| scottie said: A) True, it is slightly different, a public system has the happiness of the majority as its number one priority and economic matters (breaking even, profiting or costing less) as a secondary concern, whereas Capitalism prioritises profit above other things. These slight similarities lead to slightly different effects, but there is still fierce competition in both systems to provide the best possible services. The only time that problems actually arise, is when socialism is combined with totalitarianism - in a single party state, such as the USSR, there is no longer competition. B) I don't see how a holistic approach to running a country can be considered worse than running each sector with complete disregard for the rest of the country. Lets consider a scenario where a factory owner can increase output by $x at the expense of emitting significant amounts of a chemical, which will cause health problems to the general population equal to $2x. A free market (no goverment intervention) capitalist would suggest that the factory owner should go ahead with the output increase. The owner of a hospital has a chance to install some high tech machinery, which costs $1.25 * x and will eliminate health problems in the population by 1.75 * x. The capitalist hospital owner would go ahead with it. The net effect of these two decisions, in the capitalists case, would be a decrease in useful factory output by 0.25x and an increase in the cost associated with health problems by 0.25x. Total profit = -0.5x For a socialist situation, the government would correctly identify that, due to the interaction between factory output and health, this particular factory upgrade would not be worth it. If they could find some other way to increase output, then they would still go ahead with the hospital improvement, as it has a net profit. Capitalism is inherently flawed, because of selfishness. (Note, I am not saying Socialism is perfect, please do not respond as if I did say this.) In some situations, socialism will produce better results, in some, capitalism will. I gave you a(n obviously cherry picked) example of where socialism will produce better results. In conclusion, I don't think either pure capitalism or pure socialism are sensible. In the case of something vital (health, education water, electricity), I think that governments generally do better at providing these services - a company can alienate significant numbers of poor people without it impacting on their bottom line. democratic governments cannot do so, and must therefore provide a minimum standard to everyone. Many systems allow for private competition with the government - We have private schools and healthcare systems in Australia and they cater to the people that are willing to spend the extra money. Whereas other things, production of consumer goods, food etc are generally best done by private companies only. The one thing I will add is that even here, I do not advocate complete free market capitalism. I believe in government regulations such as the requirement that food companies provide nutritional information. I disapprove of other forms of government regulation in these markets, such as the Australian governments bizarre decision to prop up a stupid and unsustainable rice growing industry in a country that is mostly desert. Wow, that was a long response. If you got to this point, well done :) |
Got through it all. The problem in general I have is that your example isn't well, relevent... because it's generally one that wouldn't happen in the US anyway.
It's not like the US doesn't have ANY medical regulations.
Outside which, the US IS known for it's early adoption polcies as far as medical technology goes... so the (most peoples happiness) angle doesn't really work.
A better way to put it would be most peoples perceived happieness on the day they vote.
Because of everyday competition, upgrades when available need to be made quicker in the US... and not only that, research to make said upgrades is more important. Since if you are a hospital who makes new technology in agreement with medical researchers, that's to your benefit.
Government hospitals? They can just sit back and wait, they've got no real motivation to fund research, outside of raising their own costs. Same with the government in general.
This may be why the US accounts for 75% of the World's biomedical research.
The problem with socialism tends to be stagnation in ideas and development.
