The Euro crisis explained..

[normal]

Why wade through all that bollocks, I can explain it in one word: Socialism

Norway! We're fucking RICH!!!

Because of socialism

[Svartalf]

Well, you're the new Athens, where national resources are exploited by the State and the profits redistributed to the citizenry.

[Robert_S]

Well, you're the new Athens, where national resources are exploited by the State and the profits redistributed to the citizenry.

Kinda like Alaska?

[Tero]

Fucking socialists!

They got those innocent freedom loving crackers down south addicted to a slave dependent economy which led to a civil ......

Now now, its all this people stuff. I stand by my misanthropic views today. We make all our own problems, then spin it right or left. As long as there is freedom there is hillbillies making too many babies.

[Svartalf]

Well, you're the new Athens, where national resources are exploited by the State and the profits redistributed to the citizenry.

Kinda like Alaska?

No, in Ak they are just bribing the local not to leave.

[Seth]

Well, you're the new Athens, where national resources are exploited by the State and the profits redistributed to the citizenry.

Correct. And socialism is great as long as there is OPM or abundant natural resources available to exploit and SELL ON THE CAPITALIST FREE MARKET so the profits can be redistributed to the citizenry. I don't really even have a quibble with socialist nations that use their national resources for that purpose. After all, the resources are the property of the people, so they have every right to exploit and profit from them, even if they are stupid enough to let their government do it for them rather than reducing the resources to private ownership through the application of capital and labor.

But I do have a quibble, and a strong one, with socialist societies that take the property of individuals, the fruits of their labor, and redistribute it to others. That's OPM (other people's money) and doing so is utterly immoral and reprehensible.

But so long as the resources of the nation are owned by the people collectively, then I have no problem with them collectively exploiting and profiting from them. Of course, the hypocrisy is rampant in Norway, for example, where socialism exploits the natural resources for the benefit of the people (which is fine) but depends on the non-socialist capitalist free markets to generate those profits which can be redistributed. The "socialists" of Norway are actually nothing of the sort, they are hypocrites and charlatans because if they were TRUE socialists, they wouldn't SELL their natural resources to the evil capitalists, they would DONATE their resources to the other needy socialists of the world. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need...not according to the free market profitability.

So, once again, socialism is a failed ideology even in Norway's case because Norway absolutely depends on the capitalist free market for oil to support its socialist pretensions. If the rest of the world refused to buy Norwegian oil, or the Norwegian government were truly socialist and refused to sell the oil to capitalists, Norway would be a frozen hell-hole of disease, pestilence, poverty and privation just like the Soviet Union eventually became.

Socialism fails because it fails to understand basic economics.

[MrJonno]

All economies rely on natural resources (including the people living there) so I'm not sure what that has to do with socialism or anything else

[normal]

We take advantage of the situation as it is, and it got us out of the recent recession with practically no bad effects at all (even when failing to understand ANYTHING about basic economics).

I'm sorry that it's not the wild-eyed, crazy version of socialism you want it to be, Seth. It's the practical, down to earth kind where there is a certain amount of solidarity and care for fellow humans.

[Robert_S]

We take advantage of the situation as it is, and it got us out of the recent recession with practically no bad effects at all (even when failing to understand ANYTHING about basic economics).

I'm sorry that it's not the wild-eyed, crazy version of socialism you want it to be, Seth. It's the practical, down to earth kind where there is a certain amount of solidarity and care for fellow humans.

Obviously you must not be True Socialists™ then.

[Seth]

All economies rely on natural resources (including the people living there) so I'm not sure what that has to do with socialism or anything else

In socialism, the state claims exclusive ownership of all natural resources, discovered or undiscovered, and claims all right to explore, discover, own and exploit those resources for the benefit of the collective. No natural resource may be reduced to private ownership by virtue of the labor of discovery and extraction under socialist rule. Therefore, if the state chooses not to, or cannot afford to discover and exploit the resources, they lie fallow and do no one any good at all.

In capitalism, the state may or may not claim ownership of natural resources even where it claims ownership of the land, and those who put individual labor into exploring for, discovering, extracting and exploiting a natural resource, particularly mineral resources like oil, natural gas, gold, silver, copper, iron and other such minerals, gain absolute title to the resource by virtue of the labor input. The state may claim a lease fee for the land, and/or it may grant (patent) lands that contain exploitable minerals to private persons.

The purpose and intent of the US mining law, which grants fee-title patents to mineral discoverers, is to foster and encourage private persons and industry to expend the money and labor needed to explore for, discover, extract and exploit the resources by granting title to the resources, and the land where they occur, to the private individuals or companies who discovered them. This eliminates the cost to the people of the government doing the work involved, and wealth is generated by private industry using profit motive as the driver for the work. The public benefits from the availability of resources that might (and probably would) not be available if the government was in charge, and it benefits from severance taxes (a tax on the removal of the minerals from the land), leases, income taxes, and taxes on all the many transactions that are required to, for example, build a mining operation. The public also benefits from the jobs that such industries provide. The state gets money from the sale or lease of lands and natural resources, but the resources themselves, once reduced to private possession, become private property, which of course may be taxed.

Under socialism, as it exists today, mineral resources that are extracted are only of value to the public if they are marketable on the CAPITALIST FREE MARKET outside the socialist sphere. Norway, for example, is only able to provide all its social benefits because it has an exploitable resource (oil) that it can sell on the open capitalist world market.

If everyone were socialist, and there were no capitalist free market, then the resources would (to be ethically consistent) be divvied out to those who "need" it in proportion to their "need" and would be extracted, regardless of the costs, according to the "ability" of some socialist workforce working for the benefit of the collective, not themselves.

In reality, in most socialist countries, the government, in the persona of the power elite, skims off the cream for the benefit of the people in charge, and for the benefit of the idle dependent class, at the expense of the workers.

[Feck]

Shouldn't you be on a bike enjoying yourself Seth ?

[Seth]

Shouldn't you be on a bike enjoying yourself Seth ?

Not at the moment.

[MrJonno]

People are a natural resource as much as land or coal is the only difference is those natural resources are mobile and can immigrate/emmigrate
Society does have at least some rights on people if they choose to remain, ie can tax labour etc to run the country

[Clinton Huxley]

Just getting round to reading The Spirit Level, an analysis of why more equal societies, like Norway, do better at all kinds of social indices (less violence, higher levels of literacy, lower levels of depression etc etc etc). Norway comes top at nearly everything. The US, UK and, for some reason, Portugal come pretty much last at everything.

Of course, North Korea and Saudia Arabia and so on aren't included but I doubt they collect the required statistics.

[Atheist-Lite]

Just getting round to reading The Spirit Level, an analysis of why more equal societies, like Norway, do better at all kinds of social indices (less violence, higher levels of literacy, lower levels of depression etc etc etc). Norway comes top at nearly everything. The US, UK and, for some reason, Portugal come pretty much last at everything.

Of course, North Korea and Saudia Arabia and so on aren't included but I doubt they collect the required statistics.

Does it mention how much oil revenue the 'equal' societies have relative to the size of their populations? Not questioning the mirage only the horizon...