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View Full Version : The Demise of Social Democracy?



Chris
09-02-2012, 11:06 AM
Whatever the outcome of the American presidential election, one thing is certain: the fighting of it will be the most significant political event of the decade. Last week’s Republican national convention sharpened what had been until then only a vague, inchoate theme: this campaign is going to consist of the debate that all Western democratic countries should be engaging in, but which only the United States has the nerve to undertake. The question that will demand an answer lies at the heart of the economic crisis from which the West seems unable to recover. It is so profoundly threatening to the governing consensus of Britain and Europe as to be virtually unutterable here, so we shall have to rely on the robustness of the US political class to make the running.

What is being challenged is nothing less than the most basic premise of the politics of the centre ground: that you can have free market economics and a democratic socialist welfare system at the same time. The magic formula in which the wealth produced by the market economy is redistributed by the state – from those who produce it to those whom the government believes deserve it – has gone bust. The crash of 2008 exposed a devastating truth that went much deeper than the discovery of a generation of delinquent bankers, or a transitory property bubble. It has become apparent to anyone with a grip on economic reality that free markets simply cannot produce enough wealth to support the sort of universal entitlement programmes which the populations of democratic countries have been led to expect. The fantasy may be sustained for a while by the relentless production of phoney money to fund benefits and job-creation projects, until the economy is turned into a meaningless internal recycling mechanism in the style of the old Soviet Union.

We should tune in to the Romney and Ryan show: The myth of a democratic socialist society funded by capitalism is finished (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/9513687/We-should-tune-in-to-the-Romney-and-Ryan-show.html)

Social democracy, described above, is to me the worse form of socialism.

Question, does the Romney-Ryan ticket stand for undoing or redoing it? When Romney says he's here to help you and your family is he saying he will dismantle social democracy or mere change the redistribution?

Peter1469
09-02-2012, 03:08 PM
Undoing social democracy will not happen over night. Vouchers for Medicare is a step in the right direction.

Chris
09-02-2012, 03:29 PM
THe vouchers sound somewhat paternalistic.

Peter1469
09-02-2012, 03:54 PM
THe vouchers sound somewhat paternalistic.

Sure they are. But you are not going to go from a welfare state program to being on your own over night. And those who are retirement age did pay into that system, so vouchers are just giving them their money back.

Chris
09-02-2012, 06:34 PM
But it tells them how to spend it. Why take our money to begin with, let us opt out of social programs without repercussions.

Goldie Locks
09-02-2012, 08:27 PM
But it tells them how to spend it. Why take our money to begin with, let us opt out of social programs without repercussions.

Well, I think that is going to happen eventually anyway after a certain age or you will be forced out. The New Deal is going to bust because it was a ponzi scheme from the get go.

Chris
09-02-2012, 08:52 PM
Central planning is socialism, regardless if it comes from Dems or Reps, libs or cons.

Peter1469
09-03-2012, 02:25 AM
But it tells them how to spend it. Why take our money to begin with, let us opt out of social programs without repercussions.

Right. You aren't going to change society that fast overnight.

Chris
09-03-2012, 05:33 AM
No one's said anything about special delivery, peter, standard mail will do, as long as it announces less government rather than more or the status quo.

Peter1469
09-03-2012, 10:34 AM
No one's said anything about special delivery, peter, standard mail will do, as long as it announces less government rather than more or the status quo.

Good one. I agree. :smiley:

Baby steps in the right direction.

Chris
09-03-2012, 11:36 AM
No problem here with prudence.