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The best bet for all is entrepreneurial capitalism (not crony capitalism) where we all get to be innovative, creative, and excited about our projects. With guaranteed income and no incentives to innovate and create, there would be no mass access to the internet, no PC's, no Mac's, no iPhones, no cool new watches with computers in them, no great little coffee shops, no independent people providing wonderful services we all take for granted.
The financial illiteracy in this country is astounding and terrifying. It is entrepreneurial capitalism that has lifted people out of poverty from the beginning of time. I grow or make something you need, you grow or make something I need, we figure out a way to trade it using paper or gold or barter. We are both happy.
Lowering the bottom doesn't ever work. Ask Alcoholics Anonymous. That's their main platform. When you guarantee income people get used to being taken care of. Why do the forest services tell us not to feed the animals or they will become dependent on us and starve when we disappear?
I believe in giving a hand UP, not a hand OUT. Working on something you love and succeeding is the best way to have high self esteem and motivation. When people are handed everything they need to survive and aren't asked to do more, it's demeaning. It's the bigotry of lowered expectations.
It's also interesting how many people are willing to give others guaranteed income as long as it doesn't come directly out of their OWN pocket. This brainwashing against entrepreneurial capitalism is really a concern. You can't lump that little store owner on the corner with behemoth multi-nationals. Two completely different type entities. Yet those who are on the dole are more than happy to yell for laws and restrictions that wind up shutting down their favorite little coffee bar because - hey - "capitalism is bad! amirite?" No - it isn't. Take a step back and think about what you are asking for.
One problem is that labor cost here is still much higher than that of the third world. Capitalism doesn't want to place stuff in this country. So I agree with what you said, but it's much more difficult to do.
This is why people ridicule hardwork because they have little to work on. They are more interested in retaining to their old standard of life then accepting things going down hill. Americas down hill is just an inevitable future. But people aren't convinced yet. They are going to use political means to get what they had.
The real effect of this is not today, but many decades from today. The USA will surely lose its place in the world, along with our inflated lifestyle.
In all seriousness...the government simply doesn't have the same motivations to provide a great service at a low cost that the private sector does. If enough people don't like what Wal-Mart or Verizon has to offer, then those companies will go out of business. If enough people don't like the TSA or the DMV well....
Everything you said is an unverified platitude. Entrepreneurial capitalism often wastes human lives, wrings them out, and gives them nothing in return, because capitalism works for and in the interested of only the capitalist (literally, not as a value judgment). There is nothing about socialism that is inherently against "trade", but against the fact that only those with capital can command the social order. Even the "innovators" have to give a large share of their innovations to those who already have capital.
The whole nonsense about the "bigotry of lowered expectations" is useless. People without capital, without equal resources growing up, equal access to connections, etc... are far less likely - by any measure - to move up. It's worse here, in a nation that has much more inequality, than it is in many nations that do far more to ensure a basic and adequate standard of living. This includes things like guaranteed paid vacation, universal healthcare, etc... They realize that nobody makes anything on their own and everyone - everyone - is 100% reliant upon the unearned benefits of society. It is at least a partial recognition that all the knowledge arising from all past generations and all other people outside our immediate sphere, all the infrastructure upon which we rely, etc... is the PROPERTY of all mankind and not some supposed self-created savior. There are no uncaused causes, there is no independent earning of any wealth.
Capitalism is the destruction of our humanity in every sense.
Even if it is true, you are still facing increasing capitalist and inventive competition from many other countries. You don't want capitalism. Capitalism wants you. All you are doing is making this country less competitive and more vulnerable to forces of nature.
Many of those countries that do better than us rely on the USA to provide military defense, among many other things. The USA had to be NATO for Europe to have all their stuff that we don't get. Same is true for japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Their so called humane system is possible precisely because of the brutality and violence of the United States. They just outsourced it to the USA. There is no independent society that's somehow shielded from brutal international competition.
For your system to work you need other countries to give up their capitalism and do what you want them to do. But how likely is that? Much of the far left's ideological pursuit sounds very much like how libertarians fantasize an innocent and pure world. Eventually you will have to face the same old forces of nature. Or you will be eliminated.
Imagine if Ukraine is a society with "equal access" for all its citizens and everything the far left wants, Russia will still want Crimea. Russia wants Crimea period. Whether it's legit or not is a different question. If Ukrainians can't fight that, then Crimea is going to go. We in the west are just too comfortable.
Within the US, you can use democratic and political activism to secure yourself. But we do live in the real world.
Last edited by Costaexpress; 07-15-2014 at 07:43 PM..
Capitalism is the destruction of our humanity in every sense.
But by god communism works!
Truth be told, as I said before, capitalism delivers what socialism (and communism) promise.
The fact that there is inequality in the system does not mean it is worse than socialist or communist models. And as you cite, coming from certain economic backgrounds does limit your potential to a great degree in some cases, to a small degree in others, but it does represent limitations of opportunity, not impermiable barriers.
I lived in Europe (Germany) for several years, and the limits on choices, goods, and services are astounding! Social democracies have worse flaws than our quasi free market system has, but most Americans have never had to live under the constraints, and only see the benifiets.
If your on vacation, having a beer at a sidewalk cafe, the social democracy model is outstanding! If your living in it and trying to find work, move up economically, or improve yourself in a way that is not approved by the state, well, your screwed.
Truth be told, as I said before, capitalism delivers what socialism (and communism) promise.
The fact that there is inequality in the system does not mean it is worse than socialist or communist models. And as you cite, coming from certain economic backgrounds does limit your potential to a great degree in some cases, to a small degree in others, but it does represent limitations of opportunity, not impermiable barriers.
I lived in Europe (Germany) for several years, and the limits on choices, goods, and services are astounding! Social democracies have worse flaws than our quasi free market system has, but most Americans have never had to live under the constraints, and only see the benifiets.
If your on vacation, having a beer at a sidewalk cafe, the social democracy model is outstanding! If your living in it and trying to find work, move up economically, or improve yourself in a way that is not approved by the state, well, your screwed.
Wow, so having a wider panoply of similar goods to choose from would be better than working 400 less hours per year (average German work-year), having guaranteed paid vacation of 6 weeks, guaranteed healthcare, and by every measure greater inter-generational economic mobility? I emphasize the latter, because the notion that "moving up" or "improving yourself" is easier or more encouraged here isn't born out by statistics of actual class mobility.
I just don't understand what value those choices have when they don't translate into utility or time or happiness or anything that actually matters. I think it's just that hedonic treadmill in this country is set on a much higher pace.
In all seriousness...the government simply doesn't have the same motivations to provide a great service at a low cost that the private sector does. If enough people don't like what Wal-Mart or Verizon has to offer, then those companies will go out of business. If enough people don't like the TSA or the DMV well....
The USPS faced bankruptcy (your article is from 2011 and things have improved somewhat) because of the restrictions that Congress has placed on them that they don't place on FedEx and USPS, as well as because the internet has impacted snail mail far more than package delivery. It's no surprise that FedEx spends far more in lobbying dollars than companies of similar size within the Fortune 500. As to restrictions, I'm not just speaking of the pensions (which USPS has largely gotten past the crunch), but delivery restrictions. That has nothing to do with efficiency. On a cost and delivery time basis, USPS destroys UPS and FedEx, which is amazing considering they have to serve huge portions of the rural U.S. that it would be financially disastrous for FedEx and UPS to serve if they couldn't offload some of their shipments at low cost to USPS. Without USPS, the idea of 50c first class mail delivery anywhere in the country would be gone forever.
Amtrak is incredible. The service is good and it's pretty on-time. I relied on it heavily in North Dakota to get to school and back from Rugby. It's actual a perfect example of why we need government. We'd no longer have the existing rail infrastructure upon which tens of millions partially or directly rely for work, transit, and freight if it weren't for the government taking over Amtrak and keeping it in business at a loss. The "freight" part is key; Amtrak's service also helps subsidize the function of a great deal of rail itself which freight shippers rely upon.
As to that third article, I have no idea what it is trying to prove. A conservative blog talking about the installation of a certain type of toll lane in North Carolina... means what? States like Indiana that sold their toll capabilities to private companies have suffered badly because of it, not just in higher tolls but in lost revenue.
Finally, OTB in New York went out of business. Okay, New York betting on horses also declined, and they had high legacy costs; seems like they would have shrunk to a very small size even if they stayed in business... Kodak went out of business and that's a far more incredible failure. I don't see how that example proves anything.
Truth be told, as I said before, capitalism delivers what socialism (and communism) promise.
The fact that there is inequality in the system does not mean it is worse than socialist or communist models. And as you cite, coming from certain economic backgrounds does limit your potential to a great degree in some cases, to a small degree in others, but it does represent limitations of opportunity, not impermiable barriers.
I lived in Europe (Germany) for several years, and the limits on choices, goods, and services are astounding! Social democracies have worse flaws than our quasi free market system has, but most Americans have never had to live under the constraints, and only see the benifiets.
If your on vacation, having a beer at a sidewalk cafe, the social democracy model is outstanding! If your living in it and trying to find work, move up economically, or improve yourself in a way that is not approved by the state, well, your screwed.
Socialism and communism at best have temporary equality. In Communist countries, the artificial "equality" drove people to use "back doors" to get ahead. Bribe, network, and so on and so forth. Gradually government imposed equality deteriorated. People were suspicious of one another, kept things secret, went out of ways to hide. Some also figured how to put in less work and get paid the same. When the financial motive is taken out,people worked on rumors. They could not function without some sort of selfish motive. These people were being capitalists in a way. The system fell apart. Those with power were still tremendously in better financial shape than those without. The limits would drive Scandinavians into a revolt.
It shows several things. Socialism and communism didn't work. Or if you prefer to view these systems as better systems from an ideological perspective, then what can be said is that humans are not "good" enough for it. They are not cut for it. The conclusion stands. The fact that a system preaching compassion and equality reduced to sadistic torture and rape is entirely unsurprising but tragic. It shows the depth of depravity when humans are put in a certain condition. Such a result, make no mistake, was intentional for communist rulers who sought power like kings and queens in a different name.
The real question is not to build a perfect system. Such dreams often come with even more disastrous outcomes than capitalism.
Capitalism with reasonable regulation and motivation works better. The left likes to demonize everyone who voices any favorable opinion toward capitalism, as if these people all believe in pure market libertarian capitalism. But it's not true. Regulations are important. Contract laws must be enforced. Capitalism comes with many forms also. What the much of the left is now pushing is against the idea of capitalism. That is a more dramatic position than the democratic party's brand of capitalism. It risks pushing the Democratic Party into a further left position. It's like going outside the bipartisan framework to establish something naive and shortsighted.
Humans don't bust their butt unless there is a crisis. There is very little overlap between comfort and motivation. Until we live in a non competition world, we cannot risk going down the road the far left has chosen. With this many people opposing it, it also is very un democratic and unresponsive to citizens in this country. Likewise, I believe we can't accept the extreme libertarian ideas either.
Last edited by Costaexpress; 07-15-2014 at 08:18 PM..
Wow, so having a wider panoply of similar goods to choose from would be better than working 400 less hours per year (average German work-year), having guaranteed paid vacation of 6 weeks, guaranteed healthcare, and by every measure greater inter-generational economic mobility? I emphasize the latter, because the notion that "moving up" or "improving yourself" is easier or more encouraged here isn't born out by statistics of actual class mobility.
I just don't understand what value those choices have when they don't translate into utility or time or happiness or anything that actually matters. I think it's just that hedonic treadmill in this country is set on a much higher pace.
You have to live it to understand it - not trying to dodge here, but if you asked me before I lived there I would have sounded like you, and cited some of the same things you cite. After living there I have a very different veiw of the limitations inherent in those societies (social democracies).
There is a cost to the social services, and the government is not an effecient provider of those services, so houses are smaller, travel is less, education is more controlled (I want to say limited, but that probably isn't the right word with US connotation), opportunities are fewer and farther between. Taxes are incredibly intrusive, and everywhere - the US is lightly taxed by comparison (but I would not make the case the US is lightly taxed).
Those that have full time jobs in professional careers have a good life, but there is a lot of contract labor that make US employers look like saints! There is a lot of unemployment, and there is many of the same disfunctions in the major German cities as there are in the major US ones.
Healthcare (outside of routine maintenance care) is allocated through wait times, and is "different" - can't really say better or worse, because how they do treatments, Dr patient relationships/expectations, etc., are very different than in the US - somethings better, most things worse (or a generation or two behind in technolodgy), but this is a mixed bag.
I am really glad I had the opportunity to live there, it was a fascinating experience, but was really happy, and somewhat relieved to come "home."
All statistics aside, life is easier here, with more opportunity for those who want it.
The USPS faced bankruptcy (your article is from 2011 and things have improved somewhat) because of the restrictions that Congress has placed on them that they don't place on FedEx and USPS, as well as because the internet has impacted snail mail far more than package delivery. It's no surprise that FedEx spends far more in lobbying dollars than companies of similar size within the Fortune 500. As to restrictions, I'm not just speaking of the pensions (which USPS has largely gotten past the crunch), but delivery restrictions. That has nothing to do with efficiency. On a cost and delivery time basis, USPS destroys UPS and FedEx, which is amazing considering they have to serve huge portions of the rural U.S. that it would be financially disastrous for FedEx and UPS to serve if they couldn't offload some of their shipments at low cost to USPS. Without USPS, the idea of 50c first class mail delivery anywhere in the country would be gone forever.
Amtrak is incredible. The service is good and it's pretty on-time. I relied on it heavily in North Dakota to get to school and back from Rugby. It's actual a perfect example of why we need government. We'd no longer have the existing rail infrastructure upon which tens of millions partially or directly rely for work, transit, and freight if it weren't for the government taking over Amtrak and keeping it in business at a loss. The "freight" part is key; Amtrak's service also helps subsidize the function of a great deal of rail itself which freight shippers rely upon.
As to that third article, I have no idea what it is trying to prove. A conservative blog talking about the installation of a certain type of toll lane in North Carolina... means what? States like Indiana that sold their toll capabilities to private companies have suffered badly because of it, not just in higher tolls but in lost revenue.
Finally, OTB in New York went out of business. Okay, New York betting on horses also declined, and they had high legacy costs; seems like they would have shrunk to a very small size even if they stayed in business... Kodak went out of business and that's a far more incredible failure. I don't see how that example proves anything.
My point was in the last paragraph of the post you quoted. The difference between private sector and government is that the gov't doesn't have much of an incentive to control its costs nor use resources efficiently. This is why the government can throw a billion dollars building a website that doesn't work. Who cares, if the venture flops..they'll just force the taxpayers to eat the loss. At least the private sector has to get the government's help to do the same thing, otherwise they'd have no other choice but to smarten up or go out of business. It's kind of funny actually, the government can operate a virtual monopoly (i.e. Amtrak), yet still bleed money. Standard Oil nor AT&T had that problem.
You have to live it to understand it - not trying to dodge here, but if you asked me before I lived there I would have sounded like you, and cited some of the same things you cite. After living there I have a very different veiw of the limitations inherent in those societies (social democracies).
There is a cost to the social services, and the government is not an effecient provider of those services, so houses are smaller, travel is less, education is more controlled (I want to say limited, but that probably isn't the right word with US connotation), opportunities are fewer and farther between. Taxes are incredibly intrusive, and everywhere - the US is lightly taxed by comparison (but I would not make the case the US is lightly taxed).
Those that have full time jobs in professional careers have a good life, but there is a lot of contract labor that make US employers look like saints! There is a lot of unemployment, and there is many of the same disfunctions in the major German cities as there are in the major US ones.
Healthcare (outside of routine maintenance care) is allocated through wait times, and is "different" - can't really say better or worse, because how they do treatments, Dr patient relationships/expectations, etc., are very different than in the US - somethings better, most things worse (or a generation or two behind in technolodgy), but this is a mixed bag.
I am really glad I had the opportunity to live there, it was a fascinating experience, but was really happy, and somewhat relieved to come "home."
All statistics aside, life is easier here, with more opportunity for those who want it.
I understand you lived there, so I'm not dismissing it inherently, but I'll take statistics over anecdotes all the time. My personal experiences are confined to tourist travel, but broad social indicators are more important than my person experience or even personal opinion because cognitive biases are everywhere. What I would say is that I'd trade less travel for more time to use my limited travel. I'll also say that I HATE the huge house aspect of the U.S. because it is pure waste (more energy bills, more construction materials and labor wasted, more maintenance costs, etc... I can afford a three bedroom house and I live in a one bedroom. If I could do the "tiny house" thing, I would). It's one of our worst conspicuous consumption habits.
The part about opportunities, again, isn't true. Stats are representative of the experiences and lives of millions, not the observations or subjective opinions of some. Upward mobility, educational mobility, etc... are all better in Germany.
Next, I would say the U.S. is very under-taxed; we have the lowest taxes (roughly tied with Japan) out of the OECD. Germany is moderately taxed. I'd prefer something like Denmark, where it's almost a perfect 50-50 split between taxed and untaxed income in the aggregate. I like taxes, with them I buy civilization .
With healthcare, it's far cheaper overall (the two-tier system in Germany is pretty interesting) and outcomes are very similar, so regardless of quantity of technology, the thing that matters - outcome - is better.
But I'm a utilitarian; I think having time to pursue one's interests and a basic set of resources is considerably more valuable than abstract choice or perception of mobility. The marginal benefit of additional resources drops off heavily once one reaches a certain mild level of comfort. Germany and the Social Democracies, to me, are far more balanced in that regard. Germany DOES have issues with contract labor in some slices of the economy, but there is even some movement towards eliminating that with their new minimum wage law.
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