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Capitalism is better than socialism?

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The exceptional standard of American healthcare is testament to the fact that a privatised, profit-based system is always the best if you...actually want to get quality healthcare. The fact that someone makes good money while delivering world-class treatment to patients is not a negative thing, in the mind of any remotely rational person. The only issue America faces is access, which is determined by cost, which is kept inflated in the US by the government's progressive over-regulation of the industry. Again, a failure of government, not the market.

The NHS is an average service which will never be able to adequately cope with the healthcare demands of a large, diverse and relatively unhealthy nation like the UK, will forever be stretched past its limits, and will forever be running into endless issues such as unreasonable waiting times, overworked & underpaid doctors, poor standards in hospitals, so on and so forth.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11931401/Three-in-four-NHS-hospitals-are-failing-says-watchdog.html

How many private American hospitals do you think suffer from issues similar to the above?

And how many British hospitals do you think suffer form issues similar to this where they simply dump sick people on the street?

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/05/14/patient-dumping-in-america-hospitals-discharging-sick-homeless-back-onto-street.html

Also you are aware posting a report of the governments estimates of UK hospitals alone is meaningless? What could be classed as "Needing Improvement" in the UK could be "Good" in the US. Use an international comparison (which all say we have better healthcare than America).

Obamacare is not the reason for high prices, its more that the hospitals have to go to private industries for equipment which due to America's size and state level governance means these companies can charge whatever they want. Say a hospital needs prosthetic legs, in America the hospital needs to get them by buying them from an private company. If its the only one in the state they can charge whatever they want because of no competition and they milk the hospital for all its worth..
Whereas in this country, the government makes companies compete for the contract for all NHS hospitals, as a result they keep their prices competive and drive down the costs. The companies are not going to pass on a contract of that size but it keeps the overall cost down on the contract. Hence why Britian spends less per person on healthcare but has a vastly more efficient service.

Reply 41

Jammy Duel

Original post by VV Cephei A

American healthcare is of the highest quality found anywhere in the world. As I said, they have the best hospitals, the best medical training, and the most advanced treatments. If you have a life-threatening illness and want the best possible chance of beating it, you would go to a place like America and get treated privately.

Their system is rated low on certain metrics due to their issues of access, with many people left unable to afford healthcare. This is not a failure of the free-market; competition in the free-market drives down costs. This is a failure of the federal government placing absurd regulation on private healthcare companies and their potential users, such as the restriction on purchasing health insurance from different States.

I posted a link to a review which deemed 3/4 of NHS hospitals as substandard in quality. That's one of countless issues which the NHS faces every day. You'd have to be pretty far removed from reality to think it is actually a high standard system, when judged relative to the quality of healthcare available out there.

The free market in a poorly set up system drives prices down so much that despite having the highest spending by a mile as a percentage of GDP and per capita in the OECD they have a life expectancy that is lagging behind most other nations and the average as well as growing far slower than the others.

Reply 42

neb789

Original post by VV Cephei A

If you read the data its around 50% of all hospitals that have been judged to be inadequate or worse , as only 2/3rds of all were reviewed. Hence 75% failure rate is a little misleading..

Focus on the subject - no bashing people.

Reply 43

Rakas21

Original post by neb789

Is the free market the way forward?

or

Is the security of communism something we need?

Reminder: This thread is to debate ideas and open them up, not to bash those who believe them so keep it clean.

The market is orders of magnitude superior to government when it comes to allocating resources albeit it is best moderated by elements of social democracy to correct market failures. The markets greatest strength is that human nature is based upon satisfying self interest while its biggest weakness is that it peruses efficiency at all costs and is somewhat inhumane (hence it works very well when moderated slightly).

Original post by thefatone

i don't understand what socialism does?

Socialism is based around the notion that government can dictate supply and demand via a command economy. History has proven time and again that government is too slow or just plain wrong in its assessment of what needs allocating and where and which course of action is best. In China in the 60's Mao ordered x tonnes of steel to be produced and his people starved for it because to produce that amount, they sacrificed food production. The market on the other hand produces price signals so what when demand outweighs supply the price increases and there is an incentive for both new firms to enter the market and existing firms to produce more. This is why typically we have enough steel and food versus the China situation at the time.

Modern socialists decry the USSR and China as examples but in actuality most modern socialists have simply engaged in a marketing exercise and are essentially extreme social democrats rather than socialists.

Communist countries are those which go a step further and prohibit private ownership (state distribution keeps them fed and housed ect..), Cuba until 2006 was one such example. The problem here is that without property rights that are defined and enforced, there's no incentive to innovate. Why would i create a new and improved engine if far from being able to sell it, you (the state) will steal it from me and copy it.

Reply 44

Gwilym101

Original post by Jammy Duel

Counter point: the Singapore health system, puts the NHS to shame and is a private system. Do you want me to cite a nation with a dreadfully implemented public healthcare system to argue that a system free at the point of use is a bad idea?

I don't know much about Sungapore's healthcare, although what wikipedia has on it is very interesting. It looks like a great balance between capitalist and socialist methodology with the government subsidies and the private secter healthcare. I'm curious how it deals with long term illness like cancer treatment as my cursory glance at wikipedia mentioned accumulating costs to the individual as a deterent to over use.

Reply 45

username2286241

You all realise communism and socialism are NOT the same thing?

So please stop using the USSR as an example of it.

Both cannot exist in their pure forms, socialism just isn't realistic in it's pure form that's why we have never had a truly pure socialist country. Too much capitalism creates volatile markets, economic inequality, bubbles and cataclysmic recessions. 'Greed is good', not when it causes a global financial crisis (2008).

They both have pros and cons but I believe both need each other. But please stop comparing communism to socialism, they're so different. Communism is more like state capitalism tbh.

Look at the Suma Wholefoods UK company for an example of socialism or just google worker co ops.

Reply 46

Rakas21

Original post by Gwilym101

Large swathes of Europe have a private social insurance model and superior health outcomes to the NHS.

Singapore also has an education system based on vouchers granting access to private schools. It is ranked above the UK. South Korea too has a culture in which 70% of pupils have additional private tuition.

Reply 47

VV Cephei A

Original post by Gwilym101

Homelessness is an issue not solved by forcing all working individuals to pay for the medical treatment of the homeless (which is often very extensive, and expensive). Homelessness is a specific issue which needs to be addressed via economic means. The majority of Americans in the US receive exceptional care, and even more of them would if the government removed itself from the healthcare industry.

Original post by Gwilym101

Also you are aware posting a report of the governments estimates of UK hospitals alone is meaningless? What could be classed as "Needing Improvement" in the UK could be "Good" in the US. Use an international comparison (which all say we have better healthcare than America).

No they don't. They claim we have a better healthcare system than the US. Not that the quality of our healthcare system is better than the US. The quality of NHS healthcare is average at best, and the amount of hospitals that have been shown to be operating under objectively shocking standards has been numerous throughout its history, among many other problems. The most advanced medical treatments and the best hospitals in the world are not found in the NHS, they are found in the private sector.

Original post by Gwilym101

Obamacare is not the reason for high prices, its more that the hospitals have to go to private industries for equipment which due to America's size and state level governance means these companies can charge whatever they want. Say a hospital needs prosthetic legs, in America the hospital needs to get them by buying them from an private company. If its the only one in the state they can charge whatever they want because of no competition and they milk the hospital for all its worth..Whereas in this country, the government makes companies compete for the contract for all NHS hospitals, as a result they keep their prices competive and drive down the costs. The companies are not going to pass on a contract of that size but it keeps the overall cost down on the contract. Hence why Britian spends less per person on healthcare but has a vastly more efficient service.

Obamacare is not the sole reason, but under its legislation the cost of premiums for middle class Americans has gone through the roof. It's interesting how you bring up competition and its effect on price; competition is exactly what the US federal government has stifled in the healthcare industry for decades now (well before Obamacare, which simply exacerbated the problem). Patients cannot, for example, purchase health insurance from different States. This is why the cost of treatment varies absurdly across the US, and in some areas people are simply priced out of medical care as they cannot seek it elsewhere. That is something which was implemented by the government, not the free market.

Reply 48

viddy9

Most countries today have mixed-market economies, and political debates generally are not about whether we should be purely socialistic or purely capitalistic; rather, they're about what the best mix of socialism and capitalism is.

If you're asking me what my ideal society would be, I'd say a communist one; that is, a stateless, classless society without currency. However, unless humans suddenly become pure, logical utilitarians, this is unlikely to work in the long run for a variety of reasons (although the Ukrainian Free Territories and the Spanish anarchist regions of the 1930s gave it a good go, before they were broken up by fascists and Stalinists).

In today's world, in which scarcity is present, I would say somewhere in between socialism and capitalism. Both sides will give examples of countries which seem to suggest that leaning more towards one side is going to be better (usually the Scandinavian countries for the social democrats and Switzerland for the more capitalistic), and both sides will have counter-arguments (the Scandinavian countries' success is not due to their high taxes, high social spending, and so on, but in spite of it; Switzerland is an outlier because it's an international tax haven, but most capitalistic-oriented countries have higher levels of poverty and inequality).

Personally, I'd rather look at politics on a policy-by-policy basis, examining how each individual policy will support the promotion of the general well-being of the population, or act to hinder it. Thus, almost invariably, I'm going to favour a mix between socialism and capitalism.

Reply 49

skunkboy

Original post by Youngmetro

Compare the success of Hong Kong with the USSR. I think it definitively proves that free market is more successful with minimal government intervention.
USSR failed because it was impossible to allocate resources efficiently and living standards plummeted.

No. USSR failed because of US propaganda( e.g. Hollywood movies). It's such a powerful weapon.

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Reply 50

Jammy Duel

Original post by skunkboy

No. USSR failed because of US propaganda( e.g. Hollywood movies). It's such a powerful weapon.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Pretty sure it failed because largely they went bankrupt.

Reply 51

Youngmetro

Original post by skunkboy

No. USSR failed because of US propaganda( e.g. Hollywood movies). It's such a powerful weapon.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Well there's a number of reasons USSR failed, one of which is that their planned economy simply didn't work. It is stupid and naive to suggest there's only one reason. 'US propoganda' isn't a real reason. Instead it was because Gorbachev allowed such reforms and gave the people freedom.

Reply 52

HanSoloLuck

Original post by neb789

Neither are good models, completely free market allows for monopolies to squash the working class. Socialism causes stagnation of economies.

Successful countries regulate free markets, somewhat of an oxymoron, if it's subject to rules and regulation it isn't free.
We need a median between the two extremes, that leans towards the capitalism end.

It is worth noting that capitalism and a completely free market would be, in my mind, indistinguishable from communism to the working man.

Merely wax coatings, if I had to choose though. It would be capitalism. Completely free market is essentially slavery, people get inventive with slaves and forward human engineering by building the pyramids in Egypt (for example). Communism is stagnant and often overly bureaucratic.

Reply 53

neb789

Original post by HanSoloLuck

Very well put! :smile:

Examples of either?

Reply 54

Jammy Duel

Original post by HanSoloLuck

A free market should not essentially be slavery

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Reply 55

HanSoloLuck

Original post by Jammy Duel

A free market should not essentially be slavery

Posted from TSR Mobile

Original post by neb789

Very well put! :smile:

Examples of either?

In what sense? I'll have a guess at what you mean, recent examples.

Diamonds are supposedly a complete capitalist affair, with no governing body able to enforce regulations diamond providers (allegedly) buy up all the diamonds and keep the prices high. Workers are slaves in some god awful African sifting line, held at gunpoint. That's why they are called blood diamonds. They don't force people into slavery directly, they just create a situation whereby slavery presents the greatest gains to those willing to inflict it on others.

Likewise, in communist China workers that create your new ipad frequently throw themselves of the tops of their buildings and children work in sweatshops. Sure they can choose to not work there, in the same sense they can choose not to eat in near future. They don't force people to work grueling hours for peanuts with no hope, the illusive 'they' don't force people into servitude. They just create a situation where it is the only option.

Reply 56

Jammy Duel

Original post by HanSoloLuck

Define free, in a completely free market I can sell people, better yet people could sell themselves into indentured servitude for a number of years. In a less literal sense, big companies could flood the market whenever a new competitor comes along to starve them out of profits and put them out of business. They'd hold the monopoly on the jobs and could dictate the wages/working hours etc. Slavery in everything but name. They would also be able to dictate the price of their wares being the only supplier. They would become governments onto themselves, without rules and regulations.

In what sense? I'll have a guess at what you mean, recent examples.

Diamonds are supposedly a complete capitalist affair, with no governing body able to enforce regulations diamond providers (allegedly) buy up all the diamonds and keep the prices high. Workers are slaves in some god awful African sifting line, held at gunpoint. That's why they are called blood diamonds. They don't force people into slavery directly, they just create a situation whereby slavery presents the greatest gains to those willing to inflict it on others.

Likewise, in communist China workers that create your new ipad frequently throw themselves of the tops of their buildings and children work in sweatshops. Sure they can choose to not work there, in the same sense they can choose not to eat in near future. They don't force people to work grueling hours for peanuts with no hope, the illusive 'they' don't force people into servitude. They just create a situation where it is the only option.

Funny how even when there isn't [much] regulation to stop that what you propose doesn't/didn't happen, the only certainty of that happening is in a socialist system when you get a gun put to your head and told to work.

Reply 57

username878267

Third way, third way, third way.

Reply 58

HanSoloLuck

Original post by Jammy Duel

When there isn't much regulation what doesn't/didn't happen ?

Companies are forever being caught in breach of monopoly laws.

Capitalist entrepreneurs, did and have in all manner of speaking owned their employees. Remember the work houses in industrial Britain, well obviously not, but that's what it looks like.

If humans weren't so flawed we could create a socialist system akin to that of star trek, never going to happen I know. But on paper, socialism is better.

In reality, not so much.