How do you explain prosperous nations that are built on socialism?

[rational thinker]

It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier. (NY Times)

In Denmark health care is free, education is free, the government will even pay students around $600 a month to go to school, and if you lose your job you get full unemployment for around 4 years before it goes to 80% of your pay. (this may have changed, but was true a few years ago at least). They also get at least a month of paid vacation a year (I think it's actually 5 weeks). Just try taking 5 weeks of vacation in America, much less get paid vacation.

So if socialist nations are bound to fail then why do they succeed?

[Zuras]

1. The have little to no military spending and expect countires like the united states to be their body guards when trouble arises. Look at great britain, france, etc. getting its ass kcked by germany two world wars in a row. Come save us you arrogant, dumb, unrefined american cowboys!
2. They have small states which are easier to regulate more effectively. bureaucracy is exponentially unwieldy and cumbersome.
3. Who says they are even "successful"?

[t0rnado]

Prosperity != people who don't work having the same quality of life as people who do.

[rational thinker]

3. Who says they are even "successful"?
It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier.

[Theocrat]

It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier.

I would be interested in knowing whose ranking system they're in the first tier, and what is the political ideology of the person or group doing the ranking of nations.

[Xenophage]

Its amazing what just a LITTLE bit of freedom can do for a society. Even so, you're a bit optimistic in your appraisal of socialist countries. First off, what are you comparing Sweden to? Socialist England? Socialist America? Moreover, Sweden doesn't have an immigration problem, or a foreign policy nightmare. Its easier for them to afford what socialism they have. Sweden is also full of hot babes. I don't know if that's relevant, but it should be. Sixteenthly, IKEA is 90% of their GDP.

[qaxn]

Sweden doesn't have an immigration problem
hahahahahhahahah
oh dear

sweden presently has a greater percent of foreign born people than the united states.


I would be interested in knowing whose ranking system they're in the first tier, and what is the political ideology of the person or group doing the ranking of nations.

adult mortality rate per 1000 ages 15-60 in 2006: 109.0 in US, 88.0 in Denmark, 64.0 in Sweden; under-5 mortality rate per 1000 live birth: 8 in US, 4 in Denmark, 4 in Sweden (WHO, can't link due to weird flash based website, you'll have to dick around with http://www.who.int/whosis/en/ for the numbers from the source)

math: sweden 502, denmark 513, united states 474
science: sweden 503, denmark 496, united states 489
from 2006 PISA (http://www.pisa.oecd.org/document/2/0,3343,en_32252351_32236191_39718850_1_1_1_1,00.ht ml)

percent satisfied with lives us 65 sweden 72
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=257

american exceptionalism: lol

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

nt

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

nt

[idiom]

If you are an infant you are more likely to die in the US than in Cuba.

But their right to life? What is that?

Fiat currencies are bound to fail, but semi-socialistic countries are not bound to fail. They may not do as well but I think that it is a big stretch to say that any country not already in anarchy is bound to fall into anarchy.

[tangowhiskeykilo]

Norway should to be added to that list as well.

[Varin]

I think a lot of people on this forum makes a mistake constantly arguing the superiority of the free market from an economic viewpoint. All though you are most
likely correct you leave it open for debate. The best argument for the free market is not the economic but the the moral one. Anything but the free market will have to be based upon force and violence or as Hayek puts it

"And it regards competition as superior not only because in most circumstances
it is the most efficient method known but because it is the only method which does not require the coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority."

This is in my experience much harder for a modern collectivist to argue against, There base values are not that different from ours they just can´t seem to understand that the redistributing of wealth requires the use of violence on the part of the state. They are usually shocked of the notion that they "the great humanitarians" base there entire system on force and violence.

A good example of the discussion going wrong is in the bailout of the banking system where the discussion is centered on if the bailouts is necessary to save the economy or not.

That is irrelevant it dos not really matters if it saves the economy it would still bee immoral to tax some for the mistakes of others . It would probably bee economically sound to run sterilization programs (Sweden social democrats) and simply kill of the old and the sick. That nobody even suggest because for most people it´s easy to see that it´s immoral. In places were it´s harder to see people just need it pointed out for them.

To the discussion on my native country Sweden,

As some has pointed out the comparison is halting because America is hardly a free economy. Shore you tax a bit less but because of size and worse corruption you probably waste a bit more. The overall negative effect on the economy may very well not bee that different. Look at health care for example you currently spend about 16% of GDP on health care while Sweden spends 9% producing comparable results.

Also the Swedish socialist model is nowadays based on the idea that the free market produces the most wealth. So the idea is to impair it as little as possible and then tax and redistribute the profits it produces. Which probably is quite an efficient way to impose socialism. It is not based on the idea of huge state runned companies and monopolies any more. The state monopolies on railways, post services, telephone services and energy has been broken up(early 90:s).

[Xenophage]

hahahahahhahahah
oh dear

sweden presently has a greater percent of foreign born people than the united states.



Ahem?

Sweden's total population is less than 10 million people. Most of its immigrants are Finnish. Put that into perspective.

[Conza88]

It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier. (NY Times)

In Denmark health care is free, education is free, the government will even pay students around $600 a month to go to school, and if you lose your job you get full unemployment for around 4 years before it goes to 80% of your pay. (this may have changed, but was true a few years ago at least). They also get at least a month of paid vacation a year (I think it's actually 5 weeks). Just try taking 5 weeks of vacation in America, much less get paid vacation.

So if socialist nations are bound to fail then why do they succeed?

Because they are not essentially 'socialist' (Public control of the means of production)

They haven't got the balls to impose, rob and coerce the industries etc. They just do that to the individuals afterwards.

What they do is welfarism, welfare state.

They have low barriers, largely open markets but then they do all the wealth distribution afterwords. Progressive taxation, etc. etc.

[Monolithic]

well it's not exactly socialism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy

[Truth Warrior]

Measure them against them RP standards.

"Freedom, Peace and Prosperity" -- Ron Paul



http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i304/Truth_Warrior/Socialism_by_miniamericanflags.jpg

[Danke]

I don't know why you would want to compare those countries to the USA, we haven't had a free market here since around the Civil War times.

[Young Paleocon]

I haven't read all of the posts so this may reiterate something. You should look at the birth rates, and population growth of these welfare states. Their population is getting older but the next generation of tax payers is going to be much smaller. This, plus the fact the highest growing population in these countries are non assimilated immigrants from the middle east, is going to cause massive problems as the entitled outnumber the taxed ones in the coming years. In all of these nordic countries you see strong Conservative/Classical Liberal parties gaining support for both anti-immigrant reasons, and pro market/less welfaristic reasons because they realize the dangers coming down the road. It will fail. And as a final argument I would point out that welfare states cause a dying population to occur because incentives to have children are stripped away due to dependency on the state, therefore this cycle will always occur, and for various other obvious economic reasons, all welfare states come to an end.

[TastyWheat]

It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier.
Not all of these "metrics" are actually good things. Life expectancy itself is good, but theirs may be higher because of heavy regulation of food and allowable diets and also high safety standards. Child welfare, though a very compassionate idea, still functions on the backs of many who do not give a crap. Governments should not act as our conscience. Also, I don't see how economic equality is such a good thing. I mean, in an ideal society I don't think everyone should be making the same amount of money. Face it, not every job and every employee is worth the same amount of money. Janitors are not as valuable as doctors (since the former is easier to replace) so I don't think they should have the same income before OR AFTER taxes.

It's not the government's job to make sure everyone has a balanced diet, keep fatal accidents from happening, take care of orphan children, and make sure everyone makes about the same amount of money.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

nt

[pcosmar]

How do you explain prosperous nations that are built on socialism?

I don't.
There are NO nations "Built" on Socialism. There are some that are turned that way, but none built.

[LibForestPaul]

I would like to start here:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman33.html

Please dispute anything that is untrue so we can have a common ground to start with. This way as closets are opened and human rights skeletons start piling up like indian burial grounds we have an accurate definition of successful.

Wow lewrockwell article biggest bunch of pooh I have read in long time.

[Kludge]

Didn't you make a thread almost exactly the same as this about 4 months ago, RT? Or was that Rael?

[LibForestPaul]

Their utopia will be coming to an end like everone elses.

1. No spending on military. How great could their lives have been without the US protecting them from Russia. Yes, lets look at neighbors such as Latvia and Lithuania. Doing wonderful are they not? How much money did West Germany have to put into East Germany to bring the m up to Western standards. We should be sending bills to our Western "Allies".

2. Homogenous group...easier for clan mentality. Not too mention after war there was some communal spirit. Will this spirit persist, I doubt it.

3. United States - where would Sweden be if we did not include them in our post war industrial rebuilding of Europe?

[Varin]

Heh, not a pretty picture of my country:o. But you should keep in mind that the sterilization program was mostly active more than 50 years ago and that USA and many other countries had similar programs.

The ties between state and church were cut a couple of years ago. That the government was running the church is probably why so many Swedes are Atheist or non religious.

With the regard to unwed pregnancies I don´t see the problem. The important thing for the child should bee that the parents live together and raise the child together. As previously stated swedes are not religious many families live together without being married, even more have there first kids before being legally married. This kind of partnership is regulated by a special law (sambolagen) making it a lot like a regular marriage.

The more interesting number would bee number of kids living with both there parents thats 73% not the 44% that the article indicates.

http://www.scb.se/statistik/_publikationer/le0101_2002i04_br_le110sa0501.pdf

Further there are crazy people on the streets. You do see them every now and then. i know about at least two regulars here in Gotheburg.

Other than that I think the article makes some good points. Sweden did not turn really wealtharist/socialist until the sixties and seventies Sweden was then perhaps the richest country in the world and since then I´m pretty shore we have been on a relative decline.

It´s also correct on the Myrdals (have read some of there writings) they argued for sterilization programs and the governments involvement in raising all children.
Both were very influential in the social democratic party laying out the foundation for the Swedish wealthfare state.

I would say that they were both intelligent people who unlike most socialists saw the necessary consequences of there ideology and were prepared to accept them.

[Varin]

Their utopia will be coming to an end like everone elses.

1. No spending on military. How great could their lives have been without the US protecting them from Russia. Yes, lets look at neighbors such as Latvia and Lithuania. Doing wonderful are they not? How much money did West Germany have to put into East Germany to bring the m up to Western standards. We should be sending bills to our Western "Allies".



Sweden is neutral and not an allied, we are not a NATO member.

We have an army I served in it for over a year. We have troops in both Afghanistan, Kosovo and probably still some in diffrent African countries.

But otherwise I think you are almost right our dystopia not utopia will come to an end. There will bee an ever increasing parasitic population living of the work of an ever decreasing productive population.

[thasre]

One random thing I'm going to point out about the statistics regarding "higher standard of living" among other nations is that they are often deliberately skewed to make them look better (because the criteria have been set by statisticians hired by the governments being ranked).

For example, I read on the Cato website something about WHO rankings of health-care systems that said one of their criteria is that nations with "good" health-care systems have a lower range of percentages of people's income that people spend on health-care.

In other words, everyone in the country spends between, say, 5-10% of their income on health-care. The problem is that a country like the US may have very wealthy people only spending .001% of their income on health-care (because they aren't being forced to pay for others'), and other people who spend 40% of their income on their own (because they actually have higher health-costs and lower incomes). Why is it is "better" if wealthy people are forced to pay 10% of their income on health services they aren't using so that other people's health-care costs can be kept artificially low? And who gets to decide why that is a criteria for ranking health-care *performance*?

Or for another example, different countries have different standards for determining what counts as "infant mortality". Part of the reason the US has a higher infant mortality rate is because it includes deaths of premature infants. So if two babies are born 24 weeks into a pregnancy and one dies and one lives, the one that dies is counted in our infant mortality statistics. But if *both* babies were to die in a country like France, *neither* would be counted among their infant mortality rates.

In other words, these statistics are inflated to make socialistic countries look better than the competition... imagine that, governments monopolizing the systems that hold them accountable for shortcomings...

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

nt

[JoshLowry]

I don't know why you would want to compare those countries to the USA, we haven't had a free market here since around the Civil War times.

This.

Your post infers that the US doesn't do well compared to countries with socialism. I'd say we have plenty of it here.

[angelatc]

If you are an infant you are more likely to die in the US than in Cuba.

Even that figure is misleading. Our medical system is capable of keeping premature babies alive at early ages that Cuba won't even attempt to perform life saving measures on.

If a baby is born at 26 weeks and dies, they count it as a premature birth. We put it on life support and if it doesn't make it, we call it an infant death.

[angelatc]

Wow lewrockwell article biggest bunch of pooh I have read in long time.

Well, that's the worst rebuttal I've seen in a long time.

Add to that article that Sweden was teetering on an economic collapse and had to open the door to more capitalism in order to keep things running after this article was written.
.

The Sweden that the socialists here idolize died in the '90's. http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={7ADD7200-F22F-44A4-96FA-4CE8C056EB5E}&print=1&siteid=mktw


Sweden endured a deep financial crisis in the early '90s, with sluggish growth and high unemployment, but this provided an impetus to new approaches in fiscal policy. As a result, the central bank became independent and set a low inflation target of 2%. Centralized salary negotiations were abolished and the labor market developed into one of Europe's most flexible.

[Paulitician]

It's not socialism! Having a large welfare/nanny state is not socialism. Their economies are mixed just as the one in United States. They are capitalistic economies, they are not laissez-faire, they have some business freedom (obviously not absolute), they probably have heavy regulations, they have more redistribution of wealth than we do, heavier taxes etc., but they are still capitalistic. (Some people seem to think that if it doesn't fit their ideal, than it isn't capitalism--this is faulty thinking.) They're relatively more succesful at implementing these things while not driving their economies into the ground, but one has to ask if the individuals within those economies would not be better off with a more free economy. There are many reasons why I believe they'd of course be much better off. I'm not worried that these nations may be doing better than the United States (though, in general I don't believe they are), since the US is a freaking corporate state (it does not represent what I support). The US does not have a free market, and it generally favors the kleptocracy at the expense of everyone else. Anyway, that was my generalized rant. Later.

[Pauls' Revere]

It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier.

Based on what standard? and/or formula? granted they are no Zimbabwae however you imply a standard of some sort.

[RevolutionSD]

It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier. (NY Times)

In Denmark health care is free, education is free, the government will even pay students around $600 a month to go to school, and if you lose your job you get full unemployment for around 4 years before it goes to 80% of your pay. (this may have changed, but was true a few years ago at least). They also get at least a month of paid vacation a year (I think it's actually 5 weeks). Just try taking 5 weeks of vacation in America, much less get paid vacation.

So if socialist nations are bound to fail then why do they succeed?

I'm surprised you don't know this by now, with all your time spent in this movement.

Sweden/Norway have a huge oil deposit off their shore that has been pumping money into their systems for decades. They have done okay DESPITE socialism! If these countries had capitalism, they would be FAR better off.

And the vast majority of socialist countries are more similar to Venezuela- a few at the top with a lot of money, and many "equal" citizens just above poverty.

This is almost not even worth debating.

How can you make the case that having an elite group that monopolizes violence and steals half of people's money is a good or moral thing in ANY way?

[Rael]

Ahem?

Sweden's total population is less than 10 million people. Most of its immigrants are Finnish. Put that into perspective.

In other words , Finnish immigrants versus dirty Mexicans and other dangerous minorities? :D

[idiom]

Even that figure is misleading. Our medical system is capable of keeping premature babies alive at early ages that Cuba won't even attempt to perform life saving measures on.

If a baby is born at 26 weeks and dies, they count it as a premature birth. We put it on life support and if it doesn't make it, we call it an infant death.

Well, as long as the infants parents can pay.

[JoshLowry]

"Rational Thinker" you need to respond to some of these rebuttals or stop creating new threads. :p

[GBurr]

Sweden is more "successful" because they have not run into the moral traps that The U.S. has run into. The Swedish population is much less likely to abuse the system than Americans are. Sweden doesn't exploit their welfare system nearly as bad as the U.S.. There socialism is better because they choose to do better themselves.

As far as life expectancy goes that is once again a personal choice. People from Sweden don't eat supersized big macs and never exercise like the U.S. does.

Capitalism doesn't guarantee success. What Capitalism guarantees is the greatest potential for success. We don't even have real capitalism.

Ask yourself this. If there was a country that was 100% capitalist yet its people didn't work hard, didn't refrain from using force on others, and always tried to mooch off of someone else; would this country be successful. The answer is no.

I'm not saying that Americans are all slobs who don't work hard. I'm just saying that America has a higher percentage of slobs that don't work hard than Sweden.

[LibForestPaul]

[QUOTE=angelatc;1992694]Well, that's the worst rebuttal I've seen in a long time.

run-of-the-mill socialist butcher shop,

(As an aside, O’Rourke notes that the US ambassador to Sweden at the time of his visit was Thomas Siebert. He was Bill Clinton’s roommate at Georgetown. O’Rourke also notes that Mrs. Siebert is a friend of Hillary Clinton. Americans can stop wondering where the most intelligent and courageous female politician ever known finds inspiration for her collectivist dreams.)

why Cuba, China, North Korea, the USSR, and most of Africa, Latin and Central America, and Asia are much more akin to Hell on earth.

unlike the godless state to which American leftists aspire

I reiterate, biggest pile of pooh (propaganda and fallacies) I have read in some time.:)

If any who believe this article is the greates thing since sliced bread. Print it out, then go to any web-site regarding critical thinking and logical fallacies. Would be good exercise.;)

[jmlfod87]

So your rebuttal is you don't believe these sterilizations and lobodomies occured?

And BTW, all political essays are essentially propaganda.

[Brian4Liberty]

I'll go ahead and re-post from a different thread, as this conversation has occurred several times...


I have my own theories on socialism in Scandinavia. As a gross generalization, I would say that the form of "government" (whether it be any one or mix of democracy, monarchy, oligarchy, plutocracy, capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism, theocracy, etc.) is less important than the morals and standards of the people as a whole. Certainly the political and economic systems have some effect, but "bad" people will ruin any system, and "bad" people exist in every system. When they reach a critical mass, it brings down everyone.

A society of self-sufficient and honest people will tend to have a "better" society, no matter what the system.

In most cases, we do not have enough self-sufficient and honest people. And because of this, the system which intrudes least (with the least power) is best, if for no other reason than political systems are so easily corrupted for the advantage of a corrupt few.

I had a couple of posts related to this:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=173180

Quote:
We have had two threads going that are related: the role of "greed" in society and "standard of living" (in Denmark).

First, let's make a distinction between "greed" and "self-interest". For this theory, I will use the Wikipedia definition of greed: "Greed is the selfish desire for the pursuit of money, wealth, power, food, or other possessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others. It is generally considered a vice, and is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholicism."

Let's just assume that healthy "self-interest" is universal. It's not good or bad, it just is.

It seems that lack of "greed" is what defines the "better standard of living" societies like Denmark, while excess "greed" defines the worst "standard of living" societies such as Zimbabwe.

Socialism combined with greed never works. Socialism on a large scale never works. Socialism is collectivism, with the people who propose or control it looking to take advantage of others.

In cases like Denmark, it may work to a certain extent because the culture generally dislikes greed, and will naturally limit the amount of greed wherever it occurs in their society.

On the other hand, the United Stated has gone a long way in the past 50 years in moving from "self-interest" to a "greed" oriented culture. Thus we are moving from the type of society of Denmark, towards the type of Zimbabwe.

And our socialism will continue to grow, as socialism is generally a device used by the greedy. The poor are like the suckers of a ponzi scheme who believe that they will gain from socialism, and the elite plutocracy are the greedy ones who know that they will benefit. And both of those groups feel justified in their opinions by the greed of overpaid hedge fund managers, CEO's and Wall St...

Bottom line: Greed and the perception of excess greed are a good counter-indicator of a society's standard of living (and happiness if you like). And the US is going in the wrong direction. Greed is destroying us.

Another thought on greed in a society:

Would anyone in Denmark put poison in baby formula and pet food?

The fact that Socialism/Communism and Capitalism work together so well in China is interesting...they can easily embrace both, yet China is never on the top of a list of countries with a great standard of living...but they might be rated high on the "greed" factor.

[rational thinker]

"Rational Thinker" you need to respond to some of these rebuttals or stop creating new threads. :p

:D I never really had a defense of socialism. I just had a burning question on this and it seems as if you can't ask a simple question without being flamed for it. In my opinon, Paulitician had the best answer.

[Varin]

Brian4Liberty

I agree with the post but I would also say that an immoral government in the long run will create an immoral people. I can see it happening in Sweden just comparing my grandfathers my fathers and my generation. A once proud nation is slowly turning in to a nation of beggars.

[Original_Intent]

Brian4Liberty

I agree with the post but I would also say that an immoral government in the long run will create an immoral people. I can see it happening in Sweden just comparing my grandfathers my fathers and my generation. A once proud nation is slowly turning in to a nation of beggars.

And vice-versa.

An immoral people will demand an immoral government.

[matterweisen]

reasons for socialism in sweden:

No military spending
Population size of NYC
Sterilization of undesirables in 30's-70's
Crap ton of Oil and Natural Gas in the North Sea and Baltic Sea
Homogenous population

[Varin]

reasons for socialism in sweden:

No military spending
Population size of NYC
Sterilization of undesirables in 30's-70's
Crap ton of Oil and Natural Gas in the North Sea and Baltic Sea
Homogenous population



Wrong on 1,4 and 5

Yes we have a military.
Oil, natural gas is Norway, England and Holland Sweden got non.
The population is no longer homogenus see for example

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/13/europe/sweden.php

1,4 million out of 9 million are immigrants/refugees or both there parents are.

3 is a bit unfair many countries had those kind of programs. They are however a consequence of authoritarian ideology.

As many people have pointed out Sweden is not a totlay socialist state and the USA is hardly a totaly capitalist one so a comparison is not all that meaningful.

[mconder]

Ya, but lifestyle under socialism sucks, they just don't know it...neither do we anymore.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

nt

[paulitics]

I'm not sure if I accept the premise of the question "prosperous nations" "built on socialism".

[akihabro]

If you are an infant you are more likely to die in the US than in Cuba.

But their right to life? What is that?

Fiat currencies are bound to fail, but semi-socialistic countries are not bound to fail. They may not do as well but I think that it is a big stretch to say that any country not already in anarchy is bound to fall into anarchy.

Ya by like .01% I forgot where I read that. It was some less than 1% difference. Also Cuba has a lot less people than the U.S. I can't say I'd want to live in a country that is stuck in the 1950's with a dictator's son.

[akihabro]

Sweden is neutral and not an allied, we are not a NATO member.

We have an army I served in it for over a year. We have troops in both Afghanistan, Kosovo and probably still some in diffrent African countries.

But otherwise I think you are almost right our dystopia not utopia will come to an end. There will bee an ever increasing parasitic population living of the work of an ever decreasing productive population.

There is a military in Sverige. Saab makes jets and cars! Except Saab cars has a lot of GM crap inside. I guess I support a socialist country by buying Ikea stuff.

[rp08orbust]

1,4 million out of 9 million are immigrants/refugees or both there parents are.

I would say that more important than *whether* a country has immigration is *what kind* of immigration it has.

The US borders a third world country that is all too eager to get rid of its poorest classes over the US-Mexican border. Compared to the living standard they come from, the US welfare system would appear to be the life of a king to those immigrants.

Sweden and Denmark, on the other hand, border countries that are very similar to themselves, and they are among the most isolated from world poverty. Thus they can easily hand-pick the kind of immigrants they want. Australia is very similar--it's hard to walk down a street of Melbourne without seeing as many Indian or Chinese people as white, but most of those immigrants are from wealthy backgrounds. There are of course the token Sudanese refugee communities, but they too were hand-picked.

As a libertarian, I would prefer a government that doesn't provide the welfare system that attracts the undesirable kind of immigration in the first place. Such a libertarian government wouldn't need to hand-pick its immigrants--all would be welcome, as the Statue of Liberty states, and as was once the case (more or less) in the US.

[rp08orbust]

To add to what I just said, I challenge anyone to try immigrating to Sweden on your own merits (i.e., without refugee status or family connections): It isn't easy! Since Sweden is such a tiny country compared to the number of people who wish to live there, they can be very picky. It's migrational mercantilism.

[bunklocoempire]

It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier. (NY Times)

In Denmark health care is free, education is free, the government will even pay students around $600 a month to go to school, and if you lose your job you get full unemployment for around 4 years before it goes to 80% of your pay. (this may have changed, but was true a few years ago at least). They also get at least a month of paid vacation a year (I think it's actually 5 weeks). Just try taking 5 weeks of vacation in America, much less get paid vacation.

So if socialist nations are bound to fail then why do they succeed?



Ain’t this interesting on the RON PAUL forums?!:confused:

I’ll just be a dope and say:

Succeed means MYSELF being free, NOT “free” education, health care etc..

Who exactly pays for the “free” condiments? Ain’t nothing physical to be got that’s free.

I’d love to be able to foot the TOTAL bill for my nephews charter school tuition, a school leaps and bounds better than his “free” public school –but alas there’s a man with a gun

and a pokey to throw me in if I don’t “support” the crappy “free” school, so my nephew has to make do for now with the crappy “free” school. And per student, the better charter

school costs less than a “free” public school. Go figure.

Do folks appreciate and use to the fullest ability “free” stuff? The people I can actually GIVE gifts to do appreciate it (people I know).

Same goes with health care and every other “free” crappy sub par product I am FORCED to pay for.

What is equally a crime that goes along with taking the fruits of MY labor, is the taking of MY responsibility of using MY fruits to their FULLEST POTENTIAL.

Now everyone doesn’t handle responsibility the same do they? Socialism shifts responsibility.

Individual Liberty 1st, and the rest will follow.

Now if our Country doesn’t appear to be prosperous, it stands to reason we ain’t got as much Liberty as we should have.

I do like your sig line.

Bunkloco

[Brassmouth]

There are currently no socialist nations, per se. As far as I know, all nations are fundamentally market-based economies. Now, places like Scandinavia and Germany have huge welfare states, and are commonly called "democratic socialist," but that is a misnomer.

Mises said that the separation between capitalism and socialism is the existence of a stock market.