While some conservatives claim that Obama wants to kill your granny I hesitate to accept that as Obamas sole reason for pushing the health care reform.
From the private insurers point of view it makes perfect sense to oppose the reform ... if they didn't, they'd face an immense decline in profits if either the government option provides better care or if regulations bar insurers from avoiding costs by their current methods.
But it's a bit too simplicistic to merely claim that one party acts out of altruism (or a loathing of old ladies) and the other out of greed.
So, what do you think are the driving motives in this dispute ?
(Note that I don't ask you what you think is the better solution.)
Pro (Motives of the health care reform advocates):
Con (Motives of the health care reform opponents):
Two key issues that make the health care reform necessary in the eyes of the proponents are quailty and cost.
Quality has been discussed to death and information (and misinformation) is freely available.
Cost is harder to estimate - one simply can't understand what estimated costs of trillions of dollars over decades means for your paycheck. So I started a different thread where I want to compare the personal average cost of health care in different countries.
For example: German average gross income is about €2,500. After deductions (including health insurance) a single person without kids gets to keep about €1,500.
And what can germans do with that money in germany? Why, buy beer, of course. €1,500 get you 1,200 litre of high quality Pilsener beer - twice as much if you don't care about quality and go for the cheap labels.
Health care costs: €185 per month (currently $264)
Cheers!
To characterize modern aspects of the welfare state as fascist or socialist when socialist is a thinly veiled euphemism for "nazi" is to miss the point on a mind-blowing scale. Was Churchill a nazi? He was a strong proponent of the NHC, so logically he was responsible for a nazi-like or 'socialist' state, right?
Or do we actually give a shit about Hitler because he started a horrific war and was responsible for unfathomable genocide?
Give me a fucking break.
There is no dominant global power on Earth, and there never will be any expect for the United Nations mecanisms (Security council, etc) as a form of preventive measure to stop such behavior against humanity itself.
Last and everyone else who tried were completely obliterated into oblivion. Next & Future included.
Obscenitor, be a tard less often please. Your posts are almost reasonable when you're not.
National Socialism is very cut and dry, exactly what they were practicing, and only differed from Marxism because the guy was an internationalist. National Socialism is the economic component in fascism, racial superiority being most of the rest. Think of them as a cross between utopian socialists, modern capitalists, and the KKK. They practiced massive social engineering, but were smart enough to realize money made the world go round. Instead of abolishing free enterprise, they bailed them out and then told them what to do, while keeping their money. If that sounds familiar, it's because the Bush, and now Obama administration, have done the exact same thing here over the last year and a half, bailing them out, then telling them what to do. It's text book national socialism, the primary component to fascism.
Hitler being a genocidal maniac doesn't change fascism into anything besides a Marxist inspired form of collectivism. It also doesn't mean we're not duplicating their early actions by bailing out and then exercising control over our large corporations.
Healthcare being the next industry on their checklist.
Hitler being a genocidal maniac doesn't change fascism into anything besides a Marxist inspired form of collectivism.
There are plenty of modern European nations you could reference if you wanted contemporary examples of the failings of those systems, when you depend on Nazism you're fear mongering, not having an honest conversation.
So I repeat it's complete bullshit and references to Nazi Germany only seek to derail any conversation outside of the most erudite and abstract economic debates, which I assure you this thread and the national debate are not. The USA isn't Nazi Germany and if even if universal health care were implemented it wouldn't become Nazi Germany. The problem with (or beauty of) making that refernce is that it's so easily disproven and so historically inaccurate that it completely nullifies whatever point was attempting to be made with it.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that FDR, the American leader during WWII (or most of it) wasn't a Nazi, Winston Churchill wasn't a Nazi, and that the long shadow of nationalized health care that's been cast over Europe and nearly every other nation that helped defeat Nazi Germany did not result in the practicing of eugenics, the continued destruction of the Jewish people, or any of the other reasons why Germany became so infamous.
When it comes down to it the industries which lost control to the government failed, and they had built themselves in a way which guaranteed they would take an unacceptable amount of people down with them when they did so. Your faith in the corporate world is unfounded, and I'm sure you'll say that my mistrust is equally irrational.
That depends on how you define dominance.
It's true that many fascists were leftists before they swung to the right, however, the bolded statement is a non-trivial difference. Fascism replaces the class with the state. This commitment to nationalism is the reason for facism's belligerence. It's also -- along with a state commitment to racism, etc. -- what separates, say, Nazi Germany from socialist Europe. State control of industry was certainly a component of facism, but I don't think it's the component that makes it particularly objectionable.
Where's your swastika, fascist? I think this is an elegant summary of the point I was trying to get across.
Exclusive control over anything that isn't of local (as in population needs) interest; multi-national corporations, value of exports above imported necessities (the usual GNP trading balance), industrial capacity, technological innovations unshared, cultural propagation, economic fluctuation(s) by monetary flow of products pricing, plenty more.
Good summary!
There is another difference between fascism and socialism that is worth pointing out.
Fascism is as an ideology solely about power. Socialism is about society. Socialism works with or without a power structure (see the example of Israeli kibbutzim), fascism is a power structure. A group of wanna-be fascists cannot assemble and form a fascist community because by their very act of volunteering they already violate the basic principle of fascism which advocates strict rule of the top over the rest of the people. But it is possible to volunteer to live in a communist society.
The many leftists who swing both ways are in it for the power. They think they know better than everybody else and are attracted by two ideologies that are formed around the idea that some know better than others. But only one of those ideologies specifically denies voluntary participation as a possibility.
So while fascism and socialism CAN work with the same dictatorial form of government, while capitalism cannot, socialism does not demand or even require (in the best of circumstances) such dictatorial control.
Many people freely give to the poor and are thus performing socialism on their own. But it is impossible to volunteer to involuntary servitude, and it is the latter fascism demands of the individual.
Obviously by that measure, there's no dominant state. The question is whether this definition is appropriate. (For example, by this definition, no state would enjoy dominance within its own territorial boundaries.) The point I'm implicitly trying to make is that unipolarists usually set the bar much lower when it comes to defining preponderance of power.
I don't know if it's fair to say that fascism is an ideology concerned with power and socialism isn't. They are. Both combine descriptive theses about the nature of power with normative theses about how power should be exercised (in the same way that liberalism, ie. capitalism, also combines a descriptive thesis of power with a normative thesis). The difference is that in the case of fascism these theses are explicitly tied to the state, hence, its authoritarianism. Socialism, which locates power in some sort of social structure doesn't make this commitment, hence, the possibility of non-authoritarian socialist -- or communist -- communities.
Of course, this discussion is largely academic because we don't live in a fascist, or socialist, or even completely liberal society.
I don't know if it's fair to say that fascism is an ideology concerned with power and socialism isn't. They are.
Ok.
Show me how all kibbutzim are about power and/or show me a fascist society that isn't.
That is all very dishonest.
After asking for the motives you finally compiled a list that essentially says that the opponents are evil.
I gave you several motives for the Con side and you didn't add any of them. Plus you filed taking other people's money under "altruism" and the refusal to give such money under "selfishness", despite the fact that you don't even know what people would want to spend the money on instead. Someone who prefers to give to his favourite charity rather than pay for the healthcare of somebody who could work and pay for it himself is not selfish and neither is someone who demand that others pay for his healthcare an altruist.
I think from the examples we have seen here, we can file "dishonesty" as a motive or at least a strategy for the Pro side.
I am not against a public healthcare system, and neither do I believe that all who are for such a system (myself included) are evil. But it is very apparent that at least here in the forum one side is incapable of even acknowledging that the other side might not be evil and that taking other people's money is not altruism.
There are many good arguments for a public healthcare system but _altruism_ is not one of them. Altruism would make a person contribute, not take. And you can already contribute to other people's medical bills if you so choose. The best reason for a public healthcare system is a lack of altruism among those who want it!
If the 52% of Americans who voted for Obama and perhaps support his public healthcare system would simply pool together and pay for a healthcare system, they would have ithe healthcare system and they wouldn't need legislation to bring it about. But they don't. And that's called "altruism" these days.
There are historic examples of people who wanted to bring about change and believed that such change would be altruistic or good. But there are two ways to go about it. One is to do it. The other is to demand that somebody else do it.
Are you a doer or a demander? Are your motives altruistic? Would you profit from such a healthcare system? In that case, how are your motives altruistic? Or would such a system cost you more than you currently pay? In that case, why don't you already give the difference to charity?
Being an altruist is easy. But it costs money.
Calling oneself an altruist is even easier. And it's free.
(Guess who in America gives the most to charity? Is it altruistic liberals or selfish conservatives? Do you know?)
I'm not claiming that there is a fascist society that isn't concerned with power. In fact, quite the opposite. The claim is that both fascism and socialism are concerned with power. Fascism conceives of power in terms of the state, ie. the political group; socialism, the social group.
Obviously, there are important differences in the way this power is articulated. Fascist states are generally concerned with the subordination of individuals, collectives, etc. to the interests of the state, usually to maximize the power of the state in relation to other states. Socialist organizations, by contrast, are concerned with the subordination of individuals, and sometimes even states, to the collective. The definition of the collective and the collective interest is power, just not the same sort of statist power that characterizes fascist states. Of course, we can disagree about the definition of power -- you might think that power is limited to purely state-centric power -- but I think that you'd be willing to agree that socialism exercises something at least analogous to power.
It's difficult to make generalizations about the kibbutzim because not all of them were classically socialist, and even those that were defined the social group, the collective, along different lines. For example, many of them were defined more by their nationalist/religious identifications than by class. Some of them were even directly tied to Israel. Nevertheless, all were concerned with advancing some notion of collective identity, and, as a result, some notion of the political, which is what I mean by power.
That's the point.
If you claim that both both fascism and socialism are as a rule concerned with power, you have to disprove every single instance of a socialist system that isn't about power.
Since I am aware of at least one kibbutz that is socialist but not about power, I know you are wrong.
Yes, I'm aware of the implications of my claim. However, I could claim that any system which isn't concerned with power isn't a socialist system, and that therefore your claim that there is a socialist system which is not concerned with power must be false. We can both play this game, since your modus ponens is my modus tollens.
Honestly, I don't see this disagreement going anywhere since we have different understandings of power -- mine is considerably wider than yours (as explained in the previous post), so I see power where you don't.
Yes, I'm aware of the implications of my claim. However, I could claim that any system which isn't concerned with power isn't a socialist system, and that therefore your claim that there is a socialist system which is not concerned with power must be false.
What's the point of talking about socialism when you redefine its meaning to fit your conclusions?
What's the point of talking about socialism when you define it so that its meaning is constantly shifting to include systems which share few or no theoretical similarities to other 'socialist' systems? Socialism is a category -- it's definition, unlike say, a list of systems claiming to be socialist, shouldn't be subject to empirical determination.
When exactly did I shift the meaning of "socialism"?
The Zionist socialist movement is not exactly a new ideology. It developed directly among German Jews, just like Marxism.
Not in a case where, for example, some specific national interests seek to offer alternative leverage over other's industrial infrastructures; as in, Boeing vs Airbus "competitiveness" at international levels that gives economic advantages (including employment ratios in any given country) against other manufacturers such as Ambraer(Brazil) or Bombardier(Canada) or Tupolev(Russia), etc.
Simply said, the power of "productivity" can impact development worldwide (in some areas, negatively) while free-market principles tend to favor workforce outsourcing; aka - globalization.
Domination, as a result & from within the context we discussed earlier, is a level of *increasing* control that aims to simply eliminate competition. Or as some would put it; trade wars.
A couple of points:
1. I'm not accusing you of shifting the meaning of socialism. I argued that an empirical definition of socialism would be conceptually incoherent (quoted text).
2. I've already addressed the point about the kibbutzim (see the third paragraph in reply #512). However, more importantly, I think that this misses the point.
3. My claim is that:
and
If you accept this definition of power, then you accept that socialist systems are concerned with power. If you don't, I'm not going to shove it down your throat. But I think that you can at least appreciate that socialist systems are concerned with a theory of collective identity, which is analogous to fascist system's concern with state identity which sometimes --although perhaps not always -- results in similar consequences.
I'm not interested in dragging this out further. Can we at least agree that i) the conclusion above is true or ii) either I don't understand your argument or you don't understand my argument (or both).
The only claim contained within the quoted text is that unipolarists, ie. the school within international relations which believes that the international system is characterized by a single hyperpower, doesn't define dominance that way. Well, in fact, they don't.
Kibbutzim aren't Marxist to begin with. Communal living predates socialism, it's the root philosophy.
It's also voluntary, which is something you're conveniently ignoring. You choose to join a Kibbutz, it's an alternative to working on your own, not a mandate. Socialism is involuntary, you are compelled to live in equality, or what passes for it anyway. Hence the whole power problem. Little c communists only become scary stupid marxist people when they start forcing others to join the commune. Force requires an exercise of power, and only those interested in power would ever do such a thing.
The Kibbutz is a dying institution as well, no one likes socialism when the alternative is so mind numbingly obvious as it is with the modern, rich lifestyle of the individuals right next door. Nearly all of them have privatized.
Kibbutzim aren't Marxist to begin with.
Who said they were?
Communal living predates socialism, it's the root philosophy.
That's what "socialism" is.
It's also voluntary, which is something you're conveniently ignoring.
No, that was my main point.
Is it possible that you have read the entire exchange and didn't get that I used kibbutzim as an example SPECIFICALLY because they are voluntary?
Har har:
http://www.thehill.com/homenews/house/57033-hoyer-gets-earful-at-volatile-town-hall
Gem from the end: "On top of that, the Maryland chapter of Health Care for America Now, had counted on filling 1,300 of the 1,500 seats with health reform supporters. Matthew Weinstein, the Maryland chapter director, said before the meeting began that he estimated a thousand supporters had showed up."
Attempting to stack the deck with your hired thugs, yet still losing out to actual constituents who oppose HR 3200? Priceless.
Fanatics on both sides have no time to waste as proven by which had an early start at spreading out THEIR own coordinated attacks. For or against, and like any civilized dialog, arguments rain on the parade... gotta love how America deals with serious issues. Collective delirium, unfocused, hysterical, paid up & down - from extremists to moderates, it's weird how truth is never revealed for all to cope with or even forge a valid opinion for themselves.
I'd recommend a good overdose of rationality & emotional restraint; but that is most probably too late either.
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