Paul Craig Roberts: "America Is A Gulag"

[IanB]

Speaking from an outsider's perspective, politics and political debate in the US seems a very peculiar business indeed. The vocabulary seems to move about a lot, and truth is taken as a function of who makes the loudest, most uncompromising assertions.

For the record: "socialism" means the public ownership of the means of production - nothing more, and nothing less.

OK - carry on...

[mezzoduomo]

Anomaly: And yet America insists on housing criminals at the taxpayer's expense. Europe try and rehabilitate them which helps reduce the burden on the state.

Goodness gracious, spidermike! You mean to tell me that the Americans don't even TRY to rehabilitate criminals! HORRIBLE! I'm surprised anyone wants to live there (here).

[RSL]

For the record: "socialism" means the public ownership of the means of production - nothing more, and nothing less.

Sure, Ian, just like "fairy" means a magical figure - nothing more and nothing less.

[spidermike]

Goodness gracious, spidermike! You mean to tell me that the Americans don't even TRY to rehabilitate criminals! HORRIBLE! I'm surprised anyone wants to live there (here).

I just thought I would indulge in generalisation and extrapolations that seem to abound in the definition of 'socialism' 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Oh, boy...

...a definition of socialism...

...to base an economic theory on a fabricated story is specious to say the least.

Mike,

I understand you might think my postings are "specious" or that I have no clue what socialism is. After all, there are tons of googling "experts" and armchair philosophers out there these days.

For the sake of establishing my credibility, here is what I know about socialism: I was born, raised and educated in one. I also happened to be a trained economist. Trained at both a socialist university and at currently #1 business school in the (western) world. I read Das Kapital front to back, all three tomes. and passed an exam on it (with an A). I also taught economics at two universities,  a western European one, and here in the States. From a practical business perspective, I was a senior manager in financial roles for four major US multinationals. I spent eight years working in the ground zero of socialism (and on the bright path to communism) - Russia.

So, do I think I know a thing or two about socialism? You bet. Can I smell a socialist way of thinking from a mile away? You bet. Surely much better than any armchair socialist (not that I suggest you are one).

[tom b]

Slobodan, socialism is on a continuum. I really understand your hate of the past Eastern European socialism.

In Australia we have a mix of socialised and private medicine. There is a Medicare levy of around 1.5% tax. That means you can be treated in a Public Hospital for free. When I was a university student I had a sebaceous cyst on my face. It took around 18 moths to be removed but it was free. Lately I had a basal cell carcinoma removed from my face. I was operated on in a Private Hospital and my private insurance paid for most of it. The pathologists decided that the surgeon may not have gotten all of it. Two days later I was operated in a Public Hospital by the same surgeon for free.

Medicare also provides free doctor's visits if your doctor sees you as being "deserving". In any case the government gives a rebate on you doctor's visit.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is a program of the Australian Government that provides subsidised prescription drugs to residents of Australia. The PBS ensures that Australian residents have affordable and reliable access to a wide range of necessary medicines. It has been under increasing attacks from US pharmaceutical companies.

The "dole" in Australia is great, it is socialist but hey, it helps those people that can't help themselves.

Not all socialism is bad. One of the United States' problems is the lack of a safety net for people who are having problems. That's when problems occur.

Cheers,

P.S. I just walked past Millers Point in Sydney. There is a fight on, the public housing there is probably worth at least Au$1,000,000 a semi detached house due to recent developments.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...One of the United States' problems is the lack of a safety net for people who are having problems. That's when problems occur...

Perhaps not as generous as elsewhere, but there is a safety net here. There is Medicare (for old) and Medicaid (for poor). There are food stamps, and currently hitting record high, about 48 million people. And of course, there is free medicine as well, in emergency rooms, for illegals and uninsured. There are generous unemployment benefits too, up to two years.

[hjulenissen]

So, do I think I know a thing or two about socialism? You bet. Can I smell a socialist way of thinking from a mile away? You bet. Surely much better than any armchair socialist (not that I suggest you are one).

Given that we all (nations as well as individuals) seems to be on a continuum between the extremes of "no state" and "all state", and certain states apparently confuse economy academics by being social democratic and particularly efficient at the same time...

Does this not generate any curiosity at all? Perhaps there are other ways of doing things that could improve your state?

-h

[RSL]

Absolutely! And if you read Adam Smith you'll find out what they are.

[hjulenissen]

Interesting indeed.

However, it is even more interesting to compare states in the U.S. that do share more with Norway than the U.S. as a whole. Minnesota, for instance, that has a large Scandinavian population, or states that are similar in size or have similarly homogenous and/or non-urban population. The difference is not 8x any more, but between 2x and 3x:

this begs the question: did we ship all of our violent guys on a boat to you, or did you do something to them to make them 2-3x as violent? :-)

My government is trying to generally arm police offisers. I think that is a bad idea.

-h

[hjulenissen]

Absolutely! And if you read Adam Smith you'll find out what they are.

Is Adam Smith the reason why states like Sweden come out better than the US in some respects?

-h

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

this begs the question: did we ship all of our violent guys on a boat to you...

But of course. You did ship them on a boat... Viking boat

[tom b]

Perhaps not as generous as elsewhere, but there is a safety net here. There is Medicare (for old) and Medicaid (for poor). There are food stamps, and currently hitting record high, about 48 million people. And of course, there is free medicine as well, in emergency rooms, for illegals and uninsured. There are generous unemployment benefits too, up to two years.

Sounds pretty socialist to me.

Cheers,

[Gulag]

If you can actually read both Adam Smith and Karl Marx,  you can find that Karl Marx quoted Adam Smith a lot in his works.  For example,  Marx's definition of capital is directly copied from Smith's: "A certain quantity of labour stocked and stored up to be employed (storef up labour)."

Marx in Das Kapital borrows Adam Smith's conclusion that as long as we also allow some people to control productive capital, and, again, leave others with nothing to sell but their brains and bodies, the results will be in very many ways barely distinguishable from slavery.

Noam Chomsky talks about Adam Smith recently, "The comment that you quoted, “crony capitalism,” and so on – what’s capitalism supposed to be? Yeah, it’s crony capitalism. That’s capitalism, you do things for your friends, your associates, they do things for you, you try to influence the political system, obviously. You can read about this in Adam Smith. If people read Adam Smith instead of just worshipping him, they could learn a lot about how economies work. So, for example, he’s concerned mostly with England, and he pointed out that in England, and I’m virtually quoting, he said the merchants and manufacturers are the principal architects of government policy and they make sure their own interests are well cared for, however grievous the effects on others, including the people of England.

Yes, it’s their business. What else should they do? It’s like when people talk about greedy capitalists, that’s redundant. You have to be a greedy capitalist or you’re out of business. In fact, it’s a legal requirement that you be a greedy capitalist and that you don’t pay attention to what happens to anyone else. You know, it’s not just Ayn Rand, that’s the law. So, these complaints don’t make any sense."

[spidermike]

Mike,

I understand you might think my postings are "specious" or that I have no clue what socialism is. After all, there are tons of googling "experts" and armchair philosophers out there these days.

For the sake of establishing my credibility, here is what I know about socialism: I was born, raised and educated in one. I also happened to be a trained economist. Trained at both a socialist university and at currently #1 business school in the (western) world. I read Das Kapital front to back, all three tomes. and passed an exam on it (with an A). I also taught economics at two universities,  a western European one, and here in the States. From a practical business perspective, I was a senior manager in financial roles for four major US multinationals. I spent eight years working in the ground zero of socialism (and on the bright path to communism) - Russia.

So, do I think I know a thing or two about socialism? You bet. Can I smell a socialist way of thinking from a mile away? You bet. Surely much better than any armchair socialist (not that I suggest you are one).

I have never questioned your credentials, but being a trained economist does not mean you have an unbiased point of view. I have met several people raised in communist countries who are more aware than most of any policies that could be construed as socialist or socialism, just as I have known people with similar views on the right wing of the spectrum. I recall a few years ago a critique of the European Court of Justice looking at the impact of judges from countries until recently (at that time) out of the Soviet umbrella and it was clear that their decisions were clearly influenced by their history in that they were hyper aware of ruling against anything that could even be construed as restriction of rights even more so than judges raised in the Western European countries.

So far socialism has been defined as wanting too high a pay rise (odd really, I would have thought that was the essence of capitalism, but there you go), poor business management, altruism, apathy, and seemingly socialised care. That covers a fair bit of general human behaviour.

[RSL]

Is Adam Smith the reason why states like Sweden come out better than the US in some respects?

-h

No. States like Sweden have been protected by the United States since 1941. Don't get me wrong, H, when I was an aviation cadet there were Swedes training with me who were quite willing to fly and fight, but the economic burden has been borne by the U.S. for a long, long time. Now that we've become an almost wholly state-run society It looks to me as if we've pretty much reached the end of that rope. We pretend we're only 18 trillion in debt, but when you count the commitments for things like social security, medicare, medicaid, and, basically cradle-to-grave coverage, it's a hell of a lot more than that. I don't think we can keep it up. The current administration is doing everything it can to make us just like Europe. If that happens, we're all screwed.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... So far socialism has been defined as wanting too high a pay rise (odd really, I would have thought that was the essence of capitalism, but there you go), poor business management, altruism, apathy, and seemingly socialised care. That covers a fair bit of general human behaviour.

I do not think anyone here "defined" socialism by what you are quoting. Just pointing out one aspect of it, i.e., as I said, a socialist state of mind. And yes, it is (a part of) general human behavior. After all, socialism didn't fall from Mars, nor was just imposed by a few bad guys (Lenin, etc.). It was clamored by the masses at the time (and today).

As for the case of "poor business management," the point wasn't that. The point was the underlying desire to improve "fairness" and provide for a more egalitarian pay scale, reducing the gap between higher and lower paid employees. That is a pure socialist/Soviet concept, even has a word for it in both Russian and Serbian - "uravnilovka" = leveling, i.e., bringing everyone to the same level or close.

And just to be clear, I am far from endorsing extremes on the other side, like CEO salary disparity. I am for a far serious taxation of hedge fund managers, for instance, as well as for raising a minimum wage across the nation, not just in Seattle et al.

Nor I am suggesting that everything was bad in my former homeland (whose socialism was a far cry from the Soviet one anyway), nor in some "socialist" western European societies.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I recall a few years ago a critique of the European Court of Justice looking at the impact of judges from countries until recently (at that time) out of the Soviet umbrella and it was clear that their decisions were clearly influenced by their history in that they were hyper aware of ruling against anything that could even be construed as restriction of rights even more so than judges raised in the Western European countries...

And why do you think that is? Because "one thing leads to another," a small restriction today, another small tomorrow, and we actually know where it ends (we've been there, done that).

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...

The "dole" in Australia is great, it is socialist but hey, it helps those people that can't help themselves...

Ok, but check this out:

Australia's nanny state: A case of arrested development?

And now an Australian senator has set up a parliamentary inquiry into the extent to which the country has become a "nanny state".

Senator David Leyonhjelm says Australia's once "adventurous spirit" has been paralysed by rules and regulations, and millions of dollars are being wasted on bureaucracy.

"The government is taking decisions out of the hands of adults and making decisions for them on the basis that the government knows best."

 

[spidermike]

The point was the underlying desire to improve "fairness" and provide for a more egalitarian pay scale, reducing the gap between higher and lower paid employees. That is a pure socialist/Soviet concept, even has a word for it in both Russian and Serbian - "uravnilovka" = leveling, i.e., bringing everyone to the same level or close.

So now 'fairness' in business is a Soviet concept? 

As far as I could tell from the interview his point was that the people on the phone talking to customers are the lifeblood of his company and he is recognising that importance in the payscales. As far as I can tell from comments on the web, other people people got hacked off not because they argued with his basic premise, but with the fact that their pay had not gone up as much (ie twice) as that of those on the phones. Now you can either say 'those people have more responsibility and deserve X times as much pay' or you can say 'those people merely have different skillsets but we recognise their larger responsibility which may mean they will have less than X times as much pay'.
The real tests will be (1) will his company survive and (2) if it does survive how many people leave for different jobs.

You see, I don't look on such concepts as an extension of socialism. I look on socialism as an enforced extension of such proposals to everyone who may or may not feel the same way. But when a society agrees that something like socialised welfare benefits the society as a whole that is not socialism but either selfishness (I may need it someday) or altruism (simply because we should).

Healthcare schemes are basically socialist if you want to put it like the way you seem to be - a group of people contributing to each others' healthcare whether they need the services or not. But just in case they do...