4 ms·

The examples given are from Sweden, so I guess that's where they're from. I live in Sweden and this is absolutely not a socialist country. Capitalism is very st

by brabel 1y ago

The examples given are from Sweden, so I guess that's where they're from. I live in Sweden and this is absolutely not a socialist country. Capitalism is very strong here, you're mostly free to invest capital in whatever you want with many ways to avoid taxes, just like in the USA, for example. There's higher taxes for the average, salaried person (though it's not at the highest levels compared with similar OECD countries[1]), but for investors, it's not so bad. Also, salaries vary wildly between professions, lots of things, like rail lines, which are usually thought of as government concerns are privatized, neighbourhoods are more and more unequal (in Stockholm, you can go from a place where the humblest dettached house costs above 12 million SEK - around 1.3 million USD) to another where the starting price is more like 3 million SEK without travelling very far). It's definitely not "the same" everywhere (segregation based on ethnicity is crazy high, but that's another story). So, I find it hard to consider Sweden to be anything like what you would associate with socialism (the only "socialist" thing in my opinion is the sales of alcohol - which is monopolized by the Government - but even that started opening up recently as they allow producers to started selling directly to the public from their production locations - like breweries). [1] https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/topics/policy-issues/tax-policy/taxing-wages-brochure.pdf https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/topics/policy-issue...

PaulHoule 1y ago
The difference is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy as opposed to the "workers control the means of production" idea of Marx, Lenin and such. You tax individuals and businesses and use those provide certain services. There's also the idea that you have legislation to protect workers (minimum wage, 40 hour week), consumers (air bags in cars) and the environment (no lead in gas.) Other than that you let capitalists do what they do best. What I can't get is that so many people get so angry at the idea that poor people, or at least poor people younger than 65, could have access to health care in the US.
- delichon 1y ago
  > What I can't get is that so many people get so angry at the idea that poor people, or at least poor people younger than 65, could have access to health care in the US. That's a pretty glib dismissal for real pain. Before Obamacare, in the nearest major city I could make an appointment with a gastroenterologist on a Thursday and see him on the following Tuesday. Now it is over six months for an appointment, and then for every subsequent appointment ... to see a nurse, not a doctor. There used to be five doctors in my rural county, now there are zero. While insurance premiums have skyrocketed. From my point of view healthcare has crumped. You then summarize my dismay as anger at the idea of poor people getting access to healthcare, like what else could it be other than class bigotry?
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    So what you're saying is that the services are oversubscribed and if more people have access to them than you won't have access to them?
    - gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
      After steeping in Fischel's tract on the proximate cause of housing inflation (linked to from Klein).. I gather that the main (meta-)issue, as you are kind of insinuating here, is that, for healthcare, there is a conflation of inflationary and deflationary processes.. (Sorry to go on what might seem to be a reductive tangent here, as I often do when pressed. I have further takes on Klein vs Shapiro for later) My roughshod framing of (one) solution is that there has to be sustained deflationary pockets in a mildly inflationary phase Probably mirrored by such proposals for housing as https://devonzuegel.com/for-the-greater-good-the-game-theory-of-zoning https://devonzuegel.com/for-the-greater-good-the-game-theory...
      - PaulHoule 1y ago
        There are lotsa issues in healthcare, not least that the medical association practices "birth control" for doctors. Plus the residency process to get board certified is absolutely grueling [1], I knew more than one doc who quit when they got their MD and got into startup land because it's an easier life! It does seem that, against all odds, Obamacare really did "bend the cost curve" and slow down the growth in health care costs. After a rough patch decade or so when we didn't get new "blockbuster" drugs we are now getting drugs like Wegovy and Cobenfy which cost a lot but promise savings elsewhere. [1] that said, a doctor really should know what to do when somebody with a rare condition that they'll only see once in their career and working a 996 schedule at a university medical center does give the experience for that.
- piva00 1y ago
  > There's also the idea that you have legislation to protect workers (minimum wage, 40 hour week) Just an addendum that most Nordic countries don't have that, those are set on collective agreements between employers and employees, typically through an union.
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    and that's a function of the regulatory environment. In the US it's tough for private sector unions but quite the opposite for public sector unions and for certain private sector contractors. Right now we have a lot of huge houses with massive master bedroom suites in Arizona and very little high speed rail but if there was union labor to build those houses and non-union to build the rail it would be the other way around. As it is we have a "labor aristocracy" that fought efforts to establish universal health care for 40 years because good health benefits are a reason to take a union job.
jghn 1y ago
> I live in Sweden and this is absolutely not a socialist country. This is where I was going with my question. It seems unlikely that they live in a truly socialist environment

by brabel 1y ago

PaulHoule 1y ago

The difference is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy as opposed to the "workers control the means of production" idea of Marx, Lenin and such. You tax individuals and businesses and use those provide certain services. There's also the idea that you have legislation to protect workers (minimum wage, 40 hour week), consumers (air bags in cars) and the environment (no lead in gas.) Other than that you let capitalists do what they do best. What I can't get is that so many people get so angry at the idea that poor people, or at least poor people younger than 65, could have access to health care in the US.

delichon 1y ago
> What I can't get is that so many people get so angry at the idea that poor people, or at least poor people younger than 65, could have access to health care in the US. That's a pretty glib dismissal for real pain. Before Obamacare, in the nearest major city I could make an appointment with a gastroenterologist on a Thursday and see him on the following Tuesday. Now it is over six months for an appointment, and then for every subsequent appointment ... to see a nurse, not a doctor. There used to be five doctors in my rural county, now there are zero. While insurance premiums have skyrocketed. From my point of view healthcare has crumped. You then summarize my dismay as anger at the idea of poor people getting access to healthcare, like what else could it be other than class bigotry?
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  So what you're saying is that the services are oversubscribed and if more people have access to them than you won't have access to them?
  - gsf_emergency_2 1y ago
    After steeping in Fischel's tract on the proximate cause of housing inflation (linked to from Klein).. I gather that the main (meta-)issue, as you are kind of insinuating here, is that, for healthcare, there is a conflation of inflationary and deflationary processes.. (Sorry to go on what might seem to be a reductive tangent here, as I often do when pressed. I have further takes on Klein vs Shapiro for later) My roughshod framing of (one) solution is that there has to be sustained deflationary pockets in a mildly inflationary phase Probably mirrored by such proposals for housing as https://devonzuegel.com/for-the-greater-good-the-game-theory-of-zoning https://devonzuegel.com/for-the-greater-good-the-game-theory...
    - PaulHoule 1y ago
      There are lotsa issues in healthcare, not least that the medical association practices "birth control" for doctors. Plus the residency process to get board certified is absolutely grueling [1], I knew more than one doc who quit when they got their MD and got into startup land because it's an easier life! It does seem that, against all odds, Obamacare really did "bend the cost curve" and slow down the growth in health care costs. After a rough patch decade or so when we didn't get new "blockbuster" drugs we are now getting drugs like Wegovy and Cobenfy which cost a lot but promise savings elsewhere. [1] that said, a doctor really should know what to do when somebody with a rare condition that they'll only see once in their career and working a 996 schedule at a university medical center does give the experience for that.
piva00 1y ago
> There's also the idea that you have legislation to protect workers (minimum wage, 40 hour week) Just an addendum that most Nordic countries don't have that, those are set on collective agreements between employers and employees, typically through an union.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  and that's a function of the regulatory environment. In the US it's tough for private sector unions but quite the opposite for public sector unions and for certain private sector contractors. Right now we have a lot of huge houses with massive master bedroom suites in Arizona and very little high speed rail but if there was union labor to build those houses and non-union to build the rail it would be the other way around. As it is we have a "labor aristocracy" that fought efforts to establish universal health care for 40 years because good health benefits are a reason to take a union job.

jghn 1y ago

> I live in Sweden and this is absolutely not a socialist country. This is where I was going with my question. It seems unlikely that they live in a truly socialist environment