Thoughts on Capitalism and Socialism as economic models

[Sparko]

Sparko - the beginning of the 20th century did not see anywhere near the kind of automation we are seeing now - because now we have something that did not exist then: intelligent machines. As these machines continue to penetrate every vertical, the impact will continue to increase. So it seems to me we have either a massive increase in the wealth gap (which we are already seeing), or we have the beginning of an opportunity for work as a choice - not a requirement.

Of course - if you are right - then new jobs will open and neither of these things will manifest. I'd be curious to know what "new jobs" you think could open up as a result of the automation we are seeing now?

People will use the automation as a tool. Just as they always have. If automation does eliminate one sector, it will open up new ones. Jobs shift. When digital music and video came along, and the internet and youtube, the music and movie industries worried about record and DVD sales plummeting and putting people out of work. Well yeah, record stores started closing down, but others actually opened up, and buying retro vinyl became a thing. The movie and music industry moved from a Disk and Album model to selling digital music and supplementing income with advertising on youtube. And now anyone can be a celebrity on youtube and millions are, but that didn't put hollywood out of business.

Markets shift. Jobs shift. I can't tell you where it will end up. If I could, I would probably get rich playing the stock market. But I have faith it will because it always has.

[Sparko]

Baby Boomers are aging - there will be much more need for diaper changers.

You joke but the healthcare industry is growing right now, especially geriatrics because of the aging population. Lots of jobs there. Until they create robots to change diapers and walk seniors.

[Cow Poke]

You joke but the healthcare industry is growing right now, especially geriatrics because of the aging population. Lots of jobs there. Until they create robots to change diapers and walk seniors.

I only kinda-sorta joke - there are, indeed, growing needs for our aging population.

[Starlight]

Democracy in its purest form is actually a pretty terrible system. As Thomas Jefferson noted, it's a system where 51% of the people can agree to suppress the rights of the other 49%. It's why our Founding Fathers were very careful to avoid it.

In general in the modern world, the most successful countries have the purest democracies.

It does seem true that in some of the more nasty countries where there is serious racial strife between groups that democracy is indeed used as one of many weapons of one racial group against another. It doesn't seem obvious to me whether this is a problem with democracy itself or with those countries' cultures.

[Mountain Man]

Which countries are governed by pure democracies?

[Cow Poke]

Which countries are governed by pure democracies?

I was about to ask the same thing, but his incredibly superior intellect had me quaking in my boots in abject fear due to my acute inferiority complex.

[Starlight]

Which countries are governed by pure democracies?

Clearly not the state of Wisconsin where Dems got >50% of the vote but that translated to Republicans getting 2/3rds of the seats due to gerrymandering.

I'm not going in circles with you again arguing over what exactly "pure" means. What I meant by my statement was the quality of the democracy in practice, like what is measured here on the 'democracy index'. Alternatively you could think of it as: The more what is done by the government corresponds to the will of the populace, the purer the democracy, the more there is a discrepancy between the actions of the government and the will of the populace, the less pure the democracy.

[Cow Poke]

Clearly not the state of Wisconsin....

Perhaps you can Google Wisconsin and discover it's not a country.

Which countries are pure democracies?

In general in the modern world, the most successful countries have the purest democracies.

You can't name a few?

[Starlight]

You can't name a few?

In order, from my previous link the following countries are judged to have the best-functioning democracies:
Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Finland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, UK.

[Mountain Man]

As I suspected... you're using a very loose definition of "democracy". For example, you included New Zealand in your list, but according to the official government website, your country is, in fact, a "constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government". The United Kingdom is also governed by an elected parliament who make decisions that may or may not align with the will of the people. Wikipedia describes Denmark's government as "a parliamentary representative democracy, a constitutional monarchy and a decentralised unitary state". Same with Australia. Switzerland allows direct voting by the people on certain measures, but they must also be approved by a government vote. And on down your list. None of them are direct or "pure" democracies.

[Starlight]

None of them are direct or "pure" democracies.

You're overly obsessed with your idiosyncratic definition of what makes for a "pure" democracy.

What I am interested in is:
1. How much political power does the populace have: Does their will get done, or does it get thwarted by the political process?
2. How much work-place power do the workers have: Does their will get done, or does it get thwarted by the business/organisation structure?

I don't mind what precise methodology is used to maximize the amount of power those people have. So when I talk about how good a democracy is, what I am really concerned with is the extent to which it successfully and repeatably translates the will of the people into government policy. Likewise when I talk about how effective any particular form of socialism is, what I am really concerned with is the extent to which it successfully and repeatedly translates the will of the workers into business policy.

One of the more major failings of the US Founding Fathers was their excessive and unwarranted concern about a possible tyranny of the majority, and their subsequent attempts to make sure they thwarted the will of the populace to a significant extent by mechanisms like states-appointing-senators, the electoral college, etc. In the present day, US government policy is commonly not reflective of the will of the people, and the US populace as a whole is deeply dissatisfied with their own government (approval ratings for congress as a whole are commonly in the 10-30% range).

Countries where the policies of the government more often reflect the will of the people (i.e. a better/purer democracy as I would label it), are on the whole happier and do 'better' according to many and various ways of measuring that. The quality of their democracy can be measured by how often their will gets done and their happiness with their government's policies. Your imagined mechanism of "pure" democracy as being about direct ballot initiatives is irrelevant.

I would argue direct ballot initiatives are actually quite poor at conveying the will of the people. A better way of ascertaining the will of the people is repeated polling over time, which can capture a lot more nuance than direct ballot initiatives can. Polling can show trends in the views of the population, it can show how different phrasings of the question affects the responses, it can show the number of "undecideds" and "don't knows", it can measure how strongly people feel about issues. Whereas a direct ballot initiative can suffer from problems of how it is phrased, to what extent the people understand the issue at that particular time, can suffer from sudden advertising expenditures by special interest groups to momentarily sway public opinion, can put pressure on people to vote one way or another even if they are largely undecided, don't measure how strongly or not people feel on the issue, only capture the population's view at one particular time rather than show how it is changing over time, and since most voters don't have time to learn in detail about all issues become a bit of a farce if used too much because the uninformed people are suddenly being asked to make binding decisions. As a result, politicians looking at polling data, can do a much better job of working out what issues are actually popular with the people and what aren't, than direct ballot initiatives can, and thus actually in practice representative democracy can do a better job of implementing the actual will of the populace than your 'pure' democracy of direct government by the populace. That said, I totally think direct ballot initiatives can have their place, but IMO their place is not constant use for everything because far from successfully turning the will of the people into law, such a system would instead tend to misinterpret the will of the people.

[Mountain Man]

You're overly obsessed with your idiosyncratic definition of what makes for a "pure" democracy.

No, the term is actually well-defined and widely understood:

Definition of pure democracy

: democracy in which the power is exercised directly by the people rather than through representatives

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dict...re%20democracy

[Cow Poke]

In order, from my previous link the following countries are judged to have the best-functioning democracies:
Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Finland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, UK.

Thanks.

I see you guys are in disagreement over definitions, so I'll bow out.

[Starlight]

No, the term is actually well-defined and widely understood:

Not particularly relevant. Your point was:

As Thomas Jefferson noted, it's a system where 51% of the people can agree to suppress the rights of the other 49%. It's why our Founding Fathers were very careful to avoid it.

The distinction that draws is about the extent to which the system can thwart the will of the people when the people are deemed to have the 'wrong' will.

For example, in my country, because we have a particularly high-functioning democracy in which the will of the people tends to be done, we absolutely could have a situation where the 51% suppressed the 49%. That is, theoretically, totally possible and totally something that could happen. You could even make good arguments that minorities have indeed been suppressed at various points in history by the majority (just as you could in America). We don't have anything remotely like the US system of 'checks and balances' here. If 51% of the 120 national politicians vote for it, that's it, it's law (they need a super-majority to change electoral laws). There's no court that can strike it down as unconstitutional, no president who could veto it.

But, overall, it turns out that despite the occasional tyranny of the majority, having a high-functioning democracy is much better than not, and having the will of the people done in general is good even if the will of the people on a few occasions turns out to be dumb/nasty. If you had a dictator / oligarchs / non-democratic government, the will of that government would turn out to be nasty an awful lot more often than the democratic will of the people turns out to be. So giving the democratic government free-rein and having less checks and balances on it actually turns out to be a good thing because it can implement the will of the people more often, and overall the will of the people is more good than bad.

[Mountain Man]

You do realize that your argument is a big, fat begged question, right? And your comment about "51% of the 120 national politicians" describes a representative system of government and not a pure democracy.