The case for Social Democracy.

Please watch this excellent video.



The video goes into detail debunking right wing claims against universal healthcare and education, providing OECD data, and various statistics with regards to how many americans skip insurance all together because it is too expensive. It also goes into detail about how homogeneity and small population size are not the reason these countries can implement these policies. It is very informative. This youtuber also has some other videos going into even more detail about US healthcare with waiting lines, etc..

BTW Bernie Sanders is not a socialist.

 

Social Democracy is what the Nordic nations have. Extremely market orientated economy except for a large welfare state. Lack of onerous red tape in a lot of areas.

Democratic socialism is the attainment of socialism through democratic rather than authoritarian means. The people gradually vote for public ownership of the means of production. It's not done through a coup.

 

Exactly they are two different systems. I am in favor of social democracy, not democratic socialism or any form of socialism/communism. The right love to use socialism as a scare tactic and a smear because they can't debate against social democracy. They say that these countries are 'capitalist' as a response. Well duh, nobody on the left was calling the Nordic countries some Marxist-Leninist paradise.

 

I do think that you have to be careful with social democracy as well, but it's not inherently bad. I live in a social democracy. It's not so bad.

New Zealand is a great example. By the 1980s New Zealand had become a heavily regulated, government controlled economy. 40% of farm revenue was coming from direct state subsidies. Unrest and riots in the streets.

The deficit reached 10% of GDP. That's not the debt, that's the deficit. In the mid 80s, new PM strongly pushed liberalisation, dismantling of the bureaucratic class, and a return to a strong market economy.

Today they have the best of both worlds - a safety net for the plebs, low regulation, low taxes, and innovation.

 

The united states is extremely regulated to begin with. We would have to toss out the work done by Democrats over the past 85 years and start over. Doubt it can happen. Sanders walks the trail alone.

 

Sure, because what works in tiny, racially and culturally homogenous, oil rich countries whose populations could fit into my single state is surely feasible in the U.S.

BTW linking a video without significant thoughts of your own accompanying is effectively a null set of an OP post.

 

We have double the population here in the SF Bay area than the Nordic states per state have and we can't even make the socialist brand Democrats follow work.

Best way to think of our local Democrats is them walking around with signs on saying pay me more taxes and one of these days you will get roads.

Reminds me of an old defunct cartoon figure of the 40s where the figure would tell people he would work for a hamburger.

This fellow
Drug of choice: Hamburgers

The Harrowing Tale Of Addiction: Even though his best friend Popeye loves to ‘juice’ with the spinach in his endless pursuit of freakishly large forearms, Wimpy is all about patties of beef on a bun. Wimpy needs his burgers. From the moment he wakes to the moment he drags his burger-filled belly home, Wimpy is on the make. Scheming, conning, and begging to get his hands on that sweet ground round. Moving from hamburger joint to hamburger joint, Wimpy is always one step ahead of the dealers, but one step behind his addiction. Life is hard on the streets for a hamburglar, but Wimpy out hamburgles them all. Except for that guy The Hamburglar. That baller is for real!

 

This is a bullshit point. We have high social capital and more than an enough resources to implement these policies successfully. Homogenouity has nothing to do with the success of social policies. Linking an excellent video is just adding a part to discussion and further explaining my ideas. PS. if you watched the video, you would see your points debunked.

 

Once again another bs point. If you would've watched the video, you would see how your points would be debunked. We have high social capital and an abundant amount of resources to pull these policies off. It's insane to say that they aren't possible in the US, when they have been implemented successfully in countries with low social capital.

 

Its not two different systems, its two different routes to end up at the same place.

One is done by force, the other is convincing people through coercion.

 

This makes no sense. They are two different systems. One owns the means of the production, the other doesn't. Period.

 

No, a social democracy allows for state ownership by democracy rather than coup, its the same end goal.

What do you think "social" means.

It stands for socialism.

Now what is the bread and butter of socialism?

Government control and the creation of a welfare state.

 

You make no sense, and are conflating terms.

 

Um no I'm not and the proof is with the socialist nations you are praising in Europe.

Those nations all contain more government control, a larger welfare state, and higher taxes to pay for it and they are not done yet.

They are still heading in one direction to an ultimate goal unless they change.

Socialism isn't an actual ideology, its a means to something else.

Just like capitalism is not an actual ideology, it leads to something else also.

Ultimately socialist policies create an oligarchy while capitalist ones lead to a plutocracy but on their way there they can both lead to fascism.

 

You have pre-conceived belief that because these nations, and mine as well even include the US, have social programs that they will all end up becoming economic hellholes. Well it's been a pretty darn long time, that these EUR nations have had these policies and not one of them are economic hellholes, but when in doubt Venezuela! Redistribution of wealth can go on forever if done correctly. Correctly meaning within a capitalist framework. That's what these nations have done. That's why they have been kicking our ass in so many categories.

 

I never claimed they would become economic hellholes.

And they haven't had these policies for very long at all.

A few decades in the political world is not a long time.

LOL

I'm thinking you are simply someone caught up in the socialist wave without realizing the dangers of what you are actually supporting.

And there is nothing wrong with that, it happens to people but I would continue to discuss this with other members on this site and use that opportunity to increase your knowledge a little bit.

I learn things every day here.

 

IF Bernie Sanders endorses it, there is no doubt is is a steaming pile of dung. Bernie is not capable of identifying anything else.

 

Ok fine, just strawman, and not watch the video or debate any of the points.

 

First of all many of these countries have had these policies longer than just a few decades. Secondly I don't know how many times I have to explain to you that I don't want socialism, but social democracy which is just a highly regulated form of capitalism. Stop using your right wing buzz words and think tank fallacy talking points that make no sense.

 

Which ones?

I bet I can prove you wrong on that.

They have all adopted them in recent history.

But prove me wrong, lets rock this out shall we

 

Yes in recent history but more than just a few decades. Ex. UK 1948, Sweden 1955. In my opinion it's been a long time which these policies have been implemented and with such great success, improving living standards amongst people.

 

A few decades was just a generalization.

We can say post WWII and that's not a very long time for a system to run its course and fail.

We already see the seams breaking with nations like Greece and Venezuela.

The other nations can manage it better but the outcome will be the same.

They will either simply fail or change course to something more evil.

There has never in the history of the world been a nation that practiced any form of social democracy that ever survived.

Some just take longer than others.

You look at their current status and like what you see so declare it a success without having any understanding that what these nations are doing is a process, its not the end result.

Its your lack of historical knowledge that leads you to this conclusion and that's fine, it seems very tempting now but you are not armed with all the information you need to make an informed decision.

When Nazism spread to America and around the world people looked at Germany and thought how wonderful it was because they say pictures or read stories about how happy the German people were.

And they were.

But they didn't understand how that ideology would change their nation in the long run.

This is a movie we are watching and you are basing an opinion off of a photograph of one point in time.

 

Again another fallacy talking point that has no backing behind it. Sweden and the Nordic countries have more social programs, etc. and are bigger nanny states as the right would say, than Greece and Venezuela and have had no economic collapse. This is not the reason Greece and Venezuela are have failed. There have been plenty of nations where social democracy has survived, but not pure capitalism. The closest form to pure capitalism was right here in the US, and it lead to the biggest economic collapse we have ever seen. Pure unadulterated capitalism has never survived.

 

I've watched Bernie's crap for the last few years, researched his miserable history, listen to his speeches.
Once you have fully examined and identified the dog dumping piles of excrement on your lawn, why would you insist it's necessary to go out and step in each new one?
If Bernie declared that water flows downhill, I would probably suspect it doesn't. He hasn't had anything right in his life except that you can tell people they are entitled to free sh*t and that "someone else" will pay the bills, and get agreement from the worst of them.

Character and base values rarely change very much. He is still the fool he was when he was kicked out of a hippie commune because he refused to do his share of the work. He always will be.

 

I'll stick with the moral, voluntary, innovative transactions of the non government-dependent, competitive private sector and the relative stability of the Constitutional Republic over the involuntary, violent, command, fiat, incompetent, corrupt, graft-ridden, wasteful machinations of the gov-edu-union-contractor-grantee-trial lawyer-MSM Complex and the vastly more unstable, noncompetitive "rule of progressive social planners" all day long.

Again, "watch the youtube video" is not a compelling argument for anything. I use videos all the time here to -accentuate- points and arguments, not as substitutes for them. And the OP video is debunking a COMEDIAN? and we are supposed to take that seriously? Give me a break.

Here are just a few examples (list of Obama "green energy" GRAFT and PORK failures) of the kinds of "innovation" that result from the type of government you are proposing, special interests and crony grantees profit, the taxpayer suffers:

https://www.dailysignal.com/2012/10/18/president-obamas-taxpayer-backed-green-energy-failures/

Here's how special interests coopted the giant Obama "shovel ready" stimulus and wasted it instead of helping the depressed construction industry, instead of building the promised infrastructure:

https://www.weeklystandard.com/christina-hoff-sommers/no-country-for-burly-men

There are hundreds of other examples possible. Had we lived in a "social democracy" over the last 100 years or so, odds are high that you wouldn't be able to post on a forum like this using a cheap, powerful computer. Hell, there might not even be electricity in homes or consumer automobiles.

The last thing the U.S. needs is more government control over the private sector. The economy is way too mixed as it is, and we have the crises and collapses in mixed industries like banking/mortgage and medical to prove that.