5 ms·

Please enlighten me then as to how the “strong social safety net” exists without the socialism?

by rcarr 3y ago

nec4b 3y ago
I don't believe you want to be enlightened by me. I suggest you try to live for a while in a country that calls itself a socialist country and then move for a while to a country which calls it self a free market capitalist country with strong social safety net. I can promise you we'll see the difference after doing this.
- rcarr 3y ago
  I lived in the UK from 1997 - 2010 when the Labour Party was in power. Guess what, the world didn't end. People were pretty happy. It was good times. As I have said in previous comments, I believe that there should be a natural oscillation between socialist policies, which involve tax and nationalisation, and capitalist policies, which involve tax cuts and privatisation. Everything should be context dependent. I think the UK is a bit of a sham democracy because of FPTP but we have historically had a pretty decent mixture of the capitalist and the socialist. In fact, people are pretty pissed off here right now, precisely because the socialist element (nhs, transport, education) has been eroded in quality so much by the encumbent capitalist element that they are no longer functioning properly. As a result it is highly likely the Labour Party will win the next general election. If that were to happen, the world will not end and things will carry on as normal, just as it did in 1997. After a few terms pass, the ideological flaws of the Labour Party will manifest in their own problems, the populace will become angry with them and go on to re-elect the Conservative Party again. I will be happy when both of these things happen (the re-election of Labour and the re-election of the Conservative Party after that) because that is the natural way of things and means that the system is course correcting properly. If you have lived in a more extreme country that does not have proper democratic protections and has had an authoritarian socialist government then I'm sorry you've had to experience that. But there is not much difference between that and the horrors of an authoritarian capitalist society such as the Arabian nations which used slave labour to build its football stadiums. The problem is not the ideology. The ideology is simply a model that can be applied to a problem to see if it fits. The real problem is twofold. The first part being people who take ideologies to their extremes and refuse to compromise or adapt to context or, possibly even worse, those who don't care an iota about the ideology but will twist it (and anything else) for their own ends, abusing their positions simply for personal gain. The second part of the problem is weak political systems that do not have sufficient checks and balances to contain these zealots and/or self serving individuals.
  - nec4b 3y ago
    >>If you have lived in a more extreme country that does not have proper democratic protections and has had an authoritarian socialist government then I'm sorry you've had to experience that. I have and I kind of see where you coming from now. Because I would never use the word socialist for what you have in the UK, the word I would use is social. You make it sound socialist invented healthcare, transportation and education when all those things existed long before the first socialist was born. And yes ideology does matter a lot. There is a good reason why there wasn't a single successful socialist country in the world and there also a good reason why a lot of ex-socialist countries still have so many problems even after they nominally became capitalist. Value set and the ideology behind it really do matter.
    - rcarr 3y ago
      > You make it sound socialist invented healthcare, transportation and education when all those things existed long before the first socialist was born. The UK NHS was invented by the UK Labour Party (socialists) after WW2. It was the first healthcare system in the world that provided free healthcare services to its citizens on the basis of citizenship rather than fee payment or insurance. So yes, in a way, they did invent the modern health care system. Before it, working class people could not afford to see doctors because everything was private like the mess they have over in America. There is a reason the British people are very, very attached to the NHS. Roads are another example. If all roads were private they would all have tolls and you would have to pay for every single one you used, including the minor ones from your house to the main road. Instead we pool our taxes and maintain them collectively because everyone can see that doing otherwise would be madness. But in a completely free market capitalist society with no opposing ideology, the landowners would happily charge you for each individual road, just as they happily charge you for parking a car. And education only used to be available to those whose parents could afford it. Collectively we decided this was a bad idea, so we created a school system where every child would receive an education, paid for out of taxes. In a free market capitalist society, this would not exist, and half the country would be illiterate, having received no education because their parents could not afford it. You can’t remove the “ist” from the end of “social” and claim it is a different thing. These are socialist policies, that are paid for by collect taxes and redistributing them to those in need. Most of us agree that these are for the greater good and preferable to the free market equivalent. But we can also agree that we don’t need to nationalise the production of cars, or clothes or any number of other things because the free market capitalist ideologies do a good job in those industries. The problem is not the ideology. The problem is applying the wrong model (ideology) to the wrong problem due to being overly attached to the model as well as bad actors exploiting loopholes in models and systems for their own gain. I prefer to look at these ideologies as percentages. I don’t know what the numbers would truly be but for the sake of example you could say that 70-80% of scenarios call for capitalist solutions and 20-30% of scenarios call for socialist solutions. In the UK this tracks, as we tend to have more/longer periods of Conservative government than we do Labour. It also tracks with the folk wisdom of sticking with what has been proven to work for the majority of the time rather than trying something new. > and there also a good reason why a lot of ex-socialist countries still have so many problems even after they nominally became capitalist. Yes, because they have not developed the checks and balances in their political systems to contain extremists and exploiters so they become corrupted. For example, this is one of the reasons why Ukraine was not allowed to join the EU. According to Wikipedia, it still needs to reform its system in the following areas: Brussels Requirements reform of the Constitutional Court continuation of judicial reform anti-corruption anti-money laundering implementation of the anti-oligarchic law harmonization of audiovisual legislation change in legislation on national minorities For what it’s worth, I do think some of that is a bit hypocritical, especially as until very recently the UK was a member of the EU and London probably launders more dirty money than anywhere else on the planet but that’s another discussion in itself.

Please enlighten me then as to how the “strong social safety net” exists without the socialism?

by rcarr 3y ago

Please enlighten me then as to how the “strong social safety net” exists without the socialism?

I don't believe you want to be enlightened by me. I suggest you try to live for a while in a country that calls itself a socialist country and then move for a while to a country which calls it self a free market capitalist country with strong social safety net. I can promise you we'll see the difference after doing this.

rcarr 3y ago
I lived in the UK from 1997 - 2010 when the Labour Party was in power. Guess what, the world didn't end. People were pretty happy. It was good times. As I have said in previous comments, I believe that there should be a natural oscillation between socialist policies, which involve tax and nationalisation, and capitalist policies, which involve tax cuts and privatisation. Everything should be context dependent. I think the UK is a bit of a sham democracy because of FPTP but we have historically had a pretty decent mixture of the capitalist and the socialist. In fact, people are pretty pissed off here right now, precisely because the socialist element (nhs, transport, education) has been eroded in quality so much by the encumbent capitalist element that they are no longer functioning properly. As a result it is highly likely the Labour Party will win the next general election. If that were to happen, the world will not end and things will carry on as normal, just as it did in 1997. After a few terms pass, the ideological flaws of the Labour Party will manifest in their own problems, the populace will become angry with them and go on to re-elect the Conservative Party again. I will be happy when both of these things happen (the re-election of Labour and the re-election of the Conservative Party after that) because that is the natural way of things and means that the system is course correcting properly. If you have lived in a more extreme country that does not have proper democratic protections and has had an authoritarian socialist government then I'm sorry you've had to experience that. But there is not much difference between that and the horrors of an authoritarian capitalist society such as the Arabian nations which used slave labour to build its football stadiums. The problem is not the ideology. The ideology is simply a model that can be applied to a problem to see if it fits. The real problem is twofold. The first part being people who take ideologies to their extremes and refuse to compromise or adapt to context or, possibly even worse, those who don't care an iota about the ideology but will twist it (and anything else) for their own ends, abusing their positions simply for personal gain. The second part of the problem is weak political systems that do not have sufficient checks and balances to contain these zealots and/or self serving individuals.
- nec4b 3y ago
  >>If you have lived in a more extreme country that does not have proper democratic protections and has had an authoritarian socialist government then I'm sorry you've had to experience that. I have and I kind of see where you coming from now. Because I would never use the word socialist for what you have in the UK, the word I would use is social. You make it sound socialist invented healthcare, transportation and education when all those things existed long before the first socialist was born. And yes ideology does matter a lot. There is a good reason why there wasn't a single successful socialist country in the world and there also a good reason why a lot of ex-socialist countries still have so many problems even after they nominally became capitalist. Value set and the ideology behind it really do matter.
  - rcarr 3y ago
    > You make it sound socialist invented healthcare, transportation and education when all those things existed long before the first socialist was born. The UK NHS was invented by the UK Labour Party (socialists) after WW2. It was the first healthcare system in the world that provided free healthcare services to its citizens on the basis of citizenship rather than fee payment or insurance. So yes, in a way, they did invent the modern health care system. Before it, working class people could not afford to see doctors because everything was private like the mess they have over in America. There is a reason the British people are very, very attached to the NHS. Roads are another example. If all roads were private they would all have tolls and you would have to pay for every single one you used, including the minor ones from your house to the main road. Instead we pool our taxes and maintain them collectively because everyone can see that doing otherwise would be madness. But in a completely free market capitalist society with no opposing ideology, the landowners would happily charge you for each individual road, just as they happily charge you for parking a car. And education only used to be available to those whose parents could afford it. Collectively we decided this was a bad idea, so we created a school system where every child would receive an education, paid for out of taxes. In a free market capitalist society, this would not exist, and half the country would be illiterate, having received no education because their parents could not afford it. You can’t remove the “ist” from the end of “social” and claim it is a different thing. These are socialist policies, that are paid for by collect taxes and redistributing them to those in need. Most of us agree that these are for the greater good and preferable to the free market equivalent. But we can also agree that we don’t need to nationalise the production of cars, or clothes or any number of other things because the free market capitalist ideologies do a good job in those industries. The problem is not the ideology. The problem is applying the wrong model (ideology) to the wrong problem due to being overly attached to the model as well as bad actors exploiting loopholes in models and systems for their own gain. I prefer to look at these ideologies as percentages. I don’t know what the numbers would truly be but for the sake of example you could say that 70-80% of scenarios call for capitalist solutions and 20-30% of scenarios call for socialist solutions. In the UK this tracks, as we tend to have more/longer periods of Conservative government than we do Labour. It also tracks with the folk wisdom of sticking with what has been proven to work for the majority of the time rather than trying something new. > and there also a good reason why a lot of ex-socialist countries still have so many problems even after they nominally became capitalist. Yes, because they have not developed the checks and balances in their political systems to contain extremists and exploiters so they become corrupted. For example, this is one of the reasons why Ukraine was not allowed to join the EU. According to Wikipedia, it still needs to reform its system in the following areas: Brussels Requirements reform of the Constitutional Court continuation of judicial reform anti-corruption anti-money laundering implementation of the anti-oligarchic law harmonization of audiovisual legislation change in legislation on national minorities For what it’s worth, I do think some of that is a bit hypocritical, especially as until very recently the UK was a member of the EU and London probably launders more dirty money than anywhere else on the planet but that’s another discussion in itself.