Yeah. Tito’s Yugoslavia had the highest quality of life of all Eastern Bloc nations, dare I say even the SU. Comparing the Dalmatian coast to the French Riviera may be a stretch, but during the 70’s and into the 80’s, the cities and towns had a certain, je nais c’est quoi about them. On par with, say, parts of Spain or France at the time.
It didn’t start unraveling until Ronald “I hate even the thought of the word ‘communist’, except China” Reagan and Maggie decided to turn the taps off. Then a charasmatic leader, with odd hair and accent used the economic downturn to his advantage. Scraping Tito’s Bratsvo i Jedinstvo and targeting Muslims and minorities, and espousing Serb exceptionalism that would eventually lead to the breakup.
Ever hear of google? Apparently it is this search engine that allows you to type in key words to find endless sources of information. Being worthy of your liberal arts degree, no doubt like filling French fry orders, this task will prove manageable also! Fetch!
Capitalizing on natural resources rather than treating them as a birthright has led to 30,000,000 NTD apartments in Taipei rather than 3,000,000 NTD apartments.
All that counterproductive effort to capitalize on living space should instead be directed solely towards capitalizing on human resources such as intelligence, creativity and the entrepreneurial production of goods and services.
Any real life examples of that working successfully? (Star Trek doesn’t count). Most prosperous societies these days seem to be based on property rights.
No, but I’ve set my sights really low for the time being: just shutting up yyy and JB and their endless scolding about the evils of capitalism and the joys of socialism.
And as far as property rights go a birthright approach to natural resources respects them far more than land/coal/steel etc. baronism does.
I am not a socialist. All be told, I am an anarchist. I believe in personal liberty, which does not exist in any system, really.
My argument is that capitalism does not work. Neither does socialism, or any ism for that matter. In order for them to work, everyone has to agree to go along with it, if not, it fails.
One grain of sand can spoil the ointment.
My beef with capitalists is that they get all gung-ho about giving more money to billionaires, while ripping apart the underclasses, without making any effort to understand the causes of poverty. They just tend to blame immigrants.
Capitalism has worked great for me. Socialism, on the other hand, hasn’t worked well for anybody. What isn’t working at all though is being trapped in this endless capitalism vs. socialism loop which never leads anywhere. It’s time for a new approach.
Reduing my points about OECD statistics to capitalism-is-evil-and-socialism-is-joyful is a bit Jothamian, don’t you think?
(And while we’re at it, I don’t consider OECD statistics what Fred calls “the product of the everybody’s a winner educational system”. The point of collecting and analyzing all that information, as it turns out, is that the US is not a winner. If it means other countries will in their great benevolence share ideas with the US then so be it. But that’s still not what Fred means, I think.)
I don’t take issue with the statistics you provided. They jibe with my experience. For example, I have personal experience with Japan’s health care system and it’s indeed a wonder compared with America’s health care morass.
share ideas with the US then so be it. But that’s still not what Fred means, I think.)