social democracy is a welfare state; capitalist. Not socialism.
Que? What country would you say is socialist then? You stated before that, "True socialism is democratic." If this is so, then how is a social democracy =/= to your definition of socialism?
I don't know about Communism, but the form of socialism I am in favor is more individualist (opposite of collectivism) than capitalism is.
Socialism the very word, stems from social, or society. According to Dictionary.com, it is define as:
1.
-a. Living together in communities.
-b. Of or relating to communal living.
-c. Of or relating to human society and it's modes of organization.
And basically all the rest of the possible definitions are much the same. I don't know how you can be more individualist in a country with a socialist economic and political government. The very word socialism means that it is based on people depending on other people, not people depending on themselves. Capitalism (the economic model) is about how well you can do what you do. There is drive to offer a better product or service then the other guy. There is progress. There is a constant competition among companies and businesses to offer better quality products or services cheaper. This creates a really good enviroment for consumers. 20 years ago a PC was around 10000 to 5000 USD. But thanks to 20 years of different PC, hardwar, and software companies competing to offer better and cheaper products, now I can buy a fully loaded PC today for around $900 and it's billions of times faster then the ones in 1986.
Without capitalism and competition, what motive would people have to make new discoveries and invent new things. We had a period of time where growth economically, socially, and technologically were all close to stagnant. It's called the middle ages.
Sweden isn't socialist either. They compensate for wealth imbalance with huge tax rates (which only affect you if you make too much money... say, 150 thousand a year? Seriously that is too much). A capitalist solution to a problem that can only be fixed with socialism.
What? First of all officially, Sweden is a constitutional monarchy. But it has a moderately capitalistic economy but also is a huge welfare state. the 60-80% tax rate is not only for "rich" people as you call it. It's for everyone.
Also, who the hell are you to say $150,000 a year is too much? What judge are you referring to when you make this statement? How old are you? I'd like you to have a talk with my father if you think that. My folks were grossing 175ish a year when they were helping me through college. Even with loans to suppliment that, my folks had a hard time just making ends meet putting 2 kids through college. And they don't live in a mansion, just an average everyday house. $150,000 might be living large if you are on your own and in an apartment or small house, but if you want a family it's nothing. You talk like a person that is completely blind from reality and forgets that "hey, stuff costs money."
The thing about socialism is, very little is state-run. The state just requires that everyone is payed fair; pay works by, you do more work, youy get more pay. You do no work, (unless you are diabled and can't work. Then society has to pay for you to not work) you get no pay.
What about difficulty of work. Basically the guy that just has a high school diploma and is out in the sun working hard should get more money then a person that sits at a desk and calculates numbers, even though the guy at the desk had to go to 8 years of school to learn how to do it properly? It's not very hard to hammer some nails into a piece of lumber, you could get anyone to do it. But sit just anyone down infront of a mass of unprocessed tax forms and they aren't going to have a clue what to do. Skilled labor should get paid more. In addition to this, the guy managing the number-cruncher had to get additional training to manage lots of people and probably himself spent quite a few years crunching numbers, why should this guy not get paid more for his job?
The fact is that your income is highly based on the concept of supply and demand. This is something that socialists and communists have trouble understanding. There are a lot more young, fit, high school graduates to take Joe Hammer's job pounding nails then there are highly educated tax experts to take Carl Lopez's job as a tax assessor. So obviously, the company wants Carl to stay around, so he get's paid more then the construction worker.
There is also another factor combined with this that most employers honor, seniority. If you have been with a company or business and have been reliable and done your job well, your company is obviously going to want you to stick around. So they give you more pay or benifits because of your good work, they make more money. It is easier and cheaper in the long rung to just give an employee that has been around awhile more money then to fire him and bring in a new guy for cheaper.
So your stuff about "people should get paid for doing more work" is really broad and undefined. It also sounds a lot like the liberalism movement of the 1700s, where advancement should be on merit and not birth, which is the heart of capitalism. I think you are a capitalist, you just haven't figured it out.
As I have said, I am not a collectivist communist. You are more like such a person than I am, merely for supporting capitalism, which takes away our personalities and makes us drones of the rich, toiling away in their factories, while they siphon off most of the profits of our work.
What are you talking about? Everybody works for someone else, how is that a big deal? I'm not sure what skewed vision of reality you are living in. One second you say you are for individualism, the next you say you are against business. So what are people to do? Just go around and be individuals and ask the government for money? Where are you going to work if you can't work for someone else? You have to make your own business, which you can't do under this model because apparently it is wrong to hire people to help you run your business. You aren't making any sense.
And the gibberish about working a job taking your soul and all that is rubbish. The only people that talk like that are the people that never had one. Responibility, accountability, and the work ethic, are these not also important parts of a person's character? I think your vison of capitalism is imaginary and really doesn't exist save for the boundries of your mind. I've yet to see a factory or office like the one you talk of.
I don't care how nature works. In nature, our closes relatives, chimpanzees, kill each other for no reason. We are human; we are above nature. We can do whatever we want.
Pretty strong words coming from a person that doesn't even have a coherent understanding of the political model they say they believe in. Also, chimpanzees do not run around killing each other, they live in social groups much like humans do.
And yes there is survival of the fittest in nature, but in capitalism, there is no way toget rich even if you are fit to do so. Plus, survival of the fittest is a genetic thing, not luck on whether you are born rich or poor.
Umm, you are the one that keeps throwing the word "rich" around. Rich in terms of what? Donald Trump is over a billion USD in debt, yet he is still living large. You lack a basic understanding of what capitalism really is. It's not possible to be sucessful in a Captialism economy? Explain Bill Gates, a college dropout who is now the richest man in the world.
And your other comment doesn't deserve a response because it's offtopic.