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So...why are all first-world democracies, socialized democracies?

Why are all first-world democracies, socialized democracies?

  • It's just a coincidence, an accident of economics.

    Votes: 1 4.5%
  • These are just lies fed to us by the liberal media!

    Votes: 3 13.6%
  • Yes, certain socialized programs DO benefit a democracy's economic health.

    Votes: 18 81.8%

  • Total voters
    22
I believe I asked you if you've ever LIVED in a third-world nation. Have you? Have you lived somewhere that you can set up a business - almost ANY business - without any license at all (or if a license is needed, just pay off the licensor)? Have you lived somewhere that income taxes aren't collected because there's no reliable identification database in order to tell who did and did not pay taxes? Do you own a home now in such a place (like I do) where there's little or no building codes (and inspectors are very easy to pay off), and you can build pretty much what you want, where you want? No environmental restrictions, either?

Have you ever lived in a place where there's no enforced minimum wage, no mandates for employers to cover unemployment insurance or health insurance, no mandates for employers to meet safety or environmental standards? Have you ever lived in a place where there's no restriction against having a monopoly?

Dude, you want real economic freedom, if you have money and you want to do whatever the heck you want to do with YOUR money, a third-world nation's the place to be.

What you're probably referring to is the CORRUPTION...and let me tell you, guy, if you think America's corrupt, you've got ZERO clue as to what it's like in third-world nations where public servants (cops, teachers, whatever) are paid peanuts, and have to take bribes in order to feed their own families. When our brothers immigrated here from the Philippines, one of the most interesting lessons they had to learn was that no, you can't just bribe your way out of a traffic ticket in America!
You don't have to live somewhere to know the extent to which free markets exist. Your argument is just plain stupid, and you have a faulty definition of free markets. Most African nations have virtually no property rights. Government corruption further undermines free markets there.
 
:) Sure. Talk to them here on the forum, in real life, I also read their works.


I'm guessing you are now going to adopt the No True Socialist Fallacy to explain that those socialists aren't real socialists, socialism is a magical unicorn that poops leprechauns and access to the means of production for everyone, and have never been found, which is why none of Socialisms' failures can be held against it :).
Condescension doesn't masque the clear fact that you have no idea what you are talking about.
 
Words matter we're not a democracy. That word has specific meaning.

Law and argument hinges on semantics, one has to know what you're talking about to effectively discuss it

The USA is a democracy of sorts. It is a democratic republic with socialsm and capitalism as part of it's economic fabric.
 
To quote Plutarch: "An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all Republics."

Generally speaking, a prosperous society can not last in the face of extensive wealth centralization. The reason no first world economies have unfettered capitalistic free markets is because it has been proven to be inefficient and corruptive. The best customer of American industry is the well-paid and well-fed worker. Not corporate fatcats.
 
Nonsense. Steam power would have been useless if free markets did not develop it and put it to productive use. Common workers saw their standards of living improve over the 19th century. Your attempt at rewriting history has failed.

Guy, steam power would have spread with or without a free market. All the free market did was to help it spread faster.

If you knew anything at all about technological progress, you'd know the truth of Emerson's 'better mousetrap' quote - which didn't say anything about mousetraps, interestingly enough: "If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods."

"though it be in the woods" refers to wherever someone might be...even if it's in a communist nation.

Want examples? How about the implementation of freeways - it was in Nazi Germany (who also kickstarted the idea of rockets), as did the first truly effective use of jet aircraft and submarines. Stealth technology - it came from the Soviet Union (as did submarine-launched ICBM's and several other ideas our military copied (yes, copied) from them). And the world's largest network of high-speed rail is in communist China.

A free market helps - there's no argument there - but you're doing yourself a great disservice by underestimating those you don't like or distrust.
 
Condescension doesn't masque the clear fact that you have no idea what you are talking about.

That's interesting. You came in and propose to suggest that you knew who my friends, family, and social circle were to the point where you could confidently conclude that I didn't act with people who had a certain ideological lean. Yet you accuse me of Condescension.
 
There are three observations:

(1) ALL first-world democracies are generally socialized, and have big government, high effective taxes, and strong regulation, whereas
(2) NO first-world nations at all meet the conservative demands of zero socialism, small government, low taxes, and weak (if any) regulation. And
(3) ALL nations which DO have small governments, low taxes, and weak regulations ARE third-world nations.

If including socialist programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Head Start, free public schools and the like are (as conservative pundits claim) a sure way to the economic dustbin of history, why is it that America (and the British Commonwealth before us) started down this road eighty years ago (FDR's New Deal) and we've been the most successful nations in human history? Is it just an accident or coincidence? Or does the inclusion of such socialist programs actually contribute to a nation's economic health?

How many of the more socialized first world economies are on their asses, or standing by to be on their asses?
 
Hm...how do you define "economic liberty"? And last I checked, America DOES have extensive state intervention, and our private property rights are not as strong as you might think (eminent domain, RICO act, HOA's). I can tell you from personal experience that I can do a heck of a lot more with my house over in the Philippines than I can with any home in a subdivision here!

In other words, gotta watch the definitions - it's so easy to claim that we've got economic liberty...but whose definition of economic liberty are we using? The conservative "I-can-do-what-I-want-it's-MY-money!!!!" definition? Or the liberal "We-must-level-the-economic-playing-field" definition?

Or we can give some serious consideration to what Williams said. The man has a PhD in economics and is a tenured professor at George Mason University and has been studying and teaching these kinds of concepts for a very long time now. Do you just dismiss his assessment as irrelevant? Or does it merit at least a look at what he said?
 
To quote Plutarch: "An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all Republics."

Generally speaking, a prosperous society can not last in the face of extensive wealth centralization. The reason no first world economies have unfettered capitalistic free markets is because it has been proven to be inefficient and corruptive. The best customer of American industry is the well-paid and well-fed worker. Not corporate fatcats.

Too much regulation is causing that.
 
Guy, steam power would have spread with or without a free market. All the free market did was to help it spread faster.

If you knew anything at all about technological progress, you'd know the truth of Emerson's 'better mousetrap' quote - which didn't say anything about mousetraps, interestingly enough: "If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods."

"though it be in the woods" refers to wherever someone might be...even if it's in a communist nation.

Want examples? How about the implementation of freeways - it was in Nazi Germany (who also kickstarted the idea of rockets), as did the first truly effective use of jet aircraft and submarines. Stealth technology - it came from the Soviet Union (as did submarine-launched ICBM's and several other ideas our military copied (yes, copied) from them). And the world's largest network of high-speed rail is in communist China.

A free market helps - there's no argument there - but you're doing yourself a great disservice by underestimating those you don't like or distrust.
What a load of nonsense. Without free markets the steam engine would have been useless, for it would not have been put to productive use. Without free markets, there would have been no industrial revolution. The increases in wealth of the 19th century would have been nonexistent. This is a historical fact, and your attempt at rewriting it is petty.
 
Too much regulation is causing that.

That's a vast oversimplification of an extremely complex economic problem. Do I agree that, to an extent, our regulatory system is rigged to benefit corporate capitalists? Sure! But this is a chicken and the egg kind of debate, because somewhere along the way cronyists have had to exist to buy off government to get such benefits. Which leads us to an issue far beyond a few petty regulations or a bad President, but rather a structural issue that permeates the whole system. It's not a matter of voting Republican or Democrat or Libertarian. It's a matter of kicking cronyists out of the halls of our government, fostering nationwide worker revolution, and overhauling the current failed corporatist economic system in favor of an economic system that allows for true equal opportunity and catches those among us that slip along the trail to success.
 
That's a vast oversimplification of an extremely complex economic problem. Do I agree that, to an extent, our regulatory system is rigged to benefit corporate capitalists? Sure! But this is a chicken and the egg kind of debate, because somewhere along the way cronyists have had to exist to buy off government to get such benefits. Which leads us to an issue far beyond a few petty regulations or a bad President, but rather a structural issue that permeates the whole system. It's not a matter of voting Republican or Democrat or Libertarian. It's a matter of kicking cronyists out of the halls of our government, fostering nationwide worker revolution, and overhauling the current failed corporatist economic system in favor of an economic system that allows for true equal opportunity and catches those among us that slip along the trail to success.

Cronyism will never go away. The only way thing to do is back off the regulations that accomplish little more than make it harder for small businesses to get started and survive.
 
"Democracy is the road to socialism." - Karl Marx

"Democracy is indispensable to socialism." - Vladimir Lenin

those that advocate for democracy , either have no idea what it really is or are socialist who know exactly what it is.

the american founding fathers, HATE democratic forms of government.
 
So explain why it is that all the most successful representative democracies ALL have big government, high effective taxes, and strong regulation.

I suppose it depends on how you define “success”. If you define “success” by the power and robustness of the government, then perhaps you have a point. I would rather define success by the liberty and prosperity of the people; and by this definition, your entire argument falls flat.
 
Cronyism will never go away. The only way thing to do is back off the regulations that accomplish little more than make it harder for small businesses to get started and survive.

By....praying? The superclass owns our government. Actually, it is our government. It will not vote itself less power. Especially since the American populace is made up of corporate shills that think Walmart is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that actually making corporations pay their fair share of taxes is communism.
 
What a load of nonsense. Without free markets the steam engine would have been useless, for it would not have been put to productive use. Without free markets, there would have been no industrial revolution. The increases in wealth of the 19th century would have been nonexistent. This is a historical fact, and your attempt at rewriting it is petty.

I'm thinking of the “windmill” in Orwell's Animal Farm. I can easily see, in the sort of society that the OP desires, that there'd be a huge collective effort to construct a “steam engine”, driven by promises of massively-increased prosperity when it is put into operation, with this effort producing a huge, disorderly contraption that does nothing but consume a huge amount of the community's resources to construct and maintain it.
 
By....praying? The superclass owns our government. Actually, it is our government. It will not vote itself less power. Especially since the American populace is made up of corporate shills that think Walmart is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that actually making corporations pay their fair share of taxes is communism.

this is correct, however it is because of democracy that our government is run by an oligarchy.

democratic forms of government have many factionous combinations..
 
You just said that...wow.

yes i did, ...read James Madison, he says the same thing, which is why the founders created a republican form of government ,article 4 section 4 of the u.s. constitution.

the founders hate democratic forms of government because special interest/factions, buy their way to power because democratic forms, centralize power, while republican forms of government divde power making it difficult for faction/special interest to operate and control government.
 
He is misusing Democracy :) as you knew ;).


But the interesting thing here is the stretchy definition of the word "Socialism". A hundred dollars to a nickel says that if someone tried to point to Cuba, the USSR, North Korea, Venezuela, etc. as evidence that socialism is economically destructive, he would insist on the No True Socialism fallacy, defining it as strictly as possible. But here, apparently, Socialism can be interpreted as broadly as possible, even to the bland "a welfare safety net".
Leftwingers always want to be in charge of definitions.
 
There are three observations:

(1) ALL first-world democracies are generally socialized, and have big government, high effective taxes, and strong regulation, whereas
(2) NO first-world nations at all meet the conservative demands of zero socialism, small government, low taxes, and weak (if any) regulation. And
(3) ALL nations which DO have small governments, low taxes, and weak regulations ARE third-world nations.

If including socialist programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Head Start, free public schools and the like are (as conservative pundits claim) a sure way to the economic dustbin of history, why is it that America (and the British Commonwealth before us) started down this road eighty years ago (FDR's New Deal) and we've been the most successful nations in human history? Is it just an accident or coincidence? Or does the inclusion of such socialist programs actually contribute to a nation's economic health?

try all that "socialized" stuff without Capitalism and see where you end up.;)

in any event, I don't know what you end game is here.... are you trying to say we'll get better and better if we have more government and higher taxes?...
 
That's interesting. You came in and propose to suggest that you knew who my friends, family, and social circle were to the point where you could confidently conclude that I didn't act with people who had a certain ideological lean. Yet you accuse me of Condescension.
No. I proposed that the people you knew weren't socialists, based on your misrepresentation of socialism (no doubt due to their misrepresentations of socialism) not due to assuming I had intimate knowledge of your social circle. Of course I accused you of condescension, you claimed that socialists (in the broad sense, I.E millions of people) didn't know their own ideology.
 
There are three observations:

(1) ALL first-world democracies are generally socialized, and have big government, high effective taxes, and strong regulation, whereas
(2) NO first-world nations at all meet the conservative demands of zero socialism, small government, low taxes, and weak (if any) regulation. And
(3) ALL nations which DO have small governments, low taxes, and weak regulations ARE third-world nations.

If including socialist programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Head Start, free public schools and the like are (as conservative pundits claim) a sure way to the economic dustbin of history, why is it that America (and the British Commonwealth before us) started down this road eighty years ago (FDR's New Deal) and we've been the most successful nations in human history? Is it just an accident or coincidence? Or does the inclusion of such socialist programs actually contribute to a nation's economic health?
How do you consider the US a socialized democracy? We have no universal healthcare system, college tuition in insanely high, and millionaires pay no taxes. What planet are you living on?
 
I suppose it depends on how you define “success”. If you define “success” by the power and robustness of the government, then perhaps you have a point. I would rather define success by the liberty and prosperity of the people; and by this definition, your entire argument falls flat.

You can look at my country Sweden that is one of the most "socialist" western democracy. We have for example goverment funded universities, heavily subsidized daycare, universal healthcare and an extensive safety net. That this not only leads to for example long life exptancy and low child mortality rate. But also to that Sweden can be a competitive economy.

List of countries by infant mortality rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of countries by life expectancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For example that Sweden is amongst the top countries in the world when it comes to social mobility, innovation and having a international competitive economy.

The American Myth of Social Mobility*|*Howard Steven Friedman

Global Innovation Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Global Competitiveness Report - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That at the same Sweden even being a small country have had alot of global successful company. Both older companies like Volvo, H & M and IKEA to modern IT companies. For example Skype, Spotify and also Mojang the makers of Minecraft.
 
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How do you consider the US a socialized democracy? We have no universal healthcare system, college tuition in insanely high, and millionaires pay no taxes. What planet are you living on?

Like all the other first-world democracies, we have significant elements of socialism as integral parts of our governments - they have more than we do, but we do have programs that are socialist in nature, like Medicare, Medicaid, free public schools, and many other different forms of public assistance. Don't get me wrong - we DO need UHC, we DO need to get our college tuition down to the same level as Germany's, and we DO need to ensure that yeah, millionaires pay at least as much in taxes as their secretaries do. But we've got as good as we can get for now, as long as the right wing controls the purse strings....
 
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