Destroy Socialism. No, Bernie isn't your savior

a reply to: FauxMulder

I didn't say everyone does, but to pretend it's so simple as to decide not to, is dishonest as well.

a reply to: FauxMulder

One problem I have with what you're saying is that "Capitalism", especially when talking about "Free Market Capitalism", is that it's an economic system and not a system of Society.

It's just about markets and trade and ownership, etc. But is used now to represent a framework upon which you have a society. But Society is much more than just trading of goods. Although it does represent much of what we as people do, it doesn't include everything that we are doing as a group.

There is always some economics involved in how we create and run our society, but how we run society isn't always contained within the principles of Capitalism or Markets. Not everything people do is always geared toward Profits or personal wealth.

Socialism also isn't defined very well I don't think. When people talk about Socialism they seem to apply a single definition for what it is without any flexibility. But you can have various forms of Socialist Societies with various models of how their economies work.

I think these terms need to be defined extremely clearly in this type of discussion. Already you're having to go back and clear up the differences between Capitalism and Corporatism etc. Because these terms are so easily confused with each other.

The differences and similarities I think need to be understood by everyone in the conversation first before you can even attempt to discuss the pro's and con's and start comparing things. Because all too often no two people are even using these terms in the same way or to mean the same thing.

a reply to: FauxMulder

Denmark has high taxes.

It also has the happiest people in Europe. Collectively, Danes are some of the happiest people in Europe, because although they pay alot of tax, their society is enriched using the money their government gets in tax. Their money is not spent on war, or dodgy oil deals with terrorist nations, nor is it spent on huge prison populations or a militarised police force. Their money gets spent largely on the people instead, and that makes for happier folk. Their childcare is sorted as a matter of course, their health is looked after to a high standard, their roads are maintained well, their other infrastructures are top quality, and for all that they have high taxation, their standard of living as amongst the highest in the developed world.

Are you telling me that socialism has failed the people of Denmark? Because I will show you a nation full of people who do not have to chose between going to work and spending time with their children with a bill hanging over their heads, who might have something to say about that!

I would prefer to see our nation working. I thought that is what the Trumpets and Trump promised. But they just wanted power and laws so they could take and tell others what to do.

a reply to: FauxMulder
People like you fearmongering about socialism when you've never even lived in a socialist country, but get all of your information from propagandists who never left the fing cold war.

The most socialist nations of the world all live in peace and are consistently the happiest on earth - Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Findland, Denmark. Guess what Iceland did recently? Punished the capitalist filth bankers who nearly ruined the country, and helped the people that they screwed. What did the capitalist US do? Took TAXPAYER money and gave it to PRIVATE bankers who were already rich!! WHAT THE F#K

Why work hard when you can just get everything for free?

You can't be that stupid. Getting free education doesn't mean you can slack off. You have to PASS those free classes and compete with everyone else who wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford those classes. It's still a free for all.

Again there are millions of different jobs and new industries popping up all the time.

Then why is your President b#ing about how he needs to bring jobs? One of you is lying.


You know why no one cares that car licenses are so high? Our public transit is efficient. Our socialist money keeps the t-bane running and buses on time. Why does no one care that our taxes are so high? We GET more than we put in. Things we would never have alone. We don't become homeless due to a hospital bill.

Your society is like the jungle - get mildly injured and you're f#ed.

By the way, you clearly don't know your history. The ONLY reason Hitler even met the NSDAP is because he was sent to INFILTRATE it because the government thought it was socialist due to the name. Remember how they threw socialists into camps? Facts are inconvenient

a reply to: Ridhya

Nailed it.

The thing is, this information has been out in the wild all this time, and the simple fact of the matter is, that because talking heads on right wing talk radio, and IDIOT bigots like Hannity and O'Reilly spount anti Socialist crap all damned day, the truth has become an irrelevant player to some people.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: FauxMulder

Denmark has high taxes.

It also has the happiest people in Europe. Collectively, Danes are some of the happiest people in Europe, because although they pay alot of tax, their society is enriched using the money their government gets in tax. Their money is not spent on war, or dodgy oil deals with terrorist nations, nor is it spent on huge prison populations or a militarised police force. Their money gets spent largely on the people instead, and that makes for happier folk. Their childcare is sorted as a matter of course, their health is looked after to a high standard, their roads are maintained well, their other infrastructures are top quality, and for all that they have high taxation, their standard of living as amongst the highest in the developed world.

Are you telling me that socialism has failed the people of Denmark? Because I will show you a nation full of people who do not have to chose between going to work and spending time with their children with a bill hanging over their heads, who might have something to say about that!

Denmark has a population of about 5 million people. The things you are trying to say they are free from because of socialism is a moot argument. You're talking about wars and oil and all the plights of a super power and trying to say that a tiny nation that has less people than New York City, is doing it right.

This nation did not become wealthy with socialism. As was pointed out in the OP the Scandinavian countries were HUGE free markets, turned into socialist governments after their big boom success, and are now turning away from those policies.

Denmark’s first female prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, has conceded defeat and resigned as leader of her party after her coalition government lost the election to the centre-right opposition. Thorning-Schmidt told party members she will step down as prime minister and leader of the Social Democratic party on Friday after Denmark became the latest European nation to experience a surge in rightwing populism.

That is from 2015. I thought they loved those socialist policies though?

a reply to: Ridhya

What did the capitalist US do? Took TAXPAYER money and gave it to PRIVATE bankers who were already rich!! WHAT THE F#K

You obviously don't know what a free market or capitalism is. In a free market there is no bail outs.If a company fails they fail. I never once said the US has a perfect capitalist free market. In fact we have moved away from that and more to a corporatism BS system where there is a revolving door between banks and government. They write their own policies.

We GET more than we put in. Things we would never have alone.

How long can that be sustained before you run out of other peoples money?

Denmark, however, is contending with many of the same issues that are widening the income gap in the U.S. and other European countries. Wealthy Danes are benefiting from the boom in global stock markets in recent years. Educated citizens with mastery over the latest technology are commanding bigger salaries, while middle class manufacturing jobs are disappearing.

The Danish government cut taxes for the rich, while curtailing public assistance for the poor, jobless and recent immigrants. "There's more of a stigma on unemployment," said Kristian Weise, director of Cevea, a center-left think tank. "Danes generally support a big welfare state, but there is a growing feeling that people have to do more for themselves to get a job."

Here's how the gap is widening: Denmark, along with Iceland, saw the largest increase in inequality in Europe -- rising 12% in each country between 2008 and 2012, according to Eurostat. The Top 10% of Danes saw their incomes grow by 29% over the decade ending in 2013, while middle-income folks experienced only a 12.3% bump, according to the Economic Council of the Labour Movement, a left-leaning think tank, citing national statistics. The poorest Danes suffered a nearly 1% loss in income, a rare occurrence in a country where everyone's income usually rises.

Then why is your President b#ing about how he needs to bring jobs? One of you is lying.

What does that have to do with what I said? I pointed out there are more than just farming Jobs to be had. That has nothing to do with bringing more manufacturing jobs back to the country.

By the way, you clearly don't know your history. The ONLY reason Hitler even met the NSDAP is because he was sent to INFILTRATE it because the government thought it was socialist due to the name. Remember how they threw socialists into camps? Facts are inconvenient

Hitler was a socialist. Just look at his policies.

As Fuhrer, Hitler’s first priority was jobs, or the lack of them. German unemployment had peaked at 6 million due to the Depression devastating the economy. With innovative public works schemes such as the building of autobahns, Hitler put every German back to work. He also advocated schemes such as KdF – Strength Through Joy – which gave workers increased benefits for increased levels of production. This policy was popular and increasingly with the proletariat who had seen their country decimated by the depression… By putting people back to work and making huge public spending, inflation was bound to happen. However, Hitler kept this under control by not allowing wages to rise with prices. This may have been one unpopular aspect of Hitler’s economic policy but there were many that the people supported. So Hitler created jobs…through government. While at the same time, he criticized certain segments of the population, demeaning them, blaming the countries woes upon them. The rich, they just ruin everything. Sound familiar?

Big Education If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch WW2 Surivor’s Account Draws Chilling Similarities between Nazism and Liberalism. When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had. Public education, where children are at school all day long, with state-funded and state-sponsored curriculum… convinced yet?

Nationalized Healthcare Also from the WW2 Surivor’s accounting of Nazism: After Hitler’s health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries. As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

originally posted by: mOjOm
a reply to: FauxMulder

Socialism also isn't defined very well I don't think. When people talk about Socialism they seem to apply a single definition for what it is without any flexibility. But you can have various forms of Socialist Societies with various models of how their economies work.

One thing all socialist countries have in common is they didn't start out that way, and they always end up back tracking on the policies. It fails every single time it is tried. You eventually always run out of other peoples money. It is not sustainable in the long term.

The differences and similarities I think need to be understood by everyone in the conversation first before you can even attempt to discuss the pro's and con's and start comparing things. Because all too often no two people are even using these terms in the same way or to mean the same thing.

I very much agree with this statement.

a reply to: FauxMulder

gave workers increased benefits for increased levels of production

Sure sounds like that forced equality you talk about LOL. Companies bid for contracts, just like in the States; private business was still the majority; the nazis persecuted union leaders and communists.

Remember how former CIA Head of USSR Operations said "it was a visceral business of using any bastard as long as he was anti-communist" ? That's why your government agencies were swarming with head Nazis in the 40s (and still are!)

Your system was designed in Rome to solely benefit the wealthy. "Hey you loser! Get a job!" "I need a degree." "Then get a degree loser!" "I can't afford 10,000 a year." "Then get your dad to pay for it like I did or go into debt slavery!" Oh joy. We think education and fair opportunity are a right, yet we're the bad guys. lol!

a reply to: Ridhya

When did I ever say anything about FORCED equality? That sure sounds like a liberal philosophy to me.

The free market benefits ANNYONE who is willing to work for it. I could point out successful people who came from nothing and built an incredible company or wealth all day long. Many of whom had no formal education at all.

Your system was designed by Carl Marx and Vladimir Lenin who knew that socialism was only a stepping stone to communism. Neither of which can happen without first being capitalist, then demonize them and take the system down.

As has been pointed out to you, the Scandinavian countries have been moving away fromy the socialist model for some time now.

a reply to: FauxMulder

I agree, so what jobs programs have been offered by trumpets and trump? Infrastructure?

a reply to: MOMof3

Trump has offered no government jobs plan.

He has offered to renegotiate trade deals and lower taxes so businesses will be more inclined to have their companies here.

a reply to: FauxMulder
LOL WE HAVE NOT! We are just as socialist as before! You still walk into a doctor's office, show your documents and get whatever they proscribe for free! We still get paid to go to school! We still get unemployment insurance!

And you think socialism is invented with communists, what a joke. Socialism is at least as old as the viking age, likely older. We all raided together and we all shared the gained wealth. When the French asked to negociate with our "king" we laughed in their face and shouted "we are all equal". Read Tacitus for even earlier German society.
Free market and socialism exist side by side dude. We just have regulations to prevent the wealthy monopolising everything. Your country is where people work hard their whole lives ans still fail. Some parents work 3 jobs but still struggle. Not here. There were 0 homeless people here.

a reply to: Ridhya

From 2013 reducing taxes

Last week the Danish government agreed upon the main elements of a growth plan estimated at 75 billion DKK which will improve the framework conditions for operating a business in Denmark.

Minister for Trade and Investment Mrs. Pia Olsen Dyhr says:

- “We are constantly working to improve the conditions for doing business in Denmark and I am very pleased that the Danish government can now launch these significant amendments which will make it even more attractive to run a business in Denmark.”

And as I already said the success from those countries tries is not because of your current policies.

Big Government advocates see as desirable outcomes in Scandinavia — relative prosperity, high levels of income equality, long lifespans, good health, low levels of poverty, and more — all predate the welfare state.

On life expectancy, for example, four out of the top five OECD nations were in Scandinavia in 1960, with Norway at the very top. On income, meanwhile, most of the shift toward “equality” happened between 1870 and 1950 — long before the welfare state took over.

Ironically, the emergence of Big Government even put some of that at risk, along with the long-established cultural norms such as the Protestant work ethic, honesty, social trust, entrepreneurship, innovation, and more that made those advances possible to begin with.

Indeed, before the emergence of welfare-state policies beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, Sweden was among the most prosperous and fast-growing economies on the planet. Between 1870 and 1936, when Sweden was characterized by relatively free markets, the nation enjoyed the highest rate of growth in the industrialized world. [b/]

Innovation and entrepreneurship flourished, making Sweden one of the richest countries on Earth. Then came the radical Social Democratic period characterized by an ever-larger and more expensive government. Between 1975 and the mid-1990s — marked by the radical, if short-lived, experiment in “Third Way” socialism — Sweden dropped from being the fourth richest nation in the world down to the 13th richest.

a reply to: FauxMulder
Holy sh# you are ridiculous, sure start your anonymous study AFTER we discovered oil, we were piss poor and miserable before that. Then guess what? Capitalists tried to create monopoly but our government nationalised the resources and started out national pension. Most socialist thing we could do. Our Socialism SAVED us from our resource wealth going to ONE company!

People need to stop talking about capitalism as if it is some organized system.

Someone made up the term capitalism simply to describe what was happening when one person had something the other one wanted or needed and the two of them came up with a mutually acceptable exchange to pass that item between them.

When caveman Zug had extra deer and caveman Grob had a couple extra flint spearheads, the two would figure out how much extra deer those two flint spearheads might be worth in trade, and thus is capitalism born. But no one calls it that until some pinhead makes up the term to simply describe what people do when they have things they don't need and someone else does.

Sometimes, yes, someone figures out how to get a whole lot of something others happen to want at that time, so they are considered "rich" because they have a lot of what is desirable in the eyes of others, but if that commodity or service was rendered valueless, all that "wealth" comes to naught and they are then poor.

With socialism and communism, even fascism, these are mixed systems, both political and market. They presume the government controls the market. Capitalism also does not do that. There is no government system attached to a capitalist market, not a truly capitalist market. So when we talk about a capitalist market being more "allowed" by government, that should be your first clue that the market isn't capitalist in the true sense, not really.

So when we talk about mixed systems, whatever we're talking about isn't capitalism but a controlled economy of some kind.

All capitalism is ... is the free exchange of goods and services. When you control that in some way, it is no longer free, is it?

a reply to: Ridhya

Thank God for Google translate!

From your article:

spring 2001, Parliament adopted that 21.5 percent of the value of former SDFI portfolio could be sold. 15 percent was sold to Statoil and 6.5 percent were sold to other licensees. Sales of SDFI to Statoil was seen as an important element in implementing a successful partial privatization of Statoil

By the millennium, it was opened to the participation of several types of companies on the NCS. In the interests of good management of resources was the major international companies which were established in Norway supplemented by other types of companies as other business opportunities in the Norwegian petroleum resources. Today there is a high degree of diversity and competition on the Norwegian shelf with more than 50 Norwegian and foreign licensees on the shelf.

Privatization (partial) and competition. More Free market. So this helps your national pension fund. But your population is tiny. This would not scale up to a country with a population 70 times larger.

And how can you deny that Sweden goes from number 1 growing economy under a largely free market and goes down to 14 after adopting socialist policies?

a reply to: ketsuko

Yes. I never said the US has a perfect free market because we don't.

Using your example if the cavemen were socialist then Zug would be giving his deer meat to all the other cavemen. And Grob would be handing out his spear heads.

After a while Grub would stop hunting and Zug would stop making extra spear heads. More and more cavemen would stop producing and there would be less of other people's stuff to go around.

a reply to: FauxMulder
YOU said our success was not due to socialist policies and I PROVED that it was. Now you've shifted the goalposts. Only AFTER the socialist state had been set up could we afford to let a minor degree of privatisation happen. Without our government protectionism in the 60s we would have ended up in plutarchy.

I dont give a sh# what you do in America, I just cant stand someone who has never been here saying it's failing and threatening to destroy us.