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It's a stunt to prove socialism is great. What it actually demonstrated is that charity works great. Charity is not socialism.

by jquery 9y ago

GunlogAlm 9y ago
Ah, the old "private charity will solve all our problems" meme.
- jquery 9y ago
  People stopped starving to death when capitalism created enough wealth that we joke about First World Problems. Socialism doesn’t stop people from starving, look at Venezuela. Look at China’s history.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    Look at Native Americans history and Hawaiians history and Bhopal's history.
    - jquery 9y ago
      Is this the "it's not my job to educate you" reply? What Native American tribe are you talking about? Are you saying the tribes that didn't have private property were rich?
geofft 9y ago
If charity works great, why doesn't government-mandated charity work even better? There are a lot of things, like civil defense and firefighting and road building, that historically started working more reliably when they became government-run instead of depending on volunteers or private industry. What makes charity different?
- jquery 9y ago
  Because socialism has been proven to fail, over and over and over. Roads are not socialism. Roads have not destroyed societies like Venezuela or Cuba. Socialism is when the government decides private property is illegitimate and it fails every time it’s tried. Some amount of socialism may not kill the host but it’s a thing to be feared and wielded carefully not lauded.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    Banana and cotton plantations are capitalism. The US is wealthy because it extracted it's wealth from the suffering of others worldwide.
    - jquery 9y ago
      > Banana and cotton plantations are capitalism and? I never said capitalism didn't require any guardrails. Stop straw-manning other people. > The US is wealthy because it extracted it's wealth from the suffering of others worldwide. Why is Japan wealthy? South Korea? European countries? Is this the social justice theory of economics? There's not much evidence for that theory. It's pretty clear that capitalism (with appropriate guardrails and the rule of law) is wildly more successful than its alternatives. I think you're trying to argue that capitalism is beside the point and it's war and oppression that creates wealth. That's obviously nonsense.
      - alphonsegaston 9y ago
        You’re right - war and oppression are tools used by Capitalists to secure and grow their wealth. Japan, South Korea, and side swathes of Europe are wealthy because of their positions as client states in the American Capitalist Imperium.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Because socialism has been proven to fail, over and over and over. Except for Leninism and it's descendents, where has socialism of any kind been tried and failed?
  - 9y ago
- nine_k 9y ago
  Government-mandated things usually work worse than the fame things done without governmental intervention. This is why government is best left to handle things that cannot be adequately done without a central command, like keeping the military forces, or collecting taxes. It can also step in where private or public efforts fail, but don't expect it to be as efficient.
  - geofft 9y ago
    I neither want nor expect it to be efficient, just reliable. Those are two vert different goals. By "efficient" I think you mean something like, as high a percentage of every dollar given as possible goes to where it's needed, and as low as possible goes towards overhead or corruption. By "reliable" I mean that everyone in poverty gets the resources needed to get out, whatever the overhead is needed to get people to that point. I find it a preferable outcome to have one million people worrying how they're going to pay for their next meal, and some guy skimming $1M for himself off the top, than ten million people worrying how they're going to pay for their next meal and nobody getting rich off the process. I think that's the big difference with things like defense at scale. You don't need war to be cheap, or to optimize dead enemies per dollar; you just need a guarantee that if someone attacks you anywhere and in any manner, there will always be some sort of armed force to defend you. Central command is nice but not necessary. Same with roads; central command is certainly unnecessary, but having reliable nationwide roads is better for a society than intermittent roads where they're profitable. Do you believe that govermment-run charity will be less reliable than the status quo; that is, do you believe it will help less people? Why? (I'm not asking about whether it's moral, just whether it works.)
    - nine_k 9y ago
      Being more expensive for the sake of reliability / guaranteed response is fine by me. But relatively often the efficiency is so low, that, given the required scale, a low-efficiency solution becomes infeasible, prohibitively expensive. The expense is not always monetary. While US clinics ask exorbitant amounts of money, clinics in certain countries with universal healthcare ask for large amounts of time. You need a surgery? Please wait 4-6 months. (E.g. https://expathealth.org/healthcare-news/global-patient-wait-time-statistics/ https://expathealth.org/healthcare-news/global-patient-wait-...)

It's a stunt to prove socialism is great. What it actually demonstrated is that charity works great. Charity is not socialism.

by jquery 9y ago

It's a stunt to prove socialism is great. What it actually demonstrated is that charity works great. Charity is not socialism.

GunlogAlm 9y ago

Ah, the old "private charity will solve all our problems" meme.

jquery 9y ago
People stopped starving to death when capitalism created enough wealth that we joke about First World Problems. Socialism doesn’t stop people from starving, look at Venezuela. Look at China’s history.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Look at Native Americans history and Hawaiians history and Bhopal's history.
  - jquery 9y ago
    Is this the "it's not my job to educate you" reply? What Native American tribe are you talking about? Are you saying the tribes that didn't have private property were rich?

geofft 9y ago

If charity works great, why doesn't government-mandated charity work even better? There are a lot of things, like civil defense and firefighting and road building, that historically started working more reliably when they became government-run instead of depending on volunteers or private industry. What makes charity different?

jquery 9y ago
Because socialism has been proven to fail, over and over and over. Roads are not socialism. Roads have not destroyed societies like Venezuela or Cuba. Socialism is when the government decides private property is illegitimate and it fails every time it’s tried. Some amount of socialism may not kill the host but it’s a thing to be feared and wielded carefully not lauded.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Banana and cotton plantations are capitalism. The US is wealthy because it extracted it's wealth from the suffering of others worldwide.
  - jquery 9y ago
    > Banana and cotton plantations are capitalism and? I never said capitalism didn't require any guardrails. Stop straw-manning other people. > The US is wealthy because it extracted it's wealth from the suffering of others worldwide. Why is Japan wealthy? South Korea? European countries? Is this the social justice theory of economics? There's not much evidence for that theory. It's pretty clear that capitalism (with appropriate guardrails and the rule of law) is wildly more successful than its alternatives. I think you're trying to argue that capitalism is beside the point and it's war and oppression that creates wealth. That's obviously nonsense.
    - alphonsegaston 9y ago
      You’re right - war and oppression are tools used by Capitalists to secure and grow their wealth. Japan, South Korea, and side swathes of Europe are wealthy because of their positions as client states in the American Capitalist Imperium.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Because socialism has been proven to fail, over and over and over. Except for Leninism and it's descendents, where has socialism of any kind been tried and failed?
- 9y ago
nine_k 9y ago
Government-mandated things usually work worse than the fame things done without governmental intervention. This is why government is best left to handle things that cannot be adequately done without a central command, like keeping the military forces, or collecting taxes. It can also step in where private or public efforts fail, but don't expect it to be as efficient.
- geofft 9y ago
  I neither want nor expect it to be efficient, just reliable. Those are two vert different goals. By "efficient" I think you mean something like, as high a percentage of every dollar given as possible goes to where it's needed, and as low as possible goes towards overhead or corruption. By "reliable" I mean that everyone in poverty gets the resources needed to get out, whatever the overhead is needed to get people to that point. I find it a preferable outcome to have one million people worrying how they're going to pay for their next meal, and some guy skimming $1M for himself off the top, than ten million people worrying how they're going to pay for their next meal and nobody getting rich off the process. I think that's the big difference with things like defense at scale. You don't need war to be cheap, or to optimize dead enemies per dollar; you just need a guarantee that if someone attacks you anywhere and in any manner, there will always be some sort of armed force to defend you. Central command is nice but not necessary. Same with roads; central command is certainly unnecessary, but having reliable nationwide roads is better for a society than intermittent roads where they're profitable. Do you believe that govermment-run charity will be less reliable than the status quo; that is, do you believe it will help less people? Why? (I'm not asking about whether it's moral, just whether it works.)
  - nine_k 9y ago
    Being more expensive for the sake of reliability / guaranteed response is fine by me. But relatively often the efficiency is so low, that, given the required scale, a low-efficiency solution becomes infeasible, prohibitively expensive. The expense is not always monetary. While US clinics ask exorbitant amounts of money, clinics in certain countries with universal healthcare ask for large amounts of time. You need a surgery? Please wait 4-6 months. (E.g. https://expathealth.org/healthcare-news/global-patient-wait-time-statistics/ https://expathealth.org/healthcare-news/global-patient-wait-...)