Welcome To Tier 2 Politics and History!

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Davino said:

Could we call it stage Green Capitalism?

I'm not even sure. I don't know enough about the business culture of Scandinavia.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, FourCrossedWands said:

I just meant that it's one of the few regions in the world whe some degree of socialism can actually work and has been working.

Again, it's wrong to call it socialism. It's a softer form of capitalism. Sure, that works.

1 hour ago, FourCrossedWands said:

But then, once you visit those countries, you quickly realize that it's still not working 100% and there are some big issues such as the rise in criminal activities. But yeah, that's due to extreme liberalism, not socialism.

Why would any system work 100%?

[nerdspeak]

Swedish model is increasingly more like neoliberal statism. Becuase the social democrats were in power for so long, people expect the state to do stuff for them, but for the past 15 years the elites have drunk the New Public Management kool-aid hard. 

So, while  keeping state provision, they privatized the delivery of the public services either using the market or market-like scoring indicators, and it's created crazy shortages (as well as a lot of rent-seeking).

One of the reasons you have so many problems integrating migrants in Sweden is that the waiting lists for schools are several years, so a refugee who comes at 14 from Syria might not start attending school till 17. 

Of course it's a much better place to live than the US or UK, but the idea that Social Darwinist market survival-of-the-fittest should be our political horizon is pretty silly (although understandable if you live there). 

Imo, given where they started, the Chinese model is a lot more impressive. 

[Husseinisdoingfine]

Scandinavian countries are just as capitalist as any other country. They just have a big welfare state, unions, and low corruption. 

Even to call Scandinavian countries, "social democracies" is an error, as social democracy is a tradition within socialism which implies partial employee ownership over the means of production (example: 25% of all shares are owned by the employees, 40% of the shareholder ceo board is owned by the employees, etc...), for which Scandinavian countries do not have. 

Scandinavian countries ~kind of~ have this, though not really, as they have strong union protections but that's as far as they'll go. 

Edited yesterday at 03:44 PM by Husseinisdoingfine

[Daniel Balan]

I stand corrected! I've seen just now a video which I haven't seen before about how TIK views the state intervention in society!
Although he is biased on certain libertarian policies, I would still seek to look at the bigger picture that he is presenting! Which is looking at past events and current ones with a keen eye to understand why certain things have unfolded the way it did. Also his bible in terms of economics is this in the image! Have you guys read it? I haven't and I would like to know if you liked it.

 

[nerdspeak]

2 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

Even to call Scandinavian countries, "social democracies" is an error,

I didn’t call the countries social democracies, just that the Swedish Social Democratic Party was in power for a long time. 
 

It’s also not really proper to lump them all together, there are a lot of differences.

[whh2222]

12 hours ago, aurum said:

Try to be encouraging for newer forum members.

Politics is hard to understand and our standards are high.

I apologize. I'm just sick of libertarians who delude their greed as next level wisdom. The recent election has really put a bad taste in my mouth for that.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

1 hour ago, nerdspeak said:

I didn’t call the countries social democracies

I wasn't saying that you in particular was calling those countries, 'social democracies', but that its common for western left-wingers to think of, lets say, Denmark, as a social democracy.

[aurum]

39 minutes ago, whh2222 said:

I'm just sick of libertarians who delude their greed as next level wisdom. The recent election has really put a bad taste in my mouth for that.

I get it. Human delusion can be sickening. 

[Davino]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I'm not even sure. I don't know enough about the business culture of Scandinavia.

Thanks for the honest answer Leo

[Girzo]

4 hours ago, Daniel Balan said:

Also his bible in terms of economics is this in the image! Have you guys read it? I haven't and I would like to know if you liked it.

The book is so bad it I consider it's scholarship questionable even for the 40s, when it has been written. Typical out-dated social science. There's little point in reading Economics books written before the 90s and it's certainly a red-flag when someone raves about a Hitler-era scholar. Science has moved on light-years away from the theories in vougue back then.

[Leo Gura]

17 hours ago, Daniel Balan said:

Which is looking at past events and current ones with a keen eye to understand why certain things have unfolded the way it did.

You have to be extremely careful with this or you will turn into a deluded fool like Whatifalthist.

You have to be very careful about using history to reinforce your own biases and ideology.

When you read history it's not so clear why certain things unfolded as they did. Epistemic humility is crucial.

A libertarian will distort history as he reads it, and then corrupt you with his twisted understanding.

Edited 6 hours ago by Leo Gura

[FourCrossedWands]

@Leo Gura  What do you think of Ron Paul? Is he also a corrupt opportunist?

[Leo Gura]

14 minutes ago, FourCrossedWands said:

@Leo Gura  What do you think of Ron Paul? Is he also a corrupt opportunist?

I've never seen a good libertarian. They are all fools in some sense. It's just a question of to what degree. And that degree is usually quite high.

Anyone associated with the current Republican party is a corrupt pervert.

Edited 6 hours ago by Leo Gura

[FourCrossedWands]

Yes, it's a wake up call. I wouldn't expect him to be willing to join the Trump/Musk administration.

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, FourCrossedWands said:

I wouldn't expect him to be willing to join the Trump/Musk administration.

That's exactly what I expect of him, since they are all stage Orange.

[FourCrossedWands]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

That's exactly what I expect of him, since they are all stage Orange.

He didn't support Trump before.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, FourCrossedWands said:

He didn't support Trump before.

1) I doubt even that. He would certainly vote with Trump vs a Dem.

2) There is no room for anything else right now in the Republican party. The pressure to side with Trump couldn't be greater. He will be forced to side with Trump even if he doesn't want to. That's just the survival situation within that party.

3) But I am quite sure he will support Trump/Musk with a passion since their aim is to gut the government of all regulations and balances. This is a libertarian's wet dream.

Edited 6 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Daniel Balan]

@Leo Gura Thank you for the warning Leo! But what TIK is saying about history in my eyes is extremely accurate! He said that the NSDAP party had used populism to garner the support needed to obtain a significant number of seats in the german parliament! Which is true! Fascists will use socialism to appeal to the working class, the same working class which will be later used as cannon fodder for their fascist ambition be it war or be it ultra nationalistic state controled isolationist economy! To me in order to achieve fascism you need ultra nationalism and socialism. Here TIK is correct. Hitler was a socialist who was also a extreme nationalist who was very openly racist and above all he was anti liberal! Failing to understand that calls for revolution, calls for destroying capitalism, calls for nationalization lead to full blown fascist authoritarianism. I hope I get my point across this time! 

Edited 2 hours ago by Daniel Balan

[Daniel Balan]

And when I say socialist I don't mean the type of socialism that Bernie Sanders advocates or the left leaning activists, that is not socialism that is a form of capitalism that has the greed and the bullshit extracted away from it. What I mean when I say socialism is what is happening in my home country! A new leader rose to proeminence for calling the nationalization of every factory and production outlet, the fact that the state should hold 51% of the shares of every bussiness in Romania, and the isolation of the country from the western world so that the country shall produce everything within. 

This guy is a fascist with positive views on war criminals from ww2, has ultra nationalistic rhetoric and says the word god, every 5 words. That is the socialism that breeds fascism that I warn about!