(05-09-2017, 11:33 AM)The Wonkette Wrote:(05-09-2017, 09:50 AM)David Horn Wrote:I wasn't aware that China had much of a welfare state. I thought that as capitalism took over, it became for of an each man to himself type of society. I could be mistaken, however.(05-09-2017, 03:21 AM)freivolk Wrote:(05-08-2017, 10:12 AM)David Horn Wrote:(05-07-2017, 08:22 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Of course. That's the inevitable result of all forms of socialism.
Explain this to the Scandinavians, They seem to be free and productive ... more so than many so called free-market types.
The scandinavian states are not socialists. They are free market societys with high taxes and a well developed wellfare-state.
Please explain that to Warren Dew. At the moment, I can't think of any truly socialist economies operating in the world. Venezuela and Cuba don't really qualify, and North Korea is a lot of things, but socialist it's not. China is now more capitalist than socialist, but you can argue that they are in the same (similar?) camp with the Scandinavians.
North Korea is fascist. Examine Lawrence Britt's checklist of warning signs of fascism, and North Korea fits most of the criteria very well.
The ethos of every-man-for-himself is valid as a country goes through early-stage industrialism . That's when markets can decide what is necessary and what isn't. So people need basic stuff, and any concern about the environment, health of workers, or social equity matters little. Failure to get through that stage of development results from the capitalists deciding that economic growth matters more than whether workers have a stake in the system. Scarci9ty is the rule in the early-industrial era; plenty is the norm after a certain level of development.
Many of our current problems result from, of all things, plenty. The great wealth that arises from meeting scarcity (and don't fool yourself -- that's how all the Robber Barons from Cornelius Vanderbilt to Sam Walton got rich) isn't so easy to achieve now. People can say no to just about any gouge -- except in real estate. Donald Trump may be the most flagrant of them all, and the farther one is from having to rent from a landlord like him, the less objectionable he can seem... until he rules.
We are in a very new world, and we will need great reforms in existing institutions or new institutions altogether to make life tolerable in that new world. We get to meet the demands of that new world in a Crisis era.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.