Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 48 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: I was unaware that most of Europe has dictatorial governments... How did you overlook the mighty fist of France? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoannaL Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: I was unaware that most of Europe has dictatorial governments... That is exactly my point. We do not have dictatorial goverments, which means they are not socialist. most european nations are lead by social democrats and are quite normal western democracies like yours - but they have a good health care system. Were they socialist like the old east German government, then they would be dictatorial. One of the only socialist country left today is Venezoela , which was my first example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingintheNorth4 Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rippounet Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 2 minutes ago, JoannaL said: That is exactly my point. We do not have dictatorial goverments, which means they are not socialist. That's some a-grade argumentation. 2 minutes ago, JoannaL said: most european nations are lead by social democrats and are quite normal western democracies like yours - but they have a good health care system. And how would you call the ideology behind those "good health care systems" ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jace, Extat Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 When is Easter? It's in April right? "But all for one day, the Scyths never saw the month of May." Right? I've been wrong before. And awake for almost 40 hours, but I don't think I've gone completely crazy yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoannaL Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 3 minutes ago, Rippounet said: That's some a-grade argumentation. And how would you call the ideology behind those "good health care systems" ? In Germany it is called "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" - social market economy, and it was invented and implemented by the conservativ party Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 Italy's reported new cases starting to drop again and Germany's after two weeks of lockdown are tapering off as well, so it seems, hopefully, that the lockdowns work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 As far as I can tell democracy also always leads to dictatorship. Eventually. the surrealism here is that 'dictator' is at its origin a democratic office--the roman senate and popular assembly voted it into effect. the usage that we are mocking here is like other rightwing misuses of classical concepts--such as 'tyranny' being applied to any socialistic policy. marx himself fucked up by referring to 'despotic inroads on the right to property'--another metaphorical use of a classical concept whose actual life had been extinguished long ago when the moment of its applicability was overcome by events. we might imagine a situation wherein a democratic socialism has a constitutionally enacted dictator stricto sensu. doubtful that this impugns the democratic socialist credentials of the state that feels the need for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rippounet Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 1 minute ago, JoannaL said: In Germany it is called "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" - social market economy, and it was invented and implemented by the conservativ party That's funny because I just finished re-reading a -brief- history of economics and funnily enough Bismarck's inspiration for the German welfare state was said to be a very specific ideology. I think it starts with an s- ... If only there was a very common word in English to describe such policies... One that most reasonable people agree on... Surely that would be too easy... But I think if we want to continue the OT we can always resurrect @Ser Scot A Ellison 's thread on the "no true socialist-man fallacy." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoannaL Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 46 minutes ago, Rippounet said: That's funny because I just finished re-reading a -brief- history of economics and funnily enough Bismarck's inspiration for the German welfare state was said to be a very specific ideology. I think it starts with an s- ... If only there was a very common word in English to describe such policies... One that most reasonable people agree on... Surely that would be too easy... But I think if we want to continue the OT we can always resurrect @Ser Scot A Ellison 's thread on the "no true socialist-man fallacy." Yes this may be a problem of definition or wording (social/socialist) from wikipedia: Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use. Social Market economy: The social market economy (SOME; German: soziale Marktwirtschaft), also called Rhine capitalism or social capitalism,[1] is a socioeconomic model combining a free market capitalist economic system alongside social policies that establish both fair competition within the market and a welfare state Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impmk2 Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 23 minutes ago, Triskele said: I just heard a stat on a podcast regarding antibiotic production.... We have PhD student who is a pharmacist. He's telling us that antibiotic supply here has been severely disrupted and there's a big shortage. Not helped by people trying (in some cases abetted by their GP) to panic buy. ETA: Along with of course, antimalerials. Idiots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
felice Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 1 hour ago, JoannaL said: That is exactly my point. We do not have dictatorial goverments, which means they are not socialist. most european nations are lead by social democrats and are quite normal western democracies like yours - but they have a good health care system. There's no inherent link between dictatorship and socialism; you can have non-socialist dictatorships, and socialist states that are democratic. A government running the health system and the education system and the public infrastructure doesn't stop it being democratic, so why should putting more of the economy under government control do so? Multi-party democracy and personal freedoms are perfectly compatible with full public ownership of the means of production. A decent socialist system would handle a pandemic like this far, far better than capitalism; just shut down everything non-essential for as long as necessary, ensure that everyone continues to get the essentials for the duration, then start up again once the crisis is over. No bankruptcies or job losses or evictions or recession/depression. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impmk2 Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 19 minutes ago, JoannaL said: Yes this may be a problem of definition or wording (social/socialist) from wikipedia: Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use. Socialism (def): a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. I hate to tell you this but in most public western hospital systems the means of the production of healthcare, the distribution, and the exchange (provision) of healthcare is entirely owned and regulated by the government (aka the community). The German conservative party may have rebranded it to avoid the term. But it is by any definition a socialist healthcare system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoannaL Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 8 minutes ago, felice said: There's no inherent link between dictatorship and socialism; you can have non-socialist dictatorships, and socialist states that are democratic. A government running the health system and the education system and the public infrastructure doesn't stop it being democratic, so why should putting more of the economy under government control do so? Multi-party democracy and personal freedoms are perfectly compatible with full public ownership of the means of production. Please give me an example of a country with multi-party democracy and personal freedom and full public ownership of the means of production? As far as I know such a country does not exist. Whenever socialism was tried it ended in the loss of personal freedom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofice Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 10 minutes ago, felice said: A decent socialist system would handle a pandemic like this far, far better than capitalism; just shut down everything non-essential for as long as necessary, ensure that everyone continues to get the essentials for the duration, then start up again once the crisis is over. No bankruptcies or job losses or evictions or recession/depression. You know who'd do even better in a pandemic.. a dictator. Looking for someone to shut stuff down.. get your dictators in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 1 hour ago, JoannaL said: That is exactly my point. We do not have dictatorial goverments, which means they are not socialist. most european nations are lead by social democrats and are quite normal western democracies like yours - but they have a good health care system. Were they socialist like the old east German government, then they would be dictatorial. One of the only socialist country left today is Venezoela , which was my first example. You’re using the inverse “no true Scotsman” fallacy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mudguard Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 1 hour ago, Ran said: Interesting paper out of Harvard modelling different types of social distancing strategies (PDF link) which finds long periods of very high R>0 reduction (60% effectiveness) merely punts the peak down to later in the year unless you resume some level of social distancing at that time. Their model suggests reducing R>0 by 20-40% using more modest efforts (not full lock downs) leads to lower overall peaks. I'm guessing this is the Swedish thinking, and the thinking that other Nordics are starting to consider (Finland apparently already reversed some of their emergency declarations from the other day, Denmark is talking about easing up after Easter, Norway has partially re-opened its borders). It's interesting, but not that practical for the real world, unless you've decided to try to reach herd immunity levels of infection, which the paper sets at 50% of the population. All the scenarios that are discussed have the outcome of eventually reaching herd immunity levels of infection, some reaching 80% in a matter of months. I'm not sure about Sweden, but most countries are still trying to avoid having over 50% of the population get the disease. The paper describes two major approaches, a first approach that involves a single social distancing effort and a second approach that involves intermittent applications of social distancing. No country, I hope, would only apply a single social distancing effort and then call it a day and let the virus run rampant, so the first scenario is not practical. And it's clear that the paper wasn't recommending that anyone give the first approach a try. The second approach, or something like it, could happen in the real world, where countries relax social distancing measures after getting the numbers of active cases under control, and then re-implement them if the case numbers begin the rise again. It's likely all or many countries are likely to try something like this, along with containment measures (not modeled by the paper) such as mass surveillance, contact tracing and individual quarantine, which are possible when the numbers of cases is low. From the paper: Quote Our findings agree with observational and modelling studies (2,7) that find that early implementation of strong social distancing is essential for controlling the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and that, in the absence of the development of new therapies or preventative measures, such as aggressive case finding and quarantining (13), intermittent distancing measures may be the only way to avoid overwhelming critical care capacity while building population immunity. The observation that strong social distancing can lead to especially large resurgences agrees with data from the 1918 influenza pandemic in the United States (14), in which the size of the autumn 1918 peak of infection was inversely associated with that of a subsequent winter peak after interventions were no longer in place. To implement an effective intermittent social distancing strategy, it will be necessary to carry out widespread surveillance to monitor when the prevalence thresholds that trigger the beginning or end of distancing have been crossed. I'm not sure that I would consider Sweden's measures an example of strong social distancing. The intermittent social distancing approach also requires aggressive testing, which Sweden has not adopted to date, although I saw today that they wanted to increase the amount of testing that was being performed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoannaL Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 10 minutes ago, Impmk2 said: Socialism (def): a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. I hate to tell you this but in most public western hospital systems the means of the production of healthcare, the distribution, and the exchange (provision) of healthcare is entirely owned and regulated by the government (aka the community). The German conservative party may have rebranded it to avoid the term. But it is by any definition a socialist healthcare system. The system of our country is a capitalism based market economy, but in this market economy general infrastructure is provided to all. In some countries that means only that the goverment build streets and bridges and employs police and judges and so on. In others the definition of basic infrastructure is extended to include education and health care. this does not change the political or economic structure of the country which is not socialist Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davos Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 1 hour ago, JoannaL said: That is exactly my point. We do not have dictatorial goverments, which means they are not socialist. most european nations are lead by social democrats and are quite normal western democracies like yours - but they have a good health care system. Were they socialist like the old east German government, then they would be dictatorial. One of the only socialist country left today is Venezoela , which was my first example. Again, socialism and democracy are not opposites. they are not even on the same continuity. the opposite of socialism is capitalism. the opposite of democracy is authoritarianism or totalitarianism, to simplify things somewhat. you can have a capitalist dictatorship or a socialist democracy. in fact, we have had a number of both. to insist otherwise is to deny history, the modern world, and the dictionary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impmk2 Posted March 31, 2020 Share Posted March 31, 2020 15 minutes ago, Castellan said: are you really quoting wikipedia? how ignorant aye you? Nope, just took the dictionary definition. No wiki needed. Unless you meant the post I was rebutting by JoannaL? Where they quoted wiki? I suggest you read upthread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.