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How do you feel about socialism?
Posts
Generalizing much?
Welfare abuse is a small problem, but it does exist.
That's why most countries are shifting to "workfare" systems, where if you are on welfare for too long, then you have to do do training or work experience. The idea is to get people motivated to get back into work, but it also serves to ensure that there is some form of "mutual obligation".
The US tried to do this via "welfare-to-work", but it had issues (mostly brought about due to ideological provisions added by Congress), and most individual states didn't really get on-board. Rather than sorting out the problems, the present administration just cancelled the programme.
Using your own logic, I really don't see why I should give a shit if you're happy. Socialism helps me because I'm not so obscenely wealthy that I can trust to afford my medical bills forever or to be perfectly fine if I'm unable to find work, as are the MAJORITY of people, and if you can't live with most people in the country being better off at a minor amount of your expense then boo hoo.
Edit: Look at it this way. If they don't get basic necessities they will die. So why shouldn't they break into your home and steal what you have.
How deranged do you have to be to point to Sweden as an example of a scary socialist country with a straight face? How does she get paid for this?
But there are no wealthy people there!!! Everyone is merely upper-middle class!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yeah, sweden isn't bad at all, in fact, it's the second most awesome country in scandinavia.
Have you ever met a Swede? What with the no hair and the fangs and the bifurcated lower jaw and the body that continues feeding after the brain has died?
I liked how he called her out on those specific questions.
If Obama turned USA into anything resembling Sweden, I think the amount of hate against americans world wide would fall drastically, I would certainly go from being very anti-american to a lot more pro-american, but then again I am a socialist to the core (member of the danish Socialist Peoples Party) and USA is pretty much the opposite of what I would like to a country to be like.
Take from everyone (mostly the rich) and give to everyone (mostly the poor or otherwise needy).
I'd say these are the main two tenets. They range in severity with the 'most' socialist on the right.
1. State control of industry. (US=Post; UK=Health; France=Energy)
2. Equalisation of wealth. (US=Progressive Taxes; UK=Welfare State; France=Super Welfare State)
Basically, the government does its best to mitigate destructive sideeffects of the peaks and troughs of the boom-and-bust business cycle - through regulation of industries and financial markets, to providing for the citizens most harmed by the bust side of the equation, so they can stay healthy and productive until their work is needed again. Economic growth used to be a very two-steps-forward-one-step-back sort of affair, with the progress of years or decades wiped out overnight by a crash. Socialism slows growth by increasing the cost of doing business but makes up for it with increased stability.
Used to be? Boom and bust is still going strong.
Wait, isn't your country reviled in the Muslim world because your government refused to speak out against Islamic cartoons? And everyone hates the French, and they're pretty left-leaning. So, in general everyone hates dicks, and some people will hate you for no apparent reason. Somehow, I think its possible for the United States to be right-leaning without angering the rest of the world.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Yes but they are very fucking loud and like to explode themselves.
I don't know if it can be completely eliminated, but we have the tools to level the cycle a lot. Things are only as bad as they are now because we chose not to use those tools. And even so, bad as things are (and bad as they can become), we are not seeing entire business sectors disappearing overnight the way they did in the assorted Panics and Crises of the nineteenth century.
GO KILL YOURSELF WITH DEATH
EDIT: This actually came up in my "cultural interactions between east and west in art" class I took in Tokyo. It was pretty funny, the teacher brought in a fistful of articles claiming that visually depicting Mohammad was against the tenets of Islam, asked who agreed, and like everyone raised their hands. She then pointed and laughed at us, while proceeding to systematically tear the whole assumption to shreds.
I loved that professor.
Well, before this coming recession, the normal recession period in the last 25 years has been about one quarter of negative growth, which is less than the standard definition of a recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
BTW, that's a very, er, moderate, definition of socialism you got there.
Ohh I wasn't claiming it was a cure-all, especially not to the arabs, I was talking about europeans hating america and I can tell you there are a LOT of them.
In my experience there a lot of europeans who dislike USA, not due to the villification of arabs, but due to the american worldview and what it has done to the world (europe mostly as we are just as self-centered as everyone else).
Denmark have been in on the anti arab action abroad since day one, fortunatly it isn't as bad a problem internally as it might appear externally as it is mostly due to the government only having a majority due to a small xenophobic party.
I also said more like Sweden and not Denmark, the swedish are historically better at appeasing all sides then the danish, we have tried it and failed repeatedly (the second world war is one of the best examples).
A lot of the hate for the French (at least, here in Australia) is from when they were blowing up pristine Pacific Ocean islands with nukes. They did a lot of that in the 1980s and 1990s, and they are still widely considered to be arrogant environmental vandals as a result.
Their sinking of the Rainbow Warrior didn't really help endear them to the world at large either.
Bahahaha.
Are you, by chance, taking a university class about socialism? Or reading from a textbook about socialism? I've never actually heard it described in strictly economic terms before, certainly not a method of maintaining economic growth. Don't suppose you can link to an expanded version of your post?
Well, my degree is in economics, so that's how I tend to look at these things. I think a lot of socialist policies are just the good, civilized way to do things anyway, but yeah, when you boil down stuff like "people have a right not to starve to death/be uneducated just because their parents are poor or their job crapped out" it can still be described as a question of protecting the citizenry as a way of ensuring the country's future growth. Stupid, starved people are not exactly engines of productivity.
I think you just don't know how to use them right.
What has America done to Western Europe exactly?
But you could certainly do worse than looking at the Socialist International's website for information. It's the worldwide grouping of socialist and social democratic parties, after all:
SI Declaration of Principles:
http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=31
SI Ethical Charter:
http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=24
The documents are a bit out-of-date, but they should give an overall picture.
You throw them in the engines as fuel, right?
I will say that orphans' tears taste amazing.
In short: Ideological and political influence. I am not going to claim USA haven't done good things for Europe, but I see it as more of the exception rather then the rule.
I believe it's off-topic though as it another discussion then why socialism is disliked in USA and it is very much an ideological discussion as a european conservative would probably welcome most of the american influence, it just so happens that I am socialist and move in socialist/democratic-socialist circles and thus my world view is coloured by that, to us USA is one of our biggest ideological enemies.
I can't think of many, especially since Western Europe as it is now probably wouldn't exist without the U.S.A and it's free money after WWII. Or is that your problem?
EDIT: This also meant we came out of the war in pretty good shape since there was very little fighting or anything in Denmark.
Mentioning this just because I find the WW2 mention irrelevant.
I am not claiming that the relationship between Europe and USA is bad economically (except for right now during this crisis as Europe standing alone wouldn't have had a problem, fuck the danish economy was in super duper awesome mode and going toward more awesome until the crisis hit, now it seems we must face a downturn just because of dumb americans), I am saying that from an socialist viewpoint the influx of american culture is bad, not the money, but the culture and ideologi in it.
As I said it's a purely ideological and political thing, if america wasn't so phobic towards socialism I would welcome american influence.
We had/have a housing bubble yes, but the property isn't overly mortgaged so a price decrease isn't a problem for a good time yet. We have incredibly low unemployment under 2% and everything was great despite most of the rest of Europe beginning to decline slowly.
We have huge plusses on all national accounts, no national debt worth speaking off.
It isn't just artificially kept up like the american situation is, there truely are money behind it all, so no I wouldn't agree with that assesment.
We are a very small country though so we can't really insulate ourselves from the rest of world, especially not from the Eurozone which we are tied to (but not a part of).
EDIT: It's off-topic though, and I can't really give you more then the above since I am not an economist, so I can only really relay what all the danish experts and politicans agree is the case.
It's like how China keeps shit cheap everywhere.
I agree with that and I see what you meant now, so I think we agree, I just thought you said that the danish situation was artificially kept up, which it isn't.
Well you don't use the whole thing, at least not at once. The hearts are perfect for fueling your holographic happiness machine!
Oh OK, so its just a purely a philosophical difference. Fair enough, even though I personally completely disagree.
Weeellll much like its aid to Africa now, America's aid then came with more strings than the Team America Movie, namely replacing the former Western European global economic influcence with American and not allowing West Europe much economic or political freedom of action during the Cold War.
The Marshall Plan also was hardly unhelpful to Americans either considering the money mainly flowed right back across the pond to buy American made goods.