American Socialism

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

In answering the original question, I think it would happen as a result of something along the lines of the Great Depression, probably in combination with a nationalistic and/or xenophobic movement as well. A national-socialist party, if you will. In the name of "freedom" we'll lick unemployment (everyone must Do Their Part) and beat the Japs terrorists. Healthcare and the like will be useful not only as a means to fuel the war machine but also a way to placate any of the masses who hold on to the provincial notions of liberty.

I cannot imagine us instituting significant and lasting socialized public healthcare over the long term because we simply cannot afford it.

[CountArach]

I cannot imagine us instituting significant and lasting socialized public healthcare over the long term because we simply cannot afford it.

Not with current taxes at least. Now, reverse Bush's tax cuts...

[PBI]

If I wanted to be really cheeky I could suggest this as an example of American Socialism:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

Although in truth I'd say the founding fathers were more Liberals than they were Socialists.

I would definitely argue though that some organisations should exist first and foremost to provide a service, not to make a profit. The disastrous privatisation of the UK postal service is an example of this: The new managers seem to have decided that the most profitable way to run a postal service is not to deliver any post or have any post offices, and thus seem intent on closing down the company entirely.

Having a few key services run centrally to maximise their public service benefits the economy as a whole, even if they do not make a profit themselves. All countries have this to some degree, even the US, so I suppose you could call this American Socialism. It's simply a question of balance between a Socialist and Capitalist system; either extreme is unworkable.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It seems to me that it depends entirely on what you deam an essential service. Apparently healthcare is not deemed so in the US. The Post Office is a parralel example in the UK. The EU's concept of "Competion = Better Service" has failed miserably when confronted with a service designed to be a monopoly and work as such.

[anelious phyros]

Well anything extreme will fail some how!
Like terroist are called extremsist sometimes. You don't here the whole world clapping for them do you?

[Moros]

Do you think your government can do a better job of taking care of the people than the people can do for themselves.

Why does it always come down to this question? Cause personally I think it's ridiculous and hasn't to do with Socialism at all. Socialsim in it's fundaments isn't about the government bossing around for the greater good or anything. Socialism is about caring for people who don't have it as well as you have. It's about protecting them and yourself from becomming victims of others trying to make money.
Why is the goverment also needed? Well just because of this specific problem. Man is egocentral, man is greedy. If he can become rich, by making others poor. He will usually do it. Then I can only conclude, that it's mad to have people and their coorporations , who have exactly that goal in control of the welfare of others. They don't give about welfare at all, just their pockets. This is why a government can be helpfull.

Now back to: Do you think your government can do a better job of taking care of the people than the people can do for themselves.
There's a few problems with this. The governement in socialism (except in extreme versions, communism ect... but this is not like socialsm is in Europe, were talking about moderate democratic socialism.) isn't taking care of you, it just will protect you and possibly help you, so that you can more easily take care of yourself. A person or a family can't be a succesfull lasting economy on it's own. You may work hard all your life, you may earn decently or even better. However one unfortune thing can ruin this. Lets say an illness with a real costly cure. In a socialist healthcare system others will help you pay the cost. But then you think why should the others, well because the others will get the same benefits. It's just charing when times are good, and recieving back what you get when times are worse. The more persons take care after each others wealth fare, the more stable you wealth fare is. Just as a large economy is more stable than a tiny one, a socialist health care system is in overall better than a personal care system. Except for the very rich, and I guess this is where the problem lies in America. Cause like I said if a person can enrich himself of another person, he will.

[Proletariat]

If I wanted to be really cheeky I could suggest this as an example of American Socialism:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

Although in truth I'd say the founding fathers were more Liberals than they were Socialists.

What is socialist about 'all men being created equal?'

[PBI]

What is socialist about 'all men being created equal?'

Well, equality is one of the central ideas of socialism.

But I didn't mean it as a serious comparison. I was just giving a silly counterexample to the usual silly "well Stalin was a socialist, so all socialists are like Stalin" argument.

[Lemur]

Its helpful to look hard at individual areas and ask, honestly, "Will the market work here?" The benefits of the market are too numerous to go into, but obviously if a field can be served by a functioning market, that's the best solution.

However, there are conditions that must be met for a market to function properly

• Bonding contracts
• Equality of information
• Property rights
• Competition

... etcetera. Lots of elements need to be in place for a market to work.

Americans, as a whole, agree that some things are not appropriate for a market. Policing our communities is not farmed out to the lowest bidder. Fire protection is not shopped between competing firms. Road building, by and large, is not financed by universal toll roads.

There are good reasons for all of these. Take roads, for instance. If I control the road between Huntsville and Janesburg, I have a de facto monopoly, and the only way to create market conditions would be to build alternate roads between the two towns, or to build a tramway, or a dirigible service. This would be insanely wasteful, as well as resulting in, at best, a duopoly rather than a monopoly.

Health care is a bit of a puzzler to this Lemur. It lacks many of the characteristics that allow a market to function. Equality of information? Are you kidding me? What are you gonna do, shop around for a cardiologist with your extensive knowledge of cardiology? How can there ever be a level playing field between a doctor and a patient? Between normal people and drug companies? How you gonna weight the relative value of provaxilcom and lipolizor? Heck, most practicing MDs find it impossible to keep up with the deluge of me-too drugs ...

So on the one hand, health care doesn't lend itself to market functions, as we see every day in the U.S.A.

On the other hand, treating health care as a public service has costs and dangers, as anyone looking at European budgets can attest. There's an innovation cost as well: without the profit motive, medical and drug development slows to a crawl. This is why people with bucks come from other countries to get cutting-edge treatment in the U.S.A. No market, no R&D budgets, no race for cures, no advanced treatment.

So like I said, it's a puzzler. I can see very valid arguments for socialized medicine. And I can see good reasons to embrace free-market medicine. Anything, frankly, would be an improvement on the half-fish half-goat system we have now.

[Xiahou]

Its helpful to look hard at individual areas and ask, honestly, "Will the market work here?" The benefits of the market are too numerous to go into, but obviously if a field can be served by a functioning market, that's the best solution.

However, there are conditions that must be met for a market to function properly

• Bonding contracts
• Equality of information
• Property rights
• Competition

... etcetera. Lots of elements need to be in place for a market to work.

Americans, as a whole, agree that some things are not appropriate for a market. Policing our communities is not farmed out to the lowest bidder. Fire protection is not shopped between competing firms. Road building, by and large, is not financed by universal toll roads.

There are good reasons for all of these. Take roads, for instance. If I control the road between Huntsville and Janesburg, I have a de facto monopoly, and the only way to create market conditions would be to build alternate roads between the two towns, or to build a tramway, or a dirigible service. This would be insanely wasteful, as well as resulting in, at best, a duopoly rather than a monopoly.

All good up to this point. An additional metric I like here is "Can an individual reasonably opt out?" For example, a national defense benefits everyone and an individual can hardly decide to go and buy the services of another army to protect their house. The same with roads ect.

Health care is a bit of a puzzler to this Lemur. It lacks many of the characteristics that allow a market to function. Equality of information? Are you kidding me? What are you gonna do, shop around for a cardiologist with your extensive knowledge of cardiology? How can there ever be a level playing field between a doctor and a patient? Between normal people and drug companies? How you gonna weight the relative value of provaxilcom and lipolizor? Heck, most practicing MDs find it impossible to keep up with the deluge of me-too drugs ...

So on the one hand, health care doesn't lend itself to market functions, as we see every day in the U.S.A.

By that reasoning neither do auto mechanics.... or IT professionals or any of a number of fields. If a consumer knew everything about a service that he was hiring another to do, why would he need to hire a professional? He'd be one. I think the problem here is more of a customer service one. From my experience, the medical field is more about being vague and obfuscating than being open and candid. I think wrong-headed government policies are at least partially to blame for this.

Socializing medicine creates a government run healthcare monopoly. Monopolies are almost always inefficient, wasteful, and unresponsive to customer needs. (see roads) Is this what we want for ourselves? We can see shades of it already in our current mess of a system- I don't care for it.

[Ironside]

On the other hand, treating health care as a public service has costs and dangers, as anyone looking at European budgets can attest. There's an innovation cost as well: without the profit motive, medical and drug development slows to a crawl. This is why people with bucks come from other countries to get cutting-edge treatment in the U.S.A. No market, no R&D budgets, no race for cures, no advanced treatment.

So like I said, it's a puzzler. I can see very valid arguments for socialized medicine. And I can see good reasons to embrace free-market medicine. Anything, frankly, would be an improvement on the half-fish half-goat system we have now.

The problems with the R&D is why you should develop a cheap medicine, considering how expensive it is to develop new products and also the expansion issue. AKA you cannot expand the market by making people sick, but then you claim that they're sick and would feel much better with this medicines.
How much have the pill market expanded in the US for the last 5 years?

BTW if I've understood the medical market correctly, the socialised markets are huge buyers and not suppliers of the medicines. That part is left on the market. Ever heard of the company Astra-Zenica? Well, Astra was a Swedish company and it's still considered to be a Swedish company (in Sweden atleast).

The point being that having the medical departments as buyers compared to private persons will affect on what is developed.

[Ice]

Its helpful to look hard at individual areas and ask, honestly, "Will the market work here?" The benefits of the market are too numerous to go into, but obviously if a field can be served by a functioning market, that's the best solution.

However, there are conditions that must be met for a market to function properly

• Bonding contracts
• Equality of information
• Property rights
• Competition

... etcetera. Lots of elements need to be in place for a market to work.

Americans, as a whole, agree that some things are not appropriate for a market. Policing our communities is not farmed out to the lowest bidder. Fire protection is not shopped between competing firms. Road building, by and large, is not financed by universal toll roads.

There are good reasons for all of these. Take roads, for instance. If I control the road between Huntsville and Janesburg, I have a de facto monopoly, and the only way to create market conditions would be to build alternate roads between the two towns, or to build a tramway, or a dirigible service. This would be insanely wasteful, as well as resulting in, at best, a duopoly rather than a monopoly.

Health care is a bit of a puzzler to this Lemur. It lacks many of the characteristics that allow a market to function. Equality of information? Are you kidding me? What are you gonna do, shop around for a cardiologist with your extensive knowledge of cardiology? How can there ever be a level playing field between a doctor and a patient? Between normal people and drug companies? How you gonna weight the relative value of provaxilcom and lipolizor? Heck, most practicing MDs find it impossible to keep up with the deluge of me-too drugs ...

So on the one hand, health care doesn't lend itself to market functions, as we see every day in the U.S.A.

On the other hand, treating health care as a public service has costs and dangers, as anyone looking at European budgets can attest. There's an innovation cost as well: without the profit motive, medical and drug development slows to a crawl. This is why people with bucks come from other countries to get cutting-edge treatment in the U.S.A. No market, no R&D budgets, no race for cures, no advanced treatment.

So like I said, it's a puzzler. I can see very valid arguments for socialized medicine. And I can see good reasons to embrace free-market medicine. Anything, frankly, would be an improvement on the half-fish half-goat system we have now.

Great post, Lemur

I was thinking this the other day. My father hurt his knee while outside. He had to see a specialized doctor, get an MRI, and most likely get his knee cut open by a specialized surgeon.

All of this is going to cost in the thousands of dollars. Luckily for our family we have good health insurance and we pay a small deductible and the insurance company covers 80% of the costs.

Although 80% is covered, we are still on the hook for a couple grand. Now my family inst fabulously wealthy, but we are fairly well off. If this is a pain in the ass for us, I'm wondering how the average American gets this done without such good health insurance.

Health care really is a tricky business. On one hand I really don't want government run medicine, but on the other hand the current situation is absurd.

[Proletariat]

Well, equality is one of the central ideas of socialism.

But I didn't mean it as a serious comparison. I was just giving a silly counterexample to the usual silly "well Stalin was a socialist, so all socialists are like Stalin" argument.

Aha. I just never thought of it as any endorsement of socialism, more likely the opposite. Since all men are created equal, they should all have equal opportunities.

[anelious phyros]

Aha. I just never thought of it as any endorsement of socialism, more likely the opposite. Since all men are created equal, they should all have equal opportunities.

Tell that to are govt.! I wonder what they would argue?