Originally posted by King Kandy
I think socialism is the based based on the proven results of European socialism (and Scandinavia in particular) to have higher standards of living than the US approach.
Don't mistake my response as antagonistic.
1. That's not just socialism that they are "practicing".
2. Higher standards of living are not a DMOQ of the wealth of a nation. Rather, it is an indirect measure of market availability.
3. You're probably looking for Gross Domestic Product, purchasing power, or measure of happiness. Yes, they do happiness studies each year. I think the Dutch are the happiest or the second most happy, and it is more cultural than monetary. Go figure. Money doesn't make most people happy.
I'm not using standard of living as a measure of a country's wealth, i'm using it as a goal in and of itself. I don't care about the relative wealth of countries, if a country isn't using it's wealth to improve the lives of it's people then that money isn't doing anything worthwhile. The money in Sweden goes into providing a vast number of highly useful services.
I see your point about the happiness studies but again i'm not trying to put forth the wealth of countries as a virtue... if the wealth of a country isn't going directly into the standard of living then the money doesn't matter for the purpose of this discussion. The US has a huge GDP but instead of providing services it goes into the hands of private owners.
Originally posted by King Kandy
I'm not using standard of living as a measure of a country's wealth, i'm using it as a goal in and of itself. I don't care about the relative wealth of countries, if a country isn't using it's wealth to improve the lives of it's people then that money isn't doing anything worthwhile. The money in Sweden goes into providing a vast number of highly useful services.
Still, Standard of Living is not a measure of success, rather, it is a measure of availability of goods, capital, and services. (The lower the availability of those items, the higher the standard of living is going to be. There are many other factors, as well. So it is really not even in the ballpark of being useful in assessing how "good" a nation is at managing themselves. In fact, it could indicate the opposite.)
Originally posted by King Kandy
I see your point about the happiness studies but again i'm not trying to put forth the wealth of countries as a virtue... if the wealth of a country isn't going directly into the standard of living then the money doesn't matter for the purpose of this discussion. The US has a huge GDP but instead of providing services it goes into the hands of private owners.
I agree somewhat.
Originally posted by King Kandy
Whatever. The point is that the system is better. Regardless of names it is the best system.
I would agree the the Swedes have probably are doing best all around than all other industrialized countries when it comes to government...but they are not the best in most categories, imo.
They are up there in every single category, but not the best, which earns them the best all around government, imo.
However, they can still use loads of improvement.
nice thread. even people in america who consider themselves ENLIGHTENED fall prey to many of the cultural indoctrination. there is also a great trend to call things conspiracies, which the wrest of the world more or less consider part of valid discourse.
i suppose america is a predominantly stupid country with large pockects of smart people, but little jusification for the stupidity, being part of the first world n all.
Originally posted by leonheartmm
nice thread. even people in america who consider themselves ENLIGHTENED fall prey to many of the cultural indoctrination. there is also a great trend to call things conspiracies, which the wrest of the world more or less consider part of valid discourse.i suppose america is a predominantly stupid country with large pockects of smart people, but little jusification for the stupidity, being part of the first world n all.
America is a zeroth world nation, one step better than the first world.
Originally posted by FE Expert
Surely New England (in which I include the state of New York) folks don't have the same perceptions as South or Southwest people.