First of all, I live in Russia. So I'm not "us americans". Speaking of "weak" socialist civics: have you seen results of "state healthcare" (I might quote wrong name for it) in a game? It's all health, fireworks and joy. While in reality... I'm old enough to remember state healthcare in USSR. It was HELL. Want a taste of socialist healthcare? Go live in Canada. But USSR was much worse. You had to wait in line to get an appointment to doctor. You had to wait in line to visit a doctor. Doctors had very few equipment and skill. Actually, to get to decent doctor you had to go to Moscow and try to get an appointment in some medical NII (medical science and research institute). Shortly speaking, state run healthcare is a disaster. Like anything run by the state.
Correction, anything run by a non-democratic state that is not beholden to the people. Those close to me that come from Canada or Australia HATE our US system and find it absolutely terrifying. You have huge waits at hospitals and in many cases they won't even help you if you don't have insurance, even allowing a life or death scenario to go untreated by more than ibuprofin because they're looking at your multiple thousands of dollars in previous medical debts and realize there's not going to be any pay from you because your health problems are keeping you from being a profitable member of society in the first place.
There's no safety net here and people just end up suffering and dying for the crime of being poor. Much better to have to wait in line for some service than to have no service, and once you do get any, it costs you more than you'll be able to make in excess income for the rest of your life, particularly since now you have a horrible credit score and many employers are also looking at that as a measure of your responsibility level.
Our capitalism is absolutely squeezing the life out of so many of us and those who happened to do pretty well in our system are so blinded by their own prosperity that they cannot see how the weight of having all the $ at the top is actually crushing citizens to death at the bottom. We have a cold, heartless, selfish system that rewards nothing but no-holds barred competitiveness, the greatest of rewards reserved for those who are willing to lie and steal and prey on others and do so with such skill that they can afford to buy their way out of any consequences that may ensue from it. The concept of profit itself is the margin between a fair and equal trade and what you can get away with. The more you can charge for the cheapest service you can provide, the more you profit and the ability to widen that margin is less about how much real quality you can add for the consumer and more about how much you can convince (lie about) the consumer that they are getting a great deal.
I'd love for the CEOs of American Health Care and Pharmaceutical companies to look around at the things they have and consider for a moment that every bit of wealth they have accumulated has been the result of a human being coming up with a need to overcome suffering, and providing for that need by enforcing economic suffering in return. They've been free to price gouge our entire nation to death because of the battle cry for removal of regulations and their wealth being thrown into the pockets of politicians to buy whatever policies they please.
This kind of government will eventually implode when we all end up penniless because only the wealthy have anything left and no further motive to market anything to a people who can no longer afford to participate in the economy because they are buried in the debts generated by the fact that they happened to commit the greatest, most expensive crime of all, being born. That is... if we cannot take control of the government back by the people and enforce some basic fair practices and get big money OUT of it's ability to influence policy.
Of course, all efforts to enforce such a system will make people cry out in economic pain because the big fat cats will stop participating in the economy and hiring because they simply aren't happy that they are being asked to contribute fairly to the needs of the people. So they can always manipulate things so that those who don't really see what's happening just think it's bad policy to demand a fair economy. They use their money to train us like Pavlov's dogs - don't bite the hand that feeds you now. Only WE get to steal from YOU by leveraging your natural biological needs against you.
I'm NOT a communist because said government also suffers from the problem of the elite fully running the show and caring only for their own benefit. But a balance between socialist and capitalist free market is absolutely necessary for system health overall.
Where the goal of the industry is to provide for a NEED, it needs to be a social system backed by free market competitive options - the social system being what makes the free market system have to adhere to at least a modicum of fair pricing to survive. Where the goal of the industry is to provide a WANT then we need a monopoly (even regional monopoly) free market with healthy competition.
Both of these goals require significant governmental regulation to make sure this happens. None of that will happen when you have politicians being bought and sold and their campaign finances paid for by special interests. Governmental officials MUST be made to take the needs of the people as the first and foremost and only objective. Otherwise, government can do nothing but victimize its own system. I believe we have yet to see a nation in the world fully accomplish this but suffice it to say, BOTH Russia and the US fail miserably at it and pretty much have in any form of power structure we've taken since WWII.
Norway is doing pretty well and Norway leans far more socialist but also far more democratic (in the sense that it keeps the $ out of the policy making much better) than the US. Australia is navigating a lot of its issues fairly well but it has shown that there are even some issues with politicians being TOO concerned about public opinion (sometimes public opinion can be stupid and near sighted) but generally they aren't doing all that bad. They need to figure out some ways to get things functioning a little better but at least their citizens at all levels thrive.
Ugh... I've really got to not get sucked into these discussions.
And you forget about downside of this modern slavery. In 1950-60 a man working on decent manufacturing job could afford to have a wife, who was housewife, 2 or 3 kids, 2 cars, a house. And all of this he could afford on his 2-5 years salary. Now, just to have your ends meet in paycheck to paycheck life, a husband must work, and a wife must work. Often overtime. But yes, we can afford some stuff dirt cheap.
Completely agree with this statement. We really should not allow companies to outsource to companies in other nations where the people are being paid less than the national minimum wage here. Trade then becomes much more fair and if the companies want to do business with us, their people will be treated with the same respect and their economies will flourish rather than their rich just getting richer and our rich just getting richer because they're the only ones benefiting, which is basically the problem with slavery as well. Actually, the wealthy have found that slavery is NOT the cheapest way to get labor because you have to spend to maintain your slaves. Much better to enforce that workers have to get what they are paid, which is insufficient to even support their needs. Far more profitable that way. Don't know about you but I'd rather be a slave and well fed with a roof over my head than some of the homeless people I see that can't even find a place in our overcrowded shelters that are out sleeping by the side of the road under a cloth roof when it gets to pouring down rain during the flu season. And in some countries, those are also the people that HAVE jobs. Nice to know those are likely the employees that made your last purchase at the dollar store.
Well said.
