Northern Europe haven't had significantly more unemployment even though the labour costs and regulations are much better than in the US. How would you explain that?
That is false. Example: unemployment rate of youth in Spain for 2019 was 32.9%, the rate for same period in US was around 9%. Similar situation in other Northern Europe countries, with high unemployment rate especially among youth, as they are the most vulnerable to minimum wage laws which limit their ability to acquire skills and experience needed to move to higher paying jobs.
No. I never said anything about Spain and southern europe.
Overall unemployment isn't worse historically. Not sure why you cherry-pick youth as if it invalidates the overall stat somehow. But even that stat isn't worse historically.
google 'equity result' or something similar and you will see them, they're the new fad.
I'm all for splitting US into left and right states, a reverse of civil war but without the war. The nation is nearly split into 50:50 anyways in the last few decades and it's getting more and more divided. Both sides will be happy, and we can compete in parallel and see which system will win. This way, at least, those leftism will not fight for liberal agenda with money from other hard working people's pocket. Please leave them alone, they're already taxed enough and did their share for your dreaming welfare society.
"Harsh" is very relative. I would be very surprised to see anyone caught using drugs for the first time, or even the 3rd time, not just getting a fine unless they're in possession of a larger quantity. The maximum sentence is 3 years, which I would assume would require a substantial criminal record.
The problem here is that too many of the detractors of socialism only recognizes a single version of it, a.k.a USSR and its off-spring. It doesn't matter how much democratic socialists were against it (and persecuted by it) at its inception, during its reign, and after its collapse.
What example do you see of Socialism that started out democratic and still went down in misery?
I don't think anyone expressed an opinion on whether more democracy was a good thing or not? I think democracy is the best approach we have. And nobody mentioned Stalinism either. Your comment seems off-topic.
We're not talking about socialism, or Stalinism. You're reading words that we didn't use. And I didn't say there's anything wrong with socialism - I didn't even mention it! I live in a country with many socialist policies such as socialised healthcare. It's almost universally supported here. But I don't think most people here would want to try to force everyone to be more-or-less equal.
Why are you asking me to explain things I didn't say?
> What is this sentence referring
It's referring to people trying to forcibly make everyone more-or-less equal.
You're asking me why I'm projecting Stalinism... but you brought up Stalinism, not me. If you think that matches Stalinism then that's something you've introduced to the conversation, not me. People opposed to Stalinism like Trotskyists were also in favour of dictatorship and violently forced equality. Stalin didn't have a monopoly on demonstrably shit ideas for oppressively and violently reshaping society.
Finally. So it's just about the USSR and its off-springs as I thought.
Deny? I'm not denying anything, I'm saying that you're projecting those things onto people with fundamentally different ideas, a.k.a democratic ideas, not totalitarian.
People aren't arguing for democratic ideas though, they're arguing to enforce more-or-less equality. People don't try to achieve that through democracy. They seem to pretty much inevitably decide that 'just to get started it's ok to force it because the ends justify the means...' then before you know it - oppression and totalitarianism.
It's played out like this again and again and again.
> It's hard to reply to these vague generalizations.
Then stop trying if you find it too hard to contribute a serious comment!
You're asking me what I'm alluding to and what I'm projecting and asking me to explain things I haven't said and other backwards and inside-out things, rather than responding to the actual arguments I'm making myself. Seems like you're bringing some kind of baggage to the discussion that I'm not party to.
You're just being abusive now. I'm not sure why you feel the need to resort to this kind of language.
The original question was 'what’s wrong with trying to force everyone to be financially more or less equal'. What’s wrong with it is every time someone tries this it ends up hell on earth.
That’s it. That’s the whole point. No implications, no allusions.
If that's not good enough for you, sorry nothing I can do about that. Maybe move on?
I see no reason at all why corporatist, crony, regulatory capture etc Capitalism isn't the natural outcome of capitalist capital accumulation (and thus power). The incentives to pursue those things seem completely logical to me.
This is why I focused my point around the cost of the structure. The costs of land (made expensive by policy) and capital (made cheap by policy) are much more complex.
But regardless of that, even if you buy cheap land in a low regulation county/state and use all non-union labor, the building cost is still more expensive than it would be if buildings had the reduction of costs that other durable goods have had over time.
Some of this is clearly regulatory, i.e. codes. Some is clearly consumer choice, note the failure of prefab and tilt up to catch on. Some is clearly ecology, note the disappearance of native large timber from most residential construction.
Many architects and builders have tried their hand at designing homes and construction processes that reduce the costs of buildings but if they have to build to modern codes, expectations and ecological standards they mostly see marginal improvements. There are just a lot of fundamental costs involved with site constructed buildings that meet modern standards.
Sure, there's additions. But I would be careful to deduce consumer choice from what is most risk-free/profitable, a.k.a. the market. Cheap, decent quality "projects" would also be rented out in no time. But the profit margin and risk assessment isn't in favour of that.
Yes, Sweden ~1990. There was an agency responsible for adapting housing availability after need. If there was a shortage, it was acted upon. Then the whole homeownership wave, markets etc came.
That's fascinating! Is there anything I could read about this? I would love to hear more about a rich first-world country being able to meet literally everyone's housing needs fully and in a timely manner without using a market economy.
Reading the description there, it seems to rest heavily on profit motives. Perhaps I have missed something?
I would love an example of housing for everyone in locations that meets their needs, achieved in a timely manner, in a way that removes profit and investment motives.
> I would love an example of housing for everyone in locations that meets their needs, achieved in a timely manner, in a way that removes profit and investment motives.
Well, on the other hand, is there something inherent in housing that requires those motives?
A lot of the program seems to have rested on subsidies and incentives, which are nice ways of saying you're relying on a profit or investment motive.
> Well, on the other hand, is there something inherent in housing that requires those motives?
Aside from that it requires scarce resources to produce and maintain and is rival in nature? I suppose not. Though that does put it in the company of quite a few other goods and services.
> A lot of the program seems to have rested on subsidies and incentives, which are nice ways of saying you're relying on a profit or investment motive.
I mean that's just an implementation issue. To scale fast at that time, the government paid already existing corporations to build but kept ownership of the completed buildings. The point is that it's still a state venture and the profit motive/investment, "free market", was essentially suspended. So without this kind of government program the market, because of profit/risk/investment motives, won't build this.
There's also the "protect-my-pie-ism" that skilled labor unions engage in. We have cheap alternatives to heavy metal pipes, but they're outlawed in a lot of places because of the pipefitters' lobbies. Same goes for a lot of other building codes under the guise of safety - the system is deliberately made inefficient to protect jobs.
Personally, I blame the system of incentives created by late-stage capitalism. It's more beneficial to litigate your job to a safe place than to learn a new or more efficient method of accomplishing the same job.
But that would just make it somewhat more expensive to build. The problem is that the supply is always kept insufficient. If, for example, the government would build good quality housing according to need, the housing market would implode. To build according to need was the default in here in Sweden before ~1990.
Making it more expensive translates to a lack of supply - the government has far more limited resources than huge real estate development firms. The pipes thing is just an example. Of course, this is one of a great many factors that make it nigh-impossible to get affordable government housing built. Not the least of which is the actual expense of land vs. cash-strapped local governments (who are broke because our tax system sucks and we spend what little money we do have on subsidies for businesses.)
It's a systemic issue - the incentives that we have lead to a governmental inability to function at all levels. Pick any random piece and you can find a reason that it's hard to do meaningful work.
Sorry but to imagine that labour costs and unions are somehow responsible for the housing shortage is just a strange distraction. We had labour unions in Sweden with good working conditions & benefits etc etc all along that period. The goal to inflate the price of housing is the main issue.
You're absolutely right - that is the main issue. I'm not suggesting for a moment that fixing labor union litigation would fix housing. It wouldn't.
I was using the pipes as an accessible example of what is a single piece of a very, very large mosaic.
The assertion I intended to make was precisely this: That it is impossible to point to a single bad actor (although, you are likely correct in pointing out the most egregious of them). The core issue (IMO, the thing to fix) is that the system of incentives that surrounds the developers, contractors, politicians, homeowners, and everyone else involved rewards slicing the pie over making more pie. Adding value, when it's easier to litigate your way into aquiring a larger share of existing value, is pointless from any individual's standpoint.
Take a look at the debacle that surrounded the Stuyvesant Town housing projects - this is a case where this sort of pie-slicing quite nearly made it through, but was struck down by the courts. I use this example because due to it's failure the techniques involved are clearly visible:
That is precisely what I am saying. It's not everywhere, but there are places (like NY) where it is illegal according to building codes to use pvc. Because any old schmo can work with pvc (although, the law is written as if it's a safety hazard)
> the actual tacit knowledge that drives economic activity
> Almost always, it is the same crowds who babble on about equality and wealth distribution too
That whole reply pretty much sums up what most right-wing climate scepticism is about; a deep fear of equality and perceived threats to their privileged position in society. Hence, going down with the ship (a good economy & status quo) seem more rational than changing course.
Actually, that isn't the implied canard, but this is what happens in reality: intellectual economists drive policy which affects us all - more often than not negatively. They don't have all of the information and can't make decisions that are best for individuals.
My implication is that individuals are the best suited to decide how their wealth is used. There should not exist policy makers who interfere in the market. Policymakers, no matter how noble they might be, are never going to know enough about the conditions individual humans face, and can therefore never know how that money is best utilized.
Climate science is heavily, almost entirely subsidized by taxpayer money, and the products which they are selling are more taxation. This is the driving force behind the climate alarmism - give up more of your wealth and freedoms to a benevolent State who will protect you from this scary thing.
If they were selling actual solutions which made people's lives easier, I wouldn't be so sceptical.
You highlight the word economic as if it is some kind of right-wing conspiracy.
Economics affects us all. It is nothing to do with rich or privileged versus poor. It is to do with the accumulation of wealth versus the consumption (dissaving) of wealth. By economic damage, I am referring to the destruction of wealth, which does not bring any net benefit to a society even if it is "redistributed."
Economic growth, aka, creation of wealth means improved standards of living. Creating wealth is the only way which man improves their standard of living. Without any wealth, your time is consumed entirely on basic survival - you must hunt, gather or scavenge for food just to exist. You can only have any leisure time to invest in other pursuits if you have fed yourself. The way to ensure that you can feed yourself and engage in other pursuits is to accumulate wealth - that is, have some means of feeding yourself without using all of your time for survival. It is no good merely feeding yourself though - if you want healthcare and other luxuries, you need to create excess wealth.
Creation of wealth is not a zero-sum game, which is the fallacy most ancaps seem to hold. By creating wealth, you can improve not only your own standard of living, but also that of your neighbours, and not merely through charity. There are no losers in wealth creation - there are only some that don't do as well as others (which isn't something that needs fixing, because it is not the problem).
> a deep fear of equality and perceived threats to their privileged position in society. Hence, going down with the ship (a good economy & status quo) seem more rational than changing course.
It's more that we don't like seeing the wealth our ancestors worked hard to accumulate being pissed down the drain by people who do nothing but consume, rather than create wealth, and when it is not their wealth to consume in the first place.
By "changing course," you seem to be implying that their exists another course in which more wealth is consumed than created, which obviously has a dire end result: there will be no wealth left, and we will all be back to scavenging for basic survival. You are damn right that continuing economic growth is more rational than such regression.
BTW, I am a big fan of altruism as a means for lifting those who are less fortunate. In order to be altruistic, you must yourself have some capital to expend, or time to volunteer for helpful causes. Only people will such wealth can help their neighbour. If everyone's wealth is in decline, who do you think is going to help the poorest?
Giving more money to the state is not really altruism, but is avoidance of having to be altruistic of ones own volition. You must remember that a large portion of that money you give to the State is used on weapons of war, expansion of a police state which comes with increased abuses of power, and so forth. Are you really sure you want to be giving more of your money to the State?
Uhm. The economy is no deity. Man made and man can change it. Growth (GDP) is not a measurement of human happiness or even living standards, just capitalism.
