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My Apologies To KingOrfeo, Socialism Does Work

Rightguide

Rightguide

Prof Triggernometry
Joined
Feb 7, 2017
Posts
56,373
As a weight loss program:

Venezuela’s crisis causes its people to cut meals and lose weight
Luke Graham| @LukeWGraham

"Data from the latest Venezuela Living Conditions Survey (ENCOVI 2016) found around 81 percent of Venezuelan households are now living in income poverty, up from 75.6 percent in 2015.

Meanwhile, 74.3 percent of the population lost an average of 8.7 kilos of weight, or 19 pounds, and around 9.6 million Venezuelans eat two or fewer meals a day


Rest here:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/20/venezuelas-crisis-cause-its-people-to-cut-meals-and-lose-weight.html
 
[shrug] Venezuela has free and fair elections, Chavez survived a recall election and a coup attempt, and his party managed to hold on to power after his death. For whatever reason, the majority still appear to support the Bolivarian Revolution. If they ever change their minds, the opposition awaits to step in.
 
Capitalism doesn't give everyone the life of a rock star and it's a fucking crime against humanity.....sexist and racist too!!





Socialism starves people and how do socialist respond?

KingOrfeo said:
[shrug] Venezuela has free and fair elections
Click to expand...

And people wonder how socialist get away with such a high volume and frequency of mass murder. :rolleyes:
 
KingOrfeo said:
[shrug] Venezuela has free and fair elections, Chavez survived a recall election and a coup attempt, and his party managed to hold on to power after his death. For whatever reason, the majority still appear to support the Bolivarian Revolution. If they ever change their minds, the opposition awaits to step in.
Click to expand...

One of the most corrupt nations on earth, they've finally goofed themselves into a death spiral. If there were anyone interested in helping would there be anything left to rescue now that they've placed their national hope in a confiscatory economic system they have to kill to escape? All they have to look forward to is more corrupt authoritarianism to correct the mistakes of the last corrupt authoritarian.
 
Here's the short answer.

Socialism does not work in immigration countries. that simple. A homogeneous society can succeed with socialism and Nordic countries are an example. Language barriers mainly, as well as no immigration policies make it so.

The US will disintegrate and/or fall to civil war if socialism climbs up to the reign.
 
Socialism in the US of A: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Administration, Garbage collection, Works Progress Administration, the GI Bill, Tennessee Valley Authority, The Eisenhower Highway system, SSDI, the Department of Defense, Unemployment, FEMA, ....
 
EternalFantasy said:
Here's the short answer.

Socialism does not work in immigration countries. that simple. A homogeneous society can succeed with socialism and Nordic countries are an example. Language barriers mainly, as well as no immigration policies make it so.

The US will disintegrate and/or fall to civil war if socialism climbs up to the reign.
Click to expand...

It doesn't work even there. Socialism is much like Social Security, a Ponzi scheme at best. The entire system is predicated on the notion that there will be X paying into the system (workers) for every Y pensioner. This REQUIRES at the very minimum a stable population if not a growing population. Some 12 years ago the European style Socialism required 4 workers for every pensioner. Looking at it from a generational standpoint even a zpg population wasn't going to cut the mustard in that there were only 2 generations supporting the generation that was eligible for pension. The implication being that each succeeding generation had to have 4 or more children per couple.

What they found out back in the 70's was that their fertility rate was falling below 2.1 (zpg), which means they were dying nations. Germany went so far as to offer cash bonuses for every child a couple had. The problem of a falling population as a result of state provided benefits is well known and is documented all the way back to the Roman Empire where women who birthed 3 or more children were awarded medals by the state. (Many of these medals are proudly displayed on some tombs along the Apian Way.) ALL of the Western EU nations are well below the required 2.1 fertility rate.

What to do? They started to import workers (taxpayers) wholesale. The Germans primarily from Turkey, France from N. Africa. The Nordics a mixed bag. Notably most of these imported 'workers' were Muslim. (If you recall back when this Syrian refugee crisis started and Germany allowed them to flood across their borders Merkel bluntly stated that they were needed to supplement the labor pool (taxpayers).)

From an economic standpoint Socialism is clearly unsustainable. Humans being what they are they adjusted their lifestyle, in this case reproduction rates, to the existing conditions (cradle to grave freebies).

I liken it to what I call the "Coyote effect." Back when coyotes were under severe pressure, poisoning, trapping, etc. the avg. coyote litter was upwards of nine pups. When those programs were suspended the avg. litter dropped to five to seven pups. The coyote adjusted it's breeding cycles (fertility) to the changing conditions. It appears that the very same biology applies to humans as well.

Ishmael
 
BoyNextDoor said:
Socialism in the US of A: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Administration, Garbage collection, Works Progress Administration, the GI Bill, Tennessee Valley Authority, The Eisenhower Highway system, SSDI, the Department of Defense, Unemployment, FEMA, ....
Click to expand...

Nope.
 
Ishmael said:
It doesn't work even there. Socialism is much like Social Security, a Ponzi scheme at best.

Ishmael
Click to expand...

Except, there is no expectation that the richest will benefit proportionally. There is an expectation of a wealth transfer.

from Bernie Sanders:

Here are the facts:

Social Security has a $2.8 trillion surplus. It can pay every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 19 years (and more than three-quarters after that).
Social Security’s assets aren’t “just paper,” as conservatives sometimes put it. Social Security invests in U.S Treasury bonds, the safest interest-bearing securities in the world.

These are the same bonds wealthy investors have purchased, along with China and other foreign countries. These bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, which in our long history has never defaulted on its debt obligations.

Right now a billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $118,500 a year. That’s because there is a cap on taxable income that goes into the Social Security system.

Lift that cap over $118,500 to "infinity". :cool:
 
BoyNextDoor said:
Ish disagrees with your amazingly insightful response. At least in the case of Social Security.:cool:
Click to expand...

The key words were: 'climb up to the reign'.

There are always shared baskets. If you have things society pays for together doesn't mean you live in socialism.
 
BoyNextDoor said:
Except, there is no expectation that the richest will benefit proportionally. There is an expectation of a wealth transfer.

from Bernie Sanders:

Here are the facts:

Social Security has a $2.8 trillion surplus. It can pay every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 19 years (and more than three-quarters after that).
Social Security’s assets aren’t “just paper,” as conservatives sometimes put it. Social Security invests in U.S Treasury bonds, the safest interest-bearing securities in the world.

These are the same bonds wealthy investors have purchased, along with China and other foreign countries. These bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, which in our long history has never defaulted on its debt obligations.

Right now a billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $118,500 a year. That’s because there is a cap on taxable income that goes into the Social Security system.

Lift that cap over $118,500 to "infinity". :cool:
Click to expand...

You've really thought this through, haven't you? You can soak the rich all you want and it still doesn't work. Once the fertility rate falls below 2.1 you're on your way to extinction. That particular rule of demographics makes no distinction as to which financial quintile you occupy.

Ishmael
 
EternalFantasy said:
Here's the short answer.

Socialism does not work in immigration countries. that simple. A homogeneous society can succeed with socialism and Nordic countries are an example. Language barriers mainly, as well as no immigration policies make it so.

The US will disintegrate and/or fall to civil war if socialism climbs up to the reign.
Click to expand...

What's your reasoning there? What is there about ethnic diversity that stands in the way of functional socialism?
 
Ishmael said:
You've really thought this through, haven't you? You can soak the rich all you want and it still doesn't work. Once the fertility rate falls below 2.1 you're on your way to extinction. That particular rule of demographics makes no distinction as to which financial quintile you occupy.

Ishmael
Click to expand...

I am just saying capping the social security tax at $118K is bollocks. Actually I'd like to see the $$$ if you STARTED it at $118K.

Now that would be a good FACT
 
BoyNextDoor said:
I am just saying capping the social security tax at $118K is bollocks. Actually I'd like to see the $$$ if you STARTED it at $118K.

Now that would be a good FACT
Click to expand...

Delaying the inevitable is just that, a band-aid on a fatally flawed system.

Ishmael
 
BoyNextDoor said:
Socialism in the US of A: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Veterans Administration, Garbage collection, Works Progress Administration, the GI Bill, Tennessee Valley Authority, The Eisenhower Highway system, SSDI, the Department of Defense, Unemployment, FEMA, ....
Click to expand...

Those are really all more in the way of social democracy than democratic socialism. The Nordic countries have social democracy. Venezuela is experimenting with democratic socialism. The latter, IMO, requires at a minimum some degree of direct government ownership or at least direction of the means of production. Regarding "direction," see dirigisme (which Japan used to build up its early industrial capitalism). We have hardly anything in the U.S. that you might call "industrial policy," at least not for the economy as a whole, only limited initiatives to jump-start things like alternative energy enterprises.
 
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EternalFantasy said:
People aren't fair with their own as it is.
Click to expand...

So, ethnic prejudice and resentments prevent socialism from working in a diverse society? I don't see it. Those things can prevent socialism from being tried in a diverse society -- many white Americans even now resent limited social-welfare programs they see as benefiting the "other" rather than themselves -- but if that purely political obstacle could be overcome, I don't see how it would prevent socialism from working.
 
KingOrfeo said:
So, ethnic prejudice and resentments prevent socialism from working in a diverse society? I don't see it. Those things can prevent socialism from being tried in a diverse society -- many white Americans even now resent limited social-welfare programs they see as benefiting the "other" rather than themselves -- but if that purely political obstacle could be overcome, I don't see how it would prevent socialism from working.
Click to expand...

Yea, well, not so easy. Gotta delve into theories and evaluate instead of posting online your entire free time.

It's multi faceted. Its hard even in homogeneous societies. Ur jailed to a system. No freedom. When hetero, even worse. People play favorites.

When competition reigns, you get high quality and freedom of choice.
 
BTW, even the Stalinist model of totalitarian socialism does work -- for limited purposes, i.e., heavy capital formation. In 1924 Stalin took control of a backward, agrarian country, marginally industrialized by the onset of WWI and that little industry devastated by that war and the Russian Civil War, and -- by methods which were bloody, brutal, repressive, wasteful, but effective -- by 1939 had turned it into an industrial power capable of going head-to-head with Hitler's Germany; and Germany had always been at the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution. No way could that have happened, if Russia had had a free-market system during that period.

OTOH, central economic planning, lacking the constant corrective feedback of competitive market performance, is spectacularly inept at any kind of fine-tuning. Moreover, it does not encourage innovation very well. No state planner would ever have thought of something like the Sony Walkman, or the Pet Rock, or fabric softener. (Whether that is an argument for or against Stalinism is open to debate.)

From Economics Explained, by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow:

The reason it [the Soviet system] did last [as long as it did] is that in the beginning the system very much resembled a military operation. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Lenin confronted an almost totally disorganized society, and tried at first to build a "socialism" that was partly capitalist -- private farming and private small enterprise -- and partly socialist, in the form of state-owned banks and large centers of production. Russia staggered along under this mixed system for a few years, without either great success or great failure, but after Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin took command and rapidly instituted the highly centralized system we have sketched in.

Stalin's methods were ferocious and bloody, but they were successful in bringing about an immense accumulation of wealth, much as did the ruthless ways of the ancient pharoahs of Egypt and emperors of Rome or China. The difference was that whereas the latter built palaces and cities, Stalin built factories, steel mills, hydroelectric plants, and railway systems -- the ingredients of an industrial economy. The fact that Stalin's Russia was strong enough to resist Hitler's armies -- and efficient enough, after its reconstruction following World War II, to impress the world with its industrial and military capabilities -- shows that Soviet central planning was by no means a failure in its initial years. That is why "military socialism" may yet be a model for development efforts in the future. China is today a semi-military socialism which appears to be successfully negotiating the early stages of industrialization, much aided by a carefully supervised free market sector attached to the planned core. Hence the collapse of the Soviet system should not lead us to the snap judgment that centralized socialism is no longer on the agenda of the coming century. That is indeed likely to be the case with the North, but it is not a foregone conclusion in the troubled countries of the South.

THE COLLAPSE

But we are ahead of ourselves. After so successful a beginning, why did Soviet socialism finally break down? The answer is that it is a great deal easier to design and build the skeleton of a mighty economy than to run it. Building a steel plant requires good industrial draftsmanship, but running a steel plant requires good industrial management. Management, in turn, depends on the ability to adapt flows of production to ever-changing conditions -- the unforeseen contingencies, mistakes, mismatches, shortages, and overruns that are inescapable in any complex undertaking.

In a market system, these mistakes are repaired and remedied as soon as possible because they cost the factory or store money. Hence suppliers are told to hurry up, or to hold back on shipments, unprofitable items are canceled and profitable ones run overtime, the Yellow Pages are searched for last-minute necessities. None of this can happen in a society planned from top to bottom. When mistakes are made, they bring about a kind of gridlock in the flow of production, so that the pace of Soviet economic production was a never-ending sequence of feast or famine, too much or too little, with no way of remedying the errors other than recasting next year's plan or seeking the semi-illegal channels of "tolkachi" -- fixers.
Click to expand...
 
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KingOrfeo said:
Those are really all more in the way of social democracy than democratic socialism. The Nordic countries have social democracy. Venezuela is experimenting with democratic socialism. The latter, IMO, requires at a minimum some degree of direct government ownership or at least direction of the means of production. Regarding "direction," see dirigisme (which Japan used to build up its early industrial capitalism). We have hardly anything in the U.S. that you might call "industrial policy," at least not for the economy as a whole, only limited initiatives to jump-start things like alternative energy enterprises.
Click to expand...

Direct government ownership or at least direction of the means of production is state capitalism, and that is worse than what we have in the US today.

Collective decision making about rhe production, appropriation and distribution of surplus value belongs inside the firm, inside the corporation, inside the locus of production and not as a part of an external political system. That was the specific failure of Soviet Russia. They were never Communist in the Marxian economic sense.
 
Great. So you do know that it doesn't work, from many angles.

Certainly disastrous for the land of the free, home of the brave.


That does it, i'm buying a gun.
 
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