Failure of socialism

[B_starinvestor]

Except that we had similarly out-of-whack costs 10 years ago, when they weren't so old.

I don't have any data on the costs from 10 years ago from the aggregate United States. Buy I know at the company I work at - our medical premiums have increased around 400% since calandar year 2000 and we have roughly the same average age as we did then (with attrition and new hires, etc.)

And I know GDP hasn't increased 400% since 2000, so I can't imagine that the relationship/ratio was nearly as poor at that point in time as it is now.

 

[vince]

Vince - I think the fact that our healthcare represents a higher percentage of GDP is mostly due to our aging demographics. The biggest generation in U.S. history (baby boomers) are all in their 60's.

Those peeps have some high medical/healthcare bills.

Canada had a baby boom as well and has the same demographics as the US. The American healthcare costs as a percentage of GDP are roughly 50% higher.

 

[dandelion]

Someone suggested a return to the original question.

Greece.

Spain.

Portugal.

Italy.

This is clear evidence that socialism cannot survive deep economic recessions.

Step 1 [Greece]: Borrow loads of money to fund entitlements

Could as well have said, 'Borrow loads of money to fund military expansion', to take the case of Greece, or perhaps of the US. But shouldnt it be '.. that economically weak states cannot survive deep economic recessions'. The real critical distinction seems to be that the governments in question are spending more than they are receiving from taxes.

Luckily capitalist Germany will bail their sorry asses out.

Do you mean socialist Germany will?

 

[B_starinvestor]

Someone suggested a return to the original question.



Could as well have said, 'Borrow loads of money to fund military expansion', to take the case of Greece, or perhaps of the US. But shouldnt it be '.. that economically weak states cannot survive deep economic recessions'.

Yes you could say that. However, i would suggest that they are weak because they adhere to many principles of socialism.

The real critical distinction seems to be that the governments in question are spending more than they are receiving from taxes.

The distinction between whom? The United States gov't is spending substantially more than it is collecting in tax receipts - and it is weathering the economic crisis better than the countries listed in the OP.

Do you mean socialist Germany will?

Social insurance. But the rest of their economy is driven by private industry and competition, and is more capitalist in nature.

 

[Bbucko]

Vince - I think the fact that our healthcare represents a higher percentage of GDP is mostly due to our aging demographics. The biggest generation in U.S. history (baby boomers) are all in their 60's.

Those peeps have some high medical/healthcare bills.

The baby boom lasted, depending on which source you use, from 1945 until 1960. Even if you ratchet it down to 1958, it still leaves most boomers still safely in their 50s.

I was born in 1960 and turned 50 this past January.

Count on your fingers if you have no handy calculator, Star.

 

[Bbucko]

I don't have any data on the costs from 10 years ago from the aggregate United States. Buy I know at the company I work at - our medical premiums have increased around 400% since calandar year 2000 and we have roughly the same average age as we did then (with attrition and new hires, etc.)

And I know GDP hasn't increased 400% since 2000, so I can't imagine that the relationship/ratio was nearly as poor at that point in time as it is now.

One of the major factors in the explosion of medical costs is in the field of technology and in its increasingly unnecessary application. The simplest example is the MRI, which has gone from a complete rarity in the 1990s to being (nearly) as common as an X-Ray or Ultrasound.

Blood testing has become both more expensive and more ubiquitous as well. Every time I get my HIV bloodwork done, it costs someone about $2500. The explosion in the cost of medication is also a huge factor: at one point in 2004, my meds cost close to $6000 per month (retail, of course). Even though the pricing's gone down (as my regimen's been simplified), it still retails for well over $2000 per month.

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

Vince - I think the fact that our healthcare represents a higher percentage of GDP is mostly due to our aging demographics. The biggest generation in U.S. history (baby boomers) are all in their 60's.

Those peeps have some high medical/healthcare bills.

By that logic, Japan, as the country with the highest average age and highest proportion of its population over 65, should have the highest percentage of its GDP devoted to healthcare. It is lower than the United States. A better argument would that we have among the least healthy diets and lifestyles of any industrialized nation. Too many fat, lazy people can't be good for hospital bills.

I don't have any data on the costs from 10 years ago from the aggregate United States. Buy I know at the company I work at - our medical premiums have increased around 400% since calandar year 2000 and we have roughly the same average age as we did then (with attrition and new hires, etc.)

And I know GDP hasn't increased 400% since 2000, so I can't imagine that the relationship/ratio was nearly as poor at that point in time as it is now.

Doesn't that kind of imply that age isn't a big factor?

Social insurance. But the rest of their economy is driven by private industry and competition, and is more capitalist in nature.

Yes, it is. It also has higher taxes, universal healthcare, very liberal unemployment benefits, paid family leave, and heavily subsidized higher education. It's the world's biggest exporter of goods and services and has one of the highest standards of living in the world.

From what we've been told, such a welfare state should have workers with little motivation to work or innovate, but it's one of the most economically successful economies and worth admiring. How can they afford so many entitlements? Because they work hard and spend their money wisely.

"Socialism" isn't the problem and never was.

 

[B_starinvestor]

By that logic, Japan, as the country with the highest average age and highest proportion of its population over 65, should have the highest percentage of its GDP devoted to healthcare. It is lower than the United States. A better argument would that we have among the least healthy diets and lifestyles of any industrialized nation. Too many fat, lazy people can't be good for hospital bills.

I agree

Doesn't that kind of imply that age isn't a big factor?

No - it implies that for essentially the same group with the same demographics - premiums have increased 400% over ten years.

Yes, it is. It also has higher taxes, universal healthcare, very liberal unemployment benefits, paid family leave, and heavily subsidized higher education. It's the world's biggest exporter of goods and services and has one of the highest standards of living in the world.

However, the healthcare system is not run by the central gov't - it is a combination of public, private and semi pubic agencies that provides natural competition and competitive pricing.

From what we've been told, such a welfare state should have workers with little motivation to work or innovate, but it's one of the most economically successful economies and worth admiring. How can they afford so many entitlements? Because they work hard and spend their money wisely.

The social programs are designed in Germany to support and enhance those in the workforce. In other words, those that put in to the system, get something back.

"Socialism" isn't the problem and never was

Because Germany operates on a capitalist economic system, they are able to support some successful social programs. Those countries listed in the OP do not foster private competition properly and redirect too many dollars into entitlement programs in which their sputtering economies cannot support.

I disagree with your statement above. "Socialism" is a problem and always will be. Some social programs can exist - but not without a solid capitalism backbone to support its existence.

 

[TomCat84]

Yes you could say that. However, i would suggest that they are weak because they adhere to many principles of socialism.



The distinction between whom? The United States gov't is spending substantially more than it is collecting in tax receipts - and it is weathering the economic crisis better than the countries listed in the OP.




Social insurance. But the rest of their economy is driven by private industry and competition, and is more capitalist in nature.

Ok, perfect. You are saying they are weak because they adhere to many socialist principles. Let's start off with that little tidbit. Can you give us some evidence/proof that this is why their economies are weak, and we can try and debate you from that point? What percentage can a country make their economy socialist before it starts to weaken them?

 

[sbat]

They're not even remotely a reasonable facsimile and even if they were it still would not make them actually Socialist, it would make them Socialist-approximate, which essentially means not Socialist but some other system based more or less on some Socialist principles or more accurately they pretend to be socialist in order to justify dictatorship.

Now as to whether or not Socialism is in fact possible to implement, we have no actual idea because except for a single instance which was extinguished by fascists in Spain we have no examples of any attempt to introduce Socialism rather than some one party dictatorship using the pretence of socialism to justify its tyranny.

As to your insults, frankly this isn't one of the US politics discussions, take your nasty mouth to one of them if you can't be civil.

This raises an alternative question. I mean, I'm kind of over the capitalist vs socialist debate because no one is either, and the crisis at the end of the day was not ideological, but human weakness - greed.

The question is, if (as some have asserted) socialism or capitalism are impossible to achieve in their pure utopian forms, due to human nature, why do we aspire to either? Especially when the approximations of both have lead to human suffering of historic proportions? Why not focus on history, available resources, and human psychology to develop an organic economic system compatible with the reality of human condition?

 

[sbat]

I would submit further that both capitalism and socialism as political/economic theories are inherently untenable because they do not and cannot protect the system from being exploited by selfish, power-oriented mad men/women.

In fact, no system can guarantee that, and I would also say that it is intellectually lazy to put complete faith in some ism to provide your well being if you aren't up to the challenge of fending for yourself or incapable of incorporating yourself into a group that can sustainably provide safety, shelter, and food for its members.

 

[justasimpleguy]

I'm enjoying that Star categorizes any successful state as capitalist and any broke one as socialist.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

This raises an alternative question. I mean, I'm kind of over the capitalist vs socialist debate because no one is either, and the crisis at the end of the day was not ideological, but human weakness - greed.

The question is, if (as some have asserted) socialism or capitalism are impossible to achieve in their pure utopian forms, due to human nature, why do we aspire to either? Especially when the approximations of both have lead to human suffering of historic proportions? Why not focus on history, available resources, and human psychology to develop an organic economic system compatible with the reality of human condition?

I would submit further that both capitalism and socialism as political/economic theories are inherently untenable because they do not and cannot protect the system from being exploited by selfish, power-oriented mad men/women.

In fact, no system can guarantee that, and I would also say that it is intellectually lazy to put complete faith in some ism to provide your well being if you aren't up to the challenge of fending for yourself or incapable of incorporating yourself into a group that can sustainably provide safety, shelter, and food for its members.

No doubt all of this is eminently sensible. The twentieth century's great Ideological battles can be seen as a form or replacement therapy for a civilisation beginning to ween itself off the powerfully addictive drug of total blind obedience to religious faith.

Human's have shown a strong propensity to be comforted by unquestioning adherence to ideological dichotomies and dualisms, an extension of group think and the Us vs Them/Good vs Evil way of thinking.

As an Existentialist Nihilist (yeah I'm aware of the preposterous sounding nature of the name :biggrin1 I don't know that grand guiding schemes and ideologies or religious or philosophical dictates really have much use at all except as a form of psychological analgesia and the primary task of living is merely to live, and to get on with the business of living in a universe in which our lives are insignificant and everything is ultimately beyond our control and much of what we obsess about is of little importance at all.

 

[sbat]

Also, Greece was always going to fail, and that had nothing to do with its political ideology.

Simply, a country that produces nothing and has rampant corruption amongst its leadership will always fail, no matter the form in which the corruption appears (socialist state, bureaucratic state, etc).

Similarly, the issue facing a lot of European countries is that the age demographic is top heavy - a dwindling youth population is working to support a growing non-productive retiree population. No matter what system you have, if the majority of resources are consumed by non-productive members of society, you are going to have sustainability issues.

In US, a big issue is the skillset of workers. Because manufacturing is quickly being outsourced where cost of labor is order of magnitudes cheaper (even within the US, to immigrant workers willing to work for far less), there is greater pressure to shift the skillset of the newly displaced American worker. The problem is that our education system is shite at teaching math and sciences (the most useful skillsets nowadays), and even though we have the best Universities in the world, the high-technology fields (the area that the US is now specializing in) are dominated - especially at the PhD level, by immigrants who will frequently send money from their high paying jobs to relatives back in their home countries, or who - out of disdain for American culture - voluntarily exclude themselves from local "indigenous" communities. My parents and their pool of friends are a good example - I've seen this personally. Our "capitalist" system failed to produce an education system that could appropriately equip a basic majority of its citizenry with the skillset necessary to be competitive in the global environment. We have an overabundance of history/liberal arts majors to the extent that we have to import engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists. And we've had that problem for the past century.

Lack of education is a key part of our employment crisis. I run a software development company and I get more solicitations for business partnerships or from hardware/software suppliers from Indians than I do for Americans (the ratio is a ridiculous 10:1).

But at least banks like Goldman Sachs use High Frequency Trading software capable of executing a volume of trades that can nuke the entire global capital market in the space of 15 minutes, and basically hold the entire world hostage. So...I guess we can take solace in that (?).

 

[TomCat84]

Also, Greece was always going to fail, and that had nothing to do with its political ideology.

Simply, a country that produces nothing and has rampant corruption amongst its leadership will always fail, no matter the form in which the corruption appears (socialist state, bureaucratic state, etc).

Similarly, the issue facing a lot of European countries is that the age demographic is top heavy - a dwindling youth population is working to support a growing non-productive retiree population. No matter what system you have, if the majority of resources are consumed by non-productive members of society, you are going to have sustainability issues.

In US, a big issue is the skillset of workers. Because manufacturing is quickly being outsourced where cost of labor is order of magnitudes cheaper (even within the US, to immigrant workers willing to work for far less), there is greater pressure to shift the skillset of the newly displaced American worker. The problem is that our education system is shite at teaching math and sciences (the most useful skillsets nowadays), and even though we have the best Universities in the world, the high-technology fields (the area that the US is now specializing in) are dominated - especially at the PhD level, by immigrants who will frequently send money from their high paying jobs to relatives back in their home countries, or who - out of disdain for American culture - voluntarily exclude themselves from local "indigenous" communities. My parents and their pool of friends are a good example - I've seen this personally.

Things like immigration, cultural assimilation, quality of teaching, are all issues that both systems would need to confront and there is no evidence - from the record of capitalist and socialist approximations - that either system is inherently equipped to handle more gracefully than the other.

I agree with what you've written- but I'd like to add that for whatever reason, the US is probably better equipped to meet the challenges of the future than most of the EU. We actually have a naturally increasing population rate- which is more than can be said about countries like Russia, France, Spain, etc. We have a relatively open society that allows immigrants to more easily assimilate. As long as we can keep the immigrants we get- especially the ones that come for the high technology jobs, I think the US will do alright.

 

[sbat]

I agree with what you've written- but I'd like to add that for whatever reason, the US is probably better equipped to meet the challenges of the future than most of the EU. We actually have a naturally increasing population rate- which is more than can be said about countries like Russia, France, Spain, etc. We have a relatively open society that allows immigrants to more easily assimilate. As long as we can keep the immigrants we get- especially the ones that come for the high technology jobs, I think the US will do alright.

I'm with you on the immigration bit. Nowhere else in the world can a man from Africa migrate and within his own lifetime, make himself wealthy - and actually be aided by existing social mechanisms! Europe is beautiful, but I've never seen so much open racism anywhere else in my life (@ Spain and Italia - 20k people making monkey noises at black soccer players during a match? Please! Parts of Italia especially can be pretty firmly considered third world).

At the same time, the rich poor gap in the US is widening as huge portions of the population are - as I mentioned - being left behind as the US moves towards high-tech specialization in the world economy and manufacturing heads to the third world. The education system is ill-equipped to aid in the transition to math/science emphasis especially at the youngest levels - the decentralized nature of the public education system means that ignorant interest groups can co-opt the school curriculum and insert things like relgious-based intelligent design and remove concepts that have hundreds of years of scientific research to support (evolution).

Furthermore, a growing percentage of property is owned by foreigners - as is American debt; at our current pace it is not inconceivable that much of our domestic policy is heavily influenced by our foreign creditors concerns. Our Supreme Court recently lifted limits to campaign contributions by corporations, further diluting the power of the vote by the average citizen. The country, before our eyes, is very quickly moving towards a corporatocracy with very very clearly defined social classes. The ONLY upside is that the cream will still be able to rise to the top. Otherwise, if you are not exceptionally intelligent or athletic or good looking, and don't have good connections, you will be trapped at whatever social class you were born with downward mobility likely as you get older.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

I agree with what you've written- but I'd like to add that for whatever reason, the US is probably better equipped to meet the challenges of the future than most of the EU. We actually have a naturally increasing population rate- which is more than can be said about countries like Russia, France, Spain, etc. We have a relatively open society that allows immigrants to more easily assimilate. As long as we can keep the immigrants we get- especially the ones that come for the high technology jobs, I think the US will do alright.

I wouldn't right off Europe so quickly, people have been announcing the death of Old Europe for a couple of centuries now, only to be completely contradicted by growth and continued flourishing. We have many problems but I don't think even this economic crisis will kill of the ability of European countries to thrive.

In contrast to the US we do have properly educated citizens and do in fact have plenty of immigration, what will need to happen is a realisation that we need a greater numbers of skilled educated workers from the rest of the world to come here and help shore up our demographic shift, which given how much better working conditions and rights, not to mention living conditions, are here shouldn't be too difficult.

Europe needs a lesson from Canada.

 

[TomCat84]

I wouldn't right off Europe so quickly, people have been announcing the death of Old Europe for a couple of centuries now, only to be completely contradicted by growth and continued flourishing. We have many problems but I don't think even this economic crisis will kill of the ability of European countries to thrive.

In contrast to the US we do have properly educated citizens and do in fact have plenty of immigration, what will need to happen is a realisation that we need a greater numbers of skilled educated workers from the rest of the world to come here and help shore up our demographic shift, which given how much better working conditions and rights, not to mention living conditions, are here shouldn't be too difficult.

Europe needs a lesson from Canada.

Oh, I'm not predicting the death of Old Europe, only predicting that the US's path will be a bit easier. Europe has survived worse things than a slow population decline- the Black Plague being among them. But with few exceptions (maybe the UK?), European countries mostly have no historical precendents to deal with large scale immigration from groups radically different than the majority demographics. The United States has dealt with wave after wave of immigrants considered too different from the existing population. We went through some pretty ugly periods. How European countries deal with demographic upheavals will be the question. Are their societies and cultures prepared to take in different societies and cultures and blend them? Or are the immigrant groups going to be ghettoized and separated, with more Burka bans and minaret bans?

 

[sbat]

I wouldn't right off Europe so quickly, people have been announcing the death of Old Europe for a couple of centuries now, only to be completely contradicted by growth and continued flourishing. We have many problems but I don't think even this economic crisis will kill of the ability of European countries to thrive.

In contrast to the US we do have properly educated citizens and do in fact have plenty of immigration, what will need to happen is a realisation that we need a greater numbers of skilled educated workers from the rest of the world to come here and help shore up our demographic shift, which given how much better working conditions and rights, not to mention living conditions, are here shouldn't be too difficult.

Europe needs a lesson from Canada.

What percentage of CEOs of major corporations are non-white male in the EU zone? Compare that the US. Then you'll see why the best and brightest of the rest of the world prefer this side of the Atlantic.

Europe is simply not progressive when it comes to cultural tolerance of foreigners. If it took nearly a century and a half following slavery for a black man to become president, can you imagine how long it would take in Europe? You'll find that people value self-respect and opportunity more than a cushy welfare system if given the choice.

 

[sbat]

Oh, I'm not predicting the death of Old Europe, only predicting that the US's path will be a bit easier. Europe has survived worse things than a slow population decline- the Black Plague being among them. But with few exceptions (maybe the UK?), European countries mostly have no historical precendents to deal with large scale immigration from groups radically different than the majority demographics. The United States has dealt with wave after wave of immigrants considered too different from the existing population. We went through some pretty ugly periods. How European countries deal with demographic upheavals will be the question. Are their societies and cultures prepared to take in different societies and cultures and blend them? Or are the immigrant groups going to be ghettoized and separated, with more Burka bans and minaret bans?

Remember France in 2005 and again in 2007? That's how Europe deals with it.