Why socialism is bad

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You know, I've noticed a lot of commie bashing, so I think I'll have a go!
Socialism does not work
the value of goods is not determined by the amount of work put into it, it is inherently related to supply and demand, a fact that government does not understand, i.e subsidies.
socialized medicine will eventually bankrupt the countries that have it. The more a government spends to take care of its people and the more the rich profit off the middle class and the more dependent on government aid the poor become, the burden on the middle class taxpayer will be too great for them to support. Population increases are also another factor, the boomer generation will kill us economically if socialized medicine is introduced, they keep getting more and more unproductive as they get older and the burden falls on me the taxpayer to take care of all of their medical benefits.
Another bad aspect of socialism is the whole obligation to the community, I don't owe my community anything! They have their lives, so stay the heck out of mine!
I'm sure I'm going to get somebody who says I don't really understand what socialism is about, I understand very well and I've seen its negative effects. Someone saying I don't understand is a cop-out for not actually debating me. Capitalism is not perfect, get over it. Neither is socialism, mixing the two is very bad, as it leads to the corporate fascism we have now. Small businesses are mercilessly destroyed by taxes while corporations get away scot-free, if the tax system is not equal, it shouldn't exist. Period

I think a mixed economy can work pretty well, but if you mix the wrong components, it can be very very dangerous (like what has resulted in our corporate fascism).

How will this happen when such 'socialized medicine' countries spend less per person, and get better outcomes? I thought that the main criticism of national systems were that the cost controls stifled innovation.

I just read an article that said that healthcare's share of the US economy will double by 2017. Some of that is from having an aging population. But under the current 'private' system, employers are lucky to get more than 50 cents of medical services for their employees for every dollar they spend - about half goes to overhead for the insurance companies - including their lobbying, obnoxious ads, and useless magazines they send people.

QFT

Socialised medicine tends to be used as a derogratory term to associate state provided healthcare with the communism scare.

It may take 2.5% off your income, but it's well worth it. Especially when you cannot afford expensive treatments that you need desperately.

I believe that healthcare should be a right for everyone, no matter what their income.

Put it this way. In a country where you're forced to pay for healthcare, if you have a severe illness which is very expensive to treat, and no charity able to pay for your healthcare, then you're broke one way or the other.
Universal healthcare will not bankrupt nations, far from it. And it does not even mean getting rid of private healthcare.

Think of it as collective health insurance, without the interest. And it doesn't even need to be completely free. Just available and affordable for every citizen.

I am untrusting of the socialization of medicine.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/02/ ... -care.html

As Greg Mankiw talks about, health care is an industry that will have expensive cures and no possible way to afford them for the rest of the population. I think we need to have health care reform, but I don't see it as necessary to socialize the system. I mean, the change obviously isn't collective health insurance or anything like that. Now, does health insurance need a change? Yes, it should be less tied to a person's job and focus on covering disasters, but does that mean we should remove the entire thing? No.

These expensive cures are just in short supply, that is all. And what, some are expensive because they're quite rare.

As for that, well that is just an example of government incompetence. Having a private system as well as a public system ought to balance it all out. Denying someone healthcare which they desperate need based on money is abhorrent, in my view. Instead, the government needs a brain and a backbone.

Well, yeah. Expense may as well just mean rare.

Why have the public system though? Also, if it is so abhorrent then why don't people set up more charities to pay for the poor? Finally, why separate money from scarcity? Monetary cost is only a reflection upon the degree of scarcity, and denying somebody something because it is scarce seems quite simple. Finally, you connect the public system to redistribution of resources, why do we have to have those go hand in hand? Couldn't we simply provide an insurance subsidy or even instead of intruding on medicine just socialize health insurance to cover major health problems?

The issue I see is that, even if socialized medicine would be ideal, does anyone here really believe are government is capable of making it work? They've kind of failed at pretty much everything they've attempted, why would healthcare be any different?

Because of the aformentioned expensive cures, the government will go bankrupt. Everyone has different problems with their health, a one size fits all solution as government usually attempts is bad for the consumer.
Fascism will arrive in this country in a white coat and a stethoscope.
all of the so-called ''vices'' tobacco, alcohol, and fast foods will be banned by the health police.

There is good government and bad government. The errors of bad government do not prove that all government is bad. Businesses controlled by market forces are required by their structure to maximize profits to be successful. Some services such as health care do not benefit by operatives driven by maximizing profits and minimizing services. Both government and business need to be regulated and controlled by an intelligent citizenry. Where a citizenry is not well educated and well informed both government and business can be invaded by inefficiency and corruption to the deterioration and collapse of service.

The issue is proving that the first category exists in a meaningful manner. If there are no governments that function *that* well, then trusting the government to do something is not a good idea. Actually, health care would benefit a lot if services were minimized. A lot of the spending in health care does not significantly improve patient health and if it were minimized our system would be doing a lot better. I would argue that business needs less monitoring than government. In business the devil is in the dealing, in government the devil is in the detail. Most people watch their own dealings, but most people won't watch every detail of the government's dealings as those are distant from them, require more information than they can deal with, and lack the same direct incentives as found with dealing with business.

It works for some things it doesn't work for others. It works in some types of society and it doesn't work for others. It works for some people and it doesn't work for others.

But, in general, I agree. It doesn't work.



The value of goods was never determined by the amount of work put into it, but certainly cost is. But, value itself is a subjective concept which is unmeasureable and shouldn't be measured in any kind of objective economics. But, the assumption is made that economics is an objective science as it is practiced now. It isn't.

Value is a function of human desire. Repeat that in your head for a minute and tell me if it makes sense to formally quantify human desire. Is it even scientifically possible to do that?



Why can't a medical school graduate practice medicine immediately? What's holding them back?



Why can't the poor take care of themselves? Is there something wrong with self-medication?



Another reason that Malthus was right.



Yes, but the community don't need to care about you either if they were self-sufficient. Why are communities not self-sufficient? Why aren't you self-sufficient?



That's only because people are programmed from birth in a way that regards what we have as the best of all possible worlds. It isn't.



Capitalism is the nastier version of Socialism. Both rest on authority based on social control. Neither is really free in any way that allows people to choose their way of life or way of work.



Would you rather have millions of people in huge corporations unemployed, restless and angry?



Small businesses are mercilessly destroyed because of economy of scale. A thousand people working in an organized way can kill even the most dedicated group of superworkers in a small operation.

Value is measurable though, we can tell how much we value something via a little unit of measure we call currency, which plays 3 roles, store of value, medium of exchange, and the one you are curious about a unit of account. If I pay 3 dollars for a hamburger and not 4 then we know that for me $3 =< hamburger value < 4. How is that not a measure of a burger's value? Why shouldn't we use that method, as by doing that we weight the good against all other potential goods, and thus we see an expression of value. I don't see what the problem is really.

Sure it does. The demand curve, and on some level the supply curve are both based upon human desires but we set these things up as rational, and work within a basic framework of assumptions that can be modified for our quantifications. Really, why isn't it possible for us to quantify these things?

It doesn't make sense. The AMA limits the growth of the medical profession to keep wages high and thus allows for good employment options to already exist. Economist Milton Friedman essentially described that group as a guild for doing this. As well, people put a premium on good medical care, fresh graduate students would not really be that desirable, however, I am glad that WalMart is getting into the medical industry in order to lower prices and alleviate the burden. http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealt ... nt/tb/1933

They could, it just would not be an optimal situation. What would be better is if we reduced government interventions that increase the costs of medical care, and that we get rid of the loophole that makes employer based insurance unusually cheap for them, so that way we can make insurance and medicine cheaper for the poor.

Not really, the Iron Law of Wages hasn't proven true at all, nor have we reached any devastation, and I am pretty sure that Malthus wasn't thinking about social security burdens but rather the entire economic structure when he was writing.

The community doesn't really need to care about me period, it might be nice if they did but they don't have to. The reason why neither side is self-sufficient is because trade is more efficient.

Really???? From everything I have read, we are programmed in a way to always regard the sky as falling. In fact, Bryan Caplan recently wrote a book called "The Myth of the Rational Voter" and one of the biases he outlined was the Pessimism bias, heck, as well, it has been noted in Western societies that happiness levels do not much increase even as wealth and other measures of economic welfare significantly increase.

Which is of course why Socialism was the system that ended up in oppression, the elimination of rights and liberties, and even some of the most inegalitarian systems in existence? Frankly, I would say that capitalism does have this freedom to some extent, at the very least, has there ever been a freer society than capitalism? I think the obvious answer is no.

No, and fortunately there will be a stabilizing mechanism in unemployment as a steady level of unemployment has been noted by economists in most nations for a very long period of time. As for their restlessness and anger, well, those are based upon personal issues, however, economic growth would be a good thing.


Both are correct. Large corporations do receive special tax benefits and write-offs unfairly which tilt the economic situation in favor of the corporation, however, it is true that in some industries economies of scale are really in the larger corporation's favor.

Currency is not a store of value. If the hamburger is consumed then the store of value in theory should also be consumed. It isn't.

It isn't a medium of exchange in the real world. It could only be a medium of exchange if there is something equal to exchange in all parties in the negotiation. Because of an oligopoly of ownership which is inevitable because of economies of scale, there's nothing equal to exchange if you're dependent on necessities of life provided by the other party including rent and food. Rent and food is consumed so the exchange is reality is one-sided in favour of people owning shelter and food.

Currency is a unit of debt.



It isn't possible because desire is subjective to each individual as well as manipulatable as well as unavoidable and in the end based on subjective criterias. It doesn't make sense to statistically average human desires and call that objective. It makes as much sense as averaging the temperature of a hot stove and the freezer by putting your hands on both and saying it's average should be comfortable for everyone.

Further, if everything is based on human desire and measured economically with money then you might as well have initiation of force and slavery as humanly desirable quantities measureable with money. Everything is subjective including the morality of slavery and genocide. You could make a economical argument that genocide through forced labour saves on pension money paid out to workers because of mandatory physical extinction.



Trade is only efficient because of a lack of self-sufficiency, otherwise it makes no sense to argue that it is.

The logical implication of the presently insane economics that you adhere to would be to destroy self-sufficiency for the sake of efficiency which would require an initiation of force. There is no other way other than the massive use of force to destroy any self-contained, self-sufficient community because the amount of resource allocation necessary for self-sufficiency would mean a large complex infrastructure.

Going to war is actually economically good because destruction of self-sufficiency increases the efficiency of trade. People in the rubble would need to trade with you.



And, why should that be relevant to systems theory discussion? Medieval Feudalism was great to for people who only knew of slavery in ancient Rome.

But it is consumed. It is consumed by the consumer of the hamburger. Really now, how will we have a transfer of value to account for the loss of the hamburger if we don't have a transfer of currency? The hamburger's value itself is dealt with through supply and demand and its resources are compared to all other valuable resources.

But every exchange is a sign of equality, you and I both agree that the hamburger for 3 dollars is a fair trade and this idea holds even if we are dealing with a monopoly. Frankly, your entire argument is not a disproof of anything, nor would I describe all industries as necessarily being oligopolies but rather we have a few monopolistic competitions where we have varying products and significant competition, and we especially see this in food, but it exists in other industries as well.

Only if you mean society's debt to you.

Umm.... your counter argument makes no sense. We are dealing with human purchases via a market where all of these desires come into play, not a separate stove and freezer. I mean, I have never heard of an economist who "averages human desires", rather they model individual human desires or model aggregations of individual human desires.


Actually, economists do measure those. There are papers on the economics of war, and on the economics of slavery. In fact, the economics of slavery in the pre-Civil War South was a topic by economist Robert Fogel. Well, yes, if you wanted to save on moneys paid out for pensions then killing all employees would do so, the issue then comes to whether that would maximize profits and of course whether that is allowed.


Umm..... no. That argument is ignorant of Ricardo's comparative advantage. Even if both sides can be self-sufficient there are usually gains from trade.


Umm.... no. Like I said, you aren't distinguishing between normative and positive economics. Economics is merely a tool for analyzing circumstances, something that even economists may forget, but honestly economics doesn't tell people that they must seek efficiency, that is an ethical question, but rather it tells them the gains of efficiency and most of the time we assume efficiency is valuable.


Umm.... no, war is usually not efficient and still, there is a moral judgment involved that economics doesn't make. I would argue that war would deplete most of their capital and much of their labor, and do the same to your side as well, thus reducing the real capacity for production on both sides in a manner that likely would not be worth it. The issue of interdependence isn't that sides must be forced to trade, but rather that it is in their best interests to trade.


Because instead of looking at some theoretical perfection, we instead will look at the summit of our current achievement. It really makes no sense to critique the best system we have developed as if it were the worst system.

In the "best system", the rich get medical care and the poor are left to suffer and die.

I think we can do better.