4 ms·

It's a surprisingly efficient way of doing things. Much more so than having lots of private companies, each with shareholders demanding profits be returned It'

It's a surprisingly efficient way of doing things. Much more so than having lots of private companies, each with shareholders demanding profits be returned It's remarkable how our historical examples of this efficiency are so often ignored by all. I mean, consider how the soviets of the USSR succeeded in making that nation an economy to be reckoned with. And Chairman Mao's great leap forward was able to engineer a populace that succeeded in its grand goal of vaulting beyond the waste of the capitalist West. If only the industry of South Korea could prosper in the way that Kim Jong Il has guided his people into a paradise of plenty, then all Korean people could join hands in brotherhood.

jives 17y ago
Seriously, I would like to frame this post and put it on my wall :)
olefoo 17y ago
Strawman much? I'm pretty sure you're responding to someone who was thinking more of Denmark, Sweden or Canada. None of which are dystopian totalitarian societies that can't afford the political freedoms necessary to running a modern society. If that's the level of discourse you are sinking to, you are a sad example of what is happening to this country and this site. You should be ashamed of yourself. Right at the moment, the cost of health care and health care administration is crippling the American economy, it prevents many people from taking entrepreneurial risks because they can't afford to jeopardise their health coverage. The cost of health coverage and care and the financialization of the housing market are two of the factors most responsible for the disappearance of the middle class in this country. And if you're worried about the United States falling prey to disastrous political ideology the lack of a stable middle class is a far greater risk factor than socialized medicine.
- kiba 17y ago
  The tensions are between centralized authorities(command economies) and individuals(free market) making decisions. The crux of the debate is whether the system should be centralized more or move toward individual human actors, whether these system could do better than the other, or whether it is something in between.(Ethical and political views are another story) I believe the pundit was arguing that the most extreme example clearly demonstrate the fallacy of using central planning to do resource allocation. Swedens, Denmark, and Canada are mixed economies which make it difficult to discern the effect of free market economies versus socialist system.
gdp 17y ago
Erm, yeah, about that. You understand the the US is atypical in the way that it treats health care? The implication that pretty much the rest of the western world is communist because they ensure that everyone has access to at least some kind of health care is completely insane. You're using the "labelling it" technique, which is essentially, "If I can give a name to the thing I'm arguing against, then it's wrong!" (see what I just did there?) A legitimately elected government providing services that its citizens may choose to use or not use is not communism. It's also not nazism or the boogeyman. See, I would consider healthcare a much more basic service than a huge standing military, but nobody seems to question that that should be government-operated. The USSR also had a 100% government-operated military! Wow, so does China! And North Korea! And Iran! My word, the USA must be the most terrible country on earth!
- kiba 17y ago
  This is of course, assuming the pundit in question is not an anarcho-capitalist. To an anarcho-capitalist, the question of whether the production of security should be privatized is a perfectably reasonable discourse, in which they of course perscribe the creation of private defense agencies as well other insitutional design such as polycentric law and private courts, all of which have some basis in history.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  A legitimately elected government providing services that its citizens may choose to use or not use is not communism. It's also not nazism or the boogeyman. You seem to have a strange definition of communism, as well as the history of nazism. Rather, you seem to be buying into the American propaganda that "democracy is the great good". A pure implementation of communism is necessarily democratic. Think about it. If all goods, and all production, are controlled by the body of people, then everything must be done by consensus. And you'll recall that in Germany, Hitler was democratically elected to power, and later assumed complete control again by election. You understand the the US is atypical in the way that it treats health care? You're just using the eight-year-old's "but johnny gets to stay up late" technique. And the answer is the same: just because one party does something really has not connection to whether it's the right thing for a different party to do. Anyway, the problem here politically is that the treatment of disease will immediately become politicized. In fact, it is already. People with mundane diseases will plod along, without any real progress made in cures. But diseases having real political constituencies -- AIDS/HIV is the big example -- will get enormous research, despite the fact that they account for a relatively small portion of the populace. Today, AIDS gets many times more funding per-sufferer than does, e.g., breast cancer. Today the government is the largest single funder of healthcare. But once they crowd out other actors, the entire medical profession will be political. That means that treatments will be put onto the approved list, and research dollars will be allocated, as a way of pandering for votes. This isn't an abstract fear: the government does this immediately upon getting involved. For example, look at the recent GM takeover. Despite Obama's claims (continuing to this day) that they don't want to micro-manage GM, Congress immediately set out preventing measures to make GM financially viable, such as closing dealerships. Local car dealerships are a surprisingly powerful constituency, and they get the bureaucrats working in their own interests in no time.

jives 17y ago

Seriously, I would like to frame this post and put it on my wall :)

olefoo 17y ago

Strawman much? I'm pretty sure you're responding to someone who was thinking more of Denmark, Sweden or Canada. None of which are dystopian totalitarian societies that can't afford the political freedoms necessary to running a modern society. If that's the level of discourse you are sinking to, you are a sad example of what is happening to this country and this site. You should be ashamed of yourself. Right at the moment, the cost of health care and health care administration is crippling the American economy, it prevents many people from taking entrepreneurial risks because they can't afford to jeopardise their health coverage. The cost of health coverage and care and the financialization of the housing market are two of the factors most responsible for the disappearance of the middle class in this country. And if you're worried about the United States falling prey to disastrous political ideology the lack of a stable middle class is a far greater risk factor than socialized medicine.

kiba 17y ago
The tensions are between centralized authorities(command economies) and individuals(free market) making decisions. The crux of the debate is whether the system should be centralized more or move toward individual human actors, whether these system could do better than the other, or whether it is something in between.(Ethical and political views are another story) I believe the pundit was arguing that the most extreme example clearly demonstrate the fallacy of using central planning to do resource allocation. Swedens, Denmark, and Canada are mixed economies which make it difficult to discern the effect of free market economies versus socialist system.

gdp 17y ago

Erm, yeah, about that. You understand the the US is atypical in the way that it treats health care? The implication that pretty much the rest of the western world is communist because they ensure that everyone has access to at least some kind of health care is completely insane. You're using the "labelling it" technique, which is essentially, "If I can give a name to the thing I'm arguing against, then it's wrong!" (see what I just did there?) A legitimately elected government providing services that its citizens may choose to use or not use is not communism. It's also not nazism or the boogeyman. See, I would consider healthcare a much more basic service than a huge standing military, but nobody seems to question that that should be government-operated. The USSR also had a 100% government-operated military! Wow, so does China! And North Korea! And Iran! My word, the USA must be the most terrible country on earth!

kiba 17y ago
This is of course, assuming the pundit in question is not an anarcho-capitalist. To an anarcho-capitalist, the question of whether the production of security should be privatized is a perfectably reasonable discourse, in which they of course perscribe the creation of private defense agencies as well other insitutional design such as polycentric law and private courts, all of which have some basis in history.
CWuestefeld 17y ago
A legitimately elected government providing services that its citizens may choose to use or not use is not communism. It's also not nazism or the boogeyman. You seem to have a strange definition of communism, as well as the history of nazism. Rather, you seem to be buying into the American propaganda that "democracy is the great good". A pure implementation of communism is necessarily democratic. Think about it. If all goods, and all production, are controlled by the body of people, then everything must be done by consensus. And you'll recall that in Germany, Hitler was democratically elected to power, and later assumed complete control again by election. You understand the the US is atypical in the way that it treats health care? You're just using the eight-year-old's "but johnny gets to stay up late" technique. And the answer is the same: just because one party does something really has not connection to whether it's the right thing for a different party to do. Anyway, the problem here politically is that the treatment of disease will immediately become politicized. In fact, it is already. People with mundane diseases will plod along, without any real progress made in cures. But diseases having real political constituencies -- AIDS/HIV is the big example -- will get enormous research, despite the fact that they account for a relatively small portion of the populace. Today, AIDS gets many times more funding per-sufferer than does, e.g., breast cancer. Today the government is the largest single funder of healthcare. But once they crowd out other actors, the entire medical profession will be political. That means that treatments will be put onto the approved list, and research dollars will be allocated, as a way of pandering for votes. This isn't an abstract fear: the government does this immediately upon getting involved. For example, look at the recent GM takeover. Despite Obama's claims (continuing to this day) that they don't want to micro-manage GM, Congress immediately set out preventing measures to make GM financially viable, such as closing dealerships. Local car dealerships are a surprisingly powerful constituency, and they get the bureaucrats working in their own interests in no time.