I want to be a socialist

[Willem]

Originally posted by yavoon
yes but we've long since abandoned that. we're more lasseiz faire than others, sure. but to say we're lasseiz faire is still absurd. I mean if the gov't takes 80% of ur money in country A and 75% in country B does that make B like the bastion of capitalism?

but yes otherwise I agree with u. we try to hold on to our freer markets stronger than others in europe.

The point I'm trying to make is that there is no pure capitalist society anymore, nor is there a pure socialism. Both extremes have adopted elements of the other and they're gradually going to meet somewhere in the middle. On paper China is still a socialist country, but that's no more true than saying the US has a purely laissez faire economy. Governments of the future will eventually be a combination of both.

[yavoon]

ok well I guess that part observationally true, so it didn't seem important.

[Az]

Standard of Living means GDP per capita.

no it doesn't.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes it does . That is the economics definition, and economics was the first field to define the term 'standard of living', so their definition is the one that should be used.

[Az]

OK, what ever, just as long as we all understand that 'standard of living' doesn't actually mean standard of living.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by yavoon
norway cheats, its basically a socialist saudi arabia.

A Swedish minister (a Social Democrat) called Norway "the last Sovjet state" when he thought the camera was off, referring to the government-owned industry and the Norwegian politicians' eagerness to put their nose into everything. He got a lot of bashing in media after that, not because he was wrong but because he had the arrogance to say it.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by yavoon

but yes otherwise I agree with u. we try to hold on to our freer markets stronger than others in europe.

So why did you introduce import duties on steel products?

[Tingkai]

Diss: The real question is why do you cling to the unrealistic dreams of libertarianism. There has never been a libertarian-style government and there never will be. It's just a pipe dream held by people who refuse to acknowledge the cold realities of the real world.

Socialism, on the other hand, is constantly evolving as it searches for ways to constantly improve the living standards of all members of society. Many socialists recognise that there are areas where the private sector should be left alone, sometimes because the private sector can do a better job and sometimes because the political cost of involving government in these areas is too high.

[Maniac]

Actually it isn't. Standard of Living means GDP per capita. The US is, I believe, 3rd behind Luxembourg and Switzerland, IIRC.

I don't know anything about economics, but isn't GDP per capita simply the country's total GDP divised by the population? If so, this is a very bad way of measuring poverty and standard of living. For example, to give a fictitious example, two countries could have the same GDP per capita, but in country A the top 1% of the population could have 15% of the country's GDP, while in country B they could only have 3%. So IMHO GDP per capita says near nothing unless you can show me a box-and-whiskers plot with mean, mediaan (in Eng.?), quartiles (Eng?), standard deviation...

[statusperfect]

THIS IS HOW STANDARD OF LIVING IS MEASURED

http://www.globastat.com/m10.htm

[Sava]

You can't measure the standard of living in the US. It is so economically diverse, it isn't funny. You can compare the different classes and their standards of living.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I wouldn't mind a 75% tax if my education and health care were free. As it stands now, my health care and education expenses are much more than 100% of my income. That's why I have huge student loans and health insurance. And I would be considered part of the upper middle class based upon family income. Upper 5% I think. Perhaps there are people under me that are doing better, but I doubt it. Most opponents of a high tax Socialist system make the mistake of not subtracting the expenses that they wouldn't have to worry about. And if I had my way, telecommunications, transportation, and energy would all by non-profit sectors. Imagine this, all things being equal, take away the cost of corporate profits in your expenses. I fail to see how getting rid of massive executive perks and severance pay will make things less efficient.

[Kropotkin]

On the standard of living issue :

As most with a reasonable knowledge about how GDP's are calculated I'd say it's not really fair to compare two countries with very different structures as scandinavian countries and the US. If a larger part of the economic is public in one country compared to the other there's a great risk of a bias in the estimate. As the goods and services that are produced by the public sector is not sold on a marked it's very hard to find out the value of them. The value is often considered to be equal to the costs. In other words, there's no profits and no productivity growth. Add to this the problems with benchmarking. A short glance at the figures might be missleading.

[Sava]

GDP is a bad indicator because a handful of super-rich corporations can throw off the entire scale for everyone.

[Agathon]

GDP is bad because things like the Exxon Valdez disaster increase it. A teacher of mine said it is like an adding machine that cannot subtract. It is also notoriously unreliable at counting government contributions to the economy.

Anyway, who cares about GDP. The whole point of the UN Human Development Index is that it was created to give a more accurate view of living standards.

[Kropotkin]

THe HDI is not more accurate, it's just different.