Ginkgo wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2020 1:10 am
Most of these counties listed have their socialist elements. Australia has many socialist programmes. For example, universal health care, PBS scheme, financial support for the unemployed. These programmes and many more are not a drag on our economy, they are essential for the whole country.
None of them makes money. They all lose money. And they're all managed by bureaucrats, who have no inherent incentive to make them financially accountable or sustainable.
That makes them a drag on the economy, even if we regard some of them as a desirable or necessary drag on the economy. And that means that we cannot have too large a number of them, or they will simply sink the economy entirely. So we have to be very smart and selective about what we allow to become "socialized." It's an option we can afford to use only cautiously.
So maybe "socialized medicine" might be a first one. But it will be (by far) the biggest source of taxation on the productive populace, and will always demand more than we can afford, because that's exactly how socialized medicine is in every place it's been instituted.
But what about education? What about university? What about welfare? What about a living wage? What about family allowance and subsidized contraception? What about roads, bridges and airports? What about policing, the military, and food inspectors? What about fish, game and wildlife? What about borders and passports? What about sanitation services, recycling and power generation? What about...it never stops. And nothing we socialize ever seems to turn a profit. So where does the money come from to pay for all this socializing?
At some point we have to be smart, and say, "A little socialization of programs won't kill us economically. But it can't be everything. It can't even be most things. So we've got to prioritize and minimize here."