Capitalism vs Socialism

This thread should serve as the last nail in the capitalist coffin.

I’ll open by not appealing to nor relying on Noam Chomsky, but simply adding confirmation to my central exhibit while allowing him to tell you what I’m about to talk about:

Start at 3:00 ish

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX4NAETMXsc[/youtube]

The ratio of state expenditures to GNP worldwide, and it shows what people should have known, is differentiated: there are some areas of the world where in fact the state is being minimized, that is: reducing relative to GNP. Namely those areas that have been under the influence and control of the international financial institutions in the United States: it’s sub-saharan Africa and Latin America. In those areas, in fact, state expenditures relative to GNP are low and declining, and they are also all economic disasters. In the rich countries, the OECD countries, that’s the place where the ratio of state expenditures to GNP is the highest, and it’s been going up, quite sharply in the 1980s and it’s still going up, though less sharply in the Asian growth area, which has been essentially because of World Bank / US domination. State expenditures relative to GNP have been going up, they’re not as high as the rich countries, but going up, so what you have there is a picture namely: the place where the international institutions: the World Bank the IMF / US government, in the areas where they can pretty much control policy, the state is indeed declining; it was always lower it’s getting still lower, and in fact poverty’s increasing in absolute terms as well as relative terms. In general, there’s an economic disaster, except for a small sector of the population. In the rich countries, exactly the opposite is happening. One might want to draw some conclusions from that.

Indeed, let’s draw some conclusions.

First, the data.

Private consumption as % of GDP by country data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE … view=chart

That site is fairly amazing. Data can be sorted ascending/descending as well as graphing multiple countries since 1960.

This site confirms the data: ceicdata.com/en/indicator/v … ominal-gdp

The significance of this lowly statistic is that the larger the number, the larger the proportion of GDP that is not government spending. In other words, it’s a measure of how capitalistic (anti-socialistic) a country is.

So which is the most capitalistic country? Venezuela, of course! :laughing:

Here is a list of countries in order of decreasing public spending:

Brunei
Macau SAR
Qatar
Luxembourg
Ireland
United Arab Emirates
Singapore
Oman
China
Saudi Arabia
Algeria
Norway
Kuwait
Sweden
Netherlands
Bahrain
Malta
Thailand
Iran
Denmark
Botswana
Czech Republic
Slovenia
Panama
Iceland
Belgium
Austria
South Korea
Germany
Estonia
Hungary
Russia
Switzerland
Finland
France
Slovakia
Taiwan
New Zealand
Israel
Japan
Ivory Coast
European Union
Mongolia
Belarus
Indonesia
Malaysia
Australia
Canada
Kazakhstan
India
Morocco
South Africa
Turkey
Spain
Latvia
Chile
Ecuador
Azerbaijan
Croatia
Italy
Romania
Brazil
United Kingdom
Lithuania
Macedonia
Laos
Poland
Paraguay
Mexico
Portugal
Sri Lanka
Peru
Uruguay
Bulgaria
United States
Georgia
Vietnam
Hong Kong SAR
Colombia
Bolivia
Argentina
Bangladesh
Kyrgyzstan
Greece
Tunisia
Ukraine
Philippines
Cyprus
Nepal
Cambodia
Mauritius
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Serbia
Sudan
Kenya
Armenia
Malawi
Nigeria
Pakistan
Albania
Egypt
Montenegro
Jordan
Lebanon
Moldova
Kosovo
Yemen
Syria
Tajikistan
Venezuela

So, who wants to move to a capitalist country? :smiley:

Some notable graphs:

Evidently communism and socialism aren’t the same.

It doesn’t appear to me that Greece could handle more austerity.

Singapore is quite an interesting case as it’s often the posterchild for capitalism, but how can that be when it ranks 7th for the most government spending?

I’ll defer to the work of the people’s policy project:

How Capitalist Is Singapore Really?

[i]The Singaporean state owns 90 percent of the country’s land. Over 80 percent of Singapore’s population lives in housing constructed by the country’s public housing agency HDB. The Singaporean state is largest shareholder of more than a third of the country’s publicly-traded companies, and build out a sovereign wealth fund that holds tens of trillions of dollars of corporate assets.

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t generally associate state ownership of the means of production with capitalism. One way to see whether libertarians or conservatives actually think Singapore’s system is uber-capitalistic is to imagine how they would respond to someone who ran a campaign in the US aimed at bringing the country up to the Singaporean ideal.

In this campaign, the candidate would say that the state should expropriate nearly all of the land in the country, build virtually all of the housing in the country, move almost everyone into public housing leaseholds, become the largest shareholder of more than a third of the country’s publicly-traded companies (weighted by market capitalization), and build out a sovereign wealth fund that holds tens of trillions of dollars of corporate assets. Would this campaign meet with a warm libertarian embrace or perhaps be derided as a bit socialistic?[/i] peoplespolicyproject.org/20 … re-really/

I’ll continue in the next post…

This explains the wealth divide:

Venezuela bordered on socialism once:

Presented without comment:

Yes, why don’t all these people coming to the US from Socialist countries think about what you say?

We should build a wall to protect them from their error :smiley:

Seriously, the most autistic thread ever.

Thanks for a laugh man.
Keep these last nails coming eh!

Good idea! More nails and maybe even a weld bead to be sure that vile monster never escapes :smiley:

So, I collected data from the DHS

Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status by Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Years 2015 to 2017 dhs.gov/immigration-statist … 017/table3

And

Net migration: the total number of immigrants less the annual number of emigrants data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM … desc=false

The same list of countries I presented before arranged according to the World Bank Migration stat as a percent of population, in order of most-negative migration to most-positive migration is as follows:

Syria
Latvia
Lebanon
Sri Lanka
Kyrgyzstan
Bangladesh
Albania
Georgia
Paraguay
Nepal
Tajikistan
Laos
Croatia
Cambodia
Lithuania
Armenia
Romania
Morocco
Philippines
Sudan
Serbia
Peru
Pakistan
Yemen
Mongolia
Bolivia
Uruguay
Estonia
Montenegro
Moldova
Iran
Bulgaria
Malawi
Indonesia
Colombia
Portugal
Egypt
Macedonia
Mexico
Ukraine
Vietnam
Venezuela
Ecuador
India
Tunisia
Nigeria
Poland
Algeria
China
Kenya
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Azerbaijan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Mauritius
Brazil
Argentina
Slovakia
Belarus
Thailand
Japan
Slovenia
Hungary
South Korea
Brunei
Spain
Greece
Netherlands
Chile
Ireland
South Africa
Russia
Czech Republic
Iceland
Italy
Israel
France
Botswana
Panama
Malaysia
Malta
Austria
Finland
Denmark
United Kingdom
United States
New Zealand
Saudi Arabia
Turkey
Hong Kong SAR
Sweden
Belgium
Cyprus
Germany
Kuwait
Norway
Switzerland
Canada
United Arab Emirates
Australia
Macau SAR
Luxembourg
Singapore
Qatar
Oman
Bahrain

Well, well, everyone wants to go to Singapore :smiley:

Once again this illustrates my point: people are fleeing the countries with the least government spending and seeking refuge in countries with the most government spending.

Exceptions:

Countries with more than 60% private consumption as a % of gdp that also have positive migration are: US, UK, Cyprus, Italy, Hong Kong, Chile, Greece, Argentina, Brazil

Countries with less than 60% private consumption as a % of gdp that also have negative migration are: Morocco, Mongolia, Iran, Indonesia, India, Algeria, China

Otherwise the correlation holds: the countries with negative migration have less government spending than countries with positive migration.

Now, according to the DHS data, the same countries arranged according to increasing immigration, as a % of population of home country, into the US are as follows:

Nigeria
United States (Not sure how US people immigrate to the US, but they have a stat for it)
Czech Republic
Indonesia
Malawi
Oman
Japan
Austria
India
Tunisia
Botswana
China
South Africa
Algeria
Slovenia
Norway
Belgium
Brunei
Luxembourg
Germany
Paraguay
Turkey
Italy
Russia
Netherlands
Saudi Arabia
Spain
Switzerland
Slovakia
Brazil
Tajikistan
France
Kazakhstan
Mauritius
Sri Lanka
Argentina
Finland
Denmark
Qatar
Sudan
Bahrain
Pakistan
Bangladesh
Croatia
Azerbaijan
Chile
Portugal
Thailand
Sweden
Cyprus
Laos
Hungary
Egypt
Greece
Kyrgyzstan
Morocco
Australia
Poland
Malaysia
Estonia
Bolivia
United Arab Emirates
Kenya
Singapore
Romania
Serbia
United Kingdom
New Zealand
Iran
Malta
Macau SAR
Latvia
Belarus
Taiwan
Yemen
Mongolia
Panama
Lithuania
Ukraine
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Cambodia
Iceland
Kuwait
Uruguay
Bulgaria
Ireland
Canada
Peru
Syria
Hong Kong SAR
Colombia
Venezuela
South Korea
Nepal
Vietnam
Georgia
Israel
Lebanon
Philippines
Macedonia
Montenegro
Jordan
Kosovo
Moldova
Ecuador
Armenia
Mexico
Albania

Once again, the correlation holds: the countries with the least government spending are seeing residents flee to the US.

Ireland is a bit of an oddball with only 32.4% private consumption, but a relatively high 0.0312% of residents moving to the US, however Ireland also saw a net positive migration of 23,497, so it’s not like the Irish are fleeing for their lives, but actually gaining population.

Singapore lost 0.0143% of its population to the US, but overall gained 298,448 residents.

It doesn’t matter how you slice it, people flee lack of government spending.

The US is not successful because of capitalism, but in spite of it, because the US has the largest military. People aren’t coming to the US because of capitalism since the most capitalistic places are where the immigrants are coming from.

If anyone wants the spreadsheet, pm me an email address and I’ll send it to you.

I’m getting a weak but positive correlation between Net Migration and Taxation as a percentage of GDP worldwide.

So I guess people are migrating to where they get taxed more more than they are to where they get taxed less…

Looks like it’s not the thread that’s autistic afterall, eh?

I didn’t think of correlating taxation, good idea, but it’s hard to quantify taxation across countries with differing methods of taxing. Even so, tax revenues as a % of gdp seem to correlate to positive migration, as well as the corporate tax rate and individual tax rate.

This is odd since the argument is that the rich will flee high-tax states in favor of low-tax states, but even on a state-level in the US, the richest states (NY, CA, CT, VT) have the highest taxes. The lowest taxes are in the southeast where poverty and lack of education abounds. So, there must be something alluring that compels the rich to continue paying the high taxes. Maybe it’s the desire to not live in a shithole?

[i]This paper examines how changes in state tax policy affect the number of federal estate tax returns
filed in each state, utilizing data on federal estate tax return filings by state and wealth class for 18
years between 1965 and 1998.

Controlling for state- and wealth-class specific fixed effects, we find
that high state inheritance and estate taxes and sales taxes have statistically significant, but modest,
negative impacts on the number of federal estate tax returns filed in a state.

High personal income
tax and property tax burdens are also found to have negative effects, but these results are somewhat
sensitive to alternative specifications.

This evidence is consistent with the notion that wealthy
elderly people change their real (or reported) state of residence to avoid high state taxes, although
it could partly reflect other modes of tax avoidance as well.

We discuss the implications for the
debate over whether individual states should “decouple” their estate taxes from federal law, which
would retain the state tax even as the federal credit for such taxes is eliminated.

Our results suggest
that migration and other observationally equivalent avoidance activities in response to such a tax
would cause revenue losses and deadweight losses, but that these would not be large relative to the
revenue raised by the tax.[/i]

nber.org/papers/w10645.pdf

It appears that the bigger deal is the estate and sales taxes (a flat tax which I despise), while the income tax is of lesser relevance.

[i]Conclusion

This paper finds that the number of federal estate tax return filers reported as residing in
each state is negatively influenced by the level of taxes imposed on high-income and
high-wealth people in that state.

The most compelling results are for estate and
inheritance taxes and sales taxes, but income taxes and property taxes have statistically
significant negative effects of similar magnitudes in some reasonable specifications.

Our evidence is consistent with the idea that some rich individuals flee states that tax them
relatively heavily, although it may reflect other modes of tax avoidance as well.

The estimated amounts of deadweight loss and revenue loss from the flight are not large
relative to revenue collected by the taxes, however. [/i]

So some rich may flee, but something else is offsetting the loss of revenue (perhaps more rich moving in).

Why do people pay the high taxes and insane prices in NY city? NY should be a ghost town from the perspective of costs, but it’s one of the most populated cities, so obviously something is offsetting the costs.

breitbart.com/politics/2019 … ass-death/

Oh look, Brave Sir Robin left a flaming sack of ad hom on my porch this morning before beating a brave retreat back into the Bushes :smiley:

I guess it’s up to me to discern the argument he failed to deliver. So let’s see… how does a conservative think… Oh! Right: distort, lie, slander.

The “pompous twit” wants to “ban” fossil fuels, cars, and planes. That covers the slander and lying distortions, so that must be your argument.

She doesn’t want to ban anything, but drive antiquated technology out of business through competition with electromotive propulsion having triple the efficiency quora.com/What-is-the-energ … -airliners

Instead of millions of individual engines to regulate, she wants to centralize power generation for easier and more efficient cleaning of the exhaust.

She also wants to plant trees. I like trees. You don’t like trees? Without trees, where would you hide when you run from arguments?

All this will create lots of well-paying government jobs similar to FDR’s New Deal.

Of course the plutocrats don’t like that because it puts the gov in competition for workers, which forces them to raise wages, which cuts into their profits and control and diminishes their world domination.

She’s so brilliant, all conservatives can do is poke fun at her appearance and appeal to Red Scare propaganda tactics, taking advantage of negative connotations colloquially associated with words such as “socialism”.

Socialism is the new Boo!

The propaganda is rife. Bernie and AOC are threats to their control.

Private consumption as % of gdp:

Finland 53.7%
Norway 43.4%
Sweden 44.2%
Canada 57.4%
Netherlands 44.3%
Australia 57.2%
Luxembourg 30%
New Zealand 54.4%
Denmark 47.5%
.
.
.
Italy 62.2%
Latvia 60.6%
Croatia 61.7%
US 68%

See a pattern?

Who woulda thought less government = less freedom?

Not these guys:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men

No.

#42 France has a 53.8% “private consumption as % of gdp” which is almost the same as #1 Finland (53.7%).

France has a lot of government as well as a lot of socialist and communist sympathy.

On the other hand, it has a high quality of life (at least in my opinion). I would rather live in #42 France than in #3 Sweden.

Isn’t that merely anecdotal?

Is the fact that his numbers don’t show a pattern “anecdotal”?

I brought up my personal experience for a reason. One number does not adequately represent the complex economics, politics and culture of a country. IOW, “private consumption as % of gdp” is not a measure of “capitalism”, “socialism”, “freedom” or “government”.

There are lots of reasons why you would not want to live in the #1 country in the world … no matter how the ranking is calculated.

Your personal experience of one case is perfectly valid, but Seren and I looked at actualised aggregate personal experiences worldwide in cases that span the whole world. You could argue that one number doesn’t adequately represent the complex economics, politic and culture of a country, and you’d have a point, but I think it’s a question of extents. I think a general correlation (even the weak 0.15 co-efficient that I got from my measure) says nothing to less of an extent than a personal preference of France over Finland. Hell, I’d choose France even though I admire Finland greatly, I’ve never met a French person I liked and every Finn I’ve met I liked, I speak a fair amount of French but no Finnish, I’m amazed and fascinated by the Finnish education system being top of the world - just to name a few things, but it’s just too god damn cold up there for too much of the year…

Even if you reject all the (relatively) simple empirical data that’s been brought up here, that alone allows us to reject the hypothesis that there’s a clear global trend of people generally migrating to more Capitalistic countries than Socialistic ones… - as goes the common Capitalist social narrative.

Serendipper…. =D>

Facts: suprising how facts seem to have a liberal bent…

but of course, conservatives have no use for facts because their
“Facts” come from personal biases and faith that because if
they believe in something, it must be true… regardless of the “facts”.

And the real faith of conservatives lies in their fears, bigotry, hate,
anger and lust that they mistake for “facts”.

The world is a harsh and cruel place because their biases and faith
tell them the world is a harsh and cruel place… it doesn’t really matter
what the facts are…and they react to their biases and faith rather then the
“facts” about something…blacks are slow or mexicans are “bad hombres”
and the facts don’t support these myths and biases, but their bias and faith
do support these statements and of course a conserative believes in their
bias and faith far more then “facts”. So of course, Serendipper can present all
the facts in the universe and still conseratives won’t believe it because
the important thing is the bias and faith the conservative hold, not the facts.

Kropotkin

There are some aberrations but the correlation is pretty solid. And that’s just a freedom index composed of journalistic freedom, internet freedom, and other civil liberties. freedomhouse.org/report/methodo … world-2018

France is not so socialist actually. I’ve looked into the taxation in France after the yellow vest protests and found Macron (former investment banker) is a conservative who eliminated the wealth tax and instituted a gas tax (prompting the protests). France has a high vat tax (sales tax) which places a lot of the burden of welfare on the very recipients of the assistance. France has a lot of taxes directed too much to the poor.

The US state of Ohio elected a republican governor who, after deriding his opponent for potentially raising taxes if elected, immediately proposed a gas tax to fix the roads that the corporations use to make profits on the very same people. Privatizing profits and socializing costs is the name of the conservative game. They appeal to “fairness”: you use the roads, you pay to fix them. But they overlook that the trucks are tearing up the roads, so what’s fair is making the corporations who tear the roads up pay the tax to fix them. They don’t want to do that because the idea is to transfer money from the poor to the rich and make the poor think it’s only “fair”. The same sort of game is being played in France. I don’t know much about Sweden.

Read up on the politics of France in the 19th and 20th century.

They do show a pattern and a very obvious pattern: none of the top countries break 60%, yet the bottom countries mostly break 60% except for France and possibly some others that I don’t have the data for.

There is correlation even though I can’t propose a mechanism to explain how government spending correlates to civil and political freedom, except that the same people who demand healthcare and education might also demand other rights for themselves.

But one thing I’ve demonstrated beyond a doubt is that socialism doesn’t mean breadlines and eating your dog.

And that there is no truth in categorizing Venezuela as a socialist country.

Peter, I think your assessment is correct and it reminds me of visiting a conservative friend’s house yesterday, and while showing me around, he continually referenced the warning signs, thickness of the bamboo-barrier surrounding his land, all his guns, and finally I asked him, “Do you have much trouble with thieves around here?” He said no. I thought “Yep, that figures, scared to death for no reason.” He’s a good guy though, just a product of the environment.

What numbers are you talking about this time? In terms of “freedom”, there is no correlation to “private consumption as % of gdp”. It’s all over the place.

Not that “private consumption as % of gdp” represents anything. It’s basically a meaningless number.

What would represent a meaningful measure of “freedom”, economically speaking, if not private consumption?