Thread: Socialism Works!

Originally Posted by honedright

Unless we are importing from another planet I think it's true. And world population is growing. The equal slices of pie are getting smaller and smaller.

1000 years ago the number of people on earth was a small fraction of today's number, so apparently they managed to live in a lot worse conditions with much larger slices.

Sorry to interrupt our reading.

Originally Posted by gugi

1000 years ago the number of people on earth was a small fraction of today's number, so apparently they managed to live in a lot worse conditions with much larger slices.

Who lived under worse conditions 1000 years ago? The Pope? Roman Emperors? Chinese Emperors? European royalty?

Originally Posted by honedright

Who lived under worse conditions 1000 years ago? The Pope? Roman Emperors? Chinese Emperors? European royalty?

yep, all of them lived worse than the contemporary analogues. and the same is true for any other part of the socioeconomic curve compared to the modern day counterpart.

it is not necessary to go 1000 years ago, I picked that number because the comparison would be obvious, but if you prefer compare your own standard of living with a person on the same level in the social hierarchy say 70 years ago and you probably will notice the same.
the things you have to worry about are quite different from the things they had to worry about.

Originally Posted by gugi

yep, all of them lived worse than the contemporary analogues. and the same is true for any other part of the socioeconomic curve compared to the modern day counterpart.

it is not necessary to go 1000 years ago, I picked that number because the comparison would be obvious, but if you prefer compare your own standard of living with a person on the same level in the social hierarchy say 70 years ago and you probably will notice the same.
the things you have to worry about are quite different from the things they had to worry about.

I think you are making a post hoc argument. Standard of living doesn't necessarily follow the size of your slice.

Well nobody has to worry about a change in that.
As long as the financial interest system constantly pulls the money towards a select few, it will stay as it is. For the price of occasional breakdowns of the markets to clean up with government's debts.

Originally Posted by honedright

I think you are making a post hoc argument. Standard of living doesn't necessarily follow the size of your slice.

Yep, and what is important to me is the standard of living, not the size of my slice. I think it's the same with most people, or I wish it were.

Originally Posted by honedright

Good point! And what country has created the most abundance of any other in history?

The United States through a free market capitalist economy.

Name one socialist economy which has produced more and provided more for the world than the U.S. to this point in time.

This can't be done since the US is also one of the largest countries. The other social democratic countries that do very well also are a lot smaller. Thus the comparison wouldn't work. The Netherlands is VERY well off for instance....but we're only 16 million people on a piece of land the 1/6th the size of Utah. So it's not really a fair comparison is it? Although if you would compare them per head (per person on avarage) I'm pretty sure a few could be named.

oh there are some stats here



This one is quite remarkable.

It would be apart from the fact that "europe" is not a country. Neither is "Africa" or "Asia" And all those places are made up of both wealthy and poverty stricken countries.

Europe for instance is made up out of both Germany, and Sweden (both wealthy) and The Czech Republic and Poland (both poor)

So the average is pulled down.