Quote: (04-11-2013 12:20 AM)T and A Man Wrote:
One would argue why does a socialised country such as Germany actually acheive better societal outcomes than even the U.S., the bastion of anti-socialism.
If socialism had no merits, it couldn't acheive any better outcomes.
If you think the US is anti-socialist, you haven't lived there. I've lived and worked in a few European and Asian cities and have yet to receive a tax bill demanding as large a % of my pay as I did when a California resident.
As far as outcomes, you're confusing correlation with causation. The quality of the US population has declined hugely over the last 50 years so the whatever system we adopted would perform poorly. For example, look at the huge amount spent on education in places like Camden, NJ. SHOCK! They still perform poorly. Japanese students somehow perform much better despite much less on education. Same with health care. Huge spending and yet everyone is a sickly fat slob. Somehow the French are healthier with much less spending.
This doesn't show that socialism works since these more "social" states are spending less per capita and achieving better results. The US would be doing great if throwing money at problems solved them. The above shows that culture and population quality trump gov spending.