What, exactly, is objectionable about "socialism"?

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Shallow. The UK has been free of monarchy for longer than we have, as a practical matter. In fact, a thousand years from now historians will recognize that the Americal Revolution was just the climax of a long road climbed by Britons for millenea. This is the irony: because the UK restored free enterprise and civil liberties absent from our world since Julius Caesar without having to kill its royalty, it never had to kill its royalty and they still live as ornaments.

UK's experimentation with socialism and abridgement of civil liberties (still ongoing) is actually a cautionary tale for us. We and our mother country are comparable, indeed of a piece, in our historical fight agains authoritarianism. When Hitler, Stalin, Marx, etc. railed agaisnt the filthy, materialistic capitalist nations (as Waters' and Lebowski's friends the Islamofacists do now), they were primarily talking about Great Britain, though GB's maturing and restless offspring to the west loomed large.

LOL. The UK has been free of monarchy? I know you have been there....did you happen to look at the coins? the stamps? The palace in the middle of Westminster? Where does the Queen get the dosh to buy all those hats? The entire royal family basically lives off the dole.

From a legal perspective, yes I agree that the royals are mere symbols. From a financial perspective, they are the biggest welfare cases in Europe.

Next time you run into the Queen, refuse to bow. See how well that goes over with the general population. You will quickly see how far Europe has truly strayed from its dynastic origins.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

LOL. The UK has been free of monarchy? I know you have been there....did you happen to look at the coins? the stamps? The palace in the middle of Westminster? Where does the Queen get the dosh to buy all those hats? The entire royal family basically lives off the dole.

From a legal perspective, yes I agree that the royals are mere symbols. From a financial perspective, they are the biggest welfare cases in Europe.

Next time you run into the Queen, refuse to bow. See how well that goes over with the general population. You will quickly see how far Europe has truly strayed from its dynastic origins.

Yes, I've been there. Nothing in your post contradicts my point. But I think your treating "Europe" as a single monolithic phenomenon is way wrong.

[Ma'ake]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

See Canada, pre-Thatcher UK, and France. I think government control is also a slippery slope. So see the USSR, the PRC, Cuba.

People are still praising the U.S.'s resiliant capitalist system. Remember when Europe called this financial crisis largely a U.S. phenomenon a few weeks ago? Well, what really was happening is U.S. lenders, less enmeshed with the government, were quicker to discern and publicise their catastrophic problems than European counterparts. But for U.S. leadership, iroically stemming from U.S. free enterprise's original self-diagnosis, all the socialist countries of Europ would still be staggering along in a blind torpor, heading for depression and untold human mysery. If the U.S. goes socialist, it will destry an essential part of what makes the U.S. great, what makes it the most innovative and dynamic society in history.

But I'm starting to think the whole country has gone wussified like you, Ma'ake.

Hey, you're the feminist!

You can't possibly believe that explanation on why US lenders copped to the disaster before everyone else. Because of the unregulated casino, *they* were the ones deepest in the bog, the ones who excavated the pit for the world economy to dig out of!

Paulson & his cronies got together & looked at each other & realized they put the entire economy at risk due to 1) their unbridled greed, and 2) their skill at convincing Greenspan & others that said greed was doing everyone else a massive favor. It was Paulson who had to get up on the political cross and take the heat for most of Wall Street.

(The accounts of the "let's all put our cards on the table" meeting between the Wall Street honchos and Paulson are fascinating, namely the revelation that the Lehman chiefs "looked like zombies").

Meanwhile, Bernanke is left to wonder why in the hell he decided to follow Greenspan.

Our way of life & core economic vibrancy are not put at risk by moving, in an American way, to the left a couple of notches.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Yes, I've been there. Nothing in your post contradicts my point. But I think your treating "Europe" as a single monolithic phenomenon is way wrong.

My point is that comparing Europe to the US is a bit disingenuous given that their economies are all rooted in principles of monarchy, royalty, etc.. The US was founded on principles of democracy and capitalism.

If you were to put them all on a continuum, with Monarchy at the right and Democracy (or republicanism) at the left, Europe has gradually shifted from the far right towards the middle. Given Europe's roots, of course it will tend to be more socialist than the US.

The US never really was purely on the left, as I pointed out earlier, because we have always had a system of taxation in place, and welfare/social programs for quite a long time. So we are moving from the left towards the middle.

I personally do not believe that we would ever move past the middle because it simply is not in our DNA to do so.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

My point is that comparing Europe to the US is a bit disingenuous given that their economies are all rooted in principles of monarchy, royalty, etc.. The US was founded on principles of democracy and capitalism.

If you were to put them all on a continuum, with Monarchy at the right and Democracy (or republicanism) at the left, Europe has gradually shifted from the far right towards the middle. Given Europe's roots, of course it will tend to be more socialist than the US.

The US never really was purely on the left, as I pointed out earlier, because we have always had a system of taxation in place, and welfare/social programs for quite a long time. So we are moving from the left towards the middle.

I personally do not believe that we would ever move past the middle because it simply is not in our DNA to do so.

WHat does that mean, to say an economy is founded on principles of monarchy? IN terms of the function or structuer of their economies, what ius different becasue they were founded on principles of monarchy?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Ma'ake

Our way of life & core economic vibrancy are not put at risk by moving, in an American way, to the left a couple of notches.

This may be true, as it has not in the past. Greenspan may even agree with you. But that isn't the question posed by your original troll, er, post.

Interesting how Obama unfiltered doesn't taste so great to even his most ardent supporters. I haven't seen anyone here defend socialism, protectionism, isolationism, abandonment of historic commitments, even substantially increased regulation.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

...as Waters' and Lebowski's friends the Islamofacists do now...

That's a cheap shot. Sounds just like something Pat Robertson would say.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by creekster

WHat does that mean, to say an economy is founded on principles of monarchy? IN terms of the function or structuer of their economies, what ius different becasue they were founded on principles of monarchy?

Selective land ownership, caste system with no upward mobility (as 71 points out), only certain people could own and operate businesses, heavy ridiculous taxation without representation.....coupled with the monarch having the responsibility of providing for the common defense. Granted, not sure how expansive welfare/social programs were. Also, the monarch in large part controlled the clergy.

You see faint traces of that in Europe still today, esp with regards to royals living off revenues generated from all their land grabbing. There is still a general deference to royals in all things, despite the fact that in many of those countries, actual leaders are elected and leave office much like in our system. Common defense has morphed into social programs such as medicine.

In contrast, our elected officials are out after a period of a few years. Anyone can start a business. Today anyone can own land (although not previously) . We have privatized businsses, but not entirely....we also have government oversight, regulatory committees, SEC reporting requirements...all things that are rooted in socialist principles of government intervention. I think the big difference is simply the degree to which we practice our socialism. But i dont ever think we would get to the point where the average Joe Six Pack would stomach using our tax dollars to support an extravagant lifestyle for the Clintons and all their heirs in perpetuity.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

Selective land ownership, caste system with no upward mobility (as 71 points out), only certain people could own and operate businesses, heavy ridiculous taxation without representation.....coupled with the monarch having the responsibility of providing for the common defense. Granted, not sure how expansive welfare/social programs were. Also, the monarch in large part controlled the clergy.

You see faint traces of that in Europe still today, esp with regards to royals living off revenues generated from all their land grabbing. There is still a general deference to royals in all things, despite the fact that in many of those countries, actual leaders are elected and leave office much like in our system. Common defense has morphed into social programs such as medicine.

In contrast, our elected officials are out after a period of a few years. Anyone can start a business. Today anyone can own land (although not previously) . We have privatized businsses, but not entirely....we also have government oversight, regulatory committees, SEC reporting requirements...all things that are rooted in socialist principles of government intervention. I think the big difference is simply the degree to which we practice our socialism. But i dont ever think we would get to the point where the average Joe Six Pack would stomach using our tax dollars to support an extravagant lifestyle for the Clintons and all their heirs in perpetuity.

I'm pleased you're unconcerned that an Obama presidency will put us on a slippery slope to French, leftist UK, German, USSR or PRC ethos. That you have given this some thought, and such would be unacceptable to you, says something good about you. I hope you're right.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

I'm pleased you're unconcerned that an Obama presidency will put us on a slippery slope to French, leftist UK, German, USSR or PRC ethos. That you have given this some thought, and such would be unacceptable to you, says something good about you. I hope you're right.

What amazes me is the youthful naivete which accompanies the DDDs of the world, who believe we should look to history when it supports their view of the world, but ignore it when we remind them of failed experiments elsewhere.

There is no risk DDD in moving to the left, no economic risk, no social risk, because we are American and we can combat the perils of this position. Any social change causes harm, but the question is on balance is the harm caused less than the "good" achieved. Proponents of increasing socialism in our economy ignore this discussion, as they seem to assume all government intervention is good and proper.

For example, proponents of Obama's new healthcare organization ignore the harm created by the DHHS and how much it had harmed our health care system, but they march naively ahead, let's have another huge government bureaucracy.

No poster has addressed this issue. Why?

Proponents of increasing our reliance upon goverment to solve social and economic issues seem to take the easy, lazy approach, "make another program, that will fix everything," instead of a way to stimulate natural market forces, provide checks and balances against monopolies and anti-competitive forces and to encourage financial transparency, while increasing liquidity and capital into financial markets. Why no nuance?