Generational Dynamics World View

[Warren Dew]

(10-28-2017, 01:01 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: First off, GDP is not any sort of measure for comparing Socialism to
Capitalism, since the figures are open to lying.  To take one obvious
example, Obamacare is an extremely expensive government expense, but
my guess is that China calls all health care "private."  Also, the US
defense budget is all attributed to government expenditures, and we
know that China lies about its military spending.

The point is that the International Criminal Nation of China, which is
building illegal massive military bases in the South China Sea and
lies about everything else, is certainly lying about how much of its
GDP is public vs private.

You don't have to use the figures their government publishes, and I'm not using them.  And while the artificial islands are against international law, they aren't really all that expensive in the greater scheme of things:  they are basically just small airbases built on landfill.

Quote:But GDP is irrelevant anyway.  Here's one obvious example: China has
clamped down on mobile phone apps in China to prevent any app that
could be used to criticize the government, or could be used to
communicate with the outside world (like VPNs).  This is the kind of
control that makes China a Socialist dictatorship.  Obviously, we have
no such restrictions in America, and that wouldn't appear in the GDP
at all.

This and the other examples you give most certainly make China a police state with no civil liberties.

It does not, however, make China socialist.  Socialism is an economic system, and what's relevant is GDP and similar economic measures, not political repression.  And as the figures show, China is more capitalist than the US.  The idea that whether a country is socialist or capitalist based on what it calls itself, rather than on how its economy actually works, sounds like the kind of excuse the left comes up with to justify more and more socialism in the US.

China is basically a capitalist dictatorship, not a socialist dictatorship.  The US is a mixed economy that is not a dictatorship.

Quote:So for you two guys to suggest that China is a modern, free,
capitalist society, while America is some kind of socialist
government-controlled state just shows the lengths of total idiocy to
which today's political discourse has gone.

pbrower can speak for himself, but I'm suggesting no such thing, as should have been obvious had you read with a modicum of care.