Have you gone from being a Libertarian to Socialism?

ShoulderChip

Eric Cartman wrote: »

serious income : enough to afford your mortgage, run a car , contribute to a pension and put food on the table , pay for kids etc.. at the moment above 40k a year.

actual work : (earned income) money derived from your continued labour , not trust funds, inheritance, lottery wins, personal injury claims, song royalties etc.

A bleak view of the world, not really. People reap what they sow and some people have done amazing things by working hard and achieving great economic results for themselves and their families. Those people are optimistic about achieving and go out and earn what they deserve. The other side of the coin are the people who sit around in negativity and proclaim "the government owes me this, ill never afford a house unless gov'ment gives free, give me more shekels I don't have a job and its all your fault"

I think a crisis of confidence is the biggest issue. You'd be hard pushed to find a socialist with an optimistic vision of their or the nations future.

Wow so I can spend years writing an album, fork out a tonne of money producing it, recording it, marketing it, distrubuting it, but if it becomes a success and actually makes it to the radio, it is not considered real work?

Mullicker

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

The actual means correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Two unrelated things happening together are unlikely to have a causal link. Two related things happening together have a much higher probability of having a causal link. To use the basket ball example from above, most good basket ball players are tall. There is likely to be a causal link here between being good at basketball and being tall because there is a relationship there, being tall is beneficial to playing basket ball because the hoop is high up and being closer to it make it easier to put the ball through it, so the correlation is valid evidence that being tall has a causal link to being good at basketball. But the other way around it is not likely that being good at basket ball causes someone to be tall, because there isn't any obvious relationship.

I already gave you this example of related variables, no need to go through it again.

Most high welfare countries have low unemployment. There is a direct relationship between ones financial stability and ones ability to better oneself. Some data on the correlation between welfare and poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty A decrease in poverty means an increase in social mobility.

And in these countries with generous welfare the causation could be the other way round. What happens when unemployment increases in these countries? They reduce welfare! When employment increases and tax intake rebounds then welfare is increased. You don't have to look far from home to see this. Socialist paradise Sweden has gone through this more than once.

It's certainly possible welfare levels have no effect on employment, it's next to impossible to know these things for sure because of the lack of ability to do controlled studies on them, but you can't just dismiss the evidence either just because you don't like it.

If you raise levels more than a token amount of course it will affect employment. People in low paying jobs will look at the dole as a better option. And people on the dole will find low paying jobs less appealing.

The fact that most high welfare countries typically have low unemployment is very strong evidence of this much at the very least.

Many countries with small welfare systems have even lower unemployment, why don't you consider that strong evidence?

JacquesSon

Ja vol.

Sensible attirea-moke

Nod

coolemon

gobsh!te wrote: »

That is absolute nonsense.

80%..........what a loud of garbage

My apologies, it has been a number of years since I encountered the particular fact.

It was 80% of Chilean exports in the 1970's. The "Chilean Miracle" occurred while the main export was under state control. More of a "socialist miracle", depending on how one defines it.

"In the early 1970s however copper export was 80% of the nation’s foreign exports. Congress at that time – led by Socialist President Salvador Allende - moved to nationalize the nation’s copper resources as a way to assert its economic independence from often-time intrusive international corporations.

The state-owned Codelco copper company was created then through the acquisition of the nation’s largest foreign held copper companies.

The nation’s support of the nationalization was so strong that even military dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet dared not return Codelco’s holdings back to the private sector." - http://en.mercopress.com/2010/11/16/chile-s-copper-dependency-has-taken-a-turn-for-the-worse-55-of-all-exports

jank

coolemon wrote: »

.

So I think the stereotype is wrong and most often repeated by people who most probably know very few socialists in real life.

I once met an American communist who was a great fan of Cuba and Castro. She was a white middle class girl from Ohio of all places. Interestingly she took the manifesto litteraly as she never brought beers to any house party we had, she was happy enough to bum of others. We took the socialist decision to not invite her anymore

jank

Brian? wrote: »

Socialism cannot be "tyrannical", it has been used as excuse for tyranny. If you think Stalin was a socialist, you have a very poor understanding of socialism.

Socialism in the way we understand it has to work via force, by the hands of the state that if you refuse to pay your taxes then you will be thrown into a jail. Seems pretty tyrannical to me.
Voluntary Socialism would be fine as people can choose freely to participate or not. We do not have the latter.

jank

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

Most high welfare countries have low unemployment. There is a direct relationship between ones financial stability and ones ability to better oneself. Some data on the correlation between welfare and poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty A decrease in poverty means an increase in social mobility. It's certainly possible welfare levels have no effect on employment, it's next to impossible to know these things for sure because of the lack of ability to do controlled studies on them, but you can't just dismiss the evidence either just because you don't like it. The more important point I was trying to make anyway is that generous social welfare doesn't make someone a scrounger like I had previously believed. The fact that most high welfare countries typically have low unemployment is very strong evidence of this much at the very least.

Hold on, you posted a link correlating the link between poverty and welfare, while your original stance was high welfare directly reduces unemployment which are two different things points. You have yet to redress this core point. How does high welfare create employment and if your point was sound thus to reduce unemployment well one should spend more on Welfare.

joseph brand

jank wrote: »

Socialism in the way we understand it has to work via force, by the hands of the state that if you refuse to pay your taxes then you will be thrown into a jail. Seems pretty tyrannical to me.
Voluntary Socialism would be fine as people can choose freely to participate or not. We do not have the latter.

When I think of socialism I think about the NHS in the UK, as a great example. Where is the tyranny, force, jail etc?

No doubt you prefer the US model where people's health is to be viewed as a source of profits.

joseph brand

Eric Cartman wrote: »

sure. Venture capital is quite a conservative idea and has given us a vast array of technological breakthroughs over the last few decades. Conservatism stifled the unions who wanted to keep filthy unsafe coal mines open in the UK , stifled dock workers unions who opposed containerisation of shipping , the mechanisation of the post office and it was conservative money that funded the industrial revolution.

By conservatism do you mean Thatcher? People love nothing better than being sacked from their employment, and in the case of mining towns, watching their community crumble around them.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

if you want to talk about regression have a look at north korea, cuba, even soviet russia. Funnily enough none of them are right wing states.

Bringing up N.K., Cuba and the USSR in order to smear the left is lazy. I rarely if ever see left wing supporters mention Hitler and the SS in the same hope. Tut-tut.

jank

joseph brand wrote: »

When I think of socialism I think about the NHS in the UK, as a great example. Where is the tyranny, force, jail etc?

No doubt you prefer the US model where people's health is to be viewed as a source of profits.

You responded to a point I did not make.
Socialism in the way we mean it today needs force in order to work in the way we try to intend it to work.

jank

joseph brand wrote: »

By conservatism do you mean Thatcher? People love nothing better than being sacked from their employment, and in the case of mining towns, watching their community crumble around them.

Bringing up N.K., Cuba and the USSR in order to smear the left is lazy. I rarely if ever see left wing supporters mention Hitler and the SS in the same hope. Tut-tut.

You mention Hitler, well his economic polices were very much left wing, big government, large public works and so on. This is indisputable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany

Hitler's views on economics, beyond his early belief that the economy was of secondary importance, are a matter of debate. On the one hand, he proclaimed in one of his speeches that "we are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system",[13] but he was clear to point out that his interpretation of socialism "has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism," saying that "Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not."[14] At a later time, Hitler said: "Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether... What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism."[12] In private, Hitler also said that "I absolutely insist on protecting private property... we must encourage private initiative".[15] On yet another occasion he qualified that statement by saying that the government should have the power to regulate the use of private property for the good of the nation.[16] Shortly after coming to power, Hitler told a confidant: "There is no license any more, no private sphere where the individual belongs to himself. That is socialism, not such trivial matters as the possibility of privately owning the means of production. Such things mean nothing if I subject people to a kind of discipline they can't escape...What need have we to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings"

Totalitarian regimes are the polar opposites of libertarianism.

As for Thatcher, well she was right on most things and in some ways I love the hate the left have for her as it proves that she won the economic argument, no question.

Iwasfrozen

joseph brand wrote: »

When I think of socialism I think about the NHS in the UK, as a great example. Where is the tyranny, force, jail etc?

No doubt you prefer the US model where people's health is to be viewed as a source of profits.

The NHS is only kept running through the threat of jailing people who don't pay their taxes. An obvious threat of violence.

I don't want to pay for your or any one else's healthcare. I have insurance.

gobsh!te

When I think of socialism I think of putting your children and grandchildren in debt in order to get "free" stuff in the present.

I think of people not wanting to be a part of the system being put in jail if they don't go along with the extortion racket, I mean paying of taxes.

I think of selfish self righteous people ignoring economics and maxing out the credit card...Living for today and not worrying about tomorrow.

I think of people blaming a mega rich one percent for our problems, calling for more regulation and only to find out the lobbyists working for the one percent have written the new legislation

I think of people saying the Chilean miracle was a socialist miracle oblivious to the fact that a Chile was a socialist state for 3 years before the military coup and that the economic reforms were not enacted until years later and were not fully followed until Pinochet was no longer in power...e.g. Sergio de Castro pegging the exchange rate.

Socialism is spending money you don't have then paying in the future through inflation or hyperinflation....right on....

Akrasia

Mullicker wrote: »

I already gave you this example of related variables, no need to go through it again.



And in these countries with generous welfare the causation could be the other way round. What happens when unemployment increases in these countries? They reduce welfare! When employment increases and tax intake rebounds then welfare is increased. You don't have to look far from home to see this. Socialist paradise Sweden has gone through this more than once.




If you raise levels more than a token amount of course it will affect employment. People in low paying jobs will look at the dole as a better option. And people on the dole will find low paying jobs less appealing.



Many countries with small welfare systems have even lower unemployment, why don't you consider that strong evidence?

You are missing the point. Wealthy countries invest in the labour force and it's a good investment. When times are good, they increase welfare, not just through transfer payments, but in health and education and back to work programs. The benefits of this are multi generational with increased social mobility.

In contrast with the likes of the U.S. which has very limited welfare despite being the richest most powerful country in the world with historically low un-employment rates, you see intergenerational poverty on a huge scale (1/6th of the population according to their own census) and all the associated social costs

gobsh!te

Akrasia wrote: »

In contrast with the likes of the U.S. which has very limited welfare despite being the richest most powerful country in the world with historically low un-employment rates, you see intergenerational poverty on a huge scale (1/6th of the population according to their own census) and all the associated social costs

You should not pay attention to the US unemployment rate and instead look at the labour participation rate. The way the US calculates unemployment is central planners fiddling the numbers and exporting propaganda.

The reason for the intergenerational poverty relates to the racist legislation known as the minimum wage act.

I suggest you look at its history and the history of the black family and black unemployment before it was enacted.

The War on Poverty also did not help.

Who would have thought.....in fact any time the central planners have a war on something, generally we would have been better off without it.

Good intentions do not excuse idiotic programs

Mullicker

Akrasia wrote: »

You are missing the point. Wealthy countries invest in the labour force and it's a good investment. When times are good, they increase welfare, not just through transfer payments, but in health and education and back to work programs. The benefits of this are multi generational with increased social mobility.

In contrast with the likes of the U.S. which has very limited welfare despite being the richest most powerful country in the world with historically low un-employment rates, you see intergenerational poverty on a huge scale (1/6th of the population according to their own census) and all the associated social costs

I didn't miss the point, you have changed it. The point made was generous welfare systems cause low unemployment, now it has morphed to generous welfare systems increase social mobility. If that was the original point I wouldn't have bothered posting.

Mullicker

Could it simply be that wealthy countries have a generous welfare state because they are wealthy and generous?

If having a generous welfare state made a country wealthy what the hell are all the poverty stricken nations of the world waiting for? Perhaps the wealth to fund such a generous welfare state. The original claim sure looks as backward as claiming being successful at basketball makes you taller.

Akrasia

jank wrote: »

Socialism in the way we understand it has to work via force, by the hands of the state that if you refuse to pay your taxes then you will be thrown into a jail. Seems pretty tyrannical to me.
Voluntary Socialism would be fine as people can choose freely to participate or not. We do not have the latter.

The consequences of this are that someone who chooses to not pay into the tax fund (or cannot afford to) will be thrown out of a public hospital left to die on the side of the road because he hasn't paid his tax.

Democratically, we have decided that we do not want to live in that kind of society, so we have some universal services funded by universal taxation.

People who genuinely cannot afford to pay tax, are usually exempt based on their limited means. People who can afford to pay, but refuse to, are entitled to campaign for changes to the tax system and see how much support they can get.

Libertarians seem to think that freedom, is forcing everyone to be 'free and independent' whether or not they want to be.

There are benefits to living in a social democracy where people share some resources, and keep the rest for themselves to spend as they like.

Akrasia

Mullicker wrote: »

I didn't miss the point, you have changed it. The point made was generous welfare systems cause low unemployment, now it has morphed to generous welfare systems increase social mobility. If that was the original point I wouldn't have bothered posting.

Increased social mobility is linked to lower long term unemployment rates.

If someone is young and unemployed, and the state invests heavily in getting them back to work, that person will be much less likely to fall into long term poverty traps.

If someone is out of work long term, if the state invests heavily in their children, they can assist the children to avoid falling into the same poverty traps their parents succumbed to.

Schemes like income supplements can assist people who are working, but on a low wage, to remain in work and provide educational and social opportunities so that their children can improve their long term employment prospects.

These are all population level programmes, there are always individual cases or groups of people who are falling through the cracks, but on the level of populations, intelligent generous welfare programmes can benefit both the economy and standard of living for the population of a country

Akrasia

Mullicker wrote: »

Could it simply be that wealthy countries have a generous welfare state because they are wealthy and generous?

If having a generous welfare state made a country wealthy what the hell are all the poverty stricken nations of the world waiting for? Perhaps the wealth to fund such a generous welfare state. The original claim sure looks as backward as claiming being successful at basketball makes you taller.

The first step to economic development is free universal education and ensuring that children have the economic resources required to avail of it.

A lot of these programs are funded through loans and grants through the world bank and the U.N. and the IMF because they know that it pays off in the long term.

Mullicker

Akrasia wrote: »

If someone is young and unemployed, and the state invests heavily in getting them back to work, that person will be much less likely to fall into long term poverty traps.

If someone is out of work long term, if the state invests heavily in their children, they can assist the children to avoid falling into the same poverty traps their parents succumbed to.

Schemes like income supplements can assist people who are working, but on a low wage, to remain in work and provide educational and social opportunities so that their children can improve their long term employment prospects.

The quickest way to get people back to work is usually what is done in economic recessions, decrease welfare levels and make work a more enticing prospect than remaining unemployed.

Badly run welfare states are far more likely to increase inter-generational poverty, particularly in case when 3 generations of a family can remain on welfare.

The tougher German model where unemployment benefits can be removed after a period of time gets people back to work far brisker than educational schemes.

PopePalpatine

joseph brand wrote: »

By conservatism do you mean Thatcher? People love nothing better than being sacked from their employment, and in the case of mining towns, watching their community crumble around them.



Bringing up N.K., Cuba and the USSR in order to smear the left is lazy. I rarely if ever see left wing supporters mention Hitler and the SS in the same hope. Tut-tut.

You'd be better off referring to anti-union violence and Great Depression-era blacklists.

Lockstep

jank wrote: »

Socialism in the way we understand it has to work via force, by the hands of the state that if you refuse to pay your taxes then you will be thrown into a jail. Seems pretty tyrannical to me.
Voluntary Socialism would be fine as people can choose freely to participate or not. We do not have the latter.

Would this not apply under libertarianism though? Surely the state will need to enforce taxation to pay for the military and police force at least (unless you're an anarcho-capitalist)
Extracting cash from citizens is an aspect of any government: socialist, conservative or libertarian.

Lockstep

jank wrote: »

You mention Hitler, well his economic polices were very much left wing, big government, large public works and so on. This is indisputable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany


Totalitarian regimes are the polar opposites of libertarianism.

As for Thatcher, well she was right on most things and in some ways I love the hate the left have for her as it proves that she won the economic argument, no question.

I'd dispute it. Plus, Wikipedia is not a good source.
Hitler had no coherent economic idea so describing him as a socialist or left wing is pretty disingenuous.
Hitler biographer Alan Bullock highlights in Hitler: A Study in Tyrannythat although there were socialists involved in the NSDAP's early stages like the Strasser brothers, Hitler had little sympathy for them and found their anti-capitalism embarrassing as he looked for industrialist backers. Although Hitler occasionally used anti-capitalism language, this was to co-opt the sweeping anti-capitalism of his day.

Alan Bullock wrote:

Hitler had agreed to
the Socialist clauses of the [1925] programme, because in 1920 the
German working class and the lower middle classes were saturated
in a radical anti-capitalism; such phrases were essential for any
politician who wanted to attract their support. But they remained
phrases. What Hitler himself meant by Socialism can be illustrated
by a speech he made on 28 July 1922. 'Whoever is prepared
to make the national cause his own to such an extent that he
knows no higher ideal than the welfare of his nation ; whoever has
understood our great national anthem, DeutscMand, Deutschland
liber Alles, to mean that nothing in the wide world surpasses in
his eyes this Germany, people and land, land and people - that
man is a Socialist'

Hitler's socialism was so vacuous that the Strasser brothers left in 1930, claiming they'd be deceived by its anti-socialism.
In summation

Alan Bullock wrote:

Hitler had never been a Socialist; he was indifferent to econ-
omic questions. What he saw, however, was that radical economic
experiments at such a time would throw the German economy
into a state of confusion, and would prejudice, if not destroy, the
chances of cooperation with industry and business to end the
Depression and bring down the unemployment figures.

Pretty much every ideology tries to portray Hitler as a member of an opposing ideology (he's been portrayed as a socialist, a conservative, a liberal (in the US anyway), a communist, a Christian, an atheist and even a Muslim) off the top of my head. The simple reason being that associating Hitler with any ideology is not good for their image.
The fact is that Hitler wasn't any one of these things. He was a totalitarian to whom all things were secondary to power.

Mullicker

Akrasia wrote: »

A lot of these programs are funded through loans and grants through the world bank and the U.N. and the IMF because they know that it pays off in the long term.

Somewhat proving the my point, no? You need the wealth to have a generous welfare state. Without U.N. and IMF support poor countries would have to allow internal capital to accumulate and grow in order to fund educational programs.

jank

Akrasia wrote: »

The first step to economic development is free universal education and ensuring that children have the economic resources required to avail of it.

A lot of these programs are funded through loans and grants through the world bank and the U.N. and the IMF because they know that it pays off in the long term.

Well countries like North Korea and Cuba have had this for the guts of 50 years, yet today they are still among the poorest countries in the world. What is most important are a) Strong legal system which can enforce contracts b) Limited government c) Open economy d) capital

Tiddlypeeps

Mullicker wrote: »

If you raise levels more than a token amount of course it will affect employment. People in low paying jobs will look at the dole as a better option. And people on the dole will find low paying jobs less appealing.

I'm just supposed to take that opinion as fact because you say "of course". Anyway I have no idea what constitutes "a token amount" but I never advocated making huge sweeping changes in one go to anything, or even any changes at all in Ireland. Like most economic changes gradual changes are often best imo.

Mullicker wrote: »

Many countries with small welfare systems have even lower unemployment, why don't you consider that strong evidence?

Strong evidence of what? The point I made was that countries with high welfare and low unemployment are strong evidence that high welfare doesn't make people choose unemployment because if it did then countries with high welfare would suffer high unemployment.

Tiddlypeeps

jank wrote: »

Hold on, you posted a link correlating the link between poverty and welfare, while your original stance was high welfare directly reduces unemployment which are two different things points. You have yet to redress this core point. How does high welfare create employment and if your point was sound thus to reduce unemployment well one should spend more on Welfare.

I know it's a radical idea, but maybe you could try reading the actual post? Or if that is too much maybe just the very next sentence after the link...

Tiddlypeeps

Mullicker wrote: »

I didn't miss the point, you have changed it. The point made was generous welfare systems cause low unemployment, now it has morphed to generous welfare systems increase social mobility. If that was the original point I wouldn't have bothered posting.

Are you suggesting that social mobility can occur without employment? How does that work logistically?

Mullicker wrote: »

Could it simply be that wealthy countries have a generous welfare state because they are wealthy and generous?

It's certainly possible that's the case, but the data seems to show that in a lot of cases poverty is often reduced after the introduction of welfare, this could of course be unrelated but the trend is pretty staggering. I'll post this link again because it has a lot of data related to the question you are asking. The position of the US on those charts is particularly telling, although it is just one data point so it could be an anomaly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare%27s_effect_on_poverty

gobsh!te

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

I'm just supposed to take that opinion as fact because you say "of course". Anyway I have no idea what constitutes "a token amount" but I never advocated making huge sweeping changes in one go to anything, or even any changes at all in Ireland. Like most economic changes gradual changes are often best imo.

After you pay food and fuel the extra amount a person makes in a low paying job can be not worth it...It's pretty simple.

Some people are better off not working.

Strong evidence of what? The point I made was that countries with high welfare and low unemployment are strong evidence that high welfare doesn't make people choose unemployment because if it did then countries with high welfare would suffer high unemployment.

So just to confirm, rewarding failure (not working) and penalizing success(high tax rates)...that's the road to success...You should move to Cuba

You must be young, like under 25? Am I right? You definitely don't have a family