Will the U.S. ever become a social-democratic country? (user search)
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  Will the U.S. ever become a social-democratic country? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Will the U.S. ever become a social-democratic country?  (Read 5359 times)
Cobbler
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Posts: 914
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« on: September 15, 2013, 01:25:08 PM »


Social Democracy isn't socialism. At least not of the type you're describing. Norway, Sweden and Denmark are social democratic countries, but you can't call them socialist in the manner you're describing. They're capitalist; in fact, I've read an article that state that Norway was better for start-up businesses than the US. And the way that the Scandinavian countries operate isn't incompatible with American life.

No its not, but its pretty darn close. The only reason I even mentioned socialism was because the author mentioned socialism as well as social democracies. I never intended to call them "socialistic". I kind of lumped the two together and that was unfair of me. And I said that socialism and social democracies go against founding principles, not our way of life.

Those countries you mentioned are livable, but they are, like all social democracies, high debt, many social programs (welfare state), high debt, and big government. Those are all things our founders tried to avoid happening, and it was certainly not what our country was based upon. Anyway, I obviously have a strong opinion against socialism/social democracies, but its because I think its one of the most dangerous things that could happen. In fact, we may be going down that road as we speak.

The Nordic countries (minus Iceland) have a much lower debt-to-GDP ratio than the US does. The idea that the social democracies inherently have a higher debt is false (they have higher taxes to pay for their programs, obviously, but the point remains).

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Cobbler
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Posts: 914
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« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2013, 11:54:41 AM »

I don't see the United States becoming a full-on social democracy like Scandinavia but a transition to a social market economy with many social democratic elements like in Germany is quite possible as Millennials rise to political prominence.

I also see this possibly happening. The Millenial generation may be libertarian on social/civil rights issues (gay marriage, weed, wiretapping) but economically they are much more liberal. I could see our health care system becoming similar to Switzerland (basically a more liberal Obamacare), and higher education being paid for by the government in the the next 30 years.

Our second amendment prevents this from happening.

How?  Are you envisaging armed gangs of thugs preventing elected representatives from enacting those policies?

I hold the same views on the matter as the founding fathers would. Is revolution bad when there are free elections in place? That's the bigger question. My other thought is that when two people no longer get along, they shouldn't be forced to stay married. The same should go for the states who would never want to be part of such a thing such as Utah and Oklahoma. I'd be living in the former state of Texas anyways.

A Swiss-style healthcare system and free higher education justify armed rebellion to you? You might not agree with those things, but to say that people would be rising up and willing to kill over them strikes me as an enormous overreaction.
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Cobbler
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Posts: 914
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« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2013, 07:52:00 PM »
« Edited: September 17, 2013, 12:31:50 AM by Cobbler »

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This is why I said I feared we are going down this road in the post a few responses up. America especially seems to have a unique fiscal irresponsibility that has plagued our government (recently). Its really sad that most of our debt (12/17!) came from Bush and Obama.
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The point was that your comment about social democracies being characterized by high debt is incorrect. It would seem that they are better at handling debt than we are.

I don't necessarily think the US should become a social democracy, but we should still be realistic when talking about the systems. The social democratic countries are democracies, not socialist totalitarian states (or even a mild version of them) like you seem to say.
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