All political systems often fail, human nature is typically the reason, what does that article tell us we didn't already know?
Poll A "Free Market" System is Not Sensible
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All political systems often fail, human nature is typically the reason, what does that article tell us we didn't already know?
Sure. Democracy fails. Frequently. It shares with communism the history of rarely having been actually attempted on any scale. America a democracy? Not as a nation, no.
No one here has ever lived in an unregulated free market, so we know nothing useful about how that would actually scale - history, again, is not reassuring there. What we have instead are utopian ramblings by half-baked theorists.
No one here has ever lived in an unregulated free market, so we know nothing useful about how that would actually scale - history, again, is not reassuring there. What we have instead are utopian ramblings by half-baked theorists.
Social Market Economy is a flawed, but generally sensible system if done right.
Of course, no has ever done it completely "right". Still, I sure as hell prefer living in a country that strives for that kind of balance to the alternative(s).
Of course, no has ever done it completely "right". Still, I sure as hell prefer living in a country that strives for that kind of balance to the alternative(s).
You're right. More people voted Democrat for both the House and Presidency, yet Republicans control both. But, Conservatives would like to gloss over that bit as they swoon about American "democracy".
This and @Serveaux s' observation collectively (see what I did there?) hit the nail on the head for me, albeit from very different angles. The fundamental issue a lot of people miss is that pure systems rarely, if ever, exist in practise and the over simplifications inherent in modern political dialogue do nothing to alter this.
What we have are countries with power structures and policies which incorporate elements of abstract political philosophies, but abstract those philosophies remain. We use words like communism, democracy, socialism, captalism as though they are tangible things, but the extent to which those philosophies actually impinge on the reality of any given political structure or complex is always one of degree rather than absolute, archetypes rather than models which can be rigorously applied. All of our western societies are social democracies to some extent, (yup, even America) like it or not.
Any meaningful discussion in the specific will be about the balance, the individual application, not some imagined ideal. That isn't to say those ideals are worthless, merely that reality is never quite so clear cut and what those ideals offer us is so dependent on contextual, temporal and situational factors that absolute devotion to a particular framework is absurd.
That being said, I struggle to imagine wanting to live in a society whose structure wasn't at least partially informed by socialist principles, one which sees itself as having zero responsibility to its citizens. In fact I'd struggle to imagine how such a system could possibly exist whilst maintaining the fabric of a society in the modern world at all. How those principles manifest is a different question altogether, but the belief that regulating for equality of opportunity and provision of essential services somehow negates the value of aspiration or individual freedom is just....silly
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It tells us the reasons why a place like Cuba has a mean salary of about $22/month. If you already knew that, great!
Or why a blatantly socialist beast like the NHS does so much better then privatised healthcare?
Health Care is a pretty complex industry, and there are many factors in the successes or failures of a delivery system, but if you think America would manage a socialized Health Care Industry better than the psuedo free market system America has today, I am quite certain America would prove you wrong.
Remind me again what percentage of people in America don't have Health coverage? BTW in places like the UK with the NHS that percentage is zero. I'm not saying the NHS is perfect by any means, but in covers more people percentage wise than the system used in the US, it costs less per capita. Or that care in the US isn't good if you can afford it. But I suspect it doesn't really matter to the person who can afford treatment that their country might have the best Hospitals or Doctors, all they care about is getting treatment.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...-healthcare-system-while-the-nhs-is-the-best/
If other countires governments can do it, I'm fairly certain the US government could as well.
I'm pretty sure I never suggested that, much as I'm pretty sure despite their respective reputations America is not a true capitalist state and Cuba is not a true socialist one. Do check, the US has a fairly large public sector whilst the Cuban private sector has been steadily growing for years. However the success or failure of any given state at any given time is an equally complex issue and reducing it to "it's because of socialism" shows bias when ascribing that complexity unilaterally. When the world is full of states succeeding and failing under all manner of political systems conveniently choosing to single out one to over simplify when ascribing unspecified "complexity" elsewhere shows selection bias, whether that is deliberate or due to cognitive short sightedness is unclear.
That you personally believe America could not manage a public sector health system has no bearing on my point that socialist policies can and do work around the world, much as capitalist ones do in fact fail. Our publicly funded and administered health care not only delivers a higher mean life expectancy but does so with fewer extremes of health inequalities and at a lower mean price per head. I've not mentioned whether it would work in the US, that it works here is sufficient to put a gaping hole in your argument that socialism equates to failure.
What matters is the context and manner in which political systems are applied. That insultingly vacuous magazine article you used to somehow substitute for framing an argument referred to people flooding from Cuba (again with Cuba, who knew it was the only possible example despite it's lack of pure socialism?) in search of a better life under capitalism. This is pretty ironic I feel given almost word for word duplicates complaints we hear here of people flooding to the UK in search of a better life under our really quite stable socialist welfare system. Funnily enough we are a G7 country too in spite of the terrible hindrance of state regulation.
People seem to be doing a lot of this flooding, funnily enough they do it across all manner of political gradients
Mostly those who would rather pay a tax penalty instead of invest in Health Insurance.
American consumers demand the best Health Care money can buy. Impoverished people who qualify for Medicaid often get it. The uninsured who don't qualify for Medicaid can often apply for financial assistance through local "not-for-profit" hospitals (for a total or partial adjustment).
Our Medicare program for the elderly is very poorly managed, costly for tax payers, costly for hospitals, and sometimes costly for subscribers when "non-covered" charges add up. A socialized Health Care system in America would likely resemble an expanded version of our Medicare program.
We can do it better. Just not through expanding social programs.
America's current system funds more research than all of Europe combined. America leads the way in research. Socialize our system and there is less money to invest in research.
Cute.
I actually posted a totally different response to this, pointing out the well known and acknowledged metrics on which American healthcare underperforms and some of the reasons which are both formally and informally proposed and debated as reasons. I pointed out the objective existence of this phenomena isn't really open for debate, on the contrary it is a well known observation within our profession.
I explained that the most effective healthcare systems (measured in terms of both cost effectiveness and raw health outcomes) in the world are all at least partially socialised. I even alluded to my own credentials (which many in here are aware of anyway) as to reasons to suggest I have every reason to know what I'm talking about from the inside without resort to magazine articles or wikipedia.
Then it clicked, none of it mattered, it was a knee jerk response to a strawman argument, deflecting from the weakness in your thesis. It was opening up a whole new debate, one where we would compete over respective healthcare systems and totally miss the point that you had wrongly equated socialism with failure, without even going to the effort of explaining that position or framing your own argument . When presented with a clear instance of socialism not only succeeding, but demonstratably outperforming capitalism in a profession with objectively measurable criteria for success you threw up a misdirection.
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It will happen once we have an Independence day style alien invasion
Humanity is a social organism. Cooperation enhances species survival.
Competition ultimately results in the survival of one. Gonna be mighty lonely in
the world when the competition has been eliminated. "Free market" ideology
only serves the 'predator', to the detriment of the 'prey'. When the 'prey'
is gone, the 'predator' dies.
No one "wins".
Competition ultimately results in the survival of one. Gonna be mighty lonely in
the world when the competition has been eliminated. "Free market" ideology
only serves the 'predator', to the detriment of the 'prey'. When the 'prey'
is gone, the 'predator' dies.
No one "wins".
I read your post, and you did nothing of the sort. lol I have worked in the business sector of the American Health Care industry for about 18 years. I understand that you like to perpetuate that you have your finger on the pulse of everything, and you know what is best for America, but your commentary was irrelevant.
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How so? You made very weak case that socialism equates to failure, you were shown to be wrong. What is more your point didn't refer to America or what is best for it, nor did mine. the first few times you threw a strawman in you nearly got away with it, it's starting to look desperate now. I didn't say universal healthcare would be best for America, I stated it works here. That point alone is enough to leave your case in tatters if you don't address it.
I've worked on both sides of the pond as a healthcare professional, practitioner and manager (including taking operational control of a major secure hospital), I'm now on academic secondment pending the rebuild of a hospital site on which I'm on the management team. I'm in a perfect position to compare and contrast, (and yes, the NHS does outperform American provision on most health metrics whilst costing less per head AND being free to all at the point of delivery, you should be aware of this in your position) but this isn't a contest between healthcare systems, it's a refutal of your original point about the failures of socialism which you haven't even started to address.
The fact that we are having this discussion comparing them as peers at all is sufficient, you have been shown a clear example of socialist policies working in practise and consequently avoided that simple point because you don't have an adequate response. You keep referring to Cuba (?) on the false premise that Cuba is in fact both truly socialist and representative of socialism as a whole. Neither is true.The fact is the US is not truly capitalist, nor is any other country truly socialist. These things only exist as ideas, not functioning processes and how they apply in any given instance is contextual. all countries are ultimately mixed markets, the specifics vary from case to case but not one modern country (at least none which isn't a dictatorship) operates without some measure of a social democratic system in place.
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Outstanding!
