7 ms·
Yeah, but what about the other states that spend on social programs and ended up successful? This is like throwing out a carton of eggs because one of them bro
by joshred 10y ago
Yeah, but what about the other states that spend on social programs and ended up successful?
This is like throwing out a carton of eggs because one of them broke.
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoHaving social programs and being a Socialist government are two very different things. We can have Social Security here in the States and not be Socialist. Nordic "socialism" is just taxing the rich to give to the poor. What Venezuela did was textbook Socialism which, like Communism, is a path to economic, social, and political failure as well as massive human rights violations.
- currysoup_t 10y agoI think you'll find textbook socialism are very different to what you think socialism and communism are. Do the workers in Venezuela own the means of production?
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoI think you'll find it easy to play up No True Scotsman to help with your cognitive dissonance here. The reality is that every practical implementation of socialism uses the government as a proxy of ownership of the means of production. Venezuela is Socialist. Socialists need to own up to it. No more No True Scotsman guys, we've been playing this game since the rise of Communism. Its time to admit that certain economic systems just don't work. How much more historical proof and human suffering can you possibly need? You sound like those people who deny the moon landing. There will never be enough proof for you it seems.
- stale2002 10y agoOK then, which countries in the world are or have ever been socialist? The point isn't that the "textbook" definition of socialism is bad. The point is that every single real world attempt at getting to socialism has been bad, so why wouldnt future attempts run into the same problems?
- AsyncAwait 10y ago> The point is that every single real world attempt at getting to socialism has been bad, so why wouldnt future attempts run into the same problems? The problem is that "every single real world attempt at getting to socialism" has been inspired by the same ( bad ) implementors, using the same ( bad ) mechanisms, without anyone trying to implement socialism from scratch by going back to the source of the ideology as opposed to looking at other dictators who used the premise of socialism to get into power without actually caring about socialism itself. Venezuela is a corrupt place with socialism being implemented as a means to launder money as opposed to implement social safety programs, it's the same as the "Democratic" Republic of Korea or Congo. Capitalism wouldn't really help a corrupt country like Venezuela, but Socialism was making some good progress in another Latin American country... Nicaragua, weren't it for the Contras. The rest is history.
- Retric 10y agoI would call Norway socialist. Not because the government owns everything, but because society distributes a large fraction of all earnings. Note, defacto tax rates are what's important. Greece may have a high nominal tax rate, but nobody actually pays it. The US has a 15% tax rate on capital gains irregardless of what the nominal top tax rate is. Further, the US pretends Social Security is not an income tax. By comparison the USSR, China, and North Korea all pay / paid some lip service to communism, but if you look at the people at the top it was not even close to communism. PS: The real world is complicated. If you promote revolution you generally don't get whatever the revolutions talking points where.
- milcron 10y agoNorway is more of a social democracy than a democratic socialism, but I take your meaning. Agreed, China has not been communist for some time now.
- erikpukinskis 10y agoInvention looks like this: failure, failure, failure, failure, success, failure, success, success, failure, success, success, success, success, success "It has only failed before so it probably won't succeed" is just a straight up logical fallacy.
- metaphorm 10y agoI think you should read a textbook on Socialism before you make comments like this
- dragandj 10y agoWhich one do you recommend?
- damptowel 10y agoVenezuelan politics was textbook incompetence, you have idiot savants in every political outlook.
- cseelus 10y agoSweden, Norway and to some degree Germany could be mentioned as successful examples.
- matt_wulfeck 10y agoGermany (as one example) has a social expenditure of 25% versus USA at 19%[0]. Switzerland is 19.4%. [0] https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG
- sgnelson 10y agoIt's not just how much, it's also what, who, how, where, and why.
- fulafel 10y agoUsing social expenditure in % of GDP to measure its "cost-effectiveness" is problematic, as there's wide agreement social spending has a big impact on GDP. (Structure of the spending is the other big variable of course)
- brownbat 10y agoThe Nordics are awkward examples if you follow their trajectory back to the 70s, with periods of socialization and liberalization in the mix: http://www.cityam.com/article/1394655511/forget-nordic-socialism-welfare-didnt-make-scandinavia-rich http://www.cityam.com/article/1394655511/forget-nordic-socia... We pretend there are clean examples, but everything is pretty messy, and we rarely get any pure test cases for any economic philosophy. Macro is black arts. "Avoid price controls" and "don't print boatloads of money" seem like reasonable guidelines. Beyond that, who knows? Corruption's bad but hard to stop. Moving risk around is (sometimes)* bad but hard to stop. Shrug and try not to do anything too extreme. * Insurance is a beneficial example.
- adventured 10y agoHow many nations fall into that category? There are only roughly 28 nations on earth with a GDP per capita over $20,000 for example. I happen to find what the six or so best managed welfare states in Europe have accomplished, to be impressive. However, for every Sweden in Europe, there are two Bulgarias. Or there's France, which has seen economic stagnation for nearly a generation. Most of the well-managed welfare states have seen zero or near-zero economic growth for nearly a decade at this point, while their debt has exploded vastly higher as they try to fake-maintain their present standard of living by stealing from the future.
- bdamm 10y agoHow is this different from the US practice of issuing ever more treasury bonds to pay back the maturing treasury bonds? My point is that borrowing from the future is not limited to welfare states (unless you consider US to be a welfare state.)
- varjag 10y agoLook this is pointless argument. Same way we could argue that small government, sovereign citizen, libertarian meritocracy leads to Somalia. There is a continuum of social systems that can work, and whether it works mainly depends on confounding factors. History, culture fit, geography, neighbours. E.g. Sweden's been an empire most of its history; Bulgaria has been a colony. Check their performance in historical cohort perhaps? Sweden vs Turkey and Bulgaria vs Tajikistan? Chavez' Venezuela system is well beyond the "habitable range" of governance. To present it as some condemnation of West European welfare states is ridiculous.
- damptowel 10y agoWell, how many fall in the opposite category? Isn't it pretty much a bell curve? And their debts are so high because they had to bail out a deregulated finance sector, which caused a recession and major spike in unemployment, how is that a fault of a welfare state? You might as well argue the financial sector "stole from the future" by creating a decade long downturn. Quite the opportunity cost there.