They seem to be doing fine in Northern Europe. We can disagree over what we mean by socialism, or what people think when they're talking about socialism, but what Democrats mean when they're talking about it is what they're doing in Sweden. What Republicans and Mark Levin want people to think Democrats mean by it is Joseph Stalin. And…
They seem to be doing fine in Northern Europe. We can disagree over what we mean by socialism, or what people think when they're talking about socialism, but what Democrats mean when they're talking about it is what they're doing in Sweden. What Republicans and Mark Levin want people to think Democrats mean by it is Joseph Stalin. And I should add, Democrats, with few exceptions (like one guy who isn't actually a Democrat), don't even talk about it or use the word, because of inevitable bad faith attacks from the opposition.
Greetings from Sweden! It is hard to know where to begin: Swedish "dangerous" socialism means that every parent who want to work, has access to affordable childcare, kids have access to schools that can give them entrance to a higher education, higher education is available to all that wants it and have proven they have the grades to go on to university (i.e access is not based on parents' wealth), healthcare is affordable (paid approx. 150 $ for 4 hour operation of broken ankle and one year of physiotherapy), elderly parents pay almost nothing for health care and medicine. Yes, we have many problems too, our welfare state is eroding, but on the whole we live with a sense of security and opportunity for all. We favour altruism and that benefits all.
I think I spent something like $3000+ dollars, and that was because I maxed out of pocket costs, for surgery and like two months of PT for my broken ankle. SO depressing.
A big problem here, and I'm sure that you noticed, is that what you have in Sweden at some point required a "buy in" by the citizens and trust in your government to uphold the system. Here we have half the population who are so bound by their habitual thinking and emotional/cognitive obscurations that they are bound to consistently vote against their best interests.
Yes, true. Like the habitual thinking (which is truly mind-boggling to a Swede), that in 2023, the right to carry arms is more important to defend than the right to affordable healthcare.
The reason we don't have the Swedes' kind of public "buy-in" is that a significant percentage of our citizens have been convinced by RW racist propaganda that they don't want their hard-earned money being taxed to benefit people who are not like themselves, even if that means voting against their own interests. I wonder if Sweden would have as much buy-in if their population was as diverse.
"People who are not like themselves..." - you can just say Black and brown people and non-Christians. Let's just be honest that it is the right-wing racism and Christian-nationalism.
I was going to make this point explicitly. As long as it is perceived that these programs will benefit "them", people will cut their own noses off to prevent one of them from getting something they didn't explicitly earn
That's it exactly. That's why we can't have nice things. That's why we have many people who can't afford medical care, some of whom die prematurely as if they lived in the middle ages. That's why we have high infant mortality and maternal mortality, a large uneducated population condemned to poor wages, a lot of poor children, and on and on. We even have a political party that was on covid's side in a pandemic!
The biggest struggle in America is that there's a strain of hyper-individualism that causes reflexive hostility to anything that might benefit the whole, because Americans overwhelmingly do not view themselves as part of a greater whole.
Sometimes this creates moments of great unity, such as after Pearl Harbor or 9/11, when Americans suddenly feel great panic about their own security. But that's a reflexive response; usually, Americans prefer to view themselves as being entirely in control of themselves and dependent on no one, even if that's not the case.
Whether we agree or not, Americans imagine themselves as a nation of independent small business owners and pioneers, not as employees and serfs. We reflexively distrust the government for a whole host of reasons; doesn't matter if you think that the government is going to take your guns and force you into rainbow colored death camps, or if the left thinks the government is going to force you into a military dictatorship. In America, there's a real flavor of hating the government reflexively.
The other problem is that in America, we are constantly reminded of the fact that we are a very large nation, and that we can't really trust the other side or other parts of the country to vote according to our own interests. The right talks about coastal elites, the left talks about the south and flyover country hicks.
Or, as I like to put it: whenever you think about allowing the government to try and manage something, ask this: do you want your healthcare in the hands of Ted Cruz and MTG if you're on the left? Do you want it in the hands of AOC and Bernie Sanders if you're on the right? We do not trust the other side to actually, you know, consider anything as sacred. Nor should we, as the right has wanted to gut most programs for a generation, and their voters have agreed.
There's one other thing: the population of the US is 33 times greater than the population of Sweden, and thus it's much easier to form consensus. Sweden's population is about 10 million; for comparison, the population of New York city is 8 million. It's smaller than New York and Los Angeles combined. The population of the United States is 331 million; and that fact is why it's so hard for anyone to agree in a democracy. The larger your democracy, the harder it is to gain any kind of agreement on what should be done.
I don't know that the left really talks about flyover hicks in the way you suggest. On the other hand, do you think many of us should not be at least worried about the voters who vote for the GOP all the time? I live in NJ - a state made fun of by all, so I understand being disparaged.
There is another factor beside population size which is worth consideration in your otherwise good start at analyzing this issue. It is the relative homogeneity of the population in Sweden, and when looking, do consider the backlash by Swedes (or Norwegians, or Danes) against peoples who do not fully assimilate -- if that is even possible. Our tensions constantly devolve from perceived differences, most of which deal with ethnicity, but some with class, and some -- an increasing number -- over gender. Liberal thought teaches "tolerance" for difference -- perhaps not good enough to satisfy the demands of multi-cultural advocates, but a good place to start. In any case, no one likes to pay taxes to support people who are perceived to be unlike themselves.
At the time of our founding it was widely thought that Republics only worked on the small scale and that we couldn't succeed. An open question is whether we proved everyone wrong 100 years ago or if we've got another 100-200 years to go before the results are final.
My view is that republics work best at medium scale; too big and they become too fractured and disparate, too small and they become too insular and attached to various personal entities.
Very small republics and very big republics tend to have the problem of being unable to agree on anything, though sometimes they swap problems; for example, in India the ruling party for over a generation was basically a Gandhi-family run party.
Balancing the needs of a large nation is vary hard, regardless of government type. But it's much harder when the various regions do not trust each other and actively view their needs and desires as being entirely different or hostile to one another.
The size of the population I don't think matters as Civil Wars in Central America would attest; our own Civil War with 1/10th the population or any of the numerous ones in history with much, much smaller populations. However, I would agree that it takes a monumental event to focus the country towards a common goal.
Honestly, I think part of it is that the American left hasn't been able to market the ideas in a way that sounds good to American's ears.
For example: both Japan and Norway have funds that invest money in order to pay for things like their country's pension system. Now, Norway seems like a pretty small country, right? But their current pension fund is worth $1,259,629,434,000. That's second only to the Chinese Investment Corporation, which is worth $1,350,863,000,000.
Yes, the Norwegian pension fund is worth about as much as the entire Chinese investment fund, despite having a population of only 5 million people! The Sovereign Wealth Fund is perhaps one of the biggest success stories mixing capitalistic investment with public sector benefits.
There's no reason the US couldn't create their own system. It's free market! It's socialism! It's got all the wonderful returns wall street loves! It's hyper individualistic! It's a huge benefit to the taxpayer! And best of all...
It works! I mean, if Norway can do this, the US absolutely could.
Per capita, Norway is sitting on a shitload of oil. In fact, they're the one country with fabulous oil wealth that is the exception to the rule of what happens when a country has a boatload of oil.
Higher taxes would be offset by uch lower medical bills, inexpensive, quality childcare, and better educational outcomes. If most Americans realized this, we might be able to be more like Sweden.
I agree that this could not be implemented overnight, and the cost/benefit analysis would need to be carefully done. But I think it is fantasy to think the US will ever get close to doing this, so the whole discussion is probably moot. My point was simply that higher taxes would be offset by savings in some areas.
They seem to be doing fine in Northern Europe. We can disagree over what we mean by socialism, or what people think when they're talking about socialism, but what Democrats mean when they're talking about it is what they're doing in Sweden. What Republicans and Mark Levin want people to think Democrats mean by it is Joseph Stalin. And I should add, Democrats, with few exceptions (like one guy who isn't actually a Democrat), don't even talk about it or use the word, because of inevitable bad faith attacks from the opposition.
Greetings from Sweden! It is hard to know where to begin: Swedish "dangerous" socialism means that every parent who want to work, has access to affordable childcare, kids have access to schools that can give them entrance to a higher education, higher education is available to all that wants it and have proven they have the grades to go on to university (i.e access is not based on parents' wealth), healthcare is affordable (paid approx. 150 $ for 4 hour operation of broken ankle and one year of physiotherapy), elderly parents pay almost nothing for health care and medicine. Yes, we have many problems too, our welfare state is eroding, but on the whole we live with a sense of security and opportunity for all. We favour altruism and that benefits all.
I think I spent something like $3000+ dollars, and that was because I maxed out of pocket costs, for surgery and like two months of PT for my broken ankle. SO depressing.
A big problem here, and I'm sure that you noticed, is that what you have in Sweden at some point required a "buy in" by the citizens and trust in your government to uphold the system. Here we have half the population who are so bound by their habitual thinking and emotional/cognitive obscurations that they are bound to consistently vote against their best interests.
Yes, true. Like the habitual thinking (which is truly mind-boggling to a Swede), that in 2023, the right to carry arms is more important to defend than the right to affordable healthcare.
The reason we don't have the Swedes' kind of public "buy-in" is that a significant percentage of our citizens have been convinced by RW racist propaganda that they don't want their hard-earned money being taxed to benefit people who are not like themselves, even if that means voting against their own interests. I wonder if Sweden would have as much buy-in if their population was as diverse.
"People who are not like themselves..." - you can just say Black and brown people and non-Christians. Let's just be honest that it is the right-wing racism and Christian-nationalism.
I was going to make this point explicitly. As long as it is perceived that these programs will benefit "them", people will cut their own noses off to prevent one of them from getting something they didn't explicitly earn
That's it exactly. That's why we can't have nice things. That's why we have many people who can't afford medical care, some of whom die prematurely as if they lived in the middle ages. That's why we have high infant mortality and maternal mortality, a large uneducated population condemned to poor wages, a lot of poor children, and on and on. We even have a political party that was on covid's side in a pandemic!
The biggest struggle in America is that there's a strain of hyper-individualism that causes reflexive hostility to anything that might benefit the whole, because Americans overwhelmingly do not view themselves as part of a greater whole.
Sometimes this creates moments of great unity, such as after Pearl Harbor or 9/11, when Americans suddenly feel great panic about their own security. But that's a reflexive response; usually, Americans prefer to view themselves as being entirely in control of themselves and dependent on no one, even if that's not the case.
Whether we agree or not, Americans imagine themselves as a nation of independent small business owners and pioneers, not as employees and serfs. We reflexively distrust the government for a whole host of reasons; doesn't matter if you think that the government is going to take your guns and force you into rainbow colored death camps, or if the left thinks the government is going to force you into a military dictatorship. In America, there's a real flavor of hating the government reflexively.
The other problem is that in America, we are constantly reminded of the fact that we are a very large nation, and that we can't really trust the other side or other parts of the country to vote according to our own interests. The right talks about coastal elites, the left talks about the south and flyover country hicks.
Or, as I like to put it: whenever you think about allowing the government to try and manage something, ask this: do you want your healthcare in the hands of Ted Cruz and MTG if you're on the left? Do you want it in the hands of AOC and Bernie Sanders if you're on the right? We do not trust the other side to actually, you know, consider anything as sacred. Nor should we, as the right has wanted to gut most programs for a generation, and their voters have agreed.
There's one other thing: the population of the US is 33 times greater than the population of Sweden, and thus it's much easier to form consensus. Sweden's population is about 10 million; for comparison, the population of New York city is 8 million. It's smaller than New York and Los Angeles combined. The population of the United States is 331 million; and that fact is why it's so hard for anyone to agree in a democracy. The larger your democracy, the harder it is to gain any kind of agreement on what should be done.
I don't know that the left really talks about flyover hicks in the way you suggest. On the other hand, do you think many of us should not be at least worried about the voters who vote for the GOP all the time? I live in NJ - a state made fun of by all, so I understand being disparaged.
There is another factor beside population size which is worth consideration in your otherwise good start at analyzing this issue. It is the relative homogeneity of the population in Sweden, and when looking, do consider the backlash by Swedes (or Norwegians, or Danes) against peoples who do not fully assimilate -- if that is even possible. Our tensions constantly devolve from perceived differences, most of which deal with ethnicity, but some with class, and some -- an increasing number -- over gender. Liberal thought teaches "tolerance" for difference -- perhaps not good enough to satisfy the demands of multi-cultural advocates, but a good place to start. In any case, no one likes to pay taxes to support people who are perceived to be unlike themselves.
At the time of our founding it was widely thought that Republics only worked on the small scale and that we couldn't succeed. An open question is whether we proved everyone wrong 100 years ago or if we've got another 100-200 years to go before the results are final.
My view is that republics work best at medium scale; too big and they become too fractured and disparate, too small and they become too insular and attached to various personal entities.
Very small republics and very big republics tend to have the problem of being unable to agree on anything, though sometimes they swap problems; for example, in India the ruling party for over a generation was basically a Gandhi-family run party.
Balancing the needs of a large nation is vary hard, regardless of government type. But it's much harder when the various regions do not trust each other and actively view their needs and desires as being entirely different or hostile to one another.
The size of the population I don't think matters as Civil Wars in Central America would attest; our own Civil War with 1/10th the population or any of the numerous ones in history with much, much smaller populations. However, I would agree that it takes a monumental event to focus the country towards a common goal.
Greetings! Thank you for your perspective. It sounds quite lovely there overall.
...did forget to mention that for each child, parents receive 390 days of paid leave...
Honestly, I think part of it is that the American left hasn't been able to market the ideas in a way that sounds good to American's ears.
For example: both Japan and Norway have funds that invest money in order to pay for things like their country's pension system. Now, Norway seems like a pretty small country, right? But their current pension fund is worth $1,259,629,434,000. That's second only to the Chinese Investment Corporation, which is worth $1,350,863,000,000.
Yes, the Norwegian pension fund is worth about as much as the entire Chinese investment fund, despite having a population of only 5 million people! The Sovereign Wealth Fund is perhaps one of the biggest success stories mixing capitalistic investment with public sector benefits.
There's no reason the US couldn't create their own system. It's free market! It's socialism! It's got all the wonderful returns wall street loves! It's hyper individualistic! It's a huge benefit to the taxpayer! And best of all...
It works! I mean, if Norway can do this, the US absolutely could.
Per capita, Norway is sitting on a shitload of oil. In fact, they're the one country with fabulous oil wealth that is the exception to the rule of what happens when a country has a boatload of oil.
True, but the SWF is not funded by oil for the most part, but by worldwide investment, since it's one of the biggest mutual funds ever created.
The US is also sitting on oil, but it's a different story.
In any case, the US loves itself some mutual funds.
Higher taxes would be offset by uch lower medical bills, inexpensive, quality childcare, and better educational outcomes. If most Americans realized this, we might be able to be more like Sweden.
I agree that this could not be implemented overnight, and the cost/benefit analysis would need to be carefully done. But I think it is fantasy to think the US will ever get close to doing this, so the whole discussion is probably moot. My point was simply that higher taxes would be offset by savings in some areas.
Sean, I agree completely. It would be good for the country if taxes were raised on the wealthiest. I'm not holding my breath!