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Would you consider a 'typical' Western-European style 'social democracy' to be essentially capitalist? Honest question. I can definitely agree that going 'full

by mercer 9y ago

Would you consider a 'typical' Western-European style 'social democracy' to be essentially capitalist? Honest question. I can definitely agree that going 'full socialism' hasn't had a good track record, but somehow it doesn't feel right to call what we have over here 'capitalism'.

gremlinsinc 9y ago
I'd call it a hybrid system... True socialism is where the government decides how much toilet paper to produce, say 100k units per month..while the public uses 200k or 50k... -- so there's either a surplus or not enough. Supply and demand are null/void, the government might then decide lets up tp production as it's needed. Capitalism is the market decides based on indicators from 'votes' --everytime you spend money you're voting on what that item is worth, how much supply/demand is given to it, etc... Giving people who live in a country benefits and providing social well-being is NOT true-socialism, it's just love/respect for fell human beings. Ensuring everyone in a country lives above poverty shouldn't be debated about it should be something people take a sense in pride about and something they focus on eradicating. It's not true-socialism in you still have a market, market conditions still predicate what's bought/sold/manufactured. The only difference is tax dollars are spent a little more on helping people. I think America is a horrible manager of money we could easily implement universal healthcare or guaranteed basic income and change some of the tax code to afford it all. There's plenty of things we waste money on. The defense department has gatherings where they pay around $5 per ounce for coffee, $15 for donuts or pastries, etc.. private contractors can somehow get away with gouging the government and basically stealing tax-dollars. We spend a trillion a year on a huge military, we don't need to be the police of the entire world. We need to close all bases, we have enough nukes/etc to dispel threats to our own borders, let's stay neutral again until we're called into another world war, but let's stop all the wars we're currently in. I hope the predictions are true for 2030 that 40% of jobs will disappear forever, as it'll force us to really consider guaranteed basic income or end up just as Venezuela is now.
- norswap 9y ago
  In Europe, that's we call communism, not socialism.

by mercer 9y ago

gremlinsinc 9y ago

I'd call it a hybrid system... True socialism is where the government decides how much toilet paper to produce, say 100k units per month..while the public uses 200k or 50k... -- so there's either a surplus or not enough. Supply and demand are null/void, the government might then decide lets up tp production as it's needed. Capitalism is the market decides based on indicators from 'votes' --everytime you spend money you're voting on what that item is worth, how much supply/demand is given to it, etc... Giving people who live in a country benefits and providing social well-being is NOT true-socialism, it's just love/respect for fell human beings. Ensuring everyone in a country lives above poverty shouldn't be debated about it should be something people take a sense in pride about and something they focus on eradicating. It's not true-socialism in you still have a market, market conditions still predicate what's bought/sold/manufactured. The only difference is tax dollars are spent a little more on helping people. I think America is a horrible manager of money we could easily implement universal healthcare or guaranteed basic income and change some of the tax code to afford it all. There's plenty of things we waste money on. The defense department has gatherings where they pay around $5 per ounce for coffee, $15 for donuts or pastries, etc.. private contractors can somehow get away with gouging the government and basically stealing tax-dollars. We spend a trillion a year on a huge military, we don't need to be the police of the entire world. We need to close all bases, we have enough nukes/etc to dispel threats to our own borders, let's stay neutral again until we're called into another world war, but let's stop all the wars we're currently in. I hope the predictions are true for 2030 that 40% of jobs will disappear forever, as it'll force us to really consider guaranteed basic income or end up just as Venezuela is now.

norswap 9y ago
In Europe, that's we call communism, not socialism.