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Can you then explain why the richest and most economically and socially successful nations on Earth employ some type of socialism?
Because it is the natural arc of societies to become decadent when they no longer have to scratch and bite their way just to survive. Every society that has ever existed on the planet has fallen into decay.
In earilier times it was autocrats of various types becoming self indulgent and self absorbed once they felt their power was secure. Once it had gone on long enough, they were overthrown by either a more vigorous neighboring autocrat or else a revolt from within. In modern times it is socialists trying to tinker with society to perfect it. And once they've tinkered enough that they upset the mechanisms that allowed the society to become stable in the first place, the society begins to unravel.
It's how we get a President who has been running around for the past 5 years talking about what's fair instead of what's affordable.
If you look at studies after studies, Northern Europe is much financially and socially off. Why is that? What's ironic is that Southern Europe gave rise to European enlightenment through Greek Philosophy.
Look into Dutch disease . That is to say what happens when you find an easy source of wealth.
Because it is the natural arc of societies to become decadent when they no longer have to scratch and bite their way just to survive. Every society that has ever existed on the planet has fallen into decay.
In earilier times it was autocrats of various types becoming self indulgent and self absorbed once they felt their power was secure. Once it had gone on long enough, they were overthrown by either a more vigorous neighboring autocrat or else a revolt from within. In modern times it is socialists trying to tinker with society to perfect it. And once they've tinkered enough that they upset the mechanisms that allowed the society to become stable in the first place, the society begins to unravel.
It's how we get a President who has been running around for the past 5 years talking about what's fair instead of what's affordable.
So working as a team isnt beneficial to a society?
Where are all these time tested conservative nations who've stayed true to individuality?
Your argument would make sense is socialism fails, but using reality as exhibit A we can see that it does not.
Assuming you accept evolution, do you think our ancestors beat out the neanderthal by keeping to ourselves and hoarding everything we need? No we lived in communities, hunted in coordinated teams, each individual did their part, and that yielded evolutionary success.
Like it or not, socialism is built into our DNA, and evidence shows it still works. If its anybody that lives an unsustainablly decadent lifestyle, its Americans. Thats why your perfect capitalist model is $13 trillion in debt, and the evil idiots in Norway literally have too much money to know what to do with.
Well, le roi just compared Mexico to the United States. That's probably as ridiculous as my glorious comparisons.
No, I compared the United States and Canada to Brazil and Mexico.
that's about 340 million people vs. 320 million people. Two very large areas of land, stocked with similar amounts of people and natural resources, with two dramatically different outcomes.
Not exactly as ridiculous a comparison as Austria -- former seat of the Habsburg empire -- with its 9 million people, to Estonia, recovering soviet bloc nation of 1 million (that isn't even protestant!).
Two reasons: Coal mines in the north. Rivers in the north. Fresh water is everything to civilization especially for power generation via dams and cooling nuc power plants. Coal before dams and nucs.
A third reason, connected with water is arable land.
No, I compared the United States and Canada to Brazil and Mexico.
Okay, to put it into your words:
LOL why would you bother? it's Brazil and Mexico.
But okay, lets compare two similar countries. Slovenia (Catholic) and Estonia (which is historically Lutheran, btw). Similar size, both are former Socialist states, Slovenia is doing better. But hell, what am I even trying to prove here...
Last edited by viribusunitis; 09-16-2013 at 10:01 AM..
I honestly blame Catholicism. Truly, truly, I believe that to be Southern Europe's downfall. Catholicism is a very socialist religion that puts great shame on working hard to improve your living standards. Everyone is supposed to live in happy poverty. Germanic Europe managed to get rid of Catholicism from their countries (with the exception of a few pockets in Netherlands and Germany) and look at how successful those countries are.
I don't have anything against Catholics. My biological father's family are all Catholic. But I am very glad that America still has the Protestant work ethic and not the Catholic work ethic.
Hmmm....interesting.
Of course, that makes me wonder why Austria is an outlier. Southern Germany (Bavaria) too. Extremely prosperous places.
If you look at studies after studies, Northern Europe is much financially and socially off. Why is that? What's ironic is that Southern Europe gave rise to European enlightenment through Greek Philosophy.
Look at how civilization has progressed throughout history. Those in the northern, colder climates were the ones who brought about the most change.
I think the reason is simple: in southern, warmer, climates people tend to just want to relax and enjoy the weather. You don't get much done hanging out at the beach or relaxing under a palm tree all day. Life was generally "good enough" in those locations - no reason to try to improve it.
In the north, buried in snow and not able to go outside at all for months at a time (not to mention much less day light), people sat around thinking about how to do things that would change their lives and hopefully make it better.
I mean, isn't that the whole reason for "summer vacation" from school? It was too hard to get the kids to stay inside and concentrate on the lessons because they just wanted to go outside in the nice weather and have fun. Well, when you have an entire society in a location with a lot of nice weather you get the same result - less gets done because everyone just wants to be outside having fun, all the time.
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