@georgeob1,
From Wikipedia "social democracy" first graph...
Quote: It is often used in this manner to refer to the social models and economic policies prominent in Western and Northern Europe during the later half of the 20th century.
We are talking about constitutional democracies but that fact doesn't exempt them from being described as I've done. What citizens may vote for or what the reigning politcal regimes might wish to do is constrained. The proper breadth of those constraints is indeed the area of divergence, necessarily.
Quote:Progressives tend to prefer government-managed "solutions" to social issues and to count the lack of them as no solution at all.
That's such an odd claim, george. It's completely generalized for starters, so let's take a look at some social issues that have plagued us. Workplace safety, for example. Such regs came into place as a consequence of the profit-taking dynamic, by itself, having little regard for what happened to workers or what age they might be. Pollution another with the same factors in place. Suffrage, gender or racial, required government intervention. The inequality of blacks, instantiated broadly in law and local society, needed and still needs intervention by government. Etc. Where a progressive/liberal like myself seek government action is where existing social and economic dynamics produce outcomes profoundly disastrous for large portions of the community while benefiting some small portion. But that is precisely the sort of rationale and ethos which guides the constitution and bill of rights.
Quote:Conservatives tend to focus on the, usually unforeseen, side effects of government-managed "solutions" and to prefer others based on either local government action or the voluntary action of people and communities.
George Wallace would surely agree. The local volunteers who kicked the crap out of marching blacks probably would too (lets call this the side effects of the absence of "solution"). I think we all want decision-making as local as possible but as national entities as well as communities and states/provinces, one of those "complexities" you reference arises. There's a tension in this, of course, and universal satisfaction won't be achieved.
Quote: I believe the world provides ample evidence of the superior economic productivity of capitalism and freer markets, compared to their socialist or extreme social democratic alternatives. How do you account for the economic and social transformation of China over the past 30 years? How about the continuing slower growth and financial difficulties of the EU economies compared to those in North America? You are rather categorical on this point, and appear to insist that there are no examples (exemplars) that contradict your point, but you are obviously wrong.
We're talkiing about mixed economices, yes? Social democracies as defined up top running along with somewhat fettered capitalism and providing social programs via progressive taxation. That is how the free world fundamentally works to the great benefit of citizens. As regards China, I don't know why you might bring up that example as I'm pretty certain you aren't planning to move there any time soon and I don't know of any progressives who see that corrupt authoritarian model as an instance of anything of much value. I won't say much about the EU as my knowledge here is not adequate but I think we both get that the region has been operating on a set of economic ideas which are closer to the Chicago school than to those which other economists like Stiglitz or Krugman etc would recommend.
But can you point to any nation, past or present, functioning without constraints on business, without progressive taxation, without large social programs or without national governmental address to social and economic inequality which is prosperous and free?
