Posted on 11/22/2008 7:31:23 PM PST by FocusNexus
It seems many people are afraid of socialism. But following the outcome of the election, I've found many are ill-informed about what socialism is, so I'd like to clear things up and show people there is nothing to fear.
Socialism is a social organization in which the government owns and operates the means of production.
Its opposite is capitalism, where private companies and individuals control the economy.
Socialism contends that capitalist societies unjustly concentrate wealth and power within a small group; thus, socialism is an attempt to create a more equal society to live in.
That's the technical definition. For the United States it would mean the government controlling more institutions than it does now. America is one of the least socialist of the developed nations, but expanding the government's influence in society may prove helpful.
President-elect Barack Obama will not make America completely socialist, and it is important to remember the socialist institutions we already have, such as police, fire departments and public education. These are some of our most needed and treasured institutions.
The biggest socialist institution America needs is universal healthcare. We are the only industrialized nation not to guarantee healthcare to its citizens.
(Excerpt) Read more at uecrescent.org ...
Academics are clueless.
In the history of this nation, we have come close to social medicine every 20 or 30 years or so since the turn of the 20th century. To simplify in the extreme, each time, it was ultimately rejected by PHYSICIANS who did not want to be “government employees”.
This is to say nothing of nearly everyone else, who didn’t want to be treated by government employees.
Nationalizing healthcare would restructure the nation in a profound way. It would eventually wipe out the US edge in healthcare technology.
It is ironic that most of the mess which is healthcare was ultimately created by the 50% which is currently fully paid for by the US government, and the ease with with just about everyone in the provider community routinely twists every drop from slow to change government payment systems.
But then where are the Saudis going to go for their healthcare?
Saudi royals’ Mayo Clinic trip buoys local economy
Members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family spent enough during a visit to the Mayo Clinic to give the area’s economy a shot in the arm, according to Rochester, Minnesota, officials.
Rochester officials say Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz arrived on November 15 for a checkup at the Mayo Clinic and was accompanied by at least five princes and hundreds of others.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/22/saudis.mayo.clinic.ap/index.html
Once upon a time, in America communism was a bad thing and had to be stopped at all costs.
Guess it just took a half a century to have it installed.
These programs are fiscally unsustainable, especially now that we are bailing out Wall Street, Detroit, etc. There aren't enough dollars in China to borrow to pay for all of this stuff.
Wealth is concentrated in the hands of people who work for it and succeed and who pass it also on to their children. Socialism steals it and gives it to deadbeats. Socialism is legalized mugging
The biggest socialist institution America needs is universal health care. We are the only industrialized nation not to guarantee health care to its citizens.
It is illegal to deny anyone health care and services, even illegals, we already do this. Not everyone has health insurance which is not the same thing. Transportation is not the same thing as auto insurance.
The article is a pile of deceits and falsehoods
I can see she’s taken lots, and lots of econ classes....
Fire departments and police forces are not “socialist.” Merely being provided by the government does not make a particular good or service a “socialist” enterprise. Law enforcement, fire fighting, light houses, basic education, these things are “natural monopolies” and/or public goods, which she would know if she bothered studying economics at all. No free market economist, from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman has ever suggested that the government the government not be involved in these things, though there is always disagreement over the extent to which the government should be involved.
Should it teach reading, writing, and basic math? Yes. Should it teach shop and dance? I, for one, say no. Vocational training is a private good and thus best provided by the market.
Her entire argument begins with this flawed reasoning, and then rests the rest of its argument on two precepts: that everyone else is doing it, and health care costs so dang much.
Firstly, it doesn’t matter whether everyone else is doing it. That is neither an argument for or against our nation doing it. It is merely a fact, with no intrinsic destination.
Second, health care *is* very expensive, but oddly enough I never hear left-wingers take a single step towards actually making health care provider costs lower. Rather, they want this cost shifted to the tax-payers, which of course means a minority will be subsidizing the health care costs of the majority.
This is a typical, blind look at American health care, which is half-socialized already. There are various programs providing various levels of tax-payer-subsidized care at the federal, state, county, and city levels all across this country. It’s not just medicare and medicaid. The primary effect these programs have on non-subsidized private individuals using either insurance or paying out of pocket is that prices FOR THEM will rise, because the lower prices the government pays squeeze out the profits of the “non-profit” and for-profit providers. This effect happens in any industry in which the government is a major customer.
That’s to say nothing of HEAVY regulations, arcane licensing restrictions (which differ from state to state), or the negative sides of socialized care (rationing, waiting lists, drastically lower quality, lack of choice, etc.).
The most fundamental parts of universal health care are price controls and increasing demand. The whole point of universal health care is to increase demand. Part of the population that sees the cost of health care will now see it as a free good. With the coming amnesty and open southern borders, the demand for health will soar. To control costs, governments impose price controls. Every country with universal health care uses price controls especially on drugs. Medicare and Medicaid are semi versions of universal health care. Both have price controls and large subsidies from other parts of the medical system.
Higher taxes and reduced quality will be results of universal health care. The rats will raise taxes especially on moderate size companies. In a few years, we will have shortages of health care similar to other countries. Wait times for treatments and diagnostic services will increase substantially.
I hope that I have enough money to seek health care in other countries. Many US doctors may relocate if they are forced to operate with price controls. I suspect that strikes will become common for health care providers as they battle with government controls.
The VA healthcare system in the U.S. is socialized medicine. If anyone is happy with the conditions, quality of care, bureaucratic red tape and availability of drugs under the system that is what we'll get nationwide or worse.
I know vets who refuse to use the system. I've worked there. I wouldn't either.
If this is true, please let us get a plan like France and not like England! That would be even worse!
Health care isn’t a right!!!
“Should it teach reading, writing, and basic math? Yes.”
Yes, because it gives great business to Hooked on Phonics and Kumon Centers.
socialism = death of the economy
“socialism is an attempt to create a more equal society to live in.”
With some pigs more equal than others of course.
What they teach in the schools today is nothing but half truths, lies, and socialist propaganda and should be closed!
As far as Medicare, I don’t like it either but when it’s all that is available after your private insurance is canceled the day you turn 65 it’s all that’s available.
We need to return to what we had when I was younger, there wasn’t such a thing as insurance and you paid for what you received, it was cheap and good care.
When the unions started negotiating their health and welfare fringe benefits is what started this country to the road to hell.
Actually, my preferred education system is a drastically stripped-down version from what we have now. It will be based around “citizenship education,” teaching people things that not only they need to know, but also (this is the important part) things that OTHER people will need them to know. For example, people need to read and write because it is a necessary skill. If you are illiterate, you impose a cost on others. Same with math. It’s like light houses, the classic textbook example of a public good. It would be impossible to make everybody who benefits from it actually pay for it, so the government does it.
Not so with vocation training. When you get a job, only those who pay for the service or good you provide benefit (or can allocate it to others personally, but the principle is the same).
My system would rely heavily on on standardized tests, the actual means of teaching would be irrelevent. Vouchers would be distributed so people can go to a private school, use a learn at home program, etc. Back to the range of topics that would be taught, obviously anything that is difficult to test for won’t be taught.
Math, literacy, basic American history, world geography, civics (how government works, laws are made, etc.), CPR, etc.
See Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom for a close approximation of my preferred system. Oh, and none of this would be compulsory.
As for secondary education.....well, the government would completely privatize all universities, community colleges, and accrediting boards. It also would *not* pay for anybody’s education, with the possible exception of service personnel. University education is a bloated dinosaur that needs to get rid of the bureaucracy, the “general studies” time-wasting courses, and focus on vocational training.
She's right. Socialist countries are much more equal. In Cuba, everyone is equally poor, except for those who are "more equal than others", and even the elite are far less wealthy than Americans at the top. In China, almost everyone outside government is poor. In Viet Nam, the same is true. In fact, socialism is the best nationwide guarantee of nearly universal poverty in history, and in places from Nazi Germany 68 years ago to North Korea today, socialism has moved people toward the equality (for everyone outside the military) that she wants.
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