Comment by diputsmonro | Hacker News Reader

Comment by diputsmonro | Hacker News Reader

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> I disagree with the notion that a more equitable society is a silver bullet for reducing human misery.

Surely it would not solve every source of human misery, but I don't see how it wouldn't be a substantial improvement.

> I doubt it would be an easy sell to suggest sharing the fruits of everyone's labour regardless of the amount of work each person has put into producing those fruits.

There is a whole branch of political philosophy dedicated to exactly that, which capitalists around the world (valuing utmost the ability to accrue and hoarde capital) have spent over a century turning into a dirty word.

Nowadays in the US, even the suggestion of public healthcare is an untouchable evil, because helping your fellow man is seen as being taken advantage of, and the idea that someone might get something for free is abhorrent. This, despite that fact that public healthcare is normal, successful, and more efficient in almost all other western democracies (because the cost of services isn't padded by executive bonuses and investor returns)

Besides, if you have insurance, you already believe in that general concept. It is a pooling of resources with the knowledge that some may give and take in unequal measures, but that on average less people will need to take than will give, and that you have a safety net in the case of an extreme unlucky event. Same idea, just applied on a societal scale.

> Nowadays in the US, even the suggestion of public healthcare is an untouchable evil, because helping your fellow man is seen as being taken advantage of, and the idea that someone might get something for free is abhorrent.

Private healthcare is also a restricted public (or "group") healthcare. You pay your premium along with the rest of your group (the section of the market that can afford and wants the same provider); the fund's management organise the healthcare and any parallel investment. The "socialist" view is that everyone within the political boundary (state/country/etc) pays into one pot, nominally run by elected officials. The "private" version is that subsets of the political boundary each have their own and the market decides the sets. The _healthcare_ part is the same (quality differentiators aside).

Anyone complaining that social healthcare is wrong/immoral/offensive is lying to themselves.

I think socialism did rather more than capitalists to turn socialism into a dirty word.

Depends on your definition.

Capitalists have successfully ejected murderous regimes from their timeline, by saying that capitalism isn’t really real unless it’s got a free democracy associated with it. Thus imperial Japan, Belgium’s atrocious behaviour in the Congo, the behaviour of the British Empire is completely left out of “capitalist history”.

If you did the same trick for socialism you could just count Denmark, Sweden and other successful mixed-but-really-socialist democracies and you could say that socialist guided economies are actually fantastic. Ie if I define socialism as only real socialism when there is a free market democracy but large well funded social programs that keep the society from excessive inequality, I suddenly have the recipe for some of the happiest countries on earth.

And some people, you know reasonable people who actually understand Marx’s critique of capitalism - not as a recipe but as a pretty accurate descriptor of the end result of the natural forces of capitalism - they might say that Denmark style socialism is actually what they would like.

But of course Denmark = Soviet Union in some peoples mind so that’s impossible.

Let’s forget of course that past Stalin’s death, the USSR’s criminal activity was relatively limited. They didn’t invade a country until Afghanistan and that was still without imperialist purpose - they just believed Afghanistan to be in their sphere of influence. In comparison with American military, the Soviet military essentially was used to put down revolts in part so the world the USSR believed has been left to their influence after Yalta. When Portugal was turning red in 1974, the Soviets refused to have anything to do with it.

Vis à vis the crimes of the Soviet Union or Red China past their murderous genocidal creators - Mao and Stalin - were relatively limited. In the same vein you could argue that the US was also founded on genocide, just of Native Americans.

I’m happy to accept that European-style social democracy is not genocidal!

It is important to remember Denmark socialism works in Denmark but couldn't be imported around the world.

"To implement the Nordic model, you have to have a society which is a high trust society, i.e. the government is trustworthy and not corrupt, you identify to your state and not to your tribe, you can trust your fellow nationals, and you can also trust to outsiders. This all stems from Lutheranism.

Calvinist societies are highly individualist and they distrust any central government, and they also tend to distrust outsiders. This is why US, Switzerland and the Netherlands have not adopted the Scandinavian model, while Germany has. Likewise, Catholic countries tend to be more corrupt than Protestant, and Orthodox countries even more corrupt than Catholic. This is why the Nordic model won’t succeed in those countries."

Who is this quote from?

Im not sure I agree with you. Yes Germany isn’t Denmark, the distance from US —- German government policy is vast. Even the difference between UK and Germany is vast. What do we call that difference ? Some people might call it socialism, others just more govt intervention. Still the societal dynamics are so different yet “capitalists” and free market folk want to take it all under their wing, while ascribing only genocidal dictatorships to socialist policy.

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