Choose Wisely

submitted by useless_aether from (imgoat.com)

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[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Fair breakdown. Communists are authoritarians, therefore bad.

Socialism can result in authoritarianism, depending on how it's implemented.

Same with capitalism.

The obvious good solution is a mixture of capitalism and socialism, like almost every country in the world does in practice. But the difficult part is where to draw the line.

I just think people want to emulate the more successful countries like Norway and The Netherlands. From where the US is, that would probably require more socialism. From where China is, that would probably require more capitalism.

[–]Alduin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Alright. You seem genuine enough. Let's find the truth of this.

The obvious good solution is a mixture of capitalism and socialism, like almost every country in the world does in practice.

If every country in the world does it, then it's not obvious that it's best then is it?

To decide if it's best, we have to compare economic statistics of countries with more and less socialism and roughly the same amount of capitalism, as well as vise versa (more capitalism, same socialism). Would you say that's true?

And, if it is not true, what other solution do you propose that would help us decide if it's best or not?

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The thing is, I don't think the solution is going to look like "70% socialism, 30% capitalism" or "50% socialism and 50% capitalism"

It's going to look like "Socialism obviously works well with roads and healthcare and the water and sewage lines, so let's do that for those. Capitalism obviously works best with food supply and consumer goods, so let's do that for those."

It's just about what functions are best served by a group pooling of funds to solve a problem faced by everyone, and what's best solved by a free competitive market that forces companies to be efficient to turn a profit.

Basically the decision between socialism and capitalism needs to be made on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than one all-encompassing political ideology.

[–]Alduin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It's going to look like "Socialism obviously works well with roads and healthcare and the water and sewage lines, so let's do that for those. Capitalism obviously works best with food supply and consumer goods, so let's do that for those."

So with the exception of healthcare, you think socialism, where the workers control the means of production, works best when production is permanent (infrastructure), and capitalism works best when production needs to be continuous (food). Is that correct?

Also, are there any other exceptions besides healthcare? Maybe schooling? Banking?

Here's what I would do. Decide what's best. For example with healthcare we can look at what people want. Availability (higher is better), quality of care (higher is better), and expense (lower is better). Then we can start comparing countries and decide which does it best. If we can do that, I expect maybe both of us will learn something.

[–]Alduin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

In doing some further research to define best for healthcare, I came across this from the World Health Organization, which is extremely dissappointing for defining quality of care. For example this:

People-centred. Providing care that takes into account the preferences and aspirations of individual service users and the culture of their community.

Really? That's on the same list as actual effectiveness? So if we had two communities - one where the people bathed in pig shit for good luck, and the healthcare tried to provide them the cleanest pig shit possible, that's the same quality of care as one where they tell people not to bathe in pig shit?

[–]wizzwizz4 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

So if we had two communities - one where the people bathed in pig shit for good luck, and the healthcare tried to provide them the cleanest pig shit possible, that's the same quality of care as one where they tell people not to bathe in pig shit?

Yes. Many studies have shown this. Pigs are actually pretty clean animals, and their poo isn't that disgusting (you should've chosen "dog") and if you get rid of the parasites there's nothing wrong with it from a health point of view – and the psychological benefits of this are very high.

If you consider the polar opposite (healthcare that isn't people-centred) it's not disappointing at all. It's actually a pretty good definition.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree an issue-by-issue comparative analysis of all countries, taken seriously, would yield a lot better system than the way it's done currently.