A left-leaning friend of mine likes to think that Europe (he's European and loves the healthcare system there) is socialist and America is somehow the opposite. When I tell him we're also socialist here, he can't accept it and think it's cause I'm 'right wing. ' He has a hard time distinguishing Libertarian from Republican, and lumps me in with them as well.
Is there a simple, not overly biased article I can link to him that shows him just how socialist America is that will set him straight?
Also, is there something that illustrates, say, the French healthcare system vs. the U.S. system, something that doesn't just show it as some kind of miracle system vs. ours? I can't believe for a second that they have some perfect, no cost system over there, but my friend seems to think so. What are the costs? Is there rationing as one should expect? What about their drugs? Does the U.S. basically subsidize all of Europe by paying high drug costs so they can get cheap drugs over there?
Thanks for any help.
Read Thomas Fleming's Socialism.
The Socialist Party of United States in the 1920s had a handsome charismatic leader called Norman Thomas. He was the front of the Social Gospel movement, a church preacher who joined the coalition of Leninists who were opposing WWI.
He managed to persuasively implement many of his moderate demands, because the Republican Party and Democratic Party took his ideas and implemented them in their own way across the years. The general public also liked his speeches, but found his Socialist Party label unsavoury. Certain political thinkers have called him one of the most successful American politicians in getting his ideas implemented.
I'll take a look. It can't be a book because my friend wouldn't go through the trouble of buying something on my advice then actually reading it, not for something like this -- an argument I'm having with him. I'll look for an article or two -- that's the best I can hope to get him to bother with. Truth be told, I wouldn't read a book about something my friend was debating me on either, unless it was an important argument. So I want to email him links I know he'll bother to read, not something that resembles a syllabus for a college semester.
Thanks for the pointer. I think William Jennings Bryant was one of the crusaders for socialism, but that's so old. I want something to jar him, especially to knock the silly idea that somehow the U.S. is somehow so hardcore capitalist nation.
I don't understand how we can be completely different types of governments if our tax rate is 40%, and their tax rate is 48%...
Because high taxes are not a staple of socialism (in theory anyway)?
The only socialists thing we do in this country is Social Security. Everything else is corporatist hegemony designed to appease the socialist tendencies of the public. Even this healthcare bill was just a giant handout to insurance agencies.
"You buy insurance, or we will kill you... oh yeah, here's some money for it if you're broke"
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png
All government spending is socialism, so I would just point out the public schools, welfare, public infastructure, government owns over 99 percent of hospitals, government ownership over energy, government-backed monopolies, the great society, subsidization of business, mandetory insurance, labor laws, intellectual property, the central bank, tax rates, public debt, government-backed unionization, federal insurance and transfer payment programs, massive military spending, massive government regulatory agencies, etc etc.
Government spending accounts for almost 40% of GDP. Ask him if any of those things ring of the free market or voluntary exchange.
Denmark has greater business freedom, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom while having comparable property rights and trade freedom scores to the U.S. Sweden has greater business freedom and freedom from corruption, while having comparable trade freedom, monetary freedom, property rights enforcement, investment freedom, and financial freedom to the United States. Finland has greater business freedom, monetary freedom, and freedom from corruption than the United States, while having comparable property right enforcement, financial freedom, and trade freedom. Norway, the least successful Scandinavian nation, has greater freedom from corruption than the United States while having comparable business freedom, trade freedom, and property right enforcement. Iceland has greater business freedom, fiscal freedom, and freedom from corruption, while having comparable trade freedom and property right enforcement. In many ways, Scandinavian countries are more "laissez faire" than the United States.
All government spending is socialism
No that's statism.
Government spending accounts for almost 40% of GDP. Ask him if any of those things ring of the free market or voluntary exchange
No, but it is statist capitalism.\
labor laws
You did get one right tho.
Denmark has greater business freedom, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom while having comparable property rights and trade freedom scores to the U.S. Sweden has greater business freedom and freedom from corruption, while having comparable trade freedom, monetary freedom, property rights enforcement, investment freedom, and financial freedom to the United States. Finland has greater business freedom, monetary freedom, and freedom from corruption than the United States, while having comparable property right enforcement, financial freedom, and trade freedom. Norway, the least successful Scandinavian nation, has greater freedom from corruption than the United States while having comparable business freedom, trade freedom, and property right enforcement. Iceland has greater business freedom, fiscal freedom, and freedom from corruption, while having comparable trade freedom and property right enforcement. In many ways, Scandinavian countries are more "laissez faire" than the United States
That's right. Democratic socialism (or as Marxists call it "capitalism w a human face") is miles above statist capitalism (corporatocracies) as an economic and social organization.
@Epicurus, at LvMI, it's completely pointless for you to try to redefine well defined words as they are understood. All government spending is socialism, because socialism is incompatible with property rights, and government spending is only accomplished by government theft.
There is no such thing as statist capitalism. The two terms, again as understood here, are incompatible.
As understood here yes, which is why I'm trying to bring a lil truth into it.
Statism can exist in both capitalist and socialist societies, to suggest anything else is revisionism.
(Meaning there is a difference between market economics and the social structure of capitalism. I'm trying not to distance capitalism from it's historic roots and act like it never existed. This is capitalism, whether you like it or not. It may not be a truly market economy, but it is a capitalist system.)
Socialism is the collectivization of the means of production. A socialist country would imply that all of the means of productions which exist within the boundaries of a so-called nation have been collectivized, or nationalized by the government itself. The United States is not a socialist country, under this definition. However, it imposes socialistic and socialist programs; an example of the latter would be universal health care. Growing government acts to socialize, or collectivize, the means of production.
It is an interventionist economy, at best. This is not a "capitalist system"; it is a "capitalist system" with heavy interventionism.
Capitalsm's historic roots? What might those be?
Can you define capitalism for us?
Socialism is the collectivization of the means of production. A socialist country would imply that all of the means of productions which exist within the boundaries of a so-called nation have been collectivized
Pretty much.
nationalized by the government itself
That's the disconnect. How could a school that does not recognize borders "nationalize" anything. Also, social anarchists would disagree about that government part.
However, it imposes socialistic and socialist programs; an example of the latter would be universal health care
This healthcare we passed is anything but socialist. True socialism would not force insurance upon people at the barrel of a gun.
Growing government acts to socialize, or collectivize, the means of production.
Ya, if only welfare gave you stock options instead of paper funny money.
That's my point. It is statist capitalism. If one can call the USSR socialist, than one can call the US capitalist. Neither fits heavily with the theory, because they both practice statism.
As the show on Adult Swim says; "look around you."
16th ce Italy, the development of free markets to combat mercantilism, the US's adoption of market economics, the rise of the West as dominant global power, etc.
Capitalism rests heavily upon market economics, but it differs in its use of coercion to maintain an ownership class that dominates policy and social orginization. I mean, that's pretty basic, but it gets the jist across.
Epicurus,
That's the disconnect. How could a school that does not recognize borders "nationalize" anything.
The school doesn't nationalize anything. In any case, just because people here don't consider borders as legitimate, or they believe them to be artificial, doesn't mean that they deny that they exist. This is not a school of nihilists.
Also, social anarchists would disagree about that government part. ... Ya, if only welfare gave you stock options instead of paper funny money.
Also, social anarchists would disagree about that government part.
...
The problem with the "social anarchist" ideal is that true collectivization of the means of production, or a social-political system in which all means of production were owned by everyone, would be impossible to sustain on any level. What I mean by this is that either the system would revert to a capitalist one, in which all goods were equally distributed amongst the population and economic calculation would once again occur, or the system falls into perpetual poverty. In the latter case, since it is impossible for millions upon millions of individuals to collectively plan a process of production, because there would be no consensus and not everyone is knowledgeable on the different aspects of an economy, the system would revert to one of political tyranny — the collectivization of the means of production would occur by means of government distribution of these same means of production, supposedly for the good of "the people".
Therefore, the difference between a capitalist system and a socialist system is that only the latter inevitably ends in statism (with my own caveat, that the former has already developed to an extensive level).
If you re-read what you quoted, you'll notice that I don't call the current medical cartel in the United States socialist. In fact, I call universal health care socialist. There is a big difference. The former is socialistic, the latter is socialist.
@Epicurus, at LvMI, it's completely pointless for you to try to redefine well defined words as they are understood. All government spending is socialism, because socialism is incompatible with property rights, and government spending is only accomplished by government theft. There is no such thing as statist capitalism. The two terms, again as understood here, are incompatible. There are governments which earn income from market activities, like Singapore, and they specially allocate some funds back into such business activities and some funds into state programs. Let us also remember that governments in the days of antiquity often have been funded from bonds i.e. capital, although only for certain specific use like building a bridge or a pipeline, and then paying it back from tolls or fees charged for using them. The state, as a monopoly of violence, has still practically (not just theoretically) a separate scope for doing activities in the market, other than its use of police enforcement. | Post Points: 20
There are governments which earn income from market activities, like Singapore, and they specially allocate some funds back into such business activities and some funds into state programs.
Let us also remember that governments in the days of antiquity often have been funded from bonds i.e. capital, although only for certain specific use like building a bridge or a pipeline, and then paying it back from tolls or fees charged for using them.
The state, as a monopoly of violence, has still practically (not just theoretically) a separate scope for doing activities in the market, other than its use of police enforcement.