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 use "socialism" to mean what the article you linked to says in its first sentence: production and wealth are collectively owned. I'm still trying to understand what you mean by "socialism," since that doesn't describe Scandinavian countries AFAICT.
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?
Again thanx for all your time. I haven't had time to read the articles and probably won't til tomorrow or Thursday. Didn't want you to think I was ignoring you.
Awwww kind of you to be thinking of me. I am fine. It is fun for me to investigate these things for my own education. Just the joy of learning for the sake of learning. I have a bit of the academic in me. Then if others benefit from my efforts when I post the info so much the better. If you don't have an interest then, no worries, you can just move on and I won't be offended. I did not have time for this type of research and posting when I was working etc. either.
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 use "socialism" to mean what the article you linked to says in its first sentence: production and wealth are collectively owned. I'm still trying to understand what you mean by "socialism," since that doesn't describe Scandinavian countries AFAICT.
Good Bye Jonathan.
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.
Again thanx for all your time. I haven't had time to read the articles and probably won't til tomorrow or Thursday. Didn't want you to think I was ignoring you.
Awwww kind of you to be thinking of me. I am fine. It is fun for me to investigate these things for my own education. Just the joy of learning for the sake of learning. I have a bit of the academic in me. Then if others benefit from my efforts when I post the info so much the better. If you don't have an interest then, no worries, you can just move on and I won't be offended. I did not have time for this type of research and posting when I was working etc. either.