The same reason all countries vote for the left or right to have different leadership. A perfect example would be France. The Right have held control of Preisdency since 1995, The National Assembly since 2002 and before the 2011 Senate elections had control of the senate for numerous years. The French economy is in bad shape and Sarkozy is deeply unpopular with the voters so most people look to the left in order to fix the problems. The Left is far more electable as they can't be blamed for the problems.
...But the left in France is promising to make it worse They want more spending, lower age of retirement and less work. How on earth is that going to help the economy?
I can argue the economics but that wasn't the point of my post. The French Left can't be blamed for the problems France faces now as they had no power so people will automatically move away from those who created the problem to those who didn't. The Socialist Party happens to be the most moderate left wing party in France so they get the bulk of the support draining from the right. They can't be blamed for the problems because they had no power, they can say (whether rightly or wrongly) they can control the economy better and can point to all the figures on unemployment, credit rating etc. The French Left are automatically made much more electable because the right have had the power and the economy isn't working under them. It is much easier for the left to say that they can fix the economy than it is for the right. This is why all people vote for the left and for the right in all elections, some factor or factors have made one side harder to elect and the other easier to elect.
you never stated your parameters. You were actually claiming I wanted your money. I have no where stated that but you clearly are thinking that since the 1980's the inequality between the rich and the middle class has increased dramatically. At that time a Manager was paid about 9 times that of their employer. Now s/he receives 150 times the income of the employer. - these figures are roughly correct for both the US and the UK. ha ha ha, which came first? Have you any idea of the poverty there is in the United States at the moment. Have you any idea of the number of people who are homeless and that a significant percentage of children are going to bed hungry. Do tell me your policies for looking after the 'poor' The only justification for inequality in a 'democracy' is that there is equality of opportunity, or at the very least working towards it. Without that social unrest will result as history has shown. You come from a very simplistic viewpoint. Of course some people are bad parents and that is irrespective of whether they are rich or poor but a child brought up in a poor family with uneducated parents who do know have the knowledge/money to provide an adequate diet or to provide for that child what the 'rich' child would take as the norm's of life - safe living space, healthy food, keeping warm, sport and recreation is clearly at a very severe disadvantage - such a severe disadvantage that, as I already said by the age of 3 they are 8 months behind developmentally....and that is the caused by the system. Capitalism under democracy has kept it's moral compass only with the propaganda that it provides equality of opportunity and social mobility. Take them away and you have dictatorship by any other name.
Wealth distribution: Imagine a small tribe of 10 people in Amazonia. 1 of them owns a banana plantation, the other 9 own nothing and starve from hunger. The 9 ask the rich one: "Pls give us some of your bananas." The rich one (whose name incidentally is "Munqi") says: "The fact that I have more bananas than you doesn't mean that you're entitled to have my bananas." Agreed, this is one extreme. The other would be communism, nothing is owned by anyone, because everybody owns everything, or rather... the concept of ownership is gone. The extremes are not desireable, I think we can agree on that. But there are different degrees of inequality, and the question now is: which degree of financial inequality is acceptable and which degree of financial inequality borders on the situation described above and therefore is unacceptable. In the US there is a growing feeling that the degree of financial inequality in that country has grown to proportions that are generelly felt as being unacceptable. The next step would be that US American would realise that there is only on means which can result in redistribution: taxes. They havent reached that step yet, the majority of people still cling to their semi-neurotic fear of taxes so much that even tax-increases for the superrich are not seen favorably by the majority, afaik. But they are the only means to achieve the wealth distribution US citizens themselves would find "fairer" and desirable. Social Security: A social "net" doesnt mean that you pay people for doing nothing and staying at home. It means that you expect from people to do what is feasible to change their situation, and if they dont, you cut benefits. For example you link receiving welfare benefits with visiting a course of: "How to become a plumber". If the recipient declines to visit the course which would in the end, after a couple of months, make him a certified plumber and find him a job immediately, the welfare payments are stopped. Minimum wage: You ignore the entrepreneurial profits... if they are large enough, increasing wages to a minimum wage level would first reduce profits, and not in every case reduce them below zero. If this eventual "profit reservoir" is depleted, the employer would have to increase prices of the end products or services his enterprise provides. Competitors also would have to reduce profits and/or increase prices, because the obligation to pay minimum wages is a general one. Only if markets cease to buy products and services job losses would occur.
Actually I think most of both 'left' and 'right' in Europe, being inclined to be relatively moderate and pragmatic, recognise that too big a wealth gap between 'richest' and 'poorest' is a bad thing for everyone and the economy as whole (at the simplest level, the economy simply doesn't function well if those 'at the bottom' have no money to spend, no matter how much the people 'at the top' have!), but they disagree about the best way to address the issue. They also recognise that it's a bad idea to simply 'smash the rich' and make everyone have the same regardless of their efforts - any economy needs people with wealth and entrepreneurial ideas too. The more 'socialist' inclined tend to think the best way of achieving it is approaching actual 'redistribution of wealth' by taking more from the 'rich' in tax and allowing more 'benefits' for the 'poor' (not just actual 'donations', but greater protections, services, working conditions, social conditions, and so on). Modern mainstream European 'socialism' is nothing like the old ideas of Communism or Marxism, though - it's far more moderate than that. The more 'conservative' minded tend to think that the best way to achieve it is 'trickle down' economics, with opportunity being totally opened up and deregulated for the 'movers and shakers' who are mostly already at the top to do what they want without interference, in the hope that it will allow them to provide greater employment, and so on. Kind of in between them are the 'liberal' minded, who tend to believe that a balance of both limited deregulation and improvements to social conditions will be most effective, by allowing for people to succeed for themselves while ensuring that everyone has a fair opportunity to do so, no matter what circumstances they were born into. That's a very, very rough outline, of course, and in practice all of them tend to recognise that a little bit of some of what each other are talking about isn't a bad thing at all. The ideology tends to point to the balance of all of those things, rather than any kind of complete 'either/or' thinking about each others' general policies. Extreme political ideas and ideologies like communism and fascism are more or less dead in Western Europe (thankfully!). There's no great 'plot' to create a 'socialist Utopia for the workers', or to return to a 'feudal system' where the already powerful can do anything they want at the expense of everyone else. Nobody in mainstream politics wants anything like those things to be the ultimate aim or end result of their efforts. People just disagree about what is the best method of achieving a decent society, and the exact details of the definition of a decent society in the ways that are most important to them. All of them just want to achieve a democratic society where everyone has a reasonably good standard of living, everybody contributes their proper dues, and nobody has their property or liberty taken from them unjustly either by the state or by powerful individuals - they just disagree about some of the exact details of those things, and how best to achieve them, that's all.
Why is it you think anyone wants to destroy the country they have taken great pains to improve for the community? People should have freedom as far as possible. If they have freedom to earn and happen to have an ability in whatever is high value at the current time, we are still part of the wider community and bound by responsibility to it as everyone else is. Having money does not exempt one from that, or put one above law or taxes. Wealth should incentivise the improvement of the overall community, not just a wealthy guy or two. I have nothing against capitalism, it was all but "invented" by Scots, but its aim and raison d'etre is only to improve conditions across society. Or should be. The wealthy don't see it that way, but they are surrounded by people who do and who sometimes cannot be ignored. In civilised society the strong protect the weak. In a wealthy society, why would you let people starve if it is avoidable and not terribly painful to you? Regardless of current ability trends, it is unacceptable for people to starve in an affluent society. In some capitalist countries, people say they contribute voluntarily to prevention of poverty and they prefer to do that as and when it suits them and not be directed on what to do with their money by anyone else. Need doesn't disappear when those people don't feel like donating. I personally sleep better at night knowing that is taken care of via tax. I don't mind contributing via taxation to ensure people do not have to starve in the street in my country. I care about the people I live amongst and it doesn't make sense on any level at all even if you are a greedy selfish bastard and viewing society entirely from a self-oriented perspective, to have desperately poor people living on the street as eventually, knock knock, they are coming to your door to try to take what you have. It has to happen. If there is risk of over enthusiastic socially aware Government getting carried away with public spending and creating silly ineffective over-funded schemes from time to time to improve opportunity for the less advantaged, I can live with that. When it goes too far in one direction, the balance is always redressed when the terrible Tories regain power. Therefore, I would lean toward socialist voting before right wing, although both are imperfect in policy and the swing between them often costs society obscenely more money and suffering than it needs to.
Austria Belgium Denmark Finland (Social Democrats are junior coalition partners) Greece? Ireland (Labour are junior coalition partners) Not very many.
I don't dismiss it as a factor, immigration is viewed by some as exacerbating the economic issues and it is part of them. But it did not cause the economic crisis and I don't think people have suddenly become racist regarding immigration, when they didn't really bleat about it before. The economy impacts on immigration, people are more concerned about it if they can't get a job and think they are being obstructed in that by immigrants.
I vote for the left as a 'lesser of two evils'. There isn't a left-leaning party I can fully support, they are all deeply flawed. However, one of the main things I dislike about the current state of affairs is the pay gap - when one man earns nearly a thousand times as much as one of his employees I don't think that's right. Nobody does a thousand times as much work, and if you produce a thousand times as much product as your employee then that's an incompetent employee and he should be fired. Bottom line, we shouldn't all get exactly the same, but nobody is worth nine hundred other people, and that's why I think we ought to go a little bit more to the left.
If the market is willing to pay someone that much then hes worth it. Are you really willing to destroy this continent simply because you cant stand the fact that someone else has more money than you?
Our poor are the richest poor in the world and are fat and generally happy. I don't understand this. You honestly think we leave our poor to die in the streets? If anyone is dying in the streets, it is because they chose to be there because they have mental illnesses that prevent them from wanting to live indoors. There is no material poverty in America, only relative poverty of people who actually think that poor people have to have all the same luxuries that the middle class has in order to live a happy existence.
The richest poor in the world? Whatever The United States is an example of extreme greed which has completely hollowed out society and especially the middle class.
The only people who are failing to reach middle class status are the poeple who can't adapt to a rapidly changing world based in high technology. The days of the factory worker making a middle class lifestyle are over. Get over it and quit crying about it. American cannot just create "stupid" jobs for "stuipd" people just so they can work and feel good about themselves. They can take what they can get. Please tell me honestly. Do you really beleive that it is a duty of a civilized nation to make severe economic sacrifices in order to cater to the needs of those left behind by rapid social and technological change? I do not beleive it is.
No, I believe it is the duty of a civilized society to ensure that it has the social and educational infrastructure in place to ensure that everybody within that society has a fair opportunity (which it is then up to them to take) to not get left behind by rapid social and technological change to the extent that they can no longer make a living for themselves.
That is what is called , "Rigging the question" It should have read , "is it the duty of a nation to help those that are disadvantaged , those that have their work taken away from them by factors outside of their control ?" You are perfectly capable of answering that question honestly in private . But remember , it is the type of answer that you give that decides ( among several matters) whether the country can rightly be called , " Civilised" , or not . If you are happy living in a country which feels no obligation to the disadvantaged , that is a free choice . But don't try to cheat and imagine for a second that others will regard you as " civilised " if you choose the greedier and selfish option .
LMAO Man that "The greatness of nation is decided by how it treats is least citizens" is MARXIST BULL(*)(*)(*)(*). What decides the greatness of a nation is whether its power and influence over other nations is greater and how many people are willing to die in order to immigrate to that land. People don't kill themselves getting to America just to be exploited. Obviously things are better here than anywhere else in the world otherwise people wouldn't come here. As far as I can see the proof is that people die in the desert to get here in the hundreds every year. people don't do that unless they are certain there is something better on the other side.
So greatness to you is exploiting other nations in order that you get their resources and make them so desperate and their lives so impossible that they will risk their very lives trying to get to your country. Your idea of greatness shows no humanity and incredibly selfishness. Not what I would call greatness but there you go. People don't kill themselves going anywhere if they have any other possibility. Let me say it again, people do not kill themselves trying to achieve something unless their life depends on it. Your description of the US is of a country which has hijacked the entire wealth of the world so that people are dying to get there - and you call this 'greatness' Unfortunately your own are suffering now too. That unfortunately is what unleashed greed in the hands of a few do to a Nation. http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
That arguement would only hold water if it were remotely true that the USA is the only place in the world that people are 'killing themselves' trying to get to. That, of course, is not the case - there are people doing exactly the same kind of things, and taking the same kind of risks, to try to get into the UK, other parts of the EU, Australia, New Zeland, and other places besides. All the evidence in the desert proves is that the USA has far greater wealth opportunity and higher potential living standards on average than Mexico (and some other parts of Central/South America), so people want to get to the USA (because it is alot easier to do that than it is to swim from Central/South America to Europe or Australia!) to improve their own lives, which I'm sure isn't really a great surprise to anyone! People from the 'worst' parts of Central/South America tend to head for the US, because they see it as better, and potentially possible (even if very difficult and dangerous) to get there. People from South East Asia thinking along similar lines might well head towards Australia for similar reasons. People from the Middle East in similar situations tend to be heading for Europe, again for similar reasons (and some of them then cross the EU in order to try to get specifically into the UK). The USA is not by any means unique in attracting large numbers of economic migrants and people fleeing persecution, some prepared to go to any length, at the risk of their lives, to get there. It would be silly to deny that the USA is obviously one of the 'attractive' countries in the world to live in, but equally silly to deny that there are other countries around the world that are quite obviously every bit as attractive to those who are suffering in countries with poor economic situations and/or oppressive governments.
Other contributors have rightly guided you on the other matters in your Post . It remains worrying that you confuse decency , compassion and care with what you regard as an insult --- Marxism .Still , if that is what you think Marxism is, who am I to disillusion a student ? America is far from civilised --- 100 million at or near poverty is ludicrous alongside the self delusion of being "the mightiest" ( see my repeated taunt of , "the Stupidest" ) . You have to earn the title of " Civilised" , and I guess one obvious way of defining that point is when the vocal element no longer includes selfish voices such as yours .
