Being an American living abroad, I often (not by choice) find myself in many a political debates. These range from wars, to gun rights, to Hillary vs Trump, Republican vs Democrat, universal health care, et al. If there's a topic, I've probably discussed it.
A tangent conversation that arises from the universal health care debate is why we don't adopt a socialist government similar to the Nordic countries such as Norway. Socialism, great in theory but inevitably flawed, would never work in the USA for a couple of reasons.
- The US have a very diverse population with varying ideologies, ethnicity, religious views etc.
- The US does not have a public trust oil company.
- The US has 350 million people.
- Norway does not have a minimum wage forcing real wages higher as companies compete for workers - this is ironic as most people that support a socialist government in the USA also believe in higher minumum wages.
- Norway does not have an illegal immigrant problem like the USA. Illegal immigrants are willing to work for less driving real wages down.
- Norway has a population of 5 million. A dozen USA cities have a higher population than that.
- Norway does not spend much on a standing Army.
Anyways, those are just some of the points I wanted to highlight. The Full article can be read here. Article via lastresistance.com
I think it's also relevant to point out that nordic socialist governments don't work for nordic countries either. They are at the end of their runway. Sweden realised this and switched their government back to a more hands off approach.
Socialism is simply not sustainable. Even though some can get away with it for a few decades.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Agreed, same thing happened in South America with countries like Venezuela, Brazil & Argentina. Just look at them now...
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You can't compare Sweden and Denmark to Venezuela in my opinion. Sweden is a social democracy which means that they are a capitalist country with high social security, just like Denmark. But they are still capitalist. The countries in South America have a completely different political history with military coups in recent history. Some of these socialist regimes have good political and trade relations with Russia and other former communist states.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Venezuela is a different beast I agree, but Argentina, Brazil and even Uruguay & Chile (which wasn't really affected) share many similar values and ties with European countries and still implemented a lot of these tactics, especially Argentina (which recently went the opposite direction after Macri's election whom is considered a conservative/neo-liberal president).
I agree that there are differences in culture that make some of the politics very hard to adopt, some may work for Scandinavian countries but they don't translate well to other countries, especially when you mix them with extreme left wing ideologies. The bottomline though is that corruption is endemic in these countries, if you have a lot of money you can literally get away with murder in certain regions.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
100%. It will work on the onset until the achievers realize they are working for the benefit of all. Then they too will stop achieving.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Exactly, that's what happened in these countries sadly, hits very close to home. People got paid for doing nothing while the government bled out. Of course you can't really force them to work or study. The way it was implemented you basically got a pension just for being poor. On the other hand the benefits of hard work weren't worth much more due to high taxes for everyone in the middle class segments (small companies, employees, etc).
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I have travelled in Sweden last year. I went to Norway a few years before this. All I have seen there is the opposite of what you say. They are very wealthy countries. Where do you get your information from? I checked the evolution of GDP, unemployement rates, public debt of sweden. All this is good. And Norway is even richer and wealthier.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I was talking about South America countries, sorry for the confusion!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
There is not 1 country in this world that is working. Not socialist, nor capitalist countries. The problem is not socialism or capitalism. The problem is our banking system. As long as we have this banking system, every system will fail in the long run.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Enter cryptos!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
What's that ?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Oh boy! Be careful, what you ask... this rabbit hole is DEEP friend.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I don't agree with that. The countries that have the best social security in Europe, like the nordic countries, didn't suffer a lot from the crisis in Europe. It's the countries in the south of Europe - like Spain, Italy, Greece - that have a lower social security that are having difficult times.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
It has nothing to do with the system. It has to do with the politicians and how much they steal from the tax payers. People are blinded when it comes to blame a political system. I believe every system can work. Even a dictatorship. But it all depends on the person that is in charge. If he is an asshole, people will suffer. If he is a good person that cares for his people, their people will thrive.
You argument isn't correct actually. Spanish social security was much better than for example in Belgium or the Netherlands. In Spain medicine was for free, even for tourists. Despite that, Spain had the lowest debt in whole of Europe. But it is Lehman Brothers with their toxic derivatives that caused all chaos in the world. And Spain had an economic model that could only fail. Their economy was solely based on turism and construccion and when selling property failed, so did their economy. That's the real problem behind Spain's trouble; a faltered economy, one that was not diversified enough. Just like Maduro in Venezuela. He put all his bets on oil so when the US decided to blead themselves to a semi coma to destroy their enemies (Russia, Venezuela), Venezuela was doomed to fall. Venezuela didn't fall because of socialism. It fell because Maduro didn't diversify his economy.
But as usual majority of people don't understand this and choose for the easy and blind option ... blame socialism. In the meanwhile the biggest capitalism country in the world is at the brink of total collapse but nobody seems to blame capitalism. Suddenly they call it socialism. But that's how far people are willing to go to not tell to themselves "I have been wrong all this time.".
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Nordic socialist countries are becoming more capitalist in past decade. Most of them did not have to bear the burden of paying for wars. Most of them are almost 99% white. They never had the massive immigration America had until recently. They did not have racial issues. The whole area is completely different than America. Just because something worked for a period of time in one area does not give it standing to work nearly as well in another. Great Post. Upvoted!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Cheers Keith. I agree with you 100%. People start the debate with me and then get a little flustered when I start rattling off facts. Its fun!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
The US doesn't have the wealth per person in oil that Norway has. Norway is always pointed to as a perfect example of Government... but that's easy to achieve if you have a massive surplus of wealth, as they seem to.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
huge point that not too many people know about. The public oil trust of norway. They just see a system that works, and say let's do that.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Exactly.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Or they see a system that doesn't work and say let's not do that.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
It's true that because of reserves of oil (and natural gas) you can't compare Norway to the US. But I do think that you need a very good political system if you want to deal with these resources in a good way. Almost every country in the middle east prooves how difficult this is.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I hope @berniesanders doesn't come along and downvote me haha!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
People who are the exception often feel like they prove the rule. Same thing happens with groups and countries. The real test of a political structure is the difficulties it has endured, not the results that had nothing to do with it.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
well said!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
to each his own, any country in its unique
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
of course. I was just making some points of why it's not possible in the US
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Nice. I've had similar debates. A lot of people that like to point out countries like Sweden as support for socialism don't really know the history of that country either. It wasn't socialism which saved them and made them an economic power house.
http://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/how-laissez-faire-made-sweden-rich
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Agreed. People choose to see and hear what they like.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Yes we can't....
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
lol....the last point is the most important,according to an online meme,the cost of the stupid and redundant f-35 program alone would have been enough to house every homeless person in the US in a mansion
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Not necessarily @winstonjerry. This is an entirely different debate, maybe one I will touch on in another post. But love or hate the US, there are very good reasons why are military is the size it is. Non US countries are quick to point to our military budget and criticize but also fail to mention who would/does protect them if/when shit hits the fan.
Lots of people would love for you to believe that the world is a melancholy place where everyon loves each other. Unfortunately, they are wrong.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
You need to read Uncle Sam's Plantation. That book hugely impacts US policy towards big government. I had argue it gave huge fodder to people who wanted to dismantle government dependency. It has good arguments.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit