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johnnyenglishteacher2
Joined: 03 Dec 2010
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 Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Menino80 wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| johnnyenglishteacher2 wrote: |
| Just a quick question to all the libertarians. Do you really consider yourselves so superior, so invulnerable, as to believe that nothing bad could happen to you? No long-term illnesses or injuries at, say, the age of 20, which might have impeded your ability to work and pay into an insurance system? Do you think that this can never happen to your children? I hope that this will never happen to you or any of your loved ones, but I can guarantee that if it does, you will immediately stop knocking the social democratic model. |
Private and religious charities. A robust tort regime.
Next question. |
What evidence is there that charity will deliver the benefits of public social welfare? |
It doesn't matter. Ultimately, you have the same lack of guarantee with public social services. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to abolish social security (I'd like a whack at Medicare, though), but johnny here was too short-sighted to consider the alternatives to statism. I took the shot.
As for your bogus strings attached, I don't know of many soup kitchens or such that quiz beneficiaries on their sexual practices. |
No, I wasn't too short-sighted. I considered charity but I believe that there should be a guaranteed safety net, not one which is dependent upon charity. |
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johnnyenglishteacher2
Joined: 03 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Johnny Englishteacher wrote: |
| Just a quick question to all the libertarians. Do you really consider yourselves so superior, so invulnerable, as to believe that nothing bad could happen to you? No long-term illnesses or injuries at, say, the age of 20, which might have impeded your ability to work and pay into an insurance system? Do you think that this can never happen to your children? I hope that this will never happen to you or any of your loved ones, but I can guarantee that if it does, you will immediately stop knocking the social democratic model. |
Good grief, hopefully tomorrow's economic powerhouses don't subscribe to the unthinking welfarism of Westerners. For if so, they can expect, at best, a mere century of prosperity culminating in an almighty economic apocalypse.
If state-run healthcare was abolished, there would be a huge demand for healthcare, in which case private investment would move in and fill the void more than amply virtually overnight. And I'm very confident that my ultra-capitalist nirvana would do a much better job than your centralized Soviet nightmare. If only it were given the chance.
Read these two books, Johnny:
http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/63880000/63881139.JPG
http://mitpress.mit.edu/images/products/books/9780262195584-f30.jpg
Social Democracy is on its last legs. Thank god. Just a couple more decades and then...boom! All over. For its fervent supporters, I suspect its rapid self-immolation from such vulgar indulgence will be almost as humiliating as the end of Hitler's "thousand year" Reich was for the Nazis. 
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You haven't answered my question.
Also, do you really, really think that Social Democracy is on its last legs? Do you think all of those northern European countries as well as others around the world are just going to give up a system which has seen a massive improvement in living standards based on conjecture? In another thread you said that you wanted all green legislation repealed as part of your libertarian utopia. I look forward to you living in a city without clean air laws. I shall move somewhere more sensible. |
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Menino80
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Location: Hodor?
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| menino80 wrote: |
| What evidence is there that charity will deliver the benefits of public social welfare? |
I'm very disappointed that you're asking this question. I had hoped, because of your seemingly anti-democratic stance and admiration for the anti-welfare, ultra-authoritarian East, that you were something of an interesting character. Sadly not - just yet another bourgeois leftist and unrepentant champion of state arrogation (for that is his only means of survival) with the audacity to dress up his self-interested ways in crass utilitarianism.
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Tell me, how am I surviving on state arrogation? What has the state arrogated, and from whom, and how do I and have I benefited? It's amazing that you can know all this without knowing: a. what i do for a living and b. what state i live in
I hope for you own sake that this little persona you've created for yourself is just that, a persona. Otherwise, you are a few foil hats short of a gold standard. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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| johnnyenglishteacher2 wrote: |
Also, do you really, really think that Social Democracy is on its last legs? Do you think all of those northern European countries as well as others around the world are just going to give up a system which has seen a massive improvement in living standards based on conjecture? |
Socialism has not given these countries a high standard of living, free market enterprise has. Free market reforms have also kept countries like Sweden from falling apart after the socialist government squandered obscene amounts of money. The only future for socialism is bankruptcy and oppression as people get fed up with it. Just because it has been propped up time and again by wealth generated in the private sector does not mean it is sustainable. Socialist governance is a weapon of mass destruction; they literally destroy entire societies. Only a centralized government is powerful enough to do this.
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| In another thread you said that you wanted all green legislation repealed as part of your libertarian utopia. I look forward to you living in a city without clean air laws. I shall move somewhere more sensible. |
Most libertarians would point out that the filthiest places on earth are those with socialist governments, such as the former USSR and China (not to mention the socialist US of A). In a libertarian society, pollution would be limited to one's own property, and vastly curbed. There could be no tragedy of the commons, since polluting on another person's land would infringe private property laws. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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The assumption that anyone who supports social welfare must be a beneficiary of it is both at odds with reality and frankly a little stupid, especially since there are several counter examples which regularly take part in discussion on this very discussion forum.
The implication that a solid, government-run social welfare program isn't substantially more reliable and effective than small charity programs that rely purely on donations is just confusing.
The idea that top 1% paying in over 40% of Federal Taxes received is somehow wrong or unjust only stands up to reason if our capitalistic method of wealth distribution perfectly, fairly, and justly distributes wealth on its own. Because that isn't true, complaints about it fall flat. Stable, productive societies with a thriving middle class require strong progressive taxation (or a source of independent income large enough to dwarf the earnings of that society's elite, such as huge natural resource reserves of incredible value) to correct inherent errors in free market distribution (this is doubly true in any society which allows the public to elect representatives, since wealth imbalances translate into political power imbalances). The fact that the government at times doesn't use this tax money optimally is another matter. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
The assumption that anyone who supports social welfare must be a beneficiary of it is both at odds with reality and frankly a little stupid, especially since there are several counter examples which regularly take part in discussion on this very discussion forum.
The implication that a solid, government-run social welfare program isn't substantially more reliable and effective than small charity programs that rely purely on donations is just confusing.
Stable, productive societies with a thriving middle class require strong progressive taxation (or a source of independent income large enough to dwarf the earnings of that society's elite, such as huge natural resource reserves of incredible value) to correct inherent errors in free market distribution (this is doubly true in any society which allows the public to elect representatives, since wealth imbalances translate into political power imbalances). The fact that the government at times doesn't use this tax money optimally is another matter. |
Let's take this out of ideology and into reality, shall we? In the United States, we have a $1.29 trillion deficit going on $1.5 trillion. We have just extended the Bush tax cuts, costing us nearly $900 billion (rounded up) over two years. Rand Paul has a plan to cut $500 billion in one year. Obama's countering with $400 billion in cuts over 5 years.
Now. Which plan is less sustainable and more reckless? The plan that cuts some social services, or the plan that cuts less?
Liberalism, social democracy, whatever you want to call it is an ideology. And its going to kill our country, and enslave our generation in debt.
Lastly, and this is critical, I have no problem with Massachusetts or California, or hell, all of New England getting together, and developing its own funded social democratic regime. But on the Federal level, its sclerotic, and its forcing a single regime on people with diverse interests and needs.
Meanwhile, $1.5 trillion in debt. Social democracy is the bane of democracy. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 8:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
Let's take this out of ideology and into reality, shall we?
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Okay.
| Kuros wrote: |
In the United States, we have a $1.29 trillion deficit going on $1.5 trillion. We have just extended the Bush tax cuts, costing us nearly $900 billion (rounded up) over two years. Rand Paul has a plan to cut $500 billion in one year. Obama's countering with $400 billion in cuts over 5 years.
Now. Which plan is less sustainable and more reckless? The plan that cuts some social services, or the plan that cuts less? |
Some cuts are wise, some cuts aren't. By making it purely about cuts and neglecting the utterly ridiculous tax policy America has been immersing itself further and further in, though, you ignore a large part of the real problem. I don't like this idea of, "Hey, let's just take low tax rates as a fact of life and then reason from there." I think it ignores an entire swath of valid, Constitutional options open to our society.
| Kuros wrote: |
| Liberalism, social democracy, whatever you want to call it is an ideology. And its going to kill our country, and enslave our generation in debt. |
I don't think you really believe this. I think you're getting carried away with idealism yourself here. You know as well as I do that America can afford to pay for the social programs it currently engages in. Choosing not to pay for it, and instead funneling ever increasing amounts of our national productivity into the hands of the elite is a choice.
| Kuros wrote: |
| Lastly, and this is critical, I have no problem with Massachusetts or California, or hell, all of New England getting together, and developing its own funded social democratic regime. But on the Federal level, its sclerotic, and its forcing a single regime on people with diverse interests and needs. |
Diverse interests, sure, to some extent that's true based on regional culture. Diverse needs, though? Questionable, at least if we're dividing up people based on region instead of based on social class.
| Kuros wrote: |
| Meanwhile, $1.5 trillion in debt. Social democracy is the bane of democracy. |
I think we both know that's a gross oversimplification. Social democracy + low taxes + relatively free trade policy + huge, actively used military = bane of democracy might be slightly more accurate. I know which parts of that equation I'd drop out to improve our society.
So long as everyone participates and the methods used are both transparent and regularly reviewed for efficacy, I'm willing to see a fair chunk of my family's wealth appropriated by the government to make our society a better place for the average citizen to live. That's not blind idealism, it's acting like a member of society. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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Oh come on, I knew that. Nobody hates Bankocracy more than me. All bankocrats should be hanged. But two wrongs don't make a right. Just because the wealth of the top 1% has been arrogated from the rest and put into financial speculation (with a taxpayer guarantee) doesn't make it okay for the rabble to demand ever more free stuff. I can, certainly, see the temptation in that line of thinking (funnily enough, it's very similar to Ayn Rand wanting her money back from SS payments), but what we've got is utter parasitism by the top, the middle and the bottom - all feeding off the creators of real value like pigs at a trough!
I'm aware of your position, mises - that it's the top (finance) and the bottom (the welfare maggots) against the middle (everyone else), and I completely agree, but with a huge caveat: rampant middle-class public sector parasitism. What could possibly be the justification for picking your nose for $85,000 per year, retiring at 50 and living til you're 90 on a state pension? And then rioting in the streets, a la the Greeks, when the government has austerity imposed on it by creditors!? Clearly, the bourgeois left must be exposed as a virus and all their most cherished state institutions - which are ALWAYS about providing jobs for them first and services for others second* - shut down, out of sheer spite if nothing else.
*the only difference between the left and the right is that we aren't disingenuous about our self-interested motivations
Look at Broken Britain's national debt of $128,000 per capita. Look at the West and its pregnant teenagers, middle-aged philosophy students and indulgent, mawkish rabble with "inalienable rights". The perniciousness of the bourgeois mixed economy is as plain as day.
| Fox wrote: |
| The idea that top 1% paying in over 40% of Federal Taxes received is somehow wrong or unjust |
I don't think huge swathes of the population being unable to feed or clothe themselves without the largesse of the rich is, itself, wrong or unjust. The randomness of genetic mutation gurantees that some will always be superior to others. What I object to is confiscation and the feeling of entitlement to it. Because give the rabble an inch and they'll take a foot; soon, you won't have a leg to stand on. The state confiscating from Peter to pay Paul is one thing; but Paul, with a litany of rights and entitlements but a paucity of contributions and responsibilities, who produces nothing, saves nothing, invests nothing, demanding ever more largesse from those who do produce, who do save, who do invest, is quite another. However, I certainly am an unabashed advocate of plutocracy - whereby only those who earn above $100,000 are entitled to vote. Either that, or a capitalist dictatorship, a la China.
There's no intelligent reason to reward those with neither skill or capital with remuneration. That's the kind of logic that made Keynes consider that, in a time of recession, the state could pay men to build pyramids (because that would provide them with an income and stimiluate the economy!). His point was that any kind of wages and spending is justified, so long as the general benefit is served. Unfortunately, he forgot that land, capital and labor always have alternative uses, and a man having an income, purely for its own sake, is insufficient reason to provide him with one. Alas, mutualism is lost on today's rabble and they know only four words: "you scratch my back" |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| There's no intelligent reason to reward those with neither skill or capital with remuneration. |
You're going to be paying for them no matter what. Modern technology -- to say nothing of globalization giving Western nations access to borderline slave labor -- simply devalues labor so much that many of our fellow citizens have very little to contribute, and with every technological advancement that effect will be increased. You have to deal with those people somehow. Your choices amount to social welfare, mass incarceration, or ignoring them and suffering from massive social instability. No matter which you choose, it's going to come at a serious cost. I don't think the first option is somehow less intelligent than the second.
This would be less of a problem if our nations erected stronger trade barriers to protect the value of our citizen's labor (since it would only be technology driving the problem, instead of technology and semi-slave labor), but the same people on this forum who insist that we need to seriously cut back on social programs almost always simultaneously insist that we need to embrace free trade and globalization. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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Self-pity will get the rabble nowhere. They should get off their arses and on their bikes. I agree, Fox, that technology will, one day, do almost all the work. But the blessings that will bring will vastly outweigh the inability to find remuneration, just as it does now. It's better to struggle to find work in the 21st century than be in the 19th century with a litany of job opportunities. Here in Saudi, the Saudis do absolutely no work. They import all their labor from the developing world. It's an incredible sight to behold - Bangladeshi guys doing heavy contruction work in 120 degree heat, just to earn a few pennies. That's virtuous. A return to good old-fashioned values such as these is the answer. Alas, we're all so drunk on inflation and "inalienable human rights" that we live in a reality vacuum.
Protectionism is an immense folly. It's the reason there are still third world regions, since they cannot sell their goods in rich countries. Henry George said, mockingly: "What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war" and "the aim of protection, in short, is to prevent the bringing in to a country of things in themselves useful and valuable in order to compel the making of such things". And besides, in the light of such unabashed entitlement from the whole of Western society, outsourcing is only virtuous. |
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johnnyenglishteacher2
Joined: 03 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 12:41 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
| Here in Saudi, the Saudis do absolutely no work. They import all their labor from the developing world. It's an incredible sight to behold - Bangladeshi guys doing heavy contruction work in 120 degree heat, just to earn a few pennies. That's virtuous. A return to good old-fashioned values such as these is the answer. |
Yes, of course that's virtuous. Exploitation of one's fellow man. Supported by someone fortunate enough to be born in the wealthy Western world. I think that tells us all we need to know about you. You'll cheer for misery as long as it's somebody else's misery. |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 3:15 am Post subject: |
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^ Nothing amuses me more than to see a sanctimonious leftist proffering his useless opinions about "exploitation" on the internet using a laptop made in the sweatshops of China. Only a communist with a Kensington townhouse can top that!
"Exploitation", my backside. Perfect strangers have but one obligation to one another - that of utility. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Saudis create jobs and offer alternatives to the prostitution, begging and robbery prevalent in impoverished societies. |
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johnnyenglishteacher2
Joined: 03 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:45 am Post subject: |
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Never been to Kensington in my life. And I live in a rented one bedroom flat for now (though that won't last forever, because, you see, despite you thinking that I'm just a goddam communist wanting to get my greedy red hands on your PRECIOUS, HARD-EARNED money, I am going to work my way upwards).
I cannot control who makes my laptop. I cannot control who picks the cotton for my clothes. That doesn't mean that I'm going to start defending them. Would you have gone back to 1980s Czechoslovakia and told the people they were hypocritical for eating communist food and then protesting against the government?
Sergio - I hope that if you are ever in any trouble and in need of help the perfect stranger you meet will be of a more benevolent disposition than you appear to be (although you might be perfectly helpful in real life). |
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johnnyenglishteacher2
Joined: 03 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:52 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| johnnyenglishteacher2 wrote: |
Also, do you really, really think that Social Democracy is on its last legs? Do you think all of those northern European countries as well as others around the world are just going to give up a system which has seen a massive improvement in living standards based on conjecture? |
Socialism has not given these countries a high standard of living, free market enterprise has. Free market reforms have also kept countries like Sweden from falling apart after the socialist government squandered obscene amounts of money. The only future for socialism is bankruptcy and oppression as people get fed up with it. Just because it has been propped up time and again by wealth generated in the private sector does not mean it is sustainable. Socialist governance is a weapon of mass destruction; they literally destroy entire societies. Only a centralized government is powerful enough to do this.
| Quote: |
| In another thread you said that you wanted all green legislation repealed as part of your libertarian utopia. I look forward to you living in a city without clean air laws. I shall move somewhere more sensible. |
Most libertarians would point out that the filthiest places on earth are those with socialist governments, such as the former USSR and China (not to mention the socialist US of A). In a libertarian society, pollution would be limited to one's own property, and vastly curbed. There could be no tragedy of the commons, since polluting on another person's land would infringe private property laws. |
Sweden has reformed it's social democratic model, not abandoned it. I am not blind to the need for reform, but raising the pension age is not the same as scrapping state pensions.
In not one single social democracy are large numbers of people clamouring for their government to abandon the state safety net. You can talk all you want about how evil it is, but it isn't going to disappear just because you say so.
Not much point in talking to me about the USSR and China, as I'm neither a Stalinist nor a Maoist.
If you are going to talk about socialism, can you please give me your definition of the word? Not value judgements, just what your definition is. It's a bit difficult trying to talk about the subject with somebody who lumps together the USSR, China and the USA. |
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Menino80
Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Location: Hodor?
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 5:55 am Post subject: |
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| Sergio Stefanuto wrote: |
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I don't think huge swathes of the population being unable to feed or clothe themselves without the largesse of the rich is, itself, wrong or unjust. The randomness of genetic mutation gurantees that some will always be superior to others. |
You really didn't, did you? You can't seriously believe you can post crap like this and people will take you seriously?
Wacko Nietzschean supermen come out of the woodwork on the internet. |
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