Socialism

[Siege]

Social democracy has just as much right to the socialist name as social dictatorships. More in fact.

Socialism is a system characterised by planned economy and state ownership of means of production, but (unlike communism) allowing limited private ownership of smaller businesses and private property in general.

This.

I really don't understand why people cling to a failed system.
Or rather why some people ideolized a proven failed system.

And don't mention the kibbutzim. A kibbutz is a capitalist enterprise in which the owners have equal shares and sell their products into a free market society.

Nothing socialist about it, other than the sharing between the owners. Their employees, and some kibbutzim have quite a few employees, do not share the sharing.

[Josephus]

Kibbutzim are, or were at least, socialist enterprises on a small scale and in principle. That they sold to free market systems, is neither here nor there. So did the USSR and China.

[MadImmortalMan]

Marty's definition is not that good either. I mean, the exact same wording applies just as well to feudal England.

[Razgovory]

Social democracy has just as much right to the socialist name as social dictatorships. More in fact.

Socialism is a system characterised by planned economy and state ownership of means of production, but (unlike communism) allowing limited private ownership of smaller businesses and private property in general.

This.

I really don't understand why people cling to a failed system.
Or rather why some people ideolized a proven failed system.

And don't mention the kibbutzim. A kibbutz is a capitalist enterprise in which the owners have equal shares and sell their products into a free market society.

Nothing socialist about it, other than the sharing between the owners. Their employees, and some kibbutzim have quite a few employees, do not share the sharing.

That sounds like Socialism.  It seems to me you are against what the GOP tells you is socialism, not actual socialism.

[Razgovory]

I'm not entirely sure that's true.  Societies did try take care of their poor in the early industrial revolution.  Both public and private efforts were made, and they didn't cripple their society.  They weren't always successful by our standards, but even high standards of living in those societies fall short of our expectations these days.

The programs that they had didn't cripple their societies precisely because their goals were modest, extremely limited and suited to the available resources.  There was no global health system, or even a particularly good health system for anyone.  The concept of retiring didn't really exist except for the physically incapable and the extremely wealthy.  People worked until they couldn't.

There was no global system, period.  Early nations did things to prevent famine, they weren't always successful, but they typically tried.  When you read about the Potato famine you see that that didn't just strike Britain, but the whole of Europe.  Most countries were able prevent the terrible starvation that Ireland endured.  In fact, Ireland could have been saved were it not for a change in government from an interventionist one to a lazzie-faire one.

[Sheilbh]

Marty's definition is not that good either. I mean, the exact same wording applies just as well to feudal England.

Socialism's a modern concept that's not really any use when applied to the Medieval.

Also Siege most Euro socialists love kibbutzim, that's their dream. I'm afraid they're the ideal of socialism

[MadImmortalMan]

Marty's definition is not that good either. I mean, the exact same wording applies just as well to feudal England.

Socialism's a modern concept that's not really any use when applied to the Medieval.

I know. That's why it's not a useful definition.

[Sheilbh]

I know. That's why it's not a useful definition.

I'm not so sure. The issue is the lack of definition within the Medieval world between public, private and divine. I think Marti's definition works well enough if you realise by 'state' he means the modern, bureaucratic state that owns significant chunks of the economy and plans the rest.

[The Minsky Moment]

For someone who has spent almost his entire career working for big government, Siege seems awfully down on socialism.

[Josquius]

Socialism is a system characterised by planned economy and state ownership of means of production, but (unlike communism) allowing limited private ownership of smaller businesses and private property in general.

Not quite... That's a rather extreme brand of socialism. You don't really need state ownership of the means of production and the limited private companies need not be that limited, merely controlled.
Planned economy too is not a binary absolute. Most modern countries plan their economy to an extent.

[grumbler]

Still, it's generally a good thing in my mind that there are different states trying different things so we can see what experiments work better than others and in what conditions.

I don't think the Federal government takes into account the lessons the states learn any more than it looks at what other countries do.  The Federal government is about covering your ass or getting re-elected.  Nothing like efficiency or sense seems to get any traction.

The US health care system is headed for an enormous crisis.  Avoiding that crisis would come at a trivial overall cost today, but the people in power right now would be the ones paying those trivial costs (like, not getting re-elected/promoted), and so don't see those costs as trivial.  Change will come when it is unavoidable (as we saw in Europe), and then it will come at a huge cost.  That's just the nature of bureaucracies.

I'm not familiar enough with the creation of the Canadian Health Care Act to know what degree of crisis thinking led to it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the decision to adopt the single-payer plan was not simply a rational decision.  One of the advantages of the parliamentary model is the degree to which individual representatives can avoid the need to grandstand and support stupid independent policies in order to get themselves re-elected.  When you have 535 independent and arrogant surgeons at the operating table table, each with effective veto on the procedures undertaken, only the most obviously and immediately mortal patient woes will get operated on.

[Valmy]

For someone who has spent almost his entire career working for big government, Siege seems awfully down on socialism.

You can only get truly familiar with the rot of the system from the inside

[crazy canuck]

I'm not familiar enough with the creation of the Canadian Health Care Act to know what degree of crisis thinking led to it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the decision to adopt the single-payer plan was not simply a rational decision. 

It was a fairly long process which was led by the Provinces.  Tommy Douglas is credited as the father of our medical system as he was the first Provincial leader to introduce the precursor in his Province.  But Provinces alone cannot fund such a system and so, eventually, the Feds started contributing and the Canada Health Act was created.

I am not sure whether this kind of iterative process would meet your definition of "rational".  Douglas was moved to bring in legislation because too many people were not getting the health care they needed in his province.  Other provinces began to follow his lead as they recognized it was more efficient to fund health care in a manner in which they could have some control over cost (both administrative costs and the cost of paying the various service providers).  I think ultimately that is why the Federal government also supported this manner of providing health care.

The one group to strongly oppose the measure?  The Doctors.  There were a number of strikes throughout the years by doctors who saw the new system as a threat to their income potential.  Their problem was that their patients were strongly in support of medicare.

[MadImmortalMan]

You guys didn't have a monolithic medical guild already in place with a stranglehold on the entire profession when you tried to implement it. Our doctors control our system, not the other way around.

[derspiess]

Marty's definition is not that good either. I mean, the exact same wording applies just as well to feudal England.

Socialism's a modern concept that's not really any use when applied to the Medieval.

Also Siege most Euro socialists love kibbutzim, that's their dream. I'm afraid they're the ideal of socialism

But when most people speak of socialism, they're talking about state socialism.  I have zero problem with private individuals getting together & running an enterprise the way the want, whether it's "socialist" or hierarchical in nature.  I do have a problem with state socialism.