It's super lol. "I support the state because they did some good things once or twice".

I don't even think we can be sure he's not trolling

Only after they did something terrible

"Hey guys, we denied women these rights for years.....but look howe we ALLOWED them to have some."

"Yes clever, but, we reserve the right to take it back!"

Okay, thanks. Make sense now.

US dollar back by gold ended
And victor comment as well .

They are great !
They have much higher taxes to counter the concentrating effect of wealth and of course the workers unions to protect their fair share of production .

https://nordics.info/show/artikel/tr...-nordic-region
« The Nordic countries continue to have the highest union density in the world. In 2016, of all blue and white-collar workers, membership of trade unions amounted to 52% in Norway, 65% in Finland, 84% in Iceland, 66% in Sweden, and 67% in Denmark. By comparison, between 20 and 30% of employees are generally unionised in most other European Union countries - the exception is Belgium, which has a similar organisational structure to the Nordics - and 10% in the United States. »

They are miles away from US economic policies .
They understand over there that the economy isn’t about corporations , it’s about people exchanging goods and services between each other’s .
That is the real economy .
And for that workers need money !

They are good for their citizens. So the flatter distribution resources is better than USA. But they are still built on a river of blood.

These wonderful countries also have the advantage of not having to spend huge amounts of money on national defense, since they can always call on the United States for help in defending them.

I wonder how these countries would fare if the U.S. exited N.A.T.O.?

But those countries have more expenses by paying great universal education + universal health care programs then the US does…

Each choose his own priorities I suppose .
And make no mistake , the US have vast Interest of preventing China or Russia from interfering with US allies in Europe .
Don’t be naive thinking US have no interest with nato being efficient overthere …

True. But those countries have the luxury of being defended by another country. In other words, American's are paying taxes to help defend Europe, instead of that money either helping other Americans or staying in the pockets of those taxpayers.

If our allies in Europe were literally unable to adequately defend themselves, I might agree. But, like you just said, they have chosen some other priorities over self-defense.

On what basis u think Europe still do not spend enough money in 2022 for military ?
Wouldn’t be more about the US spending too much ?

Yes, the U.S.A. spends way too much on the military. That's because of the Military-Industrial Complex. Perpetual war is very lucrative for these folks. That's why we will probably never leave N.A.T.O. Peace is never an option for the Military-Industrial Complex.

One of the good things that Mr. Trump did while President was to get other N.A.T.O. countries to get closer to paying their fair share.

It's gonna be a wild ride when the United States finally impodes, which is almost inevitable imo.

Do you mean because of their history or also today?

Can see both

Actually not true when it comes to healthcare.

The US government spends more on healthcare than European countries, it just gets **** all for its money and cant provide universal care even though it spends so much.

People have missed one of the main reasons for the break between wages and productivity.

Off shoring.

If you can make a product in a market with low wages and sell it in a market with high prices then voila for the capitalists.


However this reveals one of the true weaknesses of capitalism which rarely if ever gets discussed because well actual true weaknesses of Capitalism are not allowed to become part of the narrative.

This has to do with the individual interest of any given capitalists being in direct conflict with the collective interest of capitalists, a core contradiction.

If hypothetically possible any given individual capitalist would reduce his wage costs to zero as this would maximise his profits. The problem here is that demand for his products is created via wages.

If you as an individual can reduce your wage costs to zero, then its good for you as the other capitalist wages will maintain demand for your product, however if all the other capitalists collectively reduce there costs to zero its game over as demand will evaporate and there will be the mother of all depressions.

This has actually happened to degrees, obviously not with reduction to zero, but with collective wage reduction leading to demand collapse, leading to further wage reduction etc etc etc. This has been solved in the past by Government borrowing and spending and paying wages to restimulate demand. To be clear I am not arguing that is not without its problems, just that on occasion it has been a solution.

So with offshoring we actually got an example of collective wage lowering, there was some capacity to asorb this in the developed countries that were off shoring their manufacturing by moving its work force into other sectors, but its no coincidence that in the 70s you begin to see in many developed countries a massive replacement of consumption funded by wages with consumption funded by debt.

One thing about this thread is that at least we're discussing actual Leftism.

Oftentimes when the left is discussed what is actually being discussed is "the left"-- aka the psuedo-left, and I've gotten much gruff in the past for saying that Democrats, progressives, and even the "woke", aren't actually left, and that they have nothing to do with any of the points in the OP save perhaps open borders, which is actually a right-wing position.

open borders can't be a right wing position imo.

When the right pushes it it definitely can be. About to go on 15 mile hike but I'll explain later.

But Bernie Sanders is (in)famous for calling it a Koch brothers position once-- google it.

alrighty then. will do.

Its not about open or closed borders, the complete non existence of borders is a high concept ideal of the left.

but Bernie Sanders is against open borders.

https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/...hers_proposal/

And?

how can he be a leftist if he against
"high concept ideal of the left"?

You have to agree with 100% of every concept at all times?

Cmon bro.

Also what to do in a world with borders is not the same as believing in a high concept ideal that is years and years away.

idk bro. probably true what you are saying there.

Bernie Sanders calls the US hypocrites over Russia's security concerns. so maybe he is not a hypocrite.


https://www.businessinsider.com/sand...ritical-2022-2

What’s wrong with being a hypocrite? We don’t live in the system we want. You can’t just magically find ways to do both.


The US govt gave women the right to vote. They weren’t allowed to vote before because of sexism. Similar to how the US protected African Americans rights more so after the civil rights act.

The US govt also helped keep the US un- invaded for the last while. I’m a big fan of that as well.