European socialism: functional or not?

Socialism is a dumb word that means something different to everyone who uses it, just like all the other words that political pundits and know-it-all college students on the internet throw around. This thread is going nowhere fast, in fact, it might already be there.

If you want to ask about European healthcare or welfare or any specific program, do it, but opening up an ill-defined thread such as this will just fall victim to everyone's subjective interpretation of what the OP meant.
 
If "socialism" here is meant to be high-tax universal welfare systems, they do vary considerably inside Europe, and have wildly different levels of functionality.
 
D0NIMATRIX said:
Is socialism in Europe really all it's made out to be?
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A bit clarification wouldn't be to any harm.
What is "all it's made out to be and by whom?

It doesn't seem to me that something seemingly so perfect wouldn't have a catch. Discuss.
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Can't discuss if I don't know what to discuss.

D0NIMATRIX said:
Ok, not full-blown socialism, but semi-socialism. What's the catch?
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Semi-socialism is about as meaningful a term as semi-pregnancy or to stick to politics one of the new fads here; anarcho-capitalism.
As for the catch: it is not socialism.

kulade said:
Socialism is a dumb word that means something different to everyone who uses it, just like all the other words that political pundits and know-it-all college students on the internet throw around.
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I think there are more or less valid definitions on all political ideology, including socialism. I see no reason why, unles for demagogical purposes, traditional definitions should be rendered invalid. But given the paragraph above, I hereby must declare myself a political pundit.

This thread is going nowhere fast, in fact, it might already be there.
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This I can agree with, however.
 
I have to disagree with the socialism exclusiveness. There are varying definitions of socialism, it is just that it is generally used to refer to one particular type (the centralised administration of all factors of production one). This does not, however, automatically preclude democratic socialism from being a type of socialism.
 
Camikaze said:
I have to disagree with the socialism exclusiveness. There are varying definitions of socialism, it is just that it is generally used to refer to one particular type (the centralised administration of all factors of production one). This does not, however, automatically preclude democratic socialism from being a type of socialism.
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I am not going to discuss socialism here anymore. Some time ago I opened a whole thread devoted to such topics and that was trolled to pieces.
If you by "democratic socialism" mean for instance guild socialism or participatorialsm or that sort of things I agree and can't see the point of your objection.
Because I surely hope you don't refer to that charade which is represented by Blair and such. That is not socialism at all.
 
No, I don't include slightly-less-conservative-than-normal policies as socialism. But, government with the general aim of social improvement and equality of a nation, as opposed to economic prosperity (not meaning that the two are mutually exclusive, but that one takes precedence over the other), implementing leftist policies, I would describe as socialist (digging into the true root of the word- social). So, basically, social democracy = democratic socialism = a form of socialism.

As for the OP, assuming you're referring to Scandinavia, I would assume that the statistics speak for themselves.
 
I don´t like these antagonistic catchphrases - "capitalism/socialism" - thrown around like they are completely different things. Absolutely no country in the world has a "free market". All states intervene in economic processes in varying degrees.
It´s the transatlantic gap showing again. Europeans would call what you deem "socialism" as "democratic socialism". A seemingly minor difference, but very important to us ;).
Is it really what it´s made out to be? I´ll quote The 18th congress of the Socialist International in Stockholm:
Democratic socialism is an international movement for freedom, social justice, and solidarity. Its goal is to achieve a peaceful world where these basic values can be enhanced and where each individual can live a meaningful life with the full development of his or her personality and talents, and with the guarantee of human and civil rights in a democratic framework of society.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#cite_note-38
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A short example on wealth distribution in Europe and the US:
(sorry, in German because I´m too lazy to look up the English versions... I´ll translate)

This graphic shows income distribution in the US, UK and Germany (the nations being on the x-axis). The y-axis shows how much the top10% (pink bar) and the top20% (blue bar) earn in comparison the the lowest-income groups - 2 times as much, 10 times as much, and so on. Data from the UN Human Development Report 2004.


Additionally, in the US, the top20% are in possession of 50% of the nations income.
Their gini value (an indicator for income disparity) is 46,6 / rank 92, while Germany for example has a rating of 28,2 and is ranked 14th.

Here is an interesting graphic from the wiki, showing the different gini values across the world:



Of course, as you may notice, the gini value in itself does not say something about absolute wealth, just relative income disparity. But we know European GDP etc. is quite comparable to the US while maintaining a lower income disparity. If one says ´socialism´ is about ´fair´ (whatever that means) redistribution of wealth, I think it is quite good at it.
 
European socialism: functional or not?
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Every word in this comment is so generalised that it makes it impossible to address the problem at all.

European - many countries all with different systems
Socialism - so many definitions
Functional or not - to what extent is something deemed functional, so many different opinions possible.

So I'm just going to post a map showing the drunkest nations and ask the question, who do you think is happier?

 
Camikaze said:
No, I don't include slightly-less-conservative-than-normal policies as socialism. But, government with the general aim of social improvement and equality of a nation, as opposed to economic prosperity (not meaning that the two are mutually exclusive, but that one takes precedence over the other), implementing leftist policies, I would describe as socialist (digging into the true root of the word- social). So, basically, social democracy = democratic socialism = a form of socialism.

As for the OP, assuming you're referring to Scandinavia, I would assume that the statistics speak for themselves.
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Socialism is about production relations, not output relations. What you describe above might as well be a social-liberal society.
That said, a non-socialist government could only go that far in redistribution of wealth downwards, and as experience has shown during the last 20-30 years, when times gets tougher, said redistribution usually goes upwards. This is called reforms.

Thorbal said:
I don´t like these antagonistic catchphrases - "capitalism/socialism" - thrown around like they are completely different things. Absolutely no country in the world has a "free market". All states intervene in economic processes in varying degrees.
It´s the transatlantic gap showing again. Europeans would call what you deem "socialism" as "democratic socialism". A seemingly minor difference, but very important to us ;).
Is it really what it´s made out to be? I´ll quote The 18th congress of the Socialist International in Stockholm:


A short example on wealth distribution in Europe and the US:
(sorry, in German because I´m too lazy to look up the English versions... I´ll translate)

This graphic shows income distribution in the US, UK and Germany (the nations being on the x-axis). The y-axis shows how much the top10% (pink bar) and the top20% (blue bar) earn in comparison the the lowest-income groups - 2 times as much, 10 times as much, and so on. Data from the UN Human Development Report 2004.


Additionally, in the US, the top20% are in possession of 50% of the nations income.
Their gini value (an indicator for income disparity) is 46,6 / rank 92, while Germany for example has a rating of 28,2 and is ranked 14th.

Here is an interesting graphic from the wiki, showing the different gini values across the world:



Of course, as you may notice, the gini value in itself does not say something about absolute wealth, just relative income disparity. But we know European GDP etc. is quite comparable to the US while maintaining a lower income disparity. If one says ´socialism´ is about ´fair´ (whatever that means) redistribution of wealth, I think it is quite good at it.
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It is pretty rich critisising catch phrases and then proceed with a quote from the mock-socialists that is about unmatched in non-commital svada. I can see few political movements that couldn't state something similar. Wait a minute, actually they do.
The comparison of the gini-index is both relevant and important, but the only thing it implies is that germany is a more civilized country than the USA. No surprise there.
What could be interesting in addition, is the development of ineqauality in different countries in the past decades.
Finally, what is fair about socialism is that people get to decide over their own labour. That doesn't mean that there will be full equality of wealth. But as already stated, differences will be smaller.
 
Richard Cribb said:
It is pretty rich critisising catch phrases and then proceed with a quote from the mock-socialists that is about unmatched in non-commital svada. I can see few political movements that couldn't state something similar. Wait a minute, actually they do.
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:D Well done, eh?
I did not want to endorse them by using that quote, I just quoted that to illustrate their self-perception. The keyphrase being ´solidarity´, serving as an introduction for the topic of income equality.

Richard Cribb said:
The comparison of the gini-index is both relevant and important, but the only thing it implies is that germany is a more civilized country than the USA. No surprise there.
What could be interesting in addition, is the development of ineqauality in different countries in the past decades.
Finally, what is fair about socialism is that people get to decide over their own labour. That doesn't mean that there will be full equality of wealth. But as already stated, differences will be smaller.
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No, the data does not imply that Germany is more civilized. It´s just that the incomes are not as disparate. If that´s desirable or not depends on your political stance.
What I wanted to convey - the original question was along the lines of "whats up with socialism", which I interpreted as "what are their objectives". One of them is redistribution of wealth to varying degrees. So I posted these graphics as a rather crude introduction to show that ´socialistic´ Europe has lower income disparity. That more ´socialistic´ policies are - at least partly - responsible for it is relatively likely.

You are right in saying that we should have more info about the development of income equality during the past decades. I don´t have any at hand (at least in English and in digital form) right now, but what I can already say (not that it is much of a secret, anyway) is that inequality in general has risen across the board during the last years. I don´t know off the top of my head how they compare to each other, though. It has risen in Germany as well, for instance, but I don´t know how sharply it has risen in comparison to the US.
 
edit:

Figures for the US


other numbers that are lying around on my hd, don´t know the source right now:
1970: 0.394
1980: 0.403
1990: 0.428
2000: 0.462

Germany - note how income inequality has risen much more sharply than in the US (partly a result of reforms made by the social democrats!), although the absolute numbers are still lower. OECD average remains relatively stable.

 
European socialism is about distribution of wealth. Socialist politicians think that they know better who to support than companies and people, so they are taking this responsibility and sending government money away. Main purpose of socialism is get more voters.
Its fully functional.
 
REDY said:
Socialist politicians think that they know better who to support than companies and people, so they are taking this responsibility and sending government money away.
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And is it "better" to have strong corparations than a strong/interventionist gouvernment? Are corporations even more altruistic than the gouvernment is? Or are they perhaps interested in their own profits as well, but even more difficult to control than a gouvernment?

REDY said:
Main purpose of socialism is get more voters.
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How is this different to other political parties with different agendas?
 
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