Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Praxus
So you have learned from history that large doses of Socialism, such as in Soviet Russia or Mao China "failed spectacularly". Then you go onto to say that intermediate doses of Socialism, such as in modern day Europe, has stifled their economies. But for some reason, you believe small doses of socialism will be helpful, such as what you claim the Nordic countries have.
|
I think if you want to talk about failure, you have to put it in a relative sense. The Soviet Union failed because it was an authoritarian state that ignored the wants and needs of its people for the sake of the prestige of the nation. However, if you are talking economics, the USSR acheived one of the highest known sustained growth rates until the mid 1970s. It was highly successful at mobilizing and using resources for industrialization, but after it industrialized, it was highly unsuccessful at incorporating innovation and efficiency into the economy. The Soviets transformed their country from an agrarian kingdom into an industrialized superpower in just a short peroid of time. There were many tragedies along that path of development, but the fact that it was very successful in an economic sense cannot be ignored.
China on the other hand was nothing other than a disaster. The great leap forward was a really dumb idea and it cost millions of people their lives. However the great leap forward and the holocine of Ukraine have nothing to do with socialism, and instead are features of authoritarianism. They are what results when mankind throws away all his rights to one leader.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Praxus
Nordic countries do not have a better standard of living then the United States. It has been demonstrated over and over again that the average poor American has more material wealth then the average European. The average American has at least double the chance of surviving Cancer, Heart Attacks, et al as their European counter-parts (including those in the Nordic countries). It would be reasonable to say they as a whole are more healthy because of the far fewer number of obese people. But this statement says more about their eating habits, then it does their economic system.
|
Can you show me where you read about heart attack and cancer survival? Everything that I've ever read is to the contrary. I mean, according to the CIA world factbook Sweeden has the lowest infant mortality rate aside from Singapore (which shouldn't count because its a city). It also has one of the highest life expectancies. I expect that it would be possible to control for obesity and smoking rates in the respective contries to come out with a better comparison of the relative healthcare systems (that goes back to my previous thesis). I can't say about the standard of living though, it really depends on how you measure it.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Praxus
We know that modern day Europe does better then the Soviet Union did, and that more moderate amounts of Socialism, such as in the United States does better then the modern day Europe. History has taught us something here. The more socialism you have, the less long term economic development you have. History has also taught us, that the more Capitalist, the greater the long term economic development. In the 19th Century, the United States averaged a 6.5% growth rate for the entirity of post-war years. I would also add that the average salary of the "working man" grew at a rate of 2% per year (this factors in inflation). This is for forty years, we kept this growth rate up.
|
I'm not sure that I could come to the same conclusion that you would. When you are making these growth comparisons, you are assuming all things are equal, ie. level of industrialization, resource utilization, technology, labor pool, etc. Those things clearly changed over time. Therefore, I don't think its reasonable at all to compare America during the 19th century to a fully developed and industrialized Europe. 19th century America grew because there were large amounts of free resources to be utilized. America didn't start to become industrialized until the latter half of the 1800s.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Praxus
Then bam, when socialism starts to get introduced in the late 19th Century and early 20th, growth rates decline, never to reach this long term growth rate again.
And no, the Great Depression was not caused by Corporate Greed, but by Government regulation, tarrifs, and the manipulation of the money supply.
|
Could you provide some evidence to back up these claims? I think that the current consensus is that the depression was triggered by the stock market crash, and that "socialist" policies helped get the US out of the depression. But, I honestly don't know that much about the Great Depression. I would be interested to hear about your views though.