Downfall and Doom

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The Downfall and Doom of every democracy occurs when the politicians raid the public treasury to fund programs that will get them votes. Once that is done, it is just a matter of time before the government and probably the society comes unglued.

A welfare state is a luxury we cannot afford.

Yes, maintain the infrastructure. Yes, maintain public hygene (clean water and waste disposal). Yes, maintain public order. No, do not subsidize deadbeats and corrupt players.

ruveyn

A welfare state is sustainable if it co-exists with a free market. I don't get this whole false dichotomy between the two.

Taking from A to give to B is theft. The power of government should prevail where there is a monopoly of force required. That means force has to be accounted for publicly. Just because a welfare state can be maintained does not mean we should have such a welfare state. What should person A be taxed just because person B is in need? What if person B is in "need" because he is a lazy bum.

Why should a corporation be subsidized at tax payer expense? If a corporation or any other business firm cannot survive in the market place, then let it go under.

Do you think the government should subsidize companies that make buggy whips, just because they "need" the money they cannot make in the market place?

ruveyn

So then should we have voluntary police and military protection? That would mean people who can't pay for it won't be protected. Oh wait, that's why we have taxes in the first place!
Taxes, whether they go towards protecting us from others violating our rights or "extorting" us to fund social welfare programs have the same rationale: To make sure everyone is covered.

That's the most bare minimum role of the Government. And?

I thought the point of this thread was that it is unsustainable?

I don't like the idea of lazy a**holes leeching off the system either. But the problem with relying entirely on private charity is that your well being is at the stake of another person's discretion. Lazy a**hole leeches tend to be manipulative folks, so if they're good at pulling people's heartstrings and you come across as the lazy a**hole, guess who's going to get denied?

How is this relevant to the topic of welfare states and where are you going with this? Corporatism has jack s**t to do with it other than the fact that they both involve Government intervention. But Government intervention isn't for its own sake so it isn't as if they are two sides of the same coin. And I already said a welfare state is sustainable if it co-exists with a free market so obviously the answer is no.

Subsidized private corporations are the biggest "welfare queens" we have. Socializing loses and privatizing profits is a major injustice against taxpayers. That is why the efforts of the government to cover the a**es of major "too big to fail" corporations is such an outrage.

ruveyn

Definitely but you should make it clear that you're also talking about corporate welfare since the term "welfare state" is usually used to refer to social welfare. Businesses should succeed or fail through no help or hindrance from the Government. I'm not saying there should be absolutely no red tape since we obviously need food regulations and such, but it should be kept to a minimum. One thing for sure though is that there should be absolutely no subsidies.

Last edited by AceOfSpades on 06 Sep 2011, 12:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.

That is not how I use the term. I mean any system for redistributing income and assets for either political or social reasons. And corporations are legally "persons" so any corporation sucking on the government teat is a welfare bum.

Your distinction is irrelevant. It still amount taking money from productive party A and giving it to unproductive party B. It does not matter whether B is some poor sod or a business firm. It is still an unjust transfer of wealth or assets.

ruveyn

We live in a Capitalistic society that gives politicians the ability to do this with power and influence. I see no possibility that the political animals among us are going to let go of that power and influence, simply because of human nature. Their nests are heavily feathered; personalities impulsive living by the moment.

These are the individuals by and large that run for political office, particularly at the highest levels. It's not likely we are going to be able to change their nature as human beings.

Math does not lie. We have limited resources; what we have now cannot be maintained. It would have helped to extend our way of life, if we had held on to the surpluses at hand at the start of the new century, but as a collective group of humans we were not smart enough to make that happen; instead human nature prevailed.

I think the way of life in Western Developed countries is a blip, a slice of heaven for some, that is an anomaly in the human experience.

The reality of human existence is in developing countries.

It appears we are headed back in that direction; we are primates that wear clothes that would like to think that clothing allows us escape our primate nature and primate destiny.

Some have been successful in doing this in developed countries, but it seems that humans do not have the critical consciousness as a collective group to continue the opportunity.

The illusion of control is disappearing fast, but so many are used to it, they cannot even imagine what may come next. They don't want to; that's the part of human nature that most can't escape; and possibly the biggest reason why our current way of life may be doomed to failure.

Many people in poverty manage their financial lives better than we do as a collective group of over 300 million individuals. 14 trillion in debt is enough evidence to support that assertion.

Your solution, Reuvyn, would likely be a better solution than what will result from inevitable failure and change, in our current way of life.

The only real solution to maintain our way of life would be to change human nature, for a chance of solving any of the big problems, not something we have the ability to accomplish. Instead, as always, we will just have to be able to adapt to what comes next, to survive.

As much collective intelligence that we have recorded as a species, the people that control our futures are a relatively small group of primates wearing clothes, establishing themselves as the alpha male or female, to control their respective futures.

I have no other way of explaining the rise in politics of individuals like S. Palin and W. Bush.

You left out the Boy Prince; Barak Obama.

ruveyn

I don't know of any politician completely immune to it. Obama seems to have risen a greater degree through an attempt in portraying intellectual elitism rather than the alpha male/female swagger that Palin and Bush portrayed.

I don't think the alpha male swagger would have been accepted during the election process, but it was more evident in Obama after he was elected. At heart he's not significantly different, I think, in respect of common political nature, but during the election he used the political technique that was the most effective to win.

When society gets to the point where it can provide no help for those on the bottom financially, it is inevidable that it will crumble because as more people reach the bottom and more people become angry sh*t is likely to hit the fan.

It also means legally a corporation will be treated as an individual person, which is quite disturbing if you think about what that really means.

And we would be better off plunged into a second Great Depression due to a massive run on the banks where 30% of the population lose both their job and their life savings. We could go back to the days of the 19th century "Great Panics". You're better off keeping all your money under your f*****g mattress than leaving it with the sleaze balls. That's some old school capitalism for ya.

Even by that definition, welfare states tend to have corporate welfare as well.

Which is better. Trying to fix a rat infest rotting barn, or tearing it down and building a new barn right and proper?

ruveyn

You do realize that the "Great Depression" was engineered to happen by the uber wealthy to create a problem that would mandate their "Great Society" solution, right?

Banks were solid. We gave control of monetary policy to a group of private bankers who immediately ran things into the ground so that the public would agree to "reforms" that would otherwise be unconscionable.