My grandparents' families were butchered by the Soviets, just so you're aware. A great socialist workers' paradise, that was.

Capitalism didn't do it, it's just a word; Goldman Sachs did it.

My grandparents had pushed back against the illegal annexation of their home by the champions of the "people's revolution" and saw far too many people they knew sent off to Siberia or executed in the name of collectivization and destruction of the state.

They involve illegal invasions by a series of Western countries who massacred a people for trying to rule over their own land and dispose of their own wealth.

Suffice to say personal suffering histories may say a lot, but they probably aren't a universal gyroscope for understanding everything that happens in some universally applicable way.

We can agree on the flexibility of words -- well anyway I can, it seems -- but above I describe an actual system. You don't seem to want to move far past the abstractions applied to it, and pretend things happened like "Scandinavia" chose "Nordic social democracy," as though this was not the product of a long historical process with many contingencies and decisions involved, and "Nordic social democracy" is a descriptor that at some late stage was applied to the results.

You, on the other hand, seem to be of the opinion that if one is even the slightest bit critical of socialism, then one simply loves imperialist land and resource grabs and the war crimes that come with it.

It's a little late for you to be talking nuance.

You're cured, you nuanced guy you! You never needed to think this thread was making fun of you in the first place. And yet it seems to have provoked you.

before you get into being wrong about psychology as well?

But while we're on the subject, you seem to have a pathological fear of actually discussing the subject of your OP, given the number of times you've tried to make the issue about me personally.

It's not as though we can ONLY be free under capitalism.

....they think they are the happiest people on earth. Little do they know how much they are really suffering.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/danes-may-be-the-worlds-happiest-but-were-pretty-close/article29297643/

Social democracy preserves a market economy, but with provisions for a strong social welfare infrastructure including universal healthcare, undergraduate education, and incomes for the disabled.

Democratic socialism replaces a market economy with a centrally-planned economy, but preserves the democratic system of government.

Denmark is not a system of democratic socialism. Contrary to popular opinion, the existence of a government that provides public services is not inherently socialism.

It's not one of those damned socialist commie places like Venezuela or Sweden.

It's one of the countries implementing the Nordic Model of social democracy. Hence, why it's called the Nordic Model.

Venezuela, on the other hand, is on the verge of economic collapse because it's under the control of a paranoid, authoritarian kleptocracy that can't even provide toilet paper to its people on a regular basis.

You don't seem to have the slightest idea on your own, and are simply copy-pasting whatever you found on Facebook.

Ya caught me, boss. But where did the bastard who posted that on Facebook copy-paste it from?! Is there, like, a machine that can answer such questions, and find the source?

You might even figure out what socialism actually means, and that it doesn't mean what you think it does.

The problem is you are absolutely sure you know what you think it means.

But those schools of thought typically have common themes, and Denmark does not embody them.

Read OP. Never mind does it describe "capitalism" or "socialism." Does it describe the order of political economy actually predominant in the world?

And no, it doesn't, because it excludes the state-directed catastrophe of the People's Republic of China, a country with very little outward imperialist ambition but a significant role nonetheless in the world economy.

Does it take a place within the division of labor?

Does it play a role in financial flows?

Does it compete in the grand struggle for markets?

Does it produce a surplus for sale to markets?

Does it play the role of owner and look for ROI on FDI?

Talking about what Denmark does is not as interesting as figuring out which of the magic words fits it. And once you've found the word - Reify! Reify! Reify that fucker to the sky!

then yes, it's absolutely important to decide if they've implemented socialism or social democracy.

Choose box A or box B, but make sure it's the one with the right label!

or disastrous foreign policy and unregulated markets. So, either Box A or Box B.

Sanders supporters keep asserting that the Nordic Model is an example of democratic socialism. I assert that it's an example of social democracy. These aren't the only two possible economic and political systems in the world; they're just the two that are being evaluated for this argument. It could be that they're neither, and that they fit one of the many other variants of socialism or liberalism.

It's almost like this is a complex issue that can't be boiled down to a bumper sticker or something.

But nah, okay, you got me. The present world economic order of investment controlled by private capital -- by the rules and not by the exceptions -- has produced the already-present planetary extinction event. All that stuff, 2/3 of species, plastic instead of fish, etc. etc. It is the greatest failure and the greatest foreseeable (though partly unintended) disaster in all human history. Epic. We only debate it because we're on the top part of the beast as it has just gone over the cliff.

There was, however, yet another in a long line of rants filled with strawmen and black-and-white understandings of the world intended simply to get validation of one's own beliefs.

It became "satire" when you were unable to come up with any further response than more ridiculous strawmen and needed an escape hatch.

......having spent a good portion of my life in Malmo, Sweden.

I also am aware that Bernie has said he would like to see the US be more like Scandinavia in various ways, while Hillary said "We are not Denmark." To which I say, "No shit." We would have a long way to go to be Denmark.

The Danes are the happiest in the world for a very good reason and their standard of living is at the top.

It is anti-intellectual, nationalistic, and arguably isolationist -- all things the Clintons are not really known for due to their association with globalization. It seems the line works so that newspaper writers can use it as their soundbite and not actually question why we cannot implement a safety net and social order of a similar sort.

The other phrase that is given a free pass is "countries like Denmark, Sweden, are small and homogeneous so their systems would fail horribly here" -- there doesn't appear to be much thought behind these statements. But again, the media scoops them up.

"Countries like Denmark and Sweden are homogeneous..." is a RACIST argument.

The subtext is basically "the reason we don't have all that welfare the Europeans do is because of those gosh darned n****ers". The argument is designed to evoke mental images of black welfare queens and drug dealers living in public housing.

Those who most need it are nowhere near this thread.

It will please those who appreciate the point, and attract explainers of What Words Really Mean with whom I can toy. Also, no Turing Machine can survive this thread unexposed. Do you know how many of those we have here? People reduce themselves to algorithms!

They have a very low rate of crime and a very high rate of reading comprehension, unlike some places.

You either uncritically fall in line with socialism, despite its real concrete failures across the world, or you're in favor of absolutely reckless foreign policy and completely unregulated markets.

Which is hilarious, since most of the posters who fit that bill support someone who wants to emulate Denmark, a country which fits neither of these extremes.

helping to guarantee the continued acceptance of such an absolutely perfect situation

(need I add ?)

well played!



oh, this should work!

Joe McCarthy would love some of the nonsense floating around from the Hillaryites.

North Korea is a communist dictatorship, not at all like the democratic socialism in Scandinavia and what Bernie advocates.

We already practice some socialism in the US like the roads, bridges, police, fire department.

Some of you need to research the big differences between communism and socialism, you may learn something.

There's a world of difference between the two.

Public services don't constitute socialism. Nationalized telecommunications like in France, yes. Nationalized passenger rail like Amtrak, yes.

If you want to define a socialist system by the existence of public fire departments and roads, then that's going to include virtually the entirety of human civilization.

developed by fascists?

was largely developed by fascists.

History sucks, fact is.

I was never big on what you call it.

The red baiting is serving a useful purpose though- the more they scream about non-red red, the more people think "What the hell is their problem? What don't they want us to know?"

go it alone. It's a time tested trio. Like the Andrews Sisters.

The Andrews Sisters will survive - in fact may have already survived - the peak efficacy of red-baiting as a political strategy in the United States.

(That's why nowadays terror trumps reds.)