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Interesting, but sort of whiny, until he veers off into "Capitalism Bad!" Socialism Good! Wait it didn't work the last 10 times? "No true scotsman! no true
by mimo777 10y ago
Interesting, but sort of whiny, until he veers off into "Capitalism Bad!" Socialism Good! Wait it didn't work the last 10 times? "No true scotsman! no true scotsman!"
- oortcloud 10y agoAgreed. And if I can make a plea to anyone who wants to comment on this thread -- please make your comment without using the words "capitalism" or "socialism" since neither word has a proper, consensus definition. Using those words will just lead to tedious flamewars with people talking past each other and rehashing old debates. Rather, talk about the underlying structure of incentives that create this dynamic, and how incentives can be changed, if they can be at all.
- aninhumer 10y agoYou can add "freedom" and "entitled" to the list of words that are so poorly defined as to be useless for reasoned discussion.
- ktRolster 10y agoplease make your comment without using the words "capitalism" or "socialism" since neither word has a proper, consensus definition. This can not be repeated enough. It is absolutely true, if you use the words 'socialism' or 'capitalism' no one will have a clue what you are talking about.
- Apocryphon 10y agoThe problem with these discussions is that people usually mean "neoliberalism" when they're talking about capitalism, and "social democracy" when they're talking about "socialism". It's almost as if we never really broke out of the old Cold War terminology and paradigms.
- echlebek 10y agoThere's lots of countries that have socialist policies that are doing just fine, many of them western countries. Sometimes they are better off than the USA. Socialism just happens to be a dirty word in American culture. Here's one example of socialism in western culture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care It's not all-or-nothing.
- mfoy_ 10y agoI like Canada. Social Capital is a good balance between capitalism and socialism.
- rhapsodic 10y agoI like Canada too. A relatively small population with a ridiculously huge amount of natural resources.
- mfoy_ 10y agoThe U.S. has a significantly higher GDP per capita than Canada.[1] The U.S. also has a significantly higher average wealth per citizen.[2] But if you look closely at the second source, you'll see that the U.S. actually has a REALLY low MEDIAN wealth per adult. This indicates a large inequality. The problem in the U.S. isn't that there isn't enough wealth to go around, it's that it's not going around. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
- mimo777 10y ago_All_ of them benefit from NATO. Do you think its a coincidence that the United states spends as much as the next several--don't remember the count--countries, and that most of the successful socialist nato members have very little military expenditures as a percentage of GDP?http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/06/nato-members-defense-spending-two-charts/116008/ http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/06/nato-members-defe... Remember that the US has a much larger GDP than many of those countries on the list.
- dpark 10y agoYour severe exaggeration weakens your critique. I read the comments here before the actual article and after reading yours I expected the article to devolve into a juvenile defense of communism at the end. The author blames the problem in part on capitalism, but there was a distinct lack of "no true Scotsman" fallacy toward socialism. Your anti-socialism bias is far more overt and absurd than the article's vague anti-capitalism bias. You got so bent out of shape at the mere mention of socialism in a positive light that you made up an argument that the article didn't put forth just so you could accuse the author of a fallacy. I don't know what to call this. It's not even a strawman. It's intellectually dishonest.
- mimo777 10y agoI'm sorry that my writing isn't clear enough to differentiate between my criticism of the article whining about capitalism and then socialism good because reasons, _And_ my anticipatory response to everyone trying to defend socialism because it hasn't been done correctly yet.
- dpark 10y agoThis doesn't make me think more highly of your argument. You're so close-minded that your "anticipatory response" is to simply assume that no one has a defense of socialism except a "true Scotsman" appeal. I'm also left to assume from your comments that you think socialism and communism are the same thing. The defenders of socialism rarely say that no one's done it correctly. They instead point to the myriad of socialist programs in other countries that they consider successful (e.g. Canadian healthcare, German education, even US food stamps).