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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

The very idea of a startup is that you create something that you can sell to people - because they value it - for more than simply the value of the labor you put in. Are you against that? For an American, I'm somewhat to the left, but I think that Marxism in the 20th century has been an abject failure and have to wonder a bit about how anyone, in the face of such evidence, could still espouse such a system. Want to talk about Sweden vs Singapore vs Canada vs Hong Kong? Fine, but Cuba? USSR? No thanks.

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I live in a capitalist society. I make do by working in startups. I did not say that startups adhere to socialist ideals.

All those countries you list are not Marxist. Especially not Sweden, Singapore, Canada or Hong Kong. USSR I give you from 1917 to 1920s it was but it was also under constant seige. Cuba made its own form of "socialism" after their revolution. Che grew fed up with the bureaucracy there and left.

> All those countries you list are not Marxist. Especially not Sweden, Singapore, Canada or Hong Kong.

That's right - they're prosperous and relatively free places (with Singapore a bit of an exception) that also manage to spend more or less money taking care of their citizens. They all have various problems and imperfections of different kinds, but generally fall along the continuum of "what works", whereas the USSR and Cuba, which are the closest to your ideals, are failures.

I can see how someone would be attracted to the Nordic system, or a more free-market type of individual would find things to like about, say, Hong Kong. Those countries, with their mixed systems, work in the real world. Marxism didn't and doesn't.

Meh. I haven't thought about this a lot, but I think the whole capitalism vs. socialism dichotomy is useless since the concepts carry so much historical baggage.

Coming from one of the Nordic countries, I would say that I have accepted a social contract that says I pay more in taxes than in other countries, and for those taxes I get "free" healthcare and "free" university education. The contract is that people get something at the beginning and the end of their lives and aren't screwed when they are faced with injury or illness, and pay more than they get during their working years. As someone said on on /., taxes buy me (this particular type of) civilization.

I'd keep that separate from the economic (e.g. private ownership and allocation of resources via somewhat free markets) and legal (e.g. governmental decision making based on majority and strong individual rights) aspects.

Unfortunately, most people confound these different aspects for historical reasons, so they have come to mean "good choices in those factors" and "bad choices in those factors" depending on your POV.

My point was that the Nordic system does work. It strikes certain balances, which may or may not also have negative effects as well, but generally you can say that it's a system that its people have freely chosen and are happy with. Countries that tend towards real Marxism are not really in the "functional" category so much.

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