I always enjoy Glenn and learn from him and his guests. Clifton did a great job with his input. That said, I am not as optimistic as Clifton and some who posted here that seem to think capitalism is the best solution. I do think something more like Scandanavian Socialism will likely need to be the solution once the AI revolution takes hold in maybe 10 to 20 years given the projected job losses even projected for the middle and professional classes. Our reliance on individualism may have run its course and we need to become more collective oriented. I live in Orlando, Florida where the average cost for a one-bedroom apartment rental is $1541 a month. I read this in our paper for example: "The latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are out. And once again, Central Florida ranks dead last among America’s largest metros when it comes to wages. We rank 50th out of 50 with median hourly wages of $17.59, meaning half the jobs pay less than $36,588 a year." All I can say is capitalism as we have it today is not cutting it for a lot of people. Many are angry. Many Millennial types are in a bad place in the capitalist game. I figure with AI job losses coming and then as climate change kicks in harder driving people to migrate out of survival needs things are liable to get much worse leading to violence that may be beyond what I saw in the 1960s. I certainly hope I am wrong about all that.
Thanks Thomas. I just call them as I see them. I take this newsletter https://www.readtangle.com/ among others as part of my efforts to learn every side of the story. I think if one does not know both sides of an argument then one has probably not done their research sufficiently. Also, I pay close attention to not be sucked into being tribal and make others wrong for coming to different conclusions than mine.
Which Scandinavian country is socialist? AFAIK, they all have pretty free markets and large social safety nets. Denmark has greater economic freedom than the US according to the Heritage Foundation's economic freedom index. https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
Idk if free markets would stop them from being "socialists", market socialism has existed for decades and it's more like what the Scandinavians have than free market capitalism. Honestly I'm not even sure antiquated 20th century cold war BS should be used anymore. We're all hybrid economies at this point.
Ironically I think most of the countries on that list ahead of the US would be derided as "socialism" by Conservatives and Libertarians here. Take for instance universal healthcare, a policy that conservatives have spent decades fear mongering over but many of those freer countries have some form of universal healthcare and a stronger regulatory state.
AFAICT, there's never been any economy based on any pure theory, so you're certainly right that they're all some kind of hybrid. What I take issue with is the idea that the US would be better if it worked more like a "socialist" Scandinavian country.
How are Denmark, Norway and Sweden more socialist than the US? AFAICT, they all have stronger property rights than the US. Perhaps we should become more like them because they're less socialist.
"How are Denmark, Norway and Sweden more socialist than the US"
So just to clarify, when I'm referring to these nations as socialist I'm definitely using the more watered down Democratic Socialist/Market socialist meaning.
The Scandinavian nations for instance, in most of them state owned enterprises account for a majority of the nation's GDP (It's something crazy like 86% in Norway).
They all have universal healthcare systems, paid for by taxes and run by local municipalities (The Netherlands run a hybrid model).
Each nation has considerably stronger regulatory apparatuses, Norway again, has higher taxes on high sugar products and strong regulations on advertisement, see the Big Gulp controversy, look at the literature on sugar as an accute toxin and tell me that was the hill for libertarians to die on. Although in defense of the Libs, I'm sure they'd agree we should stop subsidizing big corn.
Their work forces if I recall correctly, are much more unionized than we are, we're talking more than half of their labor forces being in trade unions.
I can go on to other nations like Japan, S.Korea, Germany, NZ and Australia etc. They are almost all more left economically, politically and socially (I think the Asian model is socially conservative).
This is why personally I subscribe to the SucDem model, ironically a restraint on negative freedom, especially for those with power, wealth and affluence can lead to an increase in positive liberty.
What is the SucDem model? Am not sure how state-owned enterprises work. If the State owns a factory, for instance, and pays it's worker, then the State taxes those workers aren't they just paying the State back? Multiple that by all state-owned enterprises, wouldn't it be easier just pay less, don't tax except non-state workers & non-state made good & services and just give them what they need (food, shelter, healthcare, etc). Then their actual pay could be spent on keeping small businesses (non-essentials) going. This is not sarcasm, I really don't understand it.
Just short for Social Democratic, I could've used Dem Soc but there some small discrepancies between the two although they a much more alike than different. The model is implemented in the Scandinavian countries, Canada, Portugal, New Zealand, Japan, S. Korea etc. Just about every wealthy nation that implements it has considerably better ratings on a range of metrics from education to health to life expectancy to crime and so on.
"Am not sure how state-owned enterprises work"
We have some here in the states but it's a bit confusing to be honest. You can think of it on a spectrum ranging from an organization like NPR (I'm not sure if NPR counts as one though) to the Tennesse Valley Authority to the United States Postal Service. But historically the US has generally decided to run with the private business model and state owned enterprises often have to compete with for profit business ventures.
"If the State owns a factory, for instance, and pays it's worker, then the State taxes those workers aren't they just paying the State back"
Haha this was something we used to complain about back in the Army. It never made sense that I was paying federal and NY State taxes even though I was station outside of NY. Yes I agree it's kind of dumb.
Ah, you got me on that one. I suppose at the time I wrote the above I was thinking like a person to the right of the spectrum would think of socialism. You know, all the socialism that exists here in the USA we hear about often in certain publications, TV stations and politicians. The socialism that will destroy the American way of life they want to preserve. Indeed, many capitalist countries in Europe and even in the USA today have at least some socialist aspects to their economic systems. I am just wanted to point out I think the movement to what many would consider the left seems likely to me given what is on our plate and is coming. I like the way this page parses the types of socialism and communism here. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democratic-socialist-countries Then you just might want to say "OK Boomer" and just move on 😉.
No they are not. The whole term "socialism" turns on one's definition of that term much like "racist" turns on one's definition of that term. The link to the article goes into how socialism depends on one's definition of the term very well I thought. The article says about Denmark in particular as follows: "Denmark is generally considered to be a Scandinavian country, and the Scandinavian countries – which also include Finland, Norway, and Sweden – are renowned for their socialist policies and overall high rates of happiness and well-being. That said, Denmark has a free-market economy with generous socialist elements, making it a blend of capitalist and socialist."
So, the article you linked to is internally inconsistent. It starts with "Democratic Socialism describes a socialist economy where production and wealth are collectively owned, but the country has a democratic system of government." Collective ownership of production and wealth is fundamentally incompatible with a free market economy.
What if we ignore the first sentence of the article and just look at the section about Denmark? If Denmark has a free-market economy with generous socialist elements, making it a blend of capitalist and socialist, isn't the same true of the United States? If Denmark encourages businesses to run solely on market principles rather than government policies, why is it categorized as a Democratic Socialist state while the US is not?
If you want me to acknowledge you are right and I am wrong I am fine with that since you may know a lot more about these things than I do. Additionally, I am not looking for an argument. The main thrust of my assertion in the beginning, which is only an opinion, is that the USA is liable to go more into socialist solutions than capitalist ones given the current situation and the future challenges. I certainly do not know why the authors of that article made the decisions/assertions they made in writing the article. If you want to argue their points then do contact them. I just liked how they parsed the terms socialism and communism.
I have so many questions. How many of these countries have diverse populations? How will they deal with the influx of refugees? Do those from unsuccessful socialist countries near their borders look to move there? What are their legal immigration requirements? How many require some type of work requirements for the safety net? How good is the healthcare and how restrictive? Here they talk of Medicare-for All, but unless you pay for Secondary or Supplemental insurance it is quite restrictive. CMMS basically "manages" most healthcare guidelines & most insurers follow them. Do these countries have a robust investment community & stock market? Does the wealthy investment class or wealthy hereditary class "pay their fair share" or shelter ass much as possible? Is crypto the new Swiss bank account? I ask these without sarcasm.
All good questions Nancy. I don't have the answers of course. As a retired person who is rich in time to spend as he pleases I looked up the diverse question and the answer ethnically is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/ but basically the USA is not very diverse ethnically. If you ask culturally it is here: https://www.londonschool.com/lsic/resources/blog/united-states-land-cultural-diversity/ and the answer culturally is the USA is very much diverse...a "melting pot" as we say. The migration question that I was thinking about is people moving from places where they could grow crops, raise animals, did not require air conditioning to live comfortably but now because they are so hot they can't live there any longer thus they will move just to survive. They will be desperate people. One of the reasons there was so much Syrian immigration was not just over the war. It was over the lack of water from drought and the heat. People had to move to survive. Of course, the war made things just worse. Immigrations requirements will not stop them if they are desperate. You likely know what happened in Europe so we can expect more of that scene as climate change becomes more compelling to survival in some parts of the world like Central America for example. As for work requirements to access (there will be no jobs to access by the way in the near future due to the AI and climate change) the safety net, well, if we in the USA want to live with many, many more people living in the streets than today we will have to give up the notion of work requirements. It probably won't be as bad as India with folks living in the streets but it will be much larger than I think many in the USA will feel good about having in the streets. We also will have to build a state-of-the-art "tech wall" of drones, listening devices, visual devices, robots, etc. on the southern border to hold back and/or capture those that are coming our way from the south. Then when we do capture them we will have to push them back to Mexico to squalor or take care of them in the USA. It all is just not going to be very pretty is my thinking. Enough. End the rant. I am sure you get the idea. I certainly hope I am very wrong in these matters and I am not an optimist in the matter.
Thanks for taking the time to do some research and respond so quickly. As noted much of the data in the first article is old. With the increased emphasis on identity and population increases over the last few decades, I wonder if the map would look different. Here in the US, I can't remember when the census started breaking down the race/ethnicity questions into more categories. I understand why people migrate, but my question was more from the other side. How are the people in these social democracies responding to the new immigrants & refugees? Are they impacting the "safety net" negatively/positively(getting jobs & paying taxes)/not at all? I have heard anecdotally that some of the European countries require some work and will find people jobs, but not sure how that works or if really does. Can't imagine would here. AI will impact some jobs, esp. non-skilled & semi-skilled, but I assume will create others. To some extent so will climate change along with different livable areas. (Still have Shellenberger's book to read.) My other question for those proponents of the "Scandinavian" model is if it's so great why don't you try living there? (can read with sarcasm)
Your welcome. Easy if one is retired. I have not read up on how people are responding to the migrations in Europe in depth. Just off the top of my head from my reading not too well in most countries to awful in a couple like Poland and especially Hungary. Germany has been the best at accepting them since they realize they need them. That said Germany has had an alarming increase in hard-right parties being supported by the voters. Here is a good article on the issue https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-09-23/countries-less-accepting-of-migrants-study-finds I do think that the nature of human beings who are so tribal that the knee-jerk reaction is to reject people not "like me" and these migrants won't be "like me". The whole AI impact is well fleshed out with numbers here: https://techjury.net/blog/jobs-lost-to-automation-statistics/#gref From my reading I think they are a bit optimistic that it won't impact professionals much. AI already reads X-rays and MRIs better than a human radiologist MD. Attorneys are being replaced by AI as well and have been for 5 or 10 years by AI. My B.A. degreed computer scientist nephew who made well into the six figures in a job says he is already retraining in more specialized areas since he can see AI will be writing the code that he is writing these days very soon. Additionally, per the article, while there will be new jobs created from AI they will be for educated people who can re-train into them. As for the piece read with sarcasm on why don't you try living there. In my reading, the younger crowd are very much predisposed to like socialism see here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/268766/socialism-popular-capitalism-among-young-adults.aspx I doubt these numbers have gone anywhere but up since the pandemic. Thus in the long run as the older generations exit the scene the long-term trend favors socialist approaches over capitalistic ones it seems. I of course don't have a dog in the hunt as I won't be here for the situation unless reincarnation is what is next. I just figure it is not going to be pretty. You might want to look at this article: Social physics: Are we at a tipping point in world history?
I always enjoy Glenn and learn from him and his guests. Clifton did a great job with his input. That said, I am not as optimistic as Clifton and some who posted here that seem to think capitalism is the best solution. I do think something more like Scandanavian Socialism will likely need to be the solution once the AI revolution takes hold in maybe 10 to 20 years given the projected job losses even projected for the middle and professional classes. Our reliance on individualism may have run its course and we need to become more collective oriented. I live in Orlando, Florida where the average cost for a one-bedroom apartment rental is $1541 a month. I read this in our paper for example: "The latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are out. And once again, Central Florida ranks dead last among America’s largest metros when it comes to wages. We rank 50th out of 50 with median hourly wages of $17.59, meaning half the jobs pay less than $36,588 a year." All I can say is capitalism as we have it today is not cutting it for a lot of people. Many are angry. Many Millennial types are in a bad place in the capitalist game. I figure with AI job losses coming and then as climate change kicks in harder driving people to migrate out of survival needs things are liable to get much worse leading to violence that may be beyond what I saw in the 1960s. I certainly hope I am wrong about all that.
Happy to see your takes on here. It's good to get some push back.
Thanks Thomas. I just call them as I see them. I take this newsletter https://www.readtangle.com/ among others as part of my efforts to learn every side of the story. I think if one does not know both sides of an argument then one has probably not done their research sufficiently. Also, I pay close attention to not be sucked into being tribal and make others wrong for coming to different conclusions than mine.
Which Scandinavian country is socialist? AFAIK, they all have pretty free markets and large social safety nets. Denmark has greater economic freedom than the US according to the Heritage Foundation's economic freedom index. https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
Idk if free markets would stop them from being "socialists", market socialism has existed for decades and it's more like what the Scandinavians have than free market capitalism. Honestly I'm not even sure antiquated 20th century cold war BS should be used anymore. We're all hybrid economies at this point.
Ironically I think most of the countries on that list ahead of the US would be derided as "socialism" by Conservatives and Libertarians here. Take for instance universal healthcare, a policy that conservatives have spent decades fear mongering over but many of those freer countries have some form of universal healthcare and a stronger regulatory state.
AFAICT, there's never been any economy based on any pure theory, so you're certainly right that they're all some kind of hybrid. What I take issue with is the idea that the US would be better if it worked more like a "socialist" Scandinavian country.
How are Denmark, Norway and Sweden more socialist than the US? AFAICT, they all have stronger property rights than the US. Perhaps we should become more like them because they're less socialist.
"How are Denmark, Norway and Sweden more socialist than the US"
So just to clarify, when I'm referring to these nations as socialist I'm definitely using the more watered down Democratic Socialist/Market socialist meaning.
The Scandinavian nations for instance, in most of them state owned enterprises account for a majority of the nation's GDP (It's something crazy like 86% in Norway).
They all have universal healthcare systems, paid for by taxes and run by local municipalities (The Netherlands run a hybrid model).
Each nation has considerably stronger regulatory apparatuses, Norway again, has higher taxes on high sugar products and strong regulations on advertisement, see the Big Gulp controversy, look at the literature on sugar as an accute toxin and tell me that was the hill for libertarians to die on. Although in defense of the Libs, I'm sure they'd agree we should stop subsidizing big corn.
Their work forces if I recall correctly, are much more unionized than we are, we're talking more than half of their labor forces being in trade unions.
I can go on to other nations like Japan, S.Korea, Germany, NZ and Australia etc. They are almost all more left economically, politically and socially (I think the Asian model is socially conservative).
This is why personally I subscribe to the SucDem model, ironically a restraint on negative freedom, especially for those with power, wealth and affluence can lead to an increase in positive liberty.
What is the SucDem model? Am not sure how state-owned enterprises work. If the State owns a factory, for instance, and pays it's worker, then the State taxes those workers aren't they just paying the State back? Multiple that by all state-owned enterprises, wouldn't it be easier just pay less, don't tax except non-state workers & non-state made good & services and just give them what they need (food, shelter, healthcare, etc). Then their actual pay could be spent on keeping small businesses (non-essentials) going. This is not sarcasm, I really don't understand it.
"What is the SucDem model"
Just short for Social Democratic, I could've used Dem Soc but there some small discrepancies between the two although they a much more alike than different. The model is implemented in the Scandinavian countries, Canada, Portugal, New Zealand, Japan, S. Korea etc. Just about every wealthy nation that implements it has considerably better ratings on a range of metrics from education to health to life expectancy to crime and so on.
"Am not sure how state-owned enterprises work"
We have some here in the states but it's a bit confusing to be honest. You can think of it on a spectrum ranging from an organization like NPR (I'm not sure if NPR counts as one though) to the Tennesse Valley Authority to the United States Postal Service. But historically the US has generally decided to run with the private business model and state owned enterprises often have to compete with for profit business ventures.
"If the State owns a factory, for instance, and pays it's worker, then the State taxes those workers aren't they just paying the State back"
Haha this was something we used to complain about back in the Army. It never made sense that I was paying federal and NY State taxes even though I was station outside of NY. Yes I agree it's kind of dumb.
Ah, you got me on that one. I suppose at the time I wrote the above I was thinking like a person to the right of the spectrum would think of socialism. You know, all the socialism that exists here in the USA we hear about often in certain publications, TV stations and politicians. The socialism that will destroy the American way of life they want to preserve. Indeed, many capitalist countries in Europe and even in the USA today have at least some socialist aspects to their economic systems. I am just wanted to point out I think the movement to what many would consider the left seems likely to me given what is on our plate and is coming. I like the way this page parses the types of socialism and communism here. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democratic-socialist-countries Then you just might want to say "OK Boomer" and just move on 😉.
Are production and wealth collectively owned in Denmark?
No they are not. The whole term "socialism" turns on one's definition of that term much like "racist" turns on one's definition of that term. The link to the article goes into how socialism depends on one's definition of the term very well I thought. The article says about Denmark in particular as follows: "Denmark is generally considered to be a Scandinavian country, and the Scandinavian countries – which also include Finland, Norway, and Sweden – are renowned for their socialist policies and overall high rates of happiness and well-being. That said, Denmark has a free-market economy with generous socialist elements, making it a blend of capitalist and socialist."
So, the article you linked to is internally inconsistent. It starts with "Democratic Socialism describes a socialist economy where production and wealth are collectively owned, but the country has a democratic system of government." Collective ownership of production and wealth is fundamentally incompatible with a free market economy.
What if we ignore the first sentence of the article and just look at the section about Denmark? If Denmark has a free-market economy with generous socialist elements, making it a blend of capitalist and socialist, isn't the same true of the United States? If Denmark encourages businesses to run solely on market principles rather than government policies, why is it categorized as a Democratic Socialist state while the US is not?
If you want me to acknowledge you are right and I am wrong I am fine with that since you may know a lot more about these things than I do. Additionally, I am not looking for an argument. The main thrust of my assertion in the beginning, which is only an opinion, is that the USA is liable to go more into socialist solutions than capitalist ones given the current situation and the future challenges. I certainly do not know why the authors of that article made the decisions/assertions they made in writing the article. If you want to argue their points then do contact them. I just liked how they parsed the terms socialism and communism.
I have so many questions. How many of these countries have diverse populations? How will they deal with the influx of refugees? Do those from unsuccessful socialist countries near their borders look to move there? What are their legal immigration requirements? How many require some type of work requirements for the safety net? How good is the healthcare and how restrictive? Here they talk of Medicare-for All, but unless you pay for Secondary or Supplemental insurance it is quite restrictive. CMMS basically "manages" most healthcare guidelines & most insurers follow them. Do these countries have a robust investment community & stock market? Does the wealthy investment class or wealthy hereditary class "pay their fair share" or shelter ass much as possible? Is crypto the new Swiss bank account? I ask these without sarcasm.
All good questions Nancy. I don't have the answers of course. As a retired person who is rich in time to spend as he pleases I looked up the diverse question and the answer ethnically is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/ but basically the USA is not very diverse ethnically. If you ask culturally it is here: https://www.londonschool.com/lsic/resources/blog/united-states-land-cultural-diversity/ and the answer culturally is the USA is very much diverse...a "melting pot" as we say. The migration question that I was thinking about is people moving from places where they could grow crops, raise animals, did not require air conditioning to live comfortably but now because they are so hot they can't live there any longer thus they will move just to survive. They will be desperate people. One of the reasons there was so much Syrian immigration was not just over the war. It was over the lack of water from drought and the heat. People had to move to survive. Of course, the war made things just worse. Immigrations requirements will not stop them if they are desperate. You likely know what happened in Europe so we can expect more of that scene as climate change becomes more compelling to survival in some parts of the world like Central America for example. As for work requirements to access (there will be no jobs to access by the way in the near future due to the AI and climate change) the safety net, well, if we in the USA want to live with many, many more people living in the streets than today we will have to give up the notion of work requirements. It probably won't be as bad as India with folks living in the streets but it will be much larger than I think many in the USA will feel good about having in the streets. We also will have to build a state-of-the-art "tech wall" of drones, listening devices, visual devices, robots, etc. on the southern border to hold back and/or capture those that are coming our way from the south. Then when we do capture them we will have to push them back to Mexico to squalor or take care of them in the USA. It all is just not going to be very pretty is my thinking. Enough. End the rant. I am sure you get the idea. I certainly hope I am very wrong in these matters and I am not an optimist in the matter.
Thanks for taking the time to do some research and respond so quickly. As noted much of the data in the first article is old. With the increased emphasis on identity and population increases over the last few decades, I wonder if the map would look different. Here in the US, I can't remember when the census started breaking down the race/ethnicity questions into more categories. I understand why people migrate, but my question was more from the other side. How are the people in these social democracies responding to the new immigrants & refugees? Are they impacting the "safety net" negatively/positively(getting jobs & paying taxes)/not at all? I have heard anecdotally that some of the European countries require some work and will find people jobs, but not sure how that works or if really does. Can't imagine would here. AI will impact some jobs, esp. non-skilled & semi-skilled, but I assume will create others. To some extent so will climate change along with different livable areas. (Still have Shellenberger's book to read.) My other question for those proponents of the "Scandinavian" model is if it's so great why don't you try living there? (can read with sarcasm)
Your welcome. Easy if one is retired. I have not read up on how people are responding to the migrations in Europe in depth. Just off the top of my head from my reading not too well in most countries to awful in a couple like Poland and especially Hungary. Germany has been the best at accepting them since they realize they need them. That said Germany has had an alarming increase in hard-right parties being supported by the voters. Here is a good article on the issue https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-09-23/countries-less-accepting-of-migrants-study-finds I do think that the nature of human beings who are so tribal that the knee-jerk reaction is to reject people not "like me" and these migrants won't be "like me". The whole AI impact is well fleshed out with numbers here: https://techjury.net/blog/jobs-lost-to-automation-statistics/#gref From my reading I think they are a bit optimistic that it won't impact professionals much. AI already reads X-rays and MRIs better than a human radiologist MD. Attorneys are being replaced by AI as well and have been for 5 or 10 years by AI. My B.A. degreed computer scientist nephew who made well into the six figures in a job says he is already retraining in more specialized areas since he can see AI will be writing the code that he is writing these days very soon. Additionally, per the article, while there will be new jobs created from AI they will be for educated people who can re-train into them. As for the piece read with sarcasm on why don't you try living there. In my reading, the younger crowd are very much predisposed to like socialism see here: https://news.gallup.com/poll/268766/socialism-popular-capitalism-among-young-adults.aspx I doubt these numbers have gone anywhere but up since the pandemic. Thus in the long run as the older generations exit the scene the long-term trend favors socialist approaches over capitalistic ones it seems. I of course don't have a dog in the hunt as I won't be here for the situation unless reincarnation is what is next. I just figure it is not going to be pretty. You might want to look at this article: Social physics: Are we at a tipping point in world history?
https://bigthink.com/13-8/tipping-point-history-social-physics?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weeklynewsletter Alright, I will give it a rest. Likely you need to work or something and I do not.