we actually might be witnessing the death of socialism!

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

first Greece, Italy, Spain...then the entire EU...then the US...

will the West finally relearn the lesson that it is all about working and saving, instead of muching and going into debt?

I think we might be witnessing the beginning of such a transformation when people will again come to realize entitlements are nothing more than a deception robbing you of the confidence to be self reliant...and we will come back around to the understanding that working for a living is just that - you have to work in order to live.  There are no free lunches.

Social Security has fooled muliple generations into believing they dont need to save money, that someone outside of their own family will pay their way.  But they're about to find out that's not the case.

[CathKhan]

Yay!

[© Tweed the Younger]

jmfcst as a sociological experiment

[King]

Socialism is the future. Hundreds of years from now that is.

Technology built by capitalist markets will eventually advance to the point where all products are produced without any sort of labor and there ends up being not enough work force needed.  Crime rates will increase, things will get messy for a bit, and then people just settle on paying off the unemployed forever.  Money wouldn't be that important anymore with the cost of living being cheap as free.

Then, once the Japanese finish fixing up A.I. and white collar work is eliminated, the world will become communist as everything is being done for us and why go to work when it's all free?

[Lief]

King is basically right. Advances in technology will either lead society to naturally evolve into communism or destroy us all first.

[Link]

Socialism is the future. Hundreds of years from now that is.

Technology built by capitalist markets will eventually advance to the point where all products are produced without any sort of labor and there ends up being not enough work force needed.  Crime rates will increase, things will get messy for a bit, and then people just settle on paying off the unemployed forever.  Money wouldn't be that important anymore with the cost of living being cheap as free.

Then, once the Japanese finish fixing up A.I. and white collar work is eliminated, the world will become communist as everything is being done for us and why go to work when it's all free?

I don't know if I agree with that whole story but I do think advances in technology will make meeting most of our basic needs very easy and at that point we will cease to be at each others throats like animals.

I thought the article from the Heritage Foundation kind of illustrated part of this concept.  In their article showing poor people in America have DVD players and coffee machines they were trying to illustrate that they weren't poor.  Actually they are poor it's just that technology has made those items availble to the poor now.

[King]

The story is pretty much what I got out of reading the CM.  The revolution is not an uprising but a transition.  Capitalism's demand for innovation lays the groundwork for socialism, much like the fiefdoms organized the class structure for the market economy.  Now is not the time for socialism, but it's coming so don't fight it.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The story is pretty much what I got out of reading the CM.  The revolution is not an uprising but a transition.  Capitalism's demand for innovation lays the groundwork for socialism, much like the fiefdoms organized the class structure for the market economy.  Now is not the time for socialism, but it's coming so don't fight it.

yeah, I'm sure the current $100T in unfunded obligations is going to create room for more socialism.

[King]

As I said, now is not the time for socialism.  When your grandchildren are grandparents perhaps.

[Beet]

Oh great. This means jmf is throwing in the towel.

[opebo]

jmfcst, capitalism failed, as it always does, not socialism which in any case has never been tried.  even Keyensian redistributionist balancing has been gone for 30+ years.  The solution is socialism, and no amount of wishing on your part will change that.   

[InsaneTrollLogic]

There's a lot of singularity talk here...but its more or less true.

[Wonkish1]

The idea that the future is some kind of Star Trek world of socialism where technology delivers everything people want is absolutely ridiculous. I get that the logic may seem inciting because in the short term a piece of technology can take someone's job, but those that subscribe to this theory are a fundamental misunderstanding of the way economies work.

People have been forecasting technology causing large unemployment for over a 100 years. Back when they predicted it at the beginning of mechanization of agriculture they had assumed that most of population that worked in agriculture would be unemployed after it took hold. That didn't actually happen as the people instead learned how to work on an assembly line and work with machinery. The entire economy shifted from one of a few craftsmen making goods to hundreds of thousands of people producing substantially more supply than before and then consuming that supply. There in lies the crux of the truth...

As innovation increases the productivity of people it largely only boosts supply and therefore consumption it rarely has any impact on people cutting back work time(even though it does in some cases). So if you assumed that the current supply of everything people has is the max it will ever be than increases in productivity can only result in less work hours. But history has shown that never happens because people have almost an ever increasing degree of wants and desires. And that may manifest in some people the desire to have every toy they can get their hands on, but also for others it could be many vacations, nice dinners with the spouse, or even donations to their favorite charities.



So how this plays out in a very simplified example. A group of people(employed) invent and produce a piece of machinery that allows company A to replace 5% of its workforce and subsequently lowers prices. That 5% finds work with company B because their demand has increased and need to boost supply. Since company B hired those people maintaining employment and Company A's products have decreased in cost and price then people consume more of company A's products. The increase in demand allows company A to hire more people to subsequently boost supply again. The end affect is still to have less people per unit good, but since there are more goods than employment doesn't actually shrink by the productivity savings and instead depending on how much demand increased could be substantially higher, the same or only slightly less than before the invention. (of course this example doesn't include recessions and/or depressions, but that is a completely different beast that I would be willing to get into)


If anybody thinks that employment is trending downward they are blind to the world. As technology has marched on supply and demand has marched faster and today there are more people employed in our world than ever before. It can be sometimes easy to miss that when your always solely focused on the United States or Europe.

[opebo]

Nearly all of them are employed at a desperate subsistence level, Wonk, and ever was it so.  You're looking through the old rose coloured glasses as usual.

[ingemann]

I happen to disagree, right now it looks like the left will win the next elections in Germany, France and Italy, yes Spain and Greece may be lost for the next decade, but it's still a rather good trade for the European left. Ironic Cameron may also have saved the left in UK by winning the last election and in general behaving like a bull in a China shop. The idea that a few minor losses are the death of socialism is a rather optimistic. In fact from where I stand right now things the 2010ties look more like it will be for the right that the seventies was for the left, a decade of where overly ivory tower ideology which alienated the vast majority of the population.

[Hashemite]

Given that Rajoy is an incompetent doofus, I wouldn't be surprised if the Socialists managed to return to power in Spain by 2015/2016 or so.

[Ghyl Tarvoke]

Given that Rajoy is an incompetent doofus, I wouldn't be surprised if the Socialists managed to return to power in Spain by 2015/2016 or so.

This. Oh god, this.

Anyway, this thread is yet another example of why Jmfcst should simply be barred from talking about other countries.

[Wonkish1]

I happen to disagree, right now it looks like the left will win the next elections in Germany, France and Italy, yes Spain and Greece may be lost for the next decade, but it's still a rather good trade for the European left. Ironic Cameron may also have saved the left in UK by winning the last election and in general behaving like a bull in a China shop. The idea that a few minor losses are the death of socialism is a rather optimistic. In fact from where I stand right now things the 2010ties look more like it will be for the right that the seventies was for the left, a decade of where overly ivory tower ideology which alienated the vast majority of the population.

I would say that a socialist being forced into austerity(which is pretty much the admission that their overspending is a failed concept) is pretty bad for socialism in the EU. And what you don't realize is that they have been resisting what will ultimately be a forced large cutback in their welfare state.

I wouldn't be to bullish on the left doing well in Europe and simultaneously remaining anything like the European left of yesteryear. You'd be in for a awful surprise.

The European left are going to be forced into doing things not even the European right had the balls to do even a couple years ago. Socialism is dying in Europe. But it wont be dead when it emerges out of this just very mangled.

[opebo]

I would say that a socialist being forced into austerity(which is pretty much the admission that their overspending is a failed concept) is pretty bad for socialism in the EU.

Under-taxation, not overspending, Wong.

[ingemann]

I happen to disagree, right now it looks like the left will win the next elections in Germany, France and Italy, yes Spain and Greece may be lost for the next decade, but it's still a rather good trade for the European left. Ironic Cameron may also have saved the left in UK by winning the last election and in general behaving like a bull in a China shop. The idea that a few minor losses are the death of socialism is a rather optimistic. In fact from where I stand right now things the 2010ties look more like it will be for the right that the seventies was for the left, a decade of where overly ivory tower ideology which alienated the vast majority of the population.

I would say that a socialist being forced into austerity(which is pretty much the admission that their overspending is a failed concept) is pretty bad for socialism in the EU. And what you don't realize is that they have been resisting what will ultimately be a forced large cutback in their welfare state.

I wouldn't be to bullish on the left doing well in Europe and simultaneously remaining anything like the European left of yesteryear. You'd be in for a awful surprise.

The European left are going to be forced into doing things not even the European right had the balls to do even a couple years ago. Socialism is dying in Europe.

I'm not really sure I should take your post serious,because it's either the purest form of sarcasm I have ever seen, or a rather ignorant post. So I apologise for taking it serious if it was sarcasm.

In the early 90ties the Danish Social Democrats started an economic boom, which lasted 15 years, they took the necessary step to avoid overheating something their right-wing successor didn't. The only responsable governance Italy have had the last 15 years have been from the left, the best government Germany have had in decades was the CDU-SPD coalition (and most German governments are above average), while the SPD-Green government took brutal and responsable decisions something which strengthen the far left (in fact if SPD hadn't hated the communist so much they could have continued their government), but still in two years SPD will likely regain power. The European left have taken the hard decision for decades sometimes they have been rewarded and sometimes punished, but it has survived and thrieved, and when it was punished its voters didn't vote to the right but moved to the left.

[Wonkish1]

I'm not really sure I should take your post serious,because it's either the purest form of sarcasm I have ever seen, or a rather ignorant post. So I apologise for taking it serious if it was sarcasm.

In the early 90ties the Danish Social Democrats started an economic boom, which lasted 15 years, they took the necessary step to avoid overheating something their right-wing successor didn't. The only responsable governance Italy have had the last 15 years have been from the left, the best government Germany have had in decades was the CDU-SPD coalition (and most German governments are above average), while the SPD-Green government took brutal and responsable decisions something which strengthen the far left (in fact if SPD hadn't hated the communist so much they could have continued their government), but still in two years SPD will likely regain power. The European left have taken the hard decision for decades sometimes they have been rewarded and sometimes punished, but it has survived and thrieved, and when it was punished its voters didn't vote to the right but moved to the left.

Putting your analysis to the side here, what does your post have to with mine in any way?

Europe will be forced into making some rather large cut backs to their government spending. Feel free to disagree with that, but if you do its you people shouldn't take seriously.

Or are you trying to say that the European left are for reducing government spending by large amounts if they weren't forced into doing so?

[ingemann]

I'm not really sure I should take your post serious,because it's either the purest form of sarcasm I have ever seen, or a rather ignorant post. So I apologise for taking it serious if it was sarcasm.

In the early 90ties the Danish Social Democrats started an economic boom, which lasted 15 years, they took the necessary step to avoid overheating something their right-wing successor didn't. The only responsable governance Italy have had the last 15 years have been from the left, the best government Germany have had in decades was the CDU-SPD coalition (and most German governments are above average), while the SPD-Green government took brutal and responsable decisions something which strengthen the far left (in fact if SPD hadn't hated the communist so much they could have continued their government), but still in two years SPD will likely regain power. The European left have taken the hard decision for decades sometimes they have been rewarded and sometimes punished, but it has survived and thrieved, and when it was punished its voters didn't vote to the right but moved to the left.

Putting your analysis to the side here, what does your post have to with mine in any way?

Europe will be forced into making some rather large cut backs to their government spending. Feel free to disagree with that, but if you do its you people shouldn't take seriously.

Or are you trying to say that the European left are for reducing government spending by large amounts if they weren't forced into doing so?

I say the European left tend to look at the economic effect of growing or reducing government rather than looking to ideology, in 1993 the Danish SocDem lowered taxes, they sold several state owned companies and in general put increased prosperity over ideology. SPD in Germany reduced the wages of the workers in a attempt to reduce the chronic unemployment (primary in the former DDR), the left-wing government of Italy in the 90ties created the biggest surpluses on the state's budget since WWII.

[Wonkish1]

I say the European left tend to look at the economic effect of growing or reducing government rather than looking to ideology, in 1993 the Danish SocDem lowered taxes, they sold several state owned companies and in general put increased prosperity over ideology. SPD in Germany reduced the wages of the workers in a attempt to reduce the chronic unemployment (primary in the former DDR), the left-wing government of Italy in the 90ties created the biggest surpluses on the state's budget since WWII.

Well clearly the European left has been forced to move a little bit more to the right over the last several decades because of the onset of more international competition. That is mostly true in the US as well as well the rest of the world.

But while the European left has agreed to some policies of the right over the last couple decades I don't think any of them would have imagined that they would have to do the things that are going on today and will be going on in the near future. Hence that is why I included both the left doing well politically and remaining the way they have been in the past in my answer.

This is what will be baked into the cake going forward: The European left will do well in the future only if they change significantly from what they were 10 years ago because its impossible to agree to current spending levels in many of these countries and not have the credit markets shut off to them.

I don't think the European left is looking forward to being the people advocating for moderately severe spending cuts instead of severe spending cuts because at that point your looking more right than the European right were only a few years ago.

[Sibboleth]

I'm not really sure I should take your post serious,because it's either the purest form of sarcasm I have ever seen, or a rather ignorant post. So I apologise for taking it serious if it was sarcasm.

It emerged on another thread that Wonkish had not heard of Willy Brandt before. I'll let that sink in for a moment...

[Sibboleth]

Given that Rajoy is an incompetent doofus, I wouldn't be surprised if the Socialists managed to return to power in Spain by 2015/2016 or so.

This. Oh god, this.

Anyway, this thread is yet another example of why Jmfcst should simply be barred from talking about other countries.

I would like to associate myself with the above posts, as they do speak The Truth. The funniest thing about this thread (ingemann's posts - have we ever had a bad poster from a Scandinavian country, btw? None come immediately to mind - absolutely excepted) is the seriously weird (and gloriously inconsistent) definitions of certain political terms.