As per the title.
Why does the word socialism in the US cause frothing at the mouth? Not comming from the US I don't understand this, I can see socialism and capitalism both have positive points as well as negative ones, but it seems crazy to me that when Obama talked of changing the healthcare system there were all these people protesting saying "Government hands off my health" and such.
After watching "Sicko" on TV the other night I think the average US person has little knowledge on socialism. I live in Australia with what would be called a "socialist" healthcare system and I think its great but we are not a socialist country.
So, without getting political, why is the culture of the United States of America so fixated on capitalism?
Horse shit.
The complaint is that people end up with a few hundred thousand in debts they can't pay after they survive. This nonsense that people are dying in the streets because they don't have insurance has always been bogus. Myth. It's the last pathetic excuse the architects of your system make when the numbers come out. That it's not immediately refuted and beat into the ground is something you can blame the media for.
The worst that happens to people in this country is they have an absolutely horrible credit score. You can walk into any public hospital in the country, tell them you're not paying a dime and you never will, and they can't do a damn thing but eat the bill you end up with and hope the public and private funding for just such things will cover it. They can't take your house, seize your accounts, anything. They can't even harrass you with phone calls, a simple cease and desist order bars collection agencies from continued contact.
As credit is most of what's wrong with the private sector, outside of government, I'd prefer fewer people had good credit scores to begin with. All this readily available lending just inflates the cost of big ticket items. When even the recovering hobo can come up with two hundred grand, selling houses at reasonable prices would be a really stupid move on the part of the real estate industry.
WTF?! Nobody told me this, I deduced this is what occurs. So if I am wrong, and I have yet to see the figures (I'll be eating humble pie if these figures appear ), then I still have no idea who these "architects of your system" are and what "pathetic excuse" they have made.
Here is a World Health Organisation fact from 2000 (http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html). In ranking countries in terms of health care:
UK - 18th
Canada - 30th
Australia - 32nd
USA - 37th
Total Health Expenditure as a percentage of GDP, 2002-2005. (http://www.photius.com/rankings/total_health_expenditure_as_pecent_of_gdp_2000_to_2005.html)
USA - 15.2% - 2nd
Canada - 9.8% - 18th
Australia - 8.8% - 29th
UK - 8.2% - 41st
Where's this prostate recovery data?
Funny, but your dates do not match - nor do your percentages. Or have they changed that much between 2000 and 2002-2005? Or, are they weighted in some other way?
I have recently gone through the U.S. (public funded) health care system. I would rate it as #1, in all respects.
The WHO is as bad as the global warming alarmists. They pick the data that they want to show a certain thing. And we all know what is happening now on that front - the head of the whole MMGW thing just said that there has been no significant warming in the past 15 years, and that he can not get his head out of his as* when it comes to organizing his own data!
So what if the U.S. has higher costs? We make more money, and we spend more on R&D. It just makes sense that our own costs would be transfered back to us, and that the given away (or stolen) techs would not impact other countries as much.
Yeah, I wouldn't publish the conclusions from the data, but the stats are interesting and certainly worth a look. Most money, lower ranking. Few years difference. Were any huge, radical changes to USA healthcare policy made in those years?
My wife is from the USA. She lives here in Australia. She rates the Australian health care system #1, USA #2. Not from the people in the system, but due to the system itself. Sure, if your rich enough to afford health insurance good for you (and its been shown the health insurance companies will try not to pay you, after all they don't actually care about you as a person, only you as a source of revenue), but not all are. Hell, alot of hard working, trying their best in the American way to earn enough for the family to get ahead, but health insurance is not cheap and at a certain point families are avoiding buying medicine . Its a business.
So the people on Sicko who were avoiding medication due to low money just hadn't hit the wall enough to sell everything and go into huge debt? And would they be the only people avoiding medicine because of the prohibitive cost? Its a great system that values shareholders over people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/health/policy/17hawaii.html
Says in that story that Hawaii has the highest rate of breast cancer in the USA but also the lowest death rate from it.
Hmmmm......
US health care is something of a joke. Cant even come close to compete with countries that have full health cover for all its citizens. And capitalism is a joke too. Everyone who thinks capitalism is the way to go need to take a good hard look in the mirror. Just look at the recent crisis and tell me its good one more time. And then go backward in history and see the other occuring similiar events, and yes they will come again... and again. USA is one of the most depressing countries in the world, "GUNS DONT KILL, PEOPLE DO" everyone. If i were to follow that logic then i bet the citizens of US wouldent mind if i handed out a few nuclear bombs to various islamic states. After all NUCLEAR WEAPONS DONT KILL, PEOPLE DO. Ive never before seen such a huge consentration of retarded points of view as i see in the USA.
Anyone trying to defend the corrupt institution that is the US should stick hes head between hes legs and kiss hes own ass.
This is an ideological statement not really reflecting reality based upon neoclassical assumptions. Looking at reality this usually is not the case as countries like scandinavean ones would show. In contrast having nothing to do is a burden for most unemployed people even if their standard of living is secured.
One problem in this discussion is that a lot of people here try to mix up highly theoretical models with a reality that is quite different than this models would predict. Both are based on economic theories that can't really tell much about human behaviour even though they implement them in their basic assumptions without really proving them.
If you want to describe reality using these models it would be best to stick to very specific fields and to try to explain the whole world. Psychology probably does a better job in this than Economics or Political Sciences.
When you are talking about Socialism and Capitalism you would be talking about 2 different production systems aimed at the allocation of ressources. This is the main thing these theories are about. They are not about freedom or specific forms of government. It's about what production system is best for society. A pure capitalist system would be a system where everything related to production of and the distribution of goods and services would be governed by market forces and a pure socialist system would be a system where everything would governed by the state.
This is a theoretic construct you won't find anywhere in reality. What you see is states that do have a production system with either stronger socialist or stronger capitalist attributes (and some others as for example production of household services usually is not governed by state or market forces). Now you can look if one system is clearly better than the other. If it is either more socialist or more capitalist states would perform better in almost every area. This has been done quite often with the outcome that you can't really say anything about a general performance advantage of a specific system. In some areas capitalist systems excel, in other corporatist (generally middle ground between capitalist and socialist) and in yet some others socialist. The only thing that is quite sure is that a production system that is quite close to the pure form of socialism does not work. It would not be clear if a more capitalist system would work as there haven't been really states with a system close to pure capitalism (US probably the closest one but with a public expenditure quota of around 35% still far away from it).
What can be said is that about every capitalist (western) country does have a public expenditure quota of around 40-50% whithout braking down.
So if you're looking at health care a more socialist (meaning state governed) approach probably is better than a more capitalist one. IIRC Switzerland and the US are two of the countries with the highest expenditure per capita (private + public expenditure) in the health system while delivering a service comparable to other modern western states. More "socialist" states pay overall less for the same service. There are a number of reasons for this, but in other areas are capitalist approach is more efficient than a socialist one.
To the OP if that was a serious question spend less time watching specious propaganda movies put out by an avowed anti-American, and consider reading Das Kapital, What Is To Be Done, then have at The Road To Serfdom and then some Burke and ask the question again, of yourself.
Ah, so we are not really talking about 'health care' at all then, are we? We are talking about health insurance.
I agree that the insurance companies can be real jerks, but that is an entirely different subject.
Points for giving a reading list, equivalent debits for the specious rhetorical loop. I have plenty of complaints about Micahel Moore myself, but calling him "anti-American" is just bullshit. He's a US citizen just like me, and presumably you; disagreement is as Amurrican as apple pie.
I'm not opposed to open discussion of anything (I have my positions but rigidly adhering to them during discussion is counterproductive) and I try to do it without bias, which is why I tried to point the OP to where he could, at a minimum, start to understand the prespectives/positions in the discussion. I didn't think I was defaming Moore when I called him Anti-American because it is drawn from his own statements regarding America being the greatest force for evil in the world today, in addition, to saying that the greatest thing that could happen for the world would be the collapse of the US economy forcing the US to adopt more socially concious policies. I suppose I could have said his presnt antiamerican stance but I think it's mostly irrelevant as it seems to be more an issue of semantics. I don't think any credence should be given to Moore, aside from that of any another guy voicing an opinion (i.e. Rush Limbaugh.) I'd rather defer to Mises, Hayek, Locke, Burke, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao and any of the myriad of thoughtful voices on the topic than have people try to understand these positions from a pack of "shrill" entertainers. Lastly, I firmly stand by the statement that "Sicko" is a specious quasi-documentary. Also, apply pie is great, the kind with the strussel crunchy top.
I'll give you this bit hands-down, not least because I have fancy degrees and haven't done nearly enough reading along those lines. But I want to dismiss the whole 'anti-American' thing on account of the very label being a red herring at root, at least if you're comparing different US citizens who are not providing espionage services to a foreign power. (Moore is talking about the current US power elite, not the entire nation when he goes on his long-winded, highly subjective rants.)
Now that sounds un-Amurrican, or at least like you're from one of those places with a strong Dutch strain in your immigrant mix. Down hyah, a proper apple pie has a pastry crust above and below, and some of us think it trashy to sprinkle a little sugar on the top crust before baking. Struessel's too much sugary, especially if you're lucky & get a scoop of ice cream on your pie.
Music has long been called the universal language. The more I learn, the more convinced I am that pie is the universal food. No one likes every kind of pie, but surely no one hates every kind of pie--at most they have yet to find the pie of their dreams. We could live on pie alone if we all worked as hard manual laborers and could take in all that buttery, lardy goodness without courting an early grave...
Mike Moore definately puts a certain light on his subject, but to be fair he always seeks to hear the opinion of both sides of the story. And more often than not he receives no reply from "the bad guys", because they know he has them stuffed.
I must admit, I don't know much about US public health care. I'm sure the staff are professional and like healthcare workers everywhere work hard for the health of their patients. I was particularily cranky reading that "90% vs 70%" post because I had just been to my public hospital and thought "what a load of crap. Does this person believe that a public system if full of poorly trained nurses, regularily clumily stabbing each other with used sharps, laughing because of the safety to bumbling fools a "socialist" system gives".
And I thought this because I saw a story on the comedy show on how Hawaii has a public funded health care system and they love it. The Republicans had their get together in Hawaii and the reporter asked these Republicans if they know about Hawaii's health care system.
"No, I don't know too much about it"
"Its a public system, what would you say to the Hawaiian people?"
"Well we would teach them of the superiority of the private system".
They don't want a mainland USA system, a Hawaiian gets injured in Hawaii they get fixed, a Hawaiian gets injured on mainland USA they get asked for their money. My wife here in Aus cut her hand. At the hospital the doctor said their might be nerve damage and so they might consider microsurgery. No question of money, just "we'll do it if its needed". What would that cost in the US system? In Sicko a guy was being charged $12k and $60k to have fingers re-attached. He should have put the fingers in a ice-bag, paid a couple of grand to charter a quick flight to Hawaii and had it done for free. He couldn't afford the $60k finger.
Foolish arrogant Republicans, pure example of a group of people who spend too much time amongst people with their own idea's, causing further polarising of those idea's...... It got my goat.
Delivered. As this nonsense hits the news every time the subject comes up, I don't know how you've failed to hear this from someone else. I have revised my assumption that you were ill informed. I now assume you live in a box under a bridge somewhere and stole a computer to post here.
What is largely irrelevant to the subject they pretend to report on. Why is the more important question.
If I have a congenital heart defect and I die from a heart attack in my thirties, it would be rather silly to blame that on my lifestyle. There was an actual problem present that killed me, correct?
On the reverse, it would be rather retarded to assume a defect killed me if I were 500 pounds at the time, yes?
The WHO looks at the number of people that die from this or that disease, and then says look, you guys suck. What it ignores is that the US is filled with a bunch of fat, lazy, chain smoking slobs that are killing themselves with diabetes, heart disease, and other obesity related problems. It's assuming there is a defect in our health care that is killing us, when the defect is in lifestyle. Why we are dying from it is far more important than what we are dying from, when judging the care we recieve.
It's a simple fact, Europeans live healthier lifestyles than people in the US do. They walk more, over eat less, and are vastly more responsible in regards to substance abuse. When, instead of looking at fatality rates for those treatable diseases, you look at survival rates among the people with those disease, the US is #1 in nearly every cancer category. Last I checked, Japan had the top spot for one of them, can't remember which and the study is lost in the vast seas of the internets at the moment.
If you're brave, you can look up the heathcare debates that took place on this forum a few months back. I shredded, in greater detail, all the utopian bullshit claims made about the socialized medical care in other countries. No one matches the US, and the socialized systems that are coming close are even more bankrupt than ours is.
Hawaiians also possess one of the lowest workforce participation rates. Forcing employers to provide health care has it's drawbacks. In one of the most expensive places to live, it's in the low sixties. North Dakota, on the other hand, is above 70. Sure, they've got low costs, and everyone with a job meeting x requirements has insurance, but there's a couple hundred thousand people that don't work because of it.
This system they put in place doesn't even manage a million people and they still have significant side effects from it. In Massachussets, a much better example, they're broke. They aren't a tropical paradise that gets 40% of their GDP from other people showing up to see it.
I'm with you to a point on the first part, but I'm not sure how to express the point concisely about Moore. I think the disagreement is a semantic issue caused by misuse of the term "anti-american". I'm trying to convey the position that does match his statements, but as you say the term is a red herring that is abused to the point of losing it's natural meaning. Moore has fundamental arguments against national sovereignty, limited and redundant checks on centralized authority, and individual liberty, which was the intended structure of our little federal republic. That is what I was trying to convey; however, again I am at a loss on what one could use to sum that up concisely. (I wouldn't even try and debate that on the internet, because I'm of the belief that internet arguments are lose-lose whatever transpires.) My degrees are not at all fancy, but I'm afforded a great deal of spare time to both read and cook by my occupation. On to more lofty matters, here in the Ohio/Penn region we are a historically German, Dutch, Polish demographic that respects your blandly topped pies, but feel strongly that a strussel crust is a genuine imporvement to apple, peach and cherry pies. As well as just about every manner of pastry, as I think about it, as I'm typing. I encourage you to try an apple pie made with braeburn apples, topped with a heavy strussel topping drizzled with a dark chocolate lattice. (In the name of peaceful regoinal inter-relation, of course.)
God put me here just to give you some satisfaction, here and now.
I don't beleive in the utopia of my healthcare system. We do have problems here, the state elections are up soon and I'm surprised the hospitals havn't been thrown around yet. I still don't believe you that the US has the best system, bankrupting people because they are ill belongs back in the dark ages.
Now excuse me, I've got some pie to eat....
Mixed economies /= socialism.Government regulation /= socialism.Government spending /= socialism.Public ownership of companies /= socialism.Welfare /= socialism.Public option for healthcare /= socialism.
Nice claims, would you consider the sum of those to be socialism?
When someone convinces me that all the piecemeal socialism isn't just because they can't get the whole shebang through at once, I'll stop assuming someone is a socialist when they only want to fullfill half of the requirements to make Marx happy.
God put me here because he was bored and wanted to torture the rest of you.
I'm ok with that. There are a hundred million utter morons in this country I'd have to convince before I get bent over people in other countries.
nope. Socialism = the dictatorship of the proletariat and the seizure of the means of production by the working class.
lol. socialism doesn't come about through legislation.
i suggest you stop assuming people are "socialist" because you're quite obviously misusing the term. i don't know what it is about the united states and their bastardisation of standard political terminology, but it seems to happen quite a lot. nobody in america seems to know what liberalism or socialism is.
I admire you for sticking to a century old definition that the socialists themselves decided to expand upon, but you're the one misusing the term at this point. The old definition is only applicable to the old writings it's used in, not everything after it was changed. Try reading this.
History is a bitch.
So, use “social democracy” or “welfare liberalism” or “big government” or “tax and spend democrat” etc and we might find some common ground. But the fact remains that government intervention in the market is not socialism. socialism isn’t really about government at all, ridiculously uptopian “worker councils” notwithstanding.
Indeed, the whole fact that socialist theory evolved into something different (ie social democracy) is reason enough NOT to be calling the ex socialists by their former name. they might have some (even many) of the same goals, but piecemeal reform within a liberal democracy does not change it into a socialist state, nor make said reforms “socialist”. Like I alluded to ealier, mixed economies aren’t a combination of socialism and capitalism as so regularly asserted; a mixed economy is a capitalist economy where some of the enterprises are administered by the government.
Amusing, but pointless.
and completely accurate.
No, you've gone from saying stupid Americans are redefining everything, to nitpicking a term down to the strictest of definitions, and one that hasn't been used in over a century. Your boundary preventing it's use when referring to social democrats wont hold up in any encyclopedia, dictionary, or the myriad of European social democrat parties. Bernie Sanders over here in the US would be equally amused to know he's not a socialist.
I never said Americans were stupid, I pointed out that they seem to exist in a bubble whereby political terms (but only some of them) take on new and weird definitions.
Im not being “strict”, you’re just being too loose in your vain attempt to paint anything government-orientated as “socialist” (because it’s a wonderful slur in the US that many people seem to have grown accustomed to). Luckily for me I didn’t gain my understanding of political ideologies from reading dictionaries or encyclopaedias.
Bernie might well be a socialist at home, if a watered-down mainstream kinda socialist. But he certainly hasn’t sponsored legislation to nationalise private property and give ownership to the workers that work it. That he is might use his position to make gains for broad, left politics does not mean that the gains being made are “socialist”. In my experience when Americans denounce something as socialist they’re more likely to be criticising components of welfare liberalism.
Michael, did you notice that while the NCPA is "a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization," it is most definitely an ideologically motivated think tank? They are staunch defenders of classical liberalism, the intellecutal underpinnings of many modern conservative thinkers. They've got some credentials for rigorous research, but it is research driven by an ideological agenda. (Not a bad thing in my book, except when people try to pretend that it's 'unbiased research.')
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