly leadership positions, and everyone else will fall in line.
The hijack about socialism has gone on long enough. This thread is ostensibly about what a Democratic President would do about what’s going on at the US southern border. Unless the suggestion is that the Democratic solution is going to be socialism in anything more than a general sense, please drop this hijack.
If you are going to suggest seriously that the Democratic response is going to be socialism, you’re going to have a very heavy lift directly connecting that to immigration at the southern border. I suggest instead that you don’t.
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