Communism in the USA

Fedral wrote:

Lightwizard wrote:

Those who have the gold make the rules.

And you think the idiot who can't balance his checkbook and thinks that bikini mud wrestling represents the peak of 'culture' in this country should be making the rules?

No thanks, I'll stick to voting successful and competent people in office.

Wow, that is incredible.

And all this while I've been thinking you voted for George Bush!

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Scrat wrote:

I am inclined to disagree with your opinion that the federal government is the best mechanism for helping those in need in this country. A careful consideration of the data suggests that they have been quite successful in growing the ranks of the needy,

If this were true, one would expect there to be a greater number of poor in countries that have a greater extent of (federal/national) government involvement than in countries that have less. But the data suggest the opposite is true.

I think we can agree that the US and to a lesser degree the UK have less in the way of federal safety net programs than continental Europe. So in your theory, there should be more poor people in continental Europe, since those programs "grow the ranks of the needy".

Now poverty rates are tricky - there's so many different standards. So I'll pick all first three results of a Google search that were by (inter)governmental institutions.

Quote:

The United States was the only country reported with double-digit child poverty rates (20.4 percent) after adjustment for taxes and transfers. The posttransfer poverty rates for children in the United States were between 2 and 10 times higher than those in the other countries with available data.

National Center for Education Statistics - U.S. Dept. of Education

Quote:

In the United States, about a fifth (19.1%) of the population was estimated to dispose of very low income in 1990. In Europe, this share was much lower and amounted to 8.21%. The low-income rate in Japan is somewhat intermediate between the EU average and the United States.

Bureau fédéral du Plan

Quote:

A comparison of 11 Western countries has shown that the rate of poverty in the Netherlands is low to moderate. If we put the poverty line at 95% of the Dutch minimum income, the poverty rate in the Netherlands is the lowest of all the countries studied (4%). If we put the limit at 105% of the Dutch minimum income, [..] the Netherlands falls in the middle band, with 11% of households ranking as poor. This is on a par with Norway, Belgium and Germany, [..] but significantly lower than the United Kingdom (29%). If we put the poverty line at half the average income (OECD-line), the Netherlands has little poverty (8%). The rate of poverty in Denmark and Belgium is slightly lower by this standard (6% to 7%), while that of Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom is much higher (20% to 27%).

Social and Cultural Planning Office - Poverty Monitor

As for OECD data, their publications are all PDFs and my computer doesnt swallow those, but I can see the HTML versions that Google produces:

- www.oecd.org/dataoecd/3/43/1896904.pdf, Chart 5 has poverty rates on the late-1980s to early-1990s period. The US comes at a little over 20%, the UK between 15-20%, Canada, France, Germany and Australia around 10% and Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands around 5%.

- another OECD doc, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/16/33/2968109.pdf, warns that:
"the trouble with comparing 'how many people are poor and to what extent' in different years is that we are not comparing the same people. [..] Talk of there being fewer people in poverty in the mid-1990s compared with the mid-1980s implies that a few of those who were poor have clawed their way above the threshold. In fact, of course, it is perfectly possible that none of those who were poor in the mid-1980s remained so ten years later, because [..] people’s circumstances change".

If you think that the more 'dynamic' income & labour market of the US and UK means that there are fewer long-term poor there, though, think again. Both the number of people poor at some point in 6 years and the number of people continually poor throughout 6 years seems to be higher in the UK/US than in more welfare-state oriented countries - and a higher ratio of people in the UK/US get stuck in the latter category:

Quote:

• On average, at any moment in time, between 6 and 20 per cent of the population in the countries considered have low incomes.
• A larger part of the population than suggested by “static” poverty rates is touched by income poverty over a six-year period [..] in Sweden, nearly 12 per cent of the population will have low incomes at some point during the six years. In the United Kingdom, this ratio reaches nearly 40 per cent of the sample.
• Only around 1-2 per cent of the population is continuously poor throughout the six years in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. The proportion in the United Kingdom and the United States is significantly higher.
• This means that between 2/3 (in the United States and the United Kingdom)and 6/7 (in the Netherlands) of all those who have low incomes at any point intime, will not be poor at some other time in the six years.

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Great post nimh, my homonim should cry: "Touché!"

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Do you think someone could get money from a charity sober and then go get drunk? Your living in a dream world.

There is such a thing as incompetant people who have money -- not everyone at the top earned it by honesy and hard work.

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Lightwizard wrote:

... not everyone at the top earned it by honesy and hard work.

Fact is, LW, if honesty and hard work were the criteria, the distribution of wealth in this country would be vastly different.

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Scrat wrote:

nimh - I asked about your individual needs, as we were discussing social safety net programs.

Really? Must have missed that. Parameters of your discussion hadnt been defined more specifically than "the perception of monetary need, and who should be responsible for it", before my post - thats quite a wider net to cast than simply social security.

In fact, you asked a pretty straightforward question, as rhetorical questions go, asserting that the difference between Communism and Capitalism was "a question of who is best able to understand what my needs are, responsible for seeing that those needs are met, and is most likely to do so well and with the minimum negative impact on the needs of others; I or the State". Not doing much more than following up on that one, Boss.

Of course, as a matter of fact, I did delve into exactly the question of social safety net programs, too, and the principle underlying the notion of state responsibility for it - but dont let that distract you from dismissing me.

<afterthought> Also, of course, how does spatial planning policy (determines where I get to build my house, what my city comes to look like), education programs, the fact that I want the government to ensure that, say, asylum-seekers dont end up sleeping in a cardboard box in my alley - etc etc - NOT concern my "individual needs"? What is inherently different, in terms of delineating good and bad on the pure communism - pure capitalism scale, about wanting the state to be responsible for those things and for unemployment benefits?

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nimh wrote:

Scrat wrote:
nimh - I asked about your individual needs, as we were discussing social safety net programs.

Really? Must have missed that. Parameters of your discussion hadnt been defined more specifically than "the perception of monetary need, and who should be responsible for it", before my post - thats quite a wider net to cast than simply social security.

In fact, you asked a pretty straightforward question, as rhetorical questions go, asserting that the difference between Communism and Capitalism was "a question of who is best able to understand what my needs are, responsible for seeing that those needs are met, and is most likely to do so well and with the minimum negative impact on the needs of others; I or the State". Not doing much more than following up on that one, Boss.

Yes, and I thought it was obvious, if not stated explicitly, that when cavfancier wrote "monetary need", (s)he referred to the needs of the individual, and my responses likewise had that focus.

But let's just accept that there was a miscommunication and move forward. We agree that there is a need for government and that there are things government does well and others it does not. I've identified where I think that line falls.

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Frank - I think I'll take a break for now too. No doubt we'll find our way back to these waters at some point. Very Happy

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Scrat wrote:

Frank - I think I'll take a break for now too. No doubt we'll find our way back to these waters at some point.

Sounds good, Scrat.

If this rain would just let up -- I'm abandoning all this stuff for a bit of golf.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

Lightwizard wrote:
... not everyone at the top earned it by honesy and hard work.

Fact is, LW, if honesty and hard work were the criteria, the distribution of wealth in this country would be vastly different.

I'm not that cynical but can make an exception in this case. Laughing

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Big business understands one need -- they want to sell you another computer you don't need, for instance.

Don't mind me, I just had to replace a garage door opener that was only a couple of years old and never worked properly -- I'm a bit miffed about the quality of product and service of big business right now.

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I need another computer to distribute my wealth faster.

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Shopping on line again, eh, Brand X.

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(I should talk, I'm addicted to shopping on line, especially since I don't really like malls. However, tropical fish are still a brick-and-mortar operation!)

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LOL! Maybe Dell or Amazon will get into the fish shipping business. PETA would love it!

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A friend of mine in the Army had been condemned to life in . . . er, i mean, was married to this militant member of the Socialist Workers Party. To place that on the political spectrum for you, the SWP split from the CPA in the 1930's because they considered American Communists insufficiently militant. For whatever reason, the SWP was not on the Attorney General's list, so my friend had not taken a false oath, nor perjured himself in signing the loyalty document. (For younger members, prior to the mid-1970's, those entering the armed forces were required to swear or affirm that they were not members of any organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the United States government; and to sign a similar statment that they were not members of any of the organizations listed on the document they were signing, which was maintained and provided by the Office of the Attorney General.)

This guy was a rather laid-back man, and he and i enjoyed one another's company, because we both read history simply for the pleasure of it, and used to have long discussions. I did my level best to avoid discussing anything more weighty than the weather with his ball-and-chain, but it was not fated to last forever. She finally cornered me conversationally, and began her predictable rant. I pointed out to her that the working class and poor blacks in Newark (her hometown) of whom she spoke would want nothing to do with her "revolution," that if they dreamed awaking, they dreamed of moving into the New Jersey countryside, and driving a large expensive car, while sending their children to the best schools. She rejoined, of course, that she knew better than they what would be best for them. I pointed out that despite the often loopy forms such beliefs take, Americans fervently believe in their rights as free men and women, and that such a regime could only survive through repression. I told her, in short, that she would never realize her dream, except over the dead bodies of those whom she purported to grieve for, and for whom she claimed all of her efforts were given.

Communism in the U.S.A.? Not bloody likely.

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Setanta wrote:

she would never realize her dream, except over the dead bodies of those whom she purported to grieve for, and for whom she claimed all of her efforts were given.

As concise a summary definition of communism as one can get ;-)

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Setanta - Very nice. Very nice, indeed. Very Happy

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Setanta

As you so eloquently pointed out, the far left can be every bit as loopy as the far right.

I knew that!

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The leader of the Communist Revolution would have to be charisma personified.

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Communism in the USA

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