Wealth đź’°

Something socialist european countries have learned - that the US has mostly ignored, is the idea of wealth that is shared and enjoyed by everyone. In USia, it’s not really considered a fully maximized asset, unless an individual (often corporate) entity controls it outright.

If this country had its economic house in order, that would be the natural goal, the logical progression of things-to move from private wealth to public wealth as individuals grow more prosperous.

As it is, we treat hoarders of wealth very differently from people who hoard national geographics in their living rooms, and that serves to impoverish everybody.

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Right now, every country with universal health care seems like a socialist utopia compared to USia.

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I can certainly understand the sentiment. That said, all those wonderful universal plans in scandinavia and across europe are almost completely funded via capitalism and not socialism.

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Ha! Good stuff. Comics vs reason.

Thank you! I often try to make that same basic point, but you put it extra well here. :+1:

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Yes, correct, and being paid for their effort. Capitalism.

I was stating a fact and not an assertion, bald or otherwise. Those countrie’s economies function under free market capitalism which generates the wealth they tax to pay for the healthcare. If I am mistaken and there is some socialist economic system somewhere in europe generating the capital to pay for their care I am certainly open to read about it and adjust my understanding. I am not saying that they should not use their taxes to pay for a national health system, it’s their taxes they generated being spent by the people they democratically put in charge on a program they like, so more power to them.

“A system functions under X and generates Y, therefore X generates Y” is not a valid construct.

Analogous constructions would be:

America functioned under slavery and generated wealth therefore slavery generated wealth.

Germany functioned under Naziism in the 1930s and 40s and made toothpicks, therefore Naziism makes toothpicks.

Moon rockets function under the force of gravity and get us to the moon, therefore the force of gravity gets us to the moon.

Capitalism does not pay for healthcare. The fact that capitalist countries have healthcare doesn’t prove otherwise, and is compatible with the idea that capitalism acts against the provision of healthcare.

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I thought it was earned through commerce on the free market?

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The tax funds the residents of those countries use to pay for their healthcare are earned by them in a free market economy, collected by the administrators they hired, and spent by them on their health care.

When X is the direct reason for Y happening it is. When X is peripheral, it is not.

This is a true statement if not complete. Slavery played a big role in America’s and most other civilization’s success.

Wrong, Naziism is no more the rason toothpicks were made in germany than any other inconsequential factor.

Moon rockets function on combustion and the venturi effect against gravity so you correctly assume this is nonsensical.

If these countrie’s tax revenues that directly pay for their health care do not come from their capitalist economy, then where did it come from?

Exactly. The form doesn’t work. It needs to be directly argued that X is the reason why Y is happening. That’s my entire point: that it requires argumentation to say that healthcare happens because of a market economy, we can’t just point to the fact of their mutual existence and say one causes the other. I’m glad we agree.

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  1. Revenue is generated in a capitalist free market economy by residents of that country
  2. Residents vote to use a part of their free market proffits collected as taxes to pay for healthcare for all citizens regardless of income.
  3. Those taxes pay for their healthcare.

I don’t have time for a colorful infographic so I digress.

Maybe he thinks “via” means “in spite of”?

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I’m still wating for an actual counterpoint that dissproves the fact that a capitalist system pays for their healthcare. I am open to being enlightened.

A capitalist system doesn’t pay for anything - individuals in a capitalist system pay for things.

Otherwise it’s a mixed system with some socialism.

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And let’s not forget that we can have healthcare without capitalism, too! Anything we have under the capitalist system, we can figure out alternatives for or someone in history prior to the rise of capitalism already has! That’s the wonderful thing about studying history… we can explore the myriad of ways, good and bad, that human beings have organized their lives collectively, figure out what worked, and what did not, and improve our current situation armed with that knowledge. It’s a never-ending process, probably, and there is no end of history (unless we wipe ourselves out), but maybe it’s about the journey and not so much about a destination anyway. All the really matters is the constant attempt to improve all of our lives…

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Yep. There’s been health care as long as there’s been humans. Even if it was just comforting another Cro-Magnon.

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And it was mostly women who were front line health care workers right up to the early modern period, for the most part.

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Yes. Systems themselves earn nothing. I assumed that was understood.

A free market capitalist system that chooses to pay for social programs with their taxes is still capitalist since the government does not own the labor.