Social democracy

Politruk

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Social democracy:
"]Those damn socialist Scandinavians keep outperforming everyone in everything."
—Rick Eichhorn[1]

Social democracy is a political ideology that advocates for state intervention to fulfill social, financial, and political security, justice, and equality of opportunity for people and actively reorder society in a way that is conducive to such developments. Such changes should be achieved with respect to the democratic and republican institutions and practices. It is common but not unique to Europe, where social democrats regularly feature as one of the major parties and have governed (or at least participated in governments) in many states, most notably in Northern Europe (up to being nicknamed the "Nordic model", which is effectively a blend of social liberalism and social democracy). Social democrats traditionally regard government intervention as a force for good, regulating markets and engaging in redistributive efforts to benefit disadvantaged groups and consumers to establish a more equitable society. Among the intellectual fathers of the modern social democratic ideology, we can mention the sociologist Anthony Giddens, the couple Gunnar
Wikipedia
and Alva Myrdal
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(who were respectively laureated with Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and Nobel Peace Prize), politician William Beveridge
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, among others.

Somewhat confusingly, social democracy is not the same thing as democratic socialism, nearly identical names notwithstanding. Modern social democrats believe in maintaining a market economy with varying (but, as discussed below, often dwindling) degrees of regulation and with a welfare state — democratic socialists do not (liberal socialists are the only nominally "socialists" who do), as they seek to abolish those goodies.

In American discourse, the leftiness of contemporary social democrats in Europe is often greatly overestimated. European social democratic parties are primarily moderate establishment parties, only and mostly symbolically slightly to the left. They have been marked by over a century of reformism since they split from revolutionary socialism, including a neoliberal turn in the 1980s and 1990s.

Going by the track record of the actually existing social democracies of Europe, social democracy, as distinct from socialism, does work better than anything else that has yet been tried. Certainly it works better than America's plutocracy-ruled version of capitalism. Social democracy has proven to be the surest path to broadly shared prosperity. Economic libertarianism/neoliberalism/supply-side never accomplishes anything but its true intended goal, which is to make the rich richer.
 
Good for them.

What's that got to do with the USA?
Because there is no reason at all why what works there cannot work here, and improve things here. That is exactly what you should want if you love America.
 
Because there is no reason at all why what works there cannot work here, and improve things here. That is exactly what you should want if you love America.

It's not an improvement though.

Not even the people who supposedly support it will do so when YOU have to pay the bill on it.

That's why I don't want it for America.
 
It's not an improvement though
Single-payer health care would be, just to start with.
Not even the people who supposedly support it will do so when YOU have to pay the bill on it.
The rich will pay for it -- that's part of the package. And the the social democracies still have plenty of rich people and they're doing very well indeed.
 
Single-payer health care would be, just to start with.

Nope.

The rich will pay for it -- that's part of the package.

Not even anywhere in Europe. EVERYONE pays bigly.

And the the social democracies still have plenty of rich people and they're doing very well indeed.

They are stagnating at best.....most are in decline.

Strangling your economy has consequences.

And we get back to the reality that NOBODY IN THE USA actually supports any of that shit....not when THEY have to pay for it.

NOT ONE STATE.
 
In having less poverty and homelessness. That matters more than anything else.

Only in the minds of people who concern themselves with the false god of equity.

They also have better health, longer lives, less infant mortality.
Not when you ignore the dregs of society LOL!!!!

It's like gun violence....if you ignore a dozen blue shit holes there is basically no crime in the USA.
 
Again, that's only in the minds of those who conflate wealth with equity.
The social democracies have less poverty than the U.S., fewer poor people per capita, in actual, material terms, not in terms of feels. Less poverty means less suffering. There is no defensible system of values in which less poverty is not a good thing.
 
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Interview with Edward Dutton, who is the author of this book about how average intelligence is declining. In actual fact, it is rising -- see the Flynn effect.

Dutton is also the author of this book and this one -- clearly, the dude is a crank.
You are such a pedantic little shit. You regurgitate the meager scraps you've googled in the pretense of being halfway intelligent. The "Flynn" effect is discussed in the interview.
 
You are such a pedantic little shit. You regurgitate the meager scraps you've googled in the pretense of being halfway intelligent. The "Flynn" effect is discussed in the interview.
I'm not watching an hour-long interview with a eugenicist crank -- if it contains a point you're trying to make, you'll have to summarize it in words.
 
The social democracies have less poverty than the U.S., fewer poor people per capita, in actual, material terms,

EQUITY IS ALL YOU SEE!!! LOL Fucking NPC's I swear to gawd....

not in terms of feels. Less poverty means less suffering.

Contradicting yourself.......all up in the fee fees and EQUITY!! OH GOD DON'T FORGET EQUITY!!!!

LOL

There is no defensible system of values in which less poverty is not a good thing.

Sure there is, especially when you define "less poverty" as an interchangeable term for equity.
 
EQUITY IS ALL YOU SEE!!! LOL Fucking NPC's I swear to gawd....



Contradicting yourself.......all up in the fee fees and EQUITY!! OH GOD DON'T FORGET EQUITY!!!!

LOL



Sure there is, especially when you define "less poverty" as an interchangeable term for equity.
I am not talking about equity at all. I am talking about poverty, which can be objectively measured. The social democracies have less of it than we do, and that makes them better societies -- and worth imitating.
 
I am not talking about equity at all.

Yes you are.

I am talking about poverty, which can be objectively measured.

Right...and you measure it via equity.

Not total wealth, innovation or economic growth.......you ignore all that. Equity is all that matters to you.

If you did you'd have to admit social democracy ain't such hot shit.

The social democracies have less of it than we do, and that makes them better societies -- and worth imitating.

No they don't, they have more equity. That's why they suck and nobody here is ever going to even try imitating them.

Not even the people who allegedly support it will, nor will they move away to one of those social democracies.

Liberal democracy is just too fucking good.
 
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