Topic: Why do people in USA fear socialism so much? - page 14. (Read 34886 times)

Sounds like what happens in any homeowner's association these days.  And no, I wouldn't live in such an HOA, because they are a total pain in the ass run by control freaks.

But if I did, am I a millionaire?  Am I a billionaire?  Is $1,000 completely insignificant to me?  In that event, I don't give a shit, and just pay because it's pocket change.  And if it does piss me off enough, I buy an interest in the HOA so I control it, or a cartel I'm involved in controls it.

But really, you're describing something like a homeowner's association, one of the most abusive organizations most people live under that is not a government, and I avoid those like the plague.  So the answer is no, I don't consider that contract valid.

I thought it was interesting to see that it is much worse than most Americans believe.

I have no doubt the point it is at today hovers around some sort of point of equilibrium.  What is interesting is that this point of equilibrium appears to be dependent at least in part on the way the society is organized.  For example, the wealth gap is not nearly so extreme in other developed countries, especially those which would be considered socialist.

A wealth gap is good in that it provides some incentive to work hard to advance oneself, but at what point does it become destructive?  Is there an optimal wealth distribution that maximizes social welfare?  If so, does it justify a certain amount of forced redistribution of wealth for the betterment of all?

Do the needs of the many, in fact, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one?  There are those who believe this to be true as there are systems at work in the world today, sometimes (mistakenly) called, "capitalism," which cause the forced redistribution of wealth away from the poor and middle class (many) and into the hands of the rich (few)?

Finally, will anyone change their politics as a result of reading this or anything else in this entire thread?

just read my sig and look up what aesop knew 2800 years ago.

Social contract is bunk.

If your neighbors drew up a document, without your input, stating that everyone in the neighborhood had to pay 1000 dollars every month or be evicted by force, would you consider that contract valid?

No. A contract is a voluntary meeting of minds, and no contract may be unilaterally ratified, nor applied to a third party.

I have considered that, but frankly, am on the Hobbesian side of that issue.  Mostly.  We may end up in an improved world where Hobbes is wrong, but frankly, we're not there yet.

last NFL player to chapter 7 said "no one told me that I wouldn't get paid this much every week, how was I to know it was only on game weeks and that I had to pay taxes?"

You should see the handle of my screwdriver.  

But seriously, Unions, mutual aid groups, charities, etc. would all have a place, even in an AnCap society. Not everyone realizes that.

http://mises.org/document/2716

Not sure about those percentages, but it sure seems to happen a lot.  I think they were disserved by the universities they attended.  There should really be some effort put into teaching basic economics to athletes who are likely to need to manage money at some point, but aren't exactly geniuses.  You don't have to be brilliant to manage your money, just careful, and that can be taught.

The NBA is a pretty sound case study in that.   The ones that came from middle/upper class hold their money, the other 85% declare bankruptcy within 5 years of ending play.

I get irritated about people arguing about socialism versus capitalism, as if there were two warring camps, one insisting a hammer is the only tool that can be used for anything, and another camp insisting that only a screwdriver should ever be used for any task.  

There are some tasks, like national defense, that pretty much everyone will agree should be handled by the state, because no one person or entity can provide military services effectively.  There are others, like designing products for sale, where capitalism is obviously the solution.  As a perfect example, look at the shitty cars the Soviet bloc countries created when they were basically in charge of producing them.  You had utter shit like the Trabant, people waited on a list for years to pay too much to buy one, and then it immediately started falling apart.  The government does an absolute shit job at generating consumer products.

The most prosperous countries in the world, often in Scandinavia, have a pragmatic position of using capitalism to do stuff where capitalism works, and socialism for things where socialism works.  America sets the balance further toward capitalism, but we still have some socialist policies, even though people are afraid to call them that when they're popular.  

I tend to think the Scandinavian countries set the balance about right, but the USA, as one example, is never going to go that direction.  We are more likely to go in the direction of Switzerland, which has a somewhat similar federal system.

Americans, having been at a near-war state with the largest "socialist" experiment, the USSR, are naturally suspicious of anything that smacks of that system, since it catastrophically exploded and melted down.  While I am worried we might do the same thing, perhaps even by making the exact opposite mistake as the USSR, we haven't done so quite yet.  Our system, while not perfect, is certainly better than the USSR.

I don't agree with where exactly we set the balance between capitalist and socialist policies, but it's not completely insane.  Yet.

Anybody think it would stay even, if you distributed all the US wealth the way he showed?

Or would it shake right back out again to that curve?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

Sound advice.

cmon antibanker, take whatever you got up your *ss out of there and stop whining.

Margaret Thatcher taught a lesson on how to fuck up an empire on capitalist crap ideology.

Hitler would be proud of her!

 

you find those jews a lot on youtube - however - for the whole world to see

Why do i fear people with guns telling me what to do? because chances are they are going to tell me to do things that are different from what i would have chosen to do myself, otherwise they wouldn't have needed the guns now would they.

Do you feel that pure capitalism is scary? the bitcoin community is probably the closest example of pure capitalism that we can point to in the modern world. What is so scary about the bitcoin community?

I don't deny that they do. But none of the Jews I know share their opinions.

I tell you those jews exist.

all jewish liars will deny that though.