Which country do you think has the best economic system in the world? (capitalism, wholesale)
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There is a lot of discussion on these forums about how a country's economic system should function to serve their citizens the best. In the United States, upper-middle class professional people (the top 20%) make the highest incomes of any country. However, there is more inequality between the top 20% and the bottom 20%.
In most other developed countries, there is more compression of incomes and higher taxes. This leads to greater overall socioeconomic equality, even though the people at the top don't make as much money as in the United States.
So, which economic system do you prefer? Which country gives the best economic opportunities to their citizens?
As well intended as the question is, I think it's circular nonsense. The countries with monolithic populations have systems that work very well for them but would likely break down in a multicultural nation like the US or even Canada. The authoritarian countries, ditto.
If what you mean is "where should the US go," I think studying the successes of Canada would be the most productive. Not adopting their system wholesale, but studying what they get right under similar conditions to the US.
We could learn from a 'whole model' that way, but trying to cherry-pick elements from, say, Sweden is just argument bait. You can't change just one socioeconomic factor.
There is a lot of discussion on these forums about how a country's economic system should function to serve their citizens the best.
Which country gives the best economic opportunities to their citizens?
The "best" and "opportunities" are two different questions.
"Best" is an individual question. Not all people make the "best" of opportunities.
Anyway, the United States economy is the most prolific goods and services production and distribution machine. Life in the United States is materially very convenient.
Moreover the United States, in my experience, still offers - especially to dynamic young people - the most and best opportunities to start their own business and/or professional career and keep most of what they earn.
Worth repeating, not all people make the "best" of opportunities.
Now, if that is the "best" economic system, I don't know.
At any rate, I would venture to guess that many of these "alternative" first-world economic systems wouldn't be as successful if it weren't for the free-wheeling, globally-reverberating opportunities available in the United States.
I like a system that offers maximum reward to the successful and lets them keep the most of their money, and doesn’t offer much to the losers, except through private charities and organizations. The US comes the closest but ideally would have far fewer social programs and much lower taxes still. The government is still way too big and wasteful and mediocrity is encouraged more than it should be. Part of it is a cultural thing. My favorite culture is Japan honestly, they are honorable people who value hard work and dedication almost to a fault but I like that. The US is somewhere in the middle, some people are like that (our best and brightest ARE the best and brightest in the entire world), and some aren’t, and Europe is firmly in the slacker category where 4 hour siestas mid-day and working as little as possible is the ideal. I don’t have any respect for European countries outside of the U.K. and Germany. They’re a bunch of lazy slackers more interested in their past than any sort of future whatsoever. It’s sad.
Certain things should be available to ALL citizens, such as access to good shelter, water, healthy food and the best health care it can give its citizens. These should be a "right ".
Not all low income people are slackers as one poster stated.
I, have many many chronic medical conditions. I worked...always more than one job, saved well, but due to said medical issues I was early medically retired at the age of 40. I am allowed to work (thanks to bush jr) as a "working person with disabilities ", and i do so, to the best of my ability. So i am no slouch or slacker.
But I DO agree to many "baby daddy " momas should be made to work for the welfare benefits they receive, and every male should have to submit DNA, preferably at birth, to go after the "deadbeat dads" and make do some supporting of the kids they create. THEY are the slackers!
Sweden DOES have very high income taxes, but in exchange for that they receive a LOTof benefits. College is free,students are paid while they attend, have access to very good healthcare. And everyone is guaranteed a comfortable retirement, though it may not be lavish unless they save additionally.
Every one who is willing and able to work and does, even in a lower capacity or even only part time, should have access to good benefits and a living wage. Many who do work the lower jobs ARE needed! ( think about that as you next use a CLEAN public bathroom or eat for cheap in a restaurant!
Many articles have been published about how much a country, namely the United states, needs the lowly immigrants (illegal or legal).
And most of the lower wage earners simply cannot afford a single share of stock in the company they work and slave for.
Businesses should be offering basic benefits to ALL its employees. Not just "senior " or "high value " employees. Why? Because (take retail) the lowly cashier (bad example as we seek to totally eliminate them) and the stockers are really the ones the CEOs and managers expect to actually bring money in. Take manufacturing then , even though Henry Ford was really a greedy dude, he realized that the guy who put the lowly lug nuts on was just as important as the highly educated employees, for if the wheels fell off, customers would not buy his products.
I think it was one of the tire companies CEO or founder who saw that the guy who sweeps the floor is the most important
Person working on factory floor. Because the floor sweeper keeps the place clean so the other workers could effectively make the product.
This/these ideas not new, but are worth repeating, as they tend to get forgotten.
If ALL people have access to the "basic human rights " as i listed above, then they might actually want to do something more beneficial to their society.
The current situation in this country seems to be, that if you have any money, some one else wants it, whether you are talking low wage earners or the wealthy.
In a college business course, ( though I was never able to finish), we were taught that a business needs to do 3 things, 1) responsible to serve its customers, for without customers it has no business, 2) should be responsible to its workers, for without them the business cannot operate, and 3) is responsible to the society it operates in, for they are part of that community.
It seems many companies do not operate that way in this country, they are just out for money grabs. Sure some companies do do this, but many turn a blind eye.
There is no easy answer, no best system, but a country really should be striving to care for the people with in it, for without them, there is no country.
Since there is no easy good answer, I didn't vote.
And as a lowly minimum wage hotel front desk clerk (think about that the next time you check in or want to argue about the price of the room), i will probably be totally dismissed by those who have a masters degree, yet will want the hotel room for as cheap as they can get it, whether for business travel or fun with the family vacation check in.
Certain things should be available to ALL citizens, such as access to good shelter, water, healthy food and the best health care it can give its citizens. These should be a "right ".
The US economy already provides access to good shelter, water, healthy food and the best health care.
By the same token, then, every citizen should have:
- the OBLIGATION to eat healthy food, and avoid junk food like the plague, which it is, a plague;
- the OBLIGATION to drink healthy water, and not sugar-contaminated poison;
- the OBLIGATION to at least engage in some daily physical movement;
and therein lies the best health care that individual citizens can give to themselves individually and collectively;
- the OBLIGATION not to take on a financial commitment for more shelter than they can afford.
Adults of able body and mind sitting around, whining and complaining, waiting for others to provide the basics, which they already have access to, can never be right.
True, we all do also have the OBLIGATION to provide young people with access to every opportunity possible to help them prosper, which includes strict education in healthy lifestyle choices, and to help others who have suffered misfortune despite trying to do the right thing, but not to deliver them "rights" for the sake of it.
Because it simply doesn't work that way, not even in la-la land.
Now, I could agree that the US needs better policies to ease access to health care services, which may include a single-payer system (meaning everybody pays through one financial intermediary), but it is a complex issue riddled with special interests, and indeed it's disgusting.
The U.S. is too much unfettered capitalism, it definitely does not serve its citizens the best, there should be caps on how much money any single entity (individual, company) can earn so as to prevent too much money (and power) from being concentrated. Wealth needs to be spread around more. When money is concentrated in small groups, those groups have too much power in decision-making that affects too many other people. Inequality of wealth distribution results in inequality in many other things.
The U.S. is too much unfettered capitalism, it definitely does not serve its citizens the best, there should be caps on how much money any single entity (individual, company) can earn so as to prevent too much money (and power) from being concentrated. Wealth needs to be spread around more. When money is concentrated in small groups, those groups have too much power in decision-making that affects too many other people. Inequality of wealth distribution results in inequality in many other things.
The logic of those policies is that you would rather have the poor poorer, so long as the gap is smaller.
You do not create wealth and opportunity that way.
Still the best man we have on either side of the Atlantic ... by far.
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