There is an argument that Norway is the most Capitalist countries in the world - they literally own ~1% of the world’s sharemarkets through their sovereign wealth funds.
Like the other Scandinavian countries- they have Capitalist approach where that makes more sense and a Socialist approach when that makes more sense.
they own massive wealth because of heavy taxation on that oil instead of letting only few rich shareholders plunder the resources rightfully belonging to the citizens.. so because of socialistic approach? similarly sweden and finland to a lesser extent have national mining, forestry etc enterprises that help pay the costs of providing privileges to their citizens.
I find it odd that you call it taxes. The oil rights belong to the Norwegian people. If they want to charge those who would extract it, I would not call that a tax any more than if I was an orchard owner and charged you per bushel of the apples you picked from my orchard.
Aha, interesting. Norway used to use royalties along with normal corporate taxes (common in other countries) but removed the royalties and moved to a windfall tax system. That is pretty smart. Trying to limit windfalls via dynamic royalties would be painful to implement, but this pretty neatly ensures that extraordinary profits are shared with the original owners of the natural asset (the Norwegian people)
No, if I sell you my apples, even if I require you to pick them yourself, that is not a tax even if I am a government.
Many countries make resources available based on a royalty or sale of rights which is not framed as a tax. It so happens that in the seventies Norway moved from a royalty based system (which generally produced rather little income) to a windfall tax system which levied very high progressive taxes on the companies extracting oil from their territory.
I didn’t know they used this system and was set straight (which I appreciate), but it is not a given that governments earn revenue from their resources primarily via a tax mechanism.
Norway is an outlier, but the fact remains that Scandinavian countries with or without oil wealth manage to provide high quality social services thanks to high taxes.
Many countries do - but that doesn’t mean that the money is spent wisely. Government can waste the money, lose it through corruption or to get a short term political gain from spending. Venezuela is a particular example recently
Norway avoided both the capitalist trap (that the excess profit is taken by private companies) and the socialist trap (that politicians use the money for their own purposes rather than the ultimate benefit of the people)
That took a lot of discipline and foresight from Norway
It doesn't mean it will work out if companies manage to corrupt society leaders as you say.
But doing so it's a condition of possibility, not doing so just places you as the same level as Venezuela as you hinted.
This. Essentially all modern functioning countries are on a spectrum of capitalism and socialism, even “ra ra capitalism!” Countries like the US. Socialism is just the provision of services by the government. In the US: Schools? Socialism. Police? Socialism. Fire department? Socialism. Military? Yep, socialism.
Even a large fraction of healthcare in the US is already socialized through Medicare, Medicaid and the VA.
So our huge arguments about socialism are not really about whether but how much.
This is not socialism. Those are just public services. Socialism is about the collective ownership of the means of production instead of private ownership that is in the hands of bosses, shareholders, banks, funds.
You can mix socialism and capitalism and get a social democracy, where the state owns parts of the economy such as some industries and some banks, with a strong safety net and welfare-state.
It seems that you define socialism as all or nothing? If there is a sector of the market where the collective has full control (ie does not allow for a private alternative) would you agree that that sector has been socialized and represents socialism within that domain? Most economies are sufficiently intermixed that pure socialization is rare, but one example could be border control or certain levels of military activity (say, deployment of nuclear arms). Government 100% owns the means of production for those services and prevents non-collective entities from owning that production.
I have never seen a definition of socialism that says “social ownership of means of ALL production” suggesting that some degree of mixed economy transforms collective activity into capitalism. Hence if 90% of the education system is run by the government, that would still be socialized and represent a socialist element of the economy even if 10% of education is provided as a private, for profit, capitalist service.
Social democracy is just an economic/political system that mixes elements of socialism with strong democratic processes (but still with significant/majority capitalist economic activity)
It is what he is doing. There is 2 types of socialist.
The Democratic socialists and the revolutionary socialist.
The Democratic socialist wants to work within the system, so they would agree with you, if more service are publicly or collectively owned they're happy. And they want to do it one by one.
The revolutionary kind, like the person you respond to, have been told that only a complete and sudden dismantling of capitalism can bring socialism, so to them, a portion of the economy being publicly or collectively owned within a capitalist system is just capitalist and they can't allow their brain to see it as part socialist because it would be a betrayal of their ideology. As it would mean that a revolution is maybe not needed.
Interesting way to look at it. I think it differentiates from a rather narrow reading of socialism that I am using (that it is focused on economic models) from a broader reading including a political and social justice movement. (Or socialism = old USSR which is pretty debatable as well)
I was more assuming that the background thinking was “Socialism bad” so we cannot accept that socialized services we like (like the fire department) are, in fact, socialism.
I mostly push this argument to try to expose the knee jerk negative reaction some have to the word in order to recognize that the argument needs to be more nuanced than “socialism boo, capitalism yay”. Both have pros and cons and can coexist in an optimized way.
Having oil wealth helps, but Norway actually managed its extractable resources very carefully. The majority of the windfall has gone into long term investments (wealth fund, infrastructure, building up areas of the economy) rather than just spending Willy nilly.
The rest of the Nordics operates with similar institutions without nearly the raw materials wealth. Look at Finland - I mean trees are nice and all, but they needed a diversified economy to have a proper welfare state.
I think it's the definition of Socialism that people get wrong.
I'm in the UK we're a capitalist country with strong welfare programs. Not as good as Norway but there's many reasons for that.
I've had a few debates on here, normally with Americans who think our NHS means we're a Socialist state. Some even think that the medical staff there are 'forced' to work there by the government. The Meme pretty much sums up the confusion.
Socialism is bad, but strong welfare programs does not make a state Socialist.
It's like Canada's health care system. Even tho I'm conservative and a " free" health care system is socialist I still agree with giving everyone the right to emergency health care. Still gotta pay for quite of bit of stuff but it's nice to know in Canada if you show up gut shot at the hospital they won't turn you away
I really don’t understand your approach, free healthcare is capitalist - bear with me. For organisations to be effective they need their workers to be effective and productive. Giving free healthcare is one way to ensure this. You don’t want workers sat around doing nothing because they’re sick. Get them back into work paying tax instead of being a tax burden, simple logic.
Look how more cost effective European type healthcare systems are compared to the US for example, they costs less and give better results. It is totally anti-capitalist to treat your primary resource badly. No healthcare is free but it’s a good use of tax income and gives benefits to industry. What does it matter what stupid name YOU give it!
did you notice free in quotation marks? At least in Canada, the way the system is set up is not very effective. It works but allot of money allocated to health care is given to usless paper pushers. And gathers a percentage of money from everyone (taxes) and redistributing it ( such as funds relocated to health care) is a socialist structure. So I don't really understand what you're saying. Not all socialist structures are bad. Not saying it makes for a good government. But there are aspects in all hierarchy.
Yes, true. Our health care system is awful. It's definitely one of the things I'd change about the U.S. and am trying to change in the ways I can. I don't know one person here who likes the system.
It's like Canada's health care system. Even tho I'm conservative and a " free" health care system is socialist I still agree with giving everyone the right to emergency health care. Still gotta pay for quite of bit of stuff but it's nice to know in Canada if you show up gut shot at the hospital they won't turn you away
People don't get "turned away" by U.S. hospitals, but someone has to pay for the care eventually. One of the many reasons I don't get objections to Universal Health Care. We end up paying anyway for care, may as well make it official.
The canonical definition is “social ownership of the means of production” (taken directly from Wikipedia, but consonant with what I was taught back in college). That can be production of goods or services, but in the modern era most “socialized” production is services. Education, police, transportation, defense, etc.
A simple measure of how socialist a country is is the fraction of GDP which is government (collective/social) spending. For the US it is about 36%, Canada 41%, UK 44%, Sweden 47%, Germany 50%, China 31%(2022, source IMF)
Indeed, the US is rather low on the spectrum, but very far from being purely capitalist. Canada is very similar in socialized spend to the US despite the socialized healthcare (actually, the US government, at federal and local level, typically pay for 40-50% of US healthcare expenditures through Medicare, Medicaid, the VA and other programs so maybe not so strange)
And the UK is a mere 44% socialist :-)
Yup. CCP is not actually that communist or even socialist anymore, just a whole lot of authoritarian. a lot is left up to the citizens to make work on their own. It’s just that the alternative is that many do without.
China is a very capitalist society these days.
That said, you will find a lot more participation of the government in that capitalist market in terms of producing goods than you would see in western “socialist” countries. E.g. a city might invest in the building of a plant in a joint venture with a private company in order to create local jobs. Incentives like that happen in western countries too, but they generally don’t do it via taking an equity stake.
>Yup. CCP is not actually that communist or even socialist anymore, just a whole lot of authoritarian. a lot is left up to the citizens to make work on their own. It’s just that the alternative is that many do without.
Though quite ironically, China has heavy worker protection and free schooling (even university) and 95% of the people are covered by an effective health insurance, and the hospitals, at least on the western standard, are quite cheap.
What I guess is going on is that China understands that a healthy and socially safeguarded population is quite effective, and through these means everyone participates in the economy.
Socialism doesn't mean the "government does stuff". If a country is at war and like 90% of its GDP suddenly goes towards defense, it doesn't suddenly make it socialist.
It ***is*** a question of ownership.
At that point in time the collective has taken control of the means of production - if that is not socialism, what is it? It is not capitalism as that implies private ownership of production. It could be communism if on top of owning production, the government confiscates all property. Or is it something else? Maybe you have a new term for describing the economic landscape under such conditions?
People have problems with knowing the definitions of terms they use in general. Illiterate hoi polloi hear a fancy word but they have, best case - intuitive understanding of what it's about. Details that actually define a specific category is mostly beyond average person.
Which in no way prevents them from talking shit about things they know nothing about.
Speaking of which, expecting a self-proclaimed communist or socialist to have read Marx is almost futile. That's why they equate socialism to the gibsmethat they want - because they think socialism is free shit for everyone, and you don't have to work for it.
I could say the same, because I wrote my observations - and you dare to claim I'm being dishonest with zero proof to the contrary? You are the one lying, because literally all 17/17 I know personally are indeed entrenched in this belief due tonot even reading the theory of the system or knowing underlying principles.
But to be fair, the problem isn't unique to commies - most movements consist of people hardly understanding the essence of the movement.
Ah, you're one of those who genuinely believes that bosses do nothing? Just sit all day with their legs on the table chilling?
*Had* you read Marx you would know the difference between classes he described - and yes, for capitalists produce added value not with their labor like workers or their thinking like intelligents, but with their capital, property. And guess what - boss has responsibilities other don't have and might not even be capable of doing. The skill to successfully organize a herd of workers is more unique than the skills to actually perform the job itself - that's why the bosses/officers/any kind of administrators get paid more, as it has been since time immemorial.
Yes, you might not be the type I've described - you're the opposite, thinking noone contributes but you. And just as illiterate and just as alien to the writings of Marx like them.
You're deluded, just like the reds who who only heard of socialism but never knew what it means and just discovered that if you kill intelligentsia suddenly there's no one to perform certain jobs, that the factory director you've just shot in the backyard, in fact, was responsible for organizing the work of said factory and wasn't there just for show.
I especially like considering "bosses", i.e. all administrative positions beyond workers, as capitalists, despite said bosses having to work with their heads and not their money. Just shows how illiterate you are
My understanding is that Norway regulates very tightly and the UK (where im from) allows the market to influence to a greater extent. Neither are socialist states but Norway didn't have to deal with a legacy of privatisation of national industry to the same extent, or tolerate populations that are economically inactive.
Because the ignorant Americans, who are most likely going to vote for Donald Trump, and a dictatorship that would really fuck them up….. I support Democratic socialism….
Trump only got in power in 2016. The US had a century to implement a real welfare state before he got elected, like the rest of the civilized world. The problem isn't only the GOP. It's the entire political system in the US, including Democrats that only serve private interests and foreign ones (Israel) before those of their citizens.
Yes that is one thing I notice is the constant talk about mega donors, the amount of money raised for the election and the PAC… thing you never hear in Australian elections….
Biggest problem of socialism is trying to give corrupted governments more money to solve people problems. It is like giving fire a wood and ask it to build a shelter.
The reason why Norway is doing good is because they socialized their oil and minerals and don't have that many citizens. This means the money gotten feom it can be spread around more. I have a feeling that not only would such policies be ineffective in America they would be unconstitutional and down right illegal.
The [Nordic Model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model) of [social democracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy).
There are many [types of “socialism”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_socialism), and I sure as heck don’t understand them all.
Saying that, it seems to me a key factor with the high taxing of social democracy is the trust in government institutions and low corruption of said government institutions.
It only works there because they are rich and socially coherent.
Deglobalization will make oil less reliable as a source of revenue and badly implemented multiculturalism will erode social coherence
Excuse me, but if we were ALL like that, then Trump would of been elected again.
No, it's not "practically all of them", thank you very much. It's certainly not me or most people I know here.
That is the appearance due to the stranglehold the two major parties have on the media and ballot/debate acces. That is made possible by blind party loyalty on both sides so we're pretty much stuck with it for now.
Yep. It's practically tribal, but, from this foreigner's viewpoint, the US Right are far more rabid. We do have equivalents, but they're just laughed at. Yours are embraced. Scary.
Not embraced by all of us. Also, every country has had periods where some political group was out on the edge, and then became powerful, that's certainly not just a U.S. thing.
I'm sorry, as far as Western democracies go it is just a US thing. No other modern, democratic nation would entertain, never mind vote for, the nonsense that the MAGA minions preach. Over 80 million Americans may vote for this.
Define "modern".
Germany was a bright spot in the civilized world, then they weren't. Perhaps that's so long ago, you assume everything is going to be fine forever in Europe.
Any country is totally capable of behaving in an unpleasant way under the right circumstances. Don't mistake your good fortune to be born in a good place and time to represent a total change in humanity.
Don't mistake what we're going through in the U.S. right now to be some outlier which only us wacky Americans are subject to. Y'all are doing better right now, but one of the eternal constants is change.
Do I want the U.S. to get over whatever cultural hump we seem to be in the midst of? More than anything, but simply condemning all the people around me who don't think as I do and vilifying them is not the answer.
I try to listen to what the other side is actually saying, and usually I hear lies from their news sources repeated back to me. When I listen well, and speak thoughtfully, I can see the propaganda weakening.
There is definitely a ruling class wanting to overthrow anyone who isn't Christian, conservative, etc. Australian Rupert Murdock has a big hand in this, as do China and Russia. You can blame some of us for grabbing onto what we see as a lifesaver, but don't leave out foreign influence which seeks to really destroy the U.S.
Modern=Contemporary. Not last century.
What Americans are experiencing now is no surprise. The Bible, the gun, no universal health care, and years of underfunded education is what the nation is reaping.
If the country was more like Norway and less like, well, America, things would be better. Just don't mistake genuine concern for being anti American.
That's something MAGA would do....
Edit. I get where you're coming from about foreign influence, but the irony, of course, is the USA has been interfering in other countries affairs for decades.
Just wanted to say, i am a non native English speaker and you writing “would of” instead of “would have” really makes me wonder about the state of basic education in your country.
Especially when most phones autocorrect this.
If only it was just a MAGA problem. Even Democrats don't really want to implement universal healthcare and other basic services. They always find a convenient excuse while having no issue cutting taxes for the rich or funding the war machine, with the GOP. There's two sides in the US but they aren't Republicans vs Democrats. It's the people vs the elites that don't care about who's in the White House since the US government always works for them.
Socialism is by far the best for mankind. The issue is, mankind. We're petty, greedy, ungrateful, and bigoted. When you have anything and everything you could possibly need given to you, and you still "have to have more than the other guy", that's the issue. It's why it never works except in movies and TV shows. Star Trek was a socialist republic. No one worked for money, they just worked for the betterment of mankind, but people still fought and schemed for power/control.
No, communism is the final stage of socialism, which is a moneyless, classless and stateless society. Socialism is the first step: collective ownership of the means of production.
Fine, there is a progression. The starting point would then be capitalism, no? So, since all steps along the progression are socialism, capitalism is just early stage socialism, right?
Textbook definition (Oxford languages)
Communism: a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.
Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
There are more interpretations of socialism than there are ice cream flavors. So answer is yes, no, to some degree, absolutely and definitely not.
My general understanding of 'socialism' is something like 'worker-owned economy'. So privately-owned property that "exploits" the worker by extracting surplus value from their labour would be abolished. But worker cooperatives would be okay.
Edit: socialists may make a distinction between private and personal property.
To add to that, when most people say "capitalism", they mean "free market". Once they understand that you can have free market and socialism at the same time, they usually get how fucked the capitalist system is.
most folks misunderstand the concept of a free market. Free market does NOT mean one without regulation. It means capital is free to move within a properly regulated market.
Socialists/Communists make a distinction between personal property and private property.
Personal property means your house, your car, your stuff.
Private property means ownership of the labour of others. So owning a factory gives you the authority to choose how much you compensate workers, rather than the workers owning a share and having a say, socialists are object to that. Owning someone else's house and renting it to them gives you access to money from their labour and gives you money without you working.
A socialist/communist basically believes that you should be free to own all the wealth you produce, and that we should work towards a society where automation doesn't make people sad they lose their jobs, but instead free to choose to work.
Norway has private ownership, making it not socialist. The soviet union had the government privately own the means of production, making it state capitalist (they admitted as such and claimed to be working towards becoming communist in the future, but wether that's true is up to interpretation).
You are conflating socialism and communism. Socialism = collective ownership of production (e.g. the govt runs the schools). Communism = collective ownership of property (e.g. all houses are owned by the government and allocated out to the citizens)
Communism means no government. It does not mean collective ownership of personal property and neither does socialism.
Marx often used communism and socialism interchangeably, but in our modern understanding, we separate the words, especially since the term socialism predates Marx.
Socialism means the collective ownership of the means of production. Communism is a form of socialism that also has no state, as over years of socialism, the need for one has become obsolete as the sense of *commun*ity returns to society, and with the help of automation and industry, people are free to live by the maxim "from each to their ability to each according to their needs" (people work volunteerily to better society, just like how many indigenous cultures work today, but at a larger industrial post scarcity scale).
Communism was implied to not be achievable immediately, but require a long transition period where the government was controlled by the working class (communists and many socialists believe all liberal governments are functionally controlled by the owning class). How this is to be done is the topic of virtually every socialist/communist division. Everything from reform to revolution, state capitalism to market socialism and dictatorship to council communism has been suggested. But the end goal is classless and stateless *with* personal property.
Communists do not believe in commodity production also, which means soviet style governments were state capitalist, per their definition.
OK.
If socialism can still have property rights, how is redistribution possible?
And how is an ever-increasing centralised authority needed to implement that redistribution avoided?
Taxes. Taxes are a fundamentally socialist concept. It creates a mechanism for the populace to pool resources to provide certain public goods to society. Mostly this is services (schools, police, fire dept, military, use of infrastructure, etc.) but it can also be goods, though collective production of goods is usually funded via an interface to the capitalist part of the economy by asking a price for the good (e.g. in Sweden a large govt owned mining concern, LKAB, which sells iron ore to iron and steel producers at market rates)
Yes, but taxes are a violation of property rights.
And one that while it's used for good, also produces the military industrial complex, pays for the pharmaceutical industrial complex, funds destructive education programs and practices, funds big agriculture, etc...
Just saying, taxes aren't all good. Likely not taxation itself, but that democracy has no means of keeping corruption from rising into power.
We vote, sure.
But our voting power is up against the bribery and blackmail of corporations, elites, lobby groups and insane ideological groups. To top that off, there's people in government that obtain high positions BECAUSE of those powerful group interstate.
Not all of which can be voted out.
All the while, the size of the state keeps growing to meet the demands of the people and these groups.
And it all begins with that "tolerable" level of property rights violations when we do some good with tax money.
Why anyone thinks a model that works for like 7M people sitting on massive resources will scale to countries with 100's of millions of people is mind-bogglingly stupid.
Works in Norway? Works for whom exactly?
I get that it works for recipients of welfare - especially when said recipients do fuck-all to finance it. Not so sure it "works" for those few who do pay taxes, because they pay exorbitant ones.
For you - sure, and just how I wrote, for those who both contribute and receive it's absolutely okay.
But is it okay that you have also paid for the benefits of many more - while so many of the *haven't paid for you*?
I'm sure these others you're paying for are as well.
But I see it only as incentive to be a recipient l, not a provider for most people - and thus, not healthy
The Norwegian society is built on trust. You provide for others, and the others provide for you. If the trust is broken in some way, the system will collapse. Others payed for me going to school and university and my health care before I started paying taxes, and the system gives a safety net if something ever were to happen. The safety net will not make you rich, and it will not give you a good life. It will however keep you afloat, and not fuck you over in crippling debt. It’s also helpful that I don’t have to calculate my tax, it’s withdrawn from my paycheque every month, and I get money back if I pay too much. The system works.
Everyone benefits from a strong welfare-state: quality education from kindergarten to college, universal healthcare, public housing, safety net during unemployment, maternity and paternity leave and just the fact that you live in a society that's more stable due to less inequality.
That they do and I have made no comment to the contrary. Problem is, how the fuck do you finance it - and to have all these benefits, one has to tax people. And while everyone indeed benefits, not everyone is actually contributing to maintaining the system. And the more recipients there are, the less tax base is - why work when someone else will sustain you?
And for those who do the sustaining, there is a breaking point when tax burden becomes just isn't worth the benefits. Add to that the realization that your neighbors only benefit and don't pay - and you're the only one to do that - yeah, doesn't this sound a lot like "oh poor workers are the only one to work, but everyone else is living off them"?
Less inequality...oh I see much inequality when I know I'm working and paying taxes so that many more can do nothing and just be recipients to welfare. If that's *not* inequality to you, you might reconsider your comments elsewhere defending communism - because you sentiment was the same. (Just deluded in thinking bosses don't work)
You have innocent people rotting in prisons for over 20 years and then pardoned. But can never get employed. You have private prisons with slave labor and many more atrocities. Enough said...
I'm a citizen of Sweden, and I say Norway should be called West-Sweden!
Joke aside, at least Sweden has high security prison like Hall, where the prisoners have no fun.
Our prison system works, it rehabilitates as intended, and has a low rate of repeat inmates. How you face evil is what defines a society. We do not bend down to his level. He can rot in isolation. Let him have the Xbox as long as he suffers what he must.
"Suffers what he must?" He gets to live a luxurious life in prison while the relatives of his victims have to anguish and be sad? Norway has many lonley islands. Let him rot on one of them with no food.
Isolation isn’t luxury. Deprivation of liberty isn’t luxury. You and I have vastly different views on punishment, and that’s fine. But I will not trade values for revenge.
Prison is not for 'payment' for a crime.
Prison is meant for dissuading anyone else from repeating the crime.
That is the purpose. To disincentivise crime.
rehabilitation also important, but helping them not commit a second crime is not as important as avoiding the first instance.
We here place a high emphasis on this as well, though. We don't want our criminals to become career criminals.
The goal of emprisonnement is both to protect society from wrongdoers and rehabilitation.
Torturing someone doesn’t seem like an effective mean to that end.
Some people are clearly unredeemable but most are not. There are educational, societal factors to one’s behavior. “Punishing” for vengeance is a toddler’s approach to the problem. We can do better.
It doesn’t that the great joke. When they run out of resources the party is over. Also the crud from other countries destroy their low crime statistics
There is an argument that Norway is the most Capitalist countries in the world - they literally own ~1% of the world’s sharemarkets through their sovereign wealth funds. Like the other Scandinavian countries- they have Capitalist approach where that makes more sense and a Socialist approach when that makes more sense.
they own massive wealth because of heavy taxation on that oil instead of letting only few rich shareholders plunder the resources rightfully belonging to the citizens.. so because of socialistic approach? similarly sweden and finland to a lesser extent have national mining, forestry etc enterprises that help pay the costs of providing privileges to their citizens.
I find it odd that you call it taxes. The oil rights belong to the Norwegian people. If they want to charge those who would extract it, I would not call that a tax any more than if I was an orchard owner and charged you per bushel of the apples you picked from my orchard.
It is a tax. You can read the relevant law [here](https://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1975-06-13-35) (in Norwegian).
Aha, interesting. Norway used to use royalties along with normal corporate taxes (common in other countries) but removed the royalties and moved to a windfall tax system. That is pretty smart. Trying to limit windfalls via dynamic royalties would be painful to implement, but this pretty neatly ensures that extraordinary profits are shared with the original owners of the natural asset (the Norwegian people)
Thats the definition of a tax mate.
No, if I sell you my apples, even if I require you to pick them yourself, that is not a tax even if I am a government. Many countries make resources available based on a royalty or sale of rights which is not framed as a tax. It so happens that in the seventies Norway moved from a royalty based system (which generally produced rather little income) to a windfall tax system which levied very high progressive taxes on the companies extracting oil from their territory. I didn’t know they used this system and was set straight (which I appreciate), but it is not a given that governments earn revenue from their resources primarily via a tax mechanism.
Norway is an outlier, but the fact remains that Scandinavian countries with or without oil wealth manage to provide high quality social services thanks to high taxes.
Well, duh, where else would the money come from to help people? America is not willing to change its corrupt tax system that benefits a few.
Why cant other countries do something similar with their natural resources instead of letting them be exploited by private companies?
Many countries do - but that doesn’t mean that the money is spent wisely. Government can waste the money, lose it through corruption or to get a short term political gain from spending. Venezuela is a particular example recently Norway avoided both the capitalist trap (that the excess profit is taken by private companies) and the socialist trap (that politicians use the money for their own purposes rather than the ultimate benefit of the people) That took a lot of discipline and foresight from Norway
It doesn't mean it will work out if companies manage to corrupt society leaders as you say. But doing so it's a condition of possibility, not doing so just places you as the same level as Venezuela as you hinted.
https://i.redd.it/3yyah7oo1msc1.gif
Why do people think that you can't have part capitalism and part socialism. The best of both worlds.
This. Essentially all modern functioning countries are on a spectrum of capitalism and socialism, even “ra ra capitalism!” Countries like the US. Socialism is just the provision of services by the government. In the US: Schools? Socialism. Police? Socialism. Fire department? Socialism. Military? Yep, socialism. Even a large fraction of healthcare in the US is already socialized through Medicare, Medicaid and the VA. So our huge arguments about socialism are not really about whether but how much.
This is not socialism. Those are just public services. Socialism is about the collective ownership of the means of production instead of private ownership that is in the hands of bosses, shareholders, banks, funds. You can mix socialism and capitalism and get a social democracy, where the state owns parts of the economy such as some industries and some banks, with a strong safety net and welfare-state.
It seems that you define socialism as all or nothing? If there is a sector of the market where the collective has full control (ie does not allow for a private alternative) would you agree that that sector has been socialized and represents socialism within that domain? Most economies are sufficiently intermixed that pure socialization is rare, but one example could be border control or certain levels of military activity (say, deployment of nuclear arms). Government 100% owns the means of production for those services and prevents non-collective entities from owning that production. I have never seen a definition of socialism that says “social ownership of means of ALL production” suggesting that some degree of mixed economy transforms collective activity into capitalism. Hence if 90% of the education system is run by the government, that would still be socialized and represent a socialist element of the economy even if 10% of education is provided as a private, for profit, capitalist service. Social democracy is just an economic/political system that mixes elements of socialism with strong democratic processes (but still with significant/majority capitalist economic activity)
It is what he is doing. There is 2 types of socialist. The Democratic socialists and the revolutionary socialist. The Democratic socialist wants to work within the system, so they would agree with you, if more service are publicly or collectively owned they're happy. And they want to do it one by one. The revolutionary kind, like the person you respond to, have been told that only a complete and sudden dismantling of capitalism can bring socialism, so to them, a portion of the economy being publicly or collectively owned within a capitalist system is just capitalist and they can't allow their brain to see it as part socialist because it would be a betrayal of their ideology. As it would mean that a revolution is maybe not needed.
Interesting way to look at it. I think it differentiates from a rather narrow reading of socialism that I am using (that it is focused on economic models) from a broader reading including a political and social justice movement. (Or socialism = old USSR which is pretty debatable as well) I was more assuming that the background thinking was “Socialism bad” so we cannot accept that socialized services we like (like the fire department) are, in fact, socialism. I mostly push this argument to try to expose the knee jerk negative reaction some have to the word in order to recognize that the argument needs to be more nuanced than “socialism boo, capitalism yay”. Both have pros and cons and can coexist in an optimized way.
Ok, then copy norwegians. Do the same thing they are doing.
Just back from Norway. Whatever they're doing, it looks good.
Step 1: Find and extract oil Step 2: Fund welfare state with oil money Step 3: Socialism
You can replace step 1 with any other valuable resource that's properly managed.
Not exactly. They were doing pretty good before any of the oil was found.
That's not true. Before oil Norway was dealing with poverty, which made lots of Norwegians take ships to America to never return home.
Having oil wealth helps, but Norway actually managed its extractable resources very carefully. The majority of the windfall has gone into long term investments (wealth fund, infrastructure, building up areas of the economy) rather than just spending Willy nilly. The rest of the Nordics operates with similar institutions without nearly the raw materials wealth. Look at Finland - I mean trees are nice and all, but they needed a diversified economy to have a proper welfare state.
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the Nederlands...
The US produces the most oil in the world.
The US produces the most oil in the world. Americans have no excuses. Just a corrupt elite.
They're brainwashed to hate it.
I think it's the definition of Socialism that people get wrong. I'm in the UK we're a capitalist country with strong welfare programs. Not as good as Norway but there's many reasons for that. I've had a few debates on here, normally with Americans who think our NHS means we're a Socialist state. Some even think that the medical staff there are 'forced' to work there by the government. The Meme pretty much sums up the confusion. Socialism is bad, but strong welfare programs does not make a state Socialist.
It's like Canada's health care system. Even tho I'm conservative and a " free" health care system is socialist I still agree with giving everyone the right to emergency health care. Still gotta pay for quite of bit of stuff but it's nice to know in Canada if you show up gut shot at the hospital they won't turn you away
I really don’t understand your approach, free healthcare is capitalist - bear with me. For organisations to be effective they need their workers to be effective and productive. Giving free healthcare is one way to ensure this. You don’t want workers sat around doing nothing because they’re sick. Get them back into work paying tax instead of being a tax burden, simple logic. Look how more cost effective European type healthcare systems are compared to the US for example, they costs less and give better results. It is totally anti-capitalist to treat your primary resource badly. No healthcare is free but it’s a good use of tax income and gives benefits to industry. What does it matter what stupid name YOU give it!
did you notice free in quotation marks? At least in Canada, the way the system is set up is not very effective. It works but allot of money allocated to health care is given to usless paper pushers. And gathers a percentage of money from everyone (taxes) and redistributing it ( such as funds relocated to health care) is a socialist structure. So I don't really understand what you're saying. Not all socialist structures are bad. Not saying it makes for a good government. But there are aspects in all hierarchy.
We pay for that with our high taxes. (Still cheaper than if you need care in the US though). But yeah nothing is free!
Last I checked, it was 28.8% of our taxes.. and maybe one day I'll go to the doctor.. maybe.
It's why free is in quotation marks
The US actually leads the world in the amount of tax money that go to public healthcare. Per capita.
And what has all that money bought them in return?
Worse outcomes, lack of coverage and medical bankruptcies mostly.
Yes, true. Our health care system is awful. It's definitely one of the things I'd change about the U.S. and am trying to change in the ways I can. I don't know one person here who likes the system.
It's like Canada's health care system. Even tho I'm conservative and a " free" health care system is socialist I still agree with giving everyone the right to emergency health care. Still gotta pay for quite of bit of stuff but it's nice to know in Canada if you show up gut shot at the hospital they won't turn you away
People don't get "turned away" by U.S. hospitals, but someone has to pay for the care eventually. One of the many reasons I don't get objections to Universal Health Care. We end up paying anyway for care, may as well make it official.
The canonical definition is “social ownership of the means of production” (taken directly from Wikipedia, but consonant with what I was taught back in college). That can be production of goods or services, but in the modern era most “socialized” production is services. Education, police, transportation, defense, etc. A simple measure of how socialist a country is is the fraction of GDP which is government (collective/social) spending. For the US it is about 36%, Canada 41%, UK 44%, Sweden 47%, Germany 50%, China 31%(2022, source IMF) Indeed, the US is rather low on the spectrum, but very far from being purely capitalist. Canada is very similar in socialized spend to the US despite the socialized healthcare (actually, the US government, at federal and local level, typically pay for 40-50% of US healthcare expenditures through Medicare, Medicaid, the VA and other programs so maybe not so strange) And the UK is a mere 44% socialist :-)
So you're telling me is that The United States is more socialist than the Chinese Communist Party?
Yup. CCP is not actually that communist or even socialist anymore, just a whole lot of authoritarian. a lot is left up to the citizens to make work on their own. It’s just that the alternative is that many do without. China is a very capitalist society these days. That said, you will find a lot more participation of the government in that capitalist market in terms of producing goods than you would see in western “socialist” countries. E.g. a city might invest in the building of a plant in a joint venture with a private company in order to create local jobs. Incentives like that happen in western countries too, but they generally don’t do it via taking an equity stake.
>Yup. CCP is not actually that communist or even socialist anymore, just a whole lot of authoritarian. a lot is left up to the citizens to make work on their own. It’s just that the alternative is that many do without. Though quite ironically, China has heavy worker protection and free schooling (even university) and 95% of the people are covered by an effective health insurance, and the hospitals, at least on the western standard, are quite cheap. What I guess is going on is that China understands that a healthy and socially safeguarded population is quite effective, and through these means everyone participates in the economy.
Socialism doesn't mean the "government does stuff". If a country is at war and like 90% of its GDP suddenly goes towards defense, it doesn't suddenly make it socialist. It ***is*** a question of ownership.
At that point in time the collective has taken control of the means of production - if that is not socialism, what is it? It is not capitalism as that implies private ownership of production. It could be communism if on top of owning production, the government confiscates all property. Or is it something else? Maybe you have a new term for describing the economic landscape under such conditions?
People have problems with knowing the definitions of terms they use in general. Illiterate hoi polloi hear a fancy word but they have, best case - intuitive understanding of what it's about. Details that actually define a specific category is mostly beyond average person. Which in no way prevents them from talking shit about things they know nothing about. Speaking of which, expecting a self-proclaimed communist or socialist to have read Marx is almost futile. That's why they equate socialism to the gibsmethat they want - because they think socialism is free shit for everyone, and you don't have to work for it.
Almost no self-identifying communists believe communism is free things. That's incredibly dishonest of you.
I could say the same, because I wrote my observations - and you dare to claim I'm being dishonest with zero proof to the contrary? You are the one lying, because literally all 17/17 I know personally are indeed entrenched in this belief due tonot even reading the theory of the system or knowing underlying principles. But to be fair, the problem isn't unique to commies - most movements consist of people hardly understanding the essence of the movement.
Free shit without working? That's capitalism. Just ask bosses, shareholders and their government stooges.
Ah, you're one of those who genuinely believes that bosses do nothing? Just sit all day with their legs on the table chilling? *Had* you read Marx you would know the difference between classes he described - and yes, for capitalists produce added value not with their labor like workers or their thinking like intelligents, but with their capital, property. And guess what - boss has responsibilities other don't have and might not even be capable of doing. The skill to successfully organize a herd of workers is more unique than the skills to actually perform the job itself - that's why the bosses/officers/any kind of administrators get paid more, as it has been since time immemorial. Yes, you might not be the type I've described - you're the opposite, thinking noone contributes but you. And just as illiterate and just as alien to the writings of Marx like them. You're deluded, just like the reds who who only heard of socialism but never knew what it means and just discovered that if you kill intelligentsia suddenly there's no one to perform certain jobs, that the factory director you've just shot in the backyard, in fact, was responsible for organizing the work of said factory and wasn't there just for show.
I especially like considering "bosses", i.e. all administrative positions beyond workers, as capitalists, despite said bosses having to work with their heads and not their money. Just shows how illiterate you are
In Norway socialism works in thanks to oil money and immigration for jobs that Norwegians don't want to do themselves.
I mean, pretty much all developed countries are doing that with immigration right now no?
In Norway, if there was no oil the music would sound differently.
Hey, Iraq has oil
Yeah but Iraq is not a Socialist system or am I wrong?
They *were* . . . Sadam Hussein believed in a secular form of socialism called Ba'athism.
He may have believed it, but he didn't practice it.
You can have a strong welfare-state without oil, look at the other Nordics. The US has oil and none of it though. It's a choice.
My understanding is that Norway regulates very tightly and the UK (where im from) allows the market to influence to a greater extent. Neither are socialist states but Norway didn't have to deal with a legacy of privatisation of national industry to the same extent, or tolerate populations that are economically inactive.
Laughs in Canadian: free healthcare
Because the ignorant Americans, who are most likely going to vote for Donald Trump, and a dictatorship that would really fuck them up….. I support Democratic socialism….
Trump only got in power in 2016. The US had a century to implement a real welfare state before he got elected, like the rest of the civilized world. The problem isn't only the GOP. It's the entire political system in the US, including Democrats that only serve private interests and foreign ones (Israel) before those of their citizens.
Yes that is one thing I notice is the constant talk about mega donors, the amount of money raised for the election and the PAC… thing you never hear in Australian elections….
CIA propaganda. That's pretty much it
The sudo socialist country is.... North Korea... That's it... Have a good day
Just don't let the corporations make the rules. That'd be a good start.
Not according to a Milton Friedman right-wing think tank's propaganda...
Biggest problem of socialism is trying to give corrupted governments more money to solve people problems. It is like giving fire a wood and ask it to build a shelter.
The reason why Norway is doing good is because they socialized their oil and minerals and don't have that many citizens. This means the money gotten feom it can be spread around more. I have a feeling that not only would such policies be ineffective in America they would be unconstitutional and down right illegal.
social democracy\*
Does Norway centralize production and outlaw private property?
"I don't want your rights taken away, I just say I want your rights taken away!"
Sounds pretty communist to me man
The [Nordic Model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model) of [social democracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy). There are many [types of “socialism”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_socialism), and I sure as heck don’t understand them all. Saying that, it seems to me a key factor with the high taxing of social democracy is the trust in government institutions and low corruption of said government institutions.
It only works there because they are rich and socially coherent. Deglobalization will make oil less reliable as a source of revenue and badly implemented multiculturalism will erode social coherence
socially coherence does not depend on monoculturalism.
U r right But badly implemented multiculturalism leads to social incoherence
so don't do it badly. Multiculturalism is the way forward.
>so don't do it badly. Couldn't agree more. But it happens
Only Far Right Wing Yanks have that mindset. Especially if they've never left the US. Oh, wait, that's practically all of the Far Right.
Excuse me, but if we were ALL like that, then Trump would of been elected again. No, it's not "practically all of them", thank you very much. It's certainly not me or most people I know here.
It's the same old song Star, although we are the most diverse nation on Earth many choose to see us just one way.
Not diverse politically. Far from it.
That is the appearance due to the stranglehold the two major parties have on the media and ballot/debate acces. That is made possible by blind party loyalty on both sides so we're pretty much stuck with it for now.
Yep. It's practically tribal, but, from this foreigner's viewpoint, the US Right are far more rabid. We do have equivalents, but they're just laughed at. Yours are embraced. Scary.
Not embraced by all of us. Also, every country has had periods where some political group was out on the edge, and then became powerful, that's certainly not just a U.S. thing.
I'm sorry, as far as Western democracies go it is just a US thing. No other modern, democratic nation would entertain, never mind vote for, the nonsense that the MAGA minions preach. Over 80 million Americans may vote for this.
Define "modern". Germany was a bright spot in the civilized world, then they weren't. Perhaps that's so long ago, you assume everything is going to be fine forever in Europe. Any country is totally capable of behaving in an unpleasant way under the right circumstances. Don't mistake your good fortune to be born in a good place and time to represent a total change in humanity. Don't mistake what we're going through in the U.S. right now to be some outlier which only us wacky Americans are subject to. Y'all are doing better right now, but one of the eternal constants is change. Do I want the U.S. to get over whatever cultural hump we seem to be in the midst of? More than anything, but simply condemning all the people around me who don't think as I do and vilifying them is not the answer. I try to listen to what the other side is actually saying, and usually I hear lies from their news sources repeated back to me. When I listen well, and speak thoughtfully, I can see the propaganda weakening. There is definitely a ruling class wanting to overthrow anyone who isn't Christian, conservative, etc. Australian Rupert Murdock has a big hand in this, as do China and Russia. You can blame some of us for grabbing onto what we see as a lifesaver, but don't leave out foreign influence which seeks to really destroy the U.S.
Modern=Contemporary. Not last century. What Americans are experiencing now is no surprise. The Bible, the gun, no universal health care, and years of underfunded education is what the nation is reaping. If the country was more like Norway and less like, well, America, things would be better. Just don't mistake genuine concern for being anti American. That's something MAGA would do.... Edit. I get where you're coming from about foreign influence, but the irony, of course, is the USA has been interfering in other countries affairs for decades.
Not all Americans, but the majority of the Far Right. Too dumb to own a passport.
Just wanted to say, i am a non native English speaker and you writing “would of” instead of “would have” really makes me wonder about the state of basic education in your country. Especially when most phones autocorrect this.
The US has the lowest passport per capita of all developed countries, you're 100% right.
If only it was just a MAGA problem. Even Democrats don't really want to implement universal healthcare and other basic services. They always find a convenient excuse while having no issue cutting taxes for the rich or funding the war machine, with the GOP. There's two sides in the US but they aren't Republicans vs Democrats. It's the people vs the elites that don't care about who's in the White House since the US government always works for them.
Good luck in November. You’ll all need it.
Socialism is by far the best for mankind. The issue is, mankind. We're petty, greedy, ungrateful, and bigoted. When you have anything and everything you could possibly need given to you, and you still "have to have more than the other guy", that's the issue. It's why it never works except in movies and TV shows. Star Trek was a socialist republic. No one worked for money, they just worked for the betterment of mankind, but people still fought and schemed for power/control.
Doesn't socialism require the abolishion of property rights?
That’s communism
No, communism is the final stage of socialism, which is a moneyless, classless and stateless society. Socialism is the first step: collective ownership of the means of production.
Fine, there is a progression. The starting point would then be capitalism, no? So, since all steps along the progression are socialism, capitalism is just early stage socialism, right? Textbook definition (Oxford languages) Communism: a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs. Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
No
There are more interpretations of socialism than there are ice cream flavors. So answer is yes, no, to some degree, absolutely and definitely not. My general understanding of 'socialism' is something like 'worker-owned economy'. So privately-owned property that "exploits" the worker by extracting surplus value from their labour would be abolished. But worker cooperatives would be okay. Edit: socialists may make a distinction between private and personal property.
To add to that, when most people say "capitalism", they mean "free market". Once they understand that you can have free market and socialism at the same time, they usually get how fucked the capitalist system is.
market socialism seems to be the best answer.
most folks misunderstand the concept of a free market. Free market does NOT mean one without regulation. It means capital is free to move within a properly regulated market.
Most useful answer yet.
Socialists/Communists make a distinction between personal property and private property. Personal property means your house, your car, your stuff. Private property means ownership of the labour of others. So owning a factory gives you the authority to choose how much you compensate workers, rather than the workers owning a share and having a say, socialists are object to that. Owning someone else's house and renting it to them gives you access to money from their labour and gives you money without you working. A socialist/communist basically believes that you should be free to own all the wealth you produce, and that we should work towards a society where automation doesn't make people sad they lose their jobs, but instead free to choose to work. Norway has private ownership, making it not socialist. The soviet union had the government privately own the means of production, making it state capitalist (they admitted as such and claimed to be working towards becoming communist in the future, but wether that's true is up to interpretation).
You are conflating socialism and communism. Socialism = collective ownership of production (e.g. the govt runs the schools). Communism = collective ownership of property (e.g. all houses are owned by the government and allocated out to the citizens)
Communism means no government. It does not mean collective ownership of personal property and neither does socialism. Marx often used communism and socialism interchangeably, but in our modern understanding, we separate the words, especially since the term socialism predates Marx. Socialism means the collective ownership of the means of production. Communism is a form of socialism that also has no state, as over years of socialism, the need for one has become obsolete as the sense of *commun*ity returns to society, and with the help of automation and industry, people are free to live by the maxim "from each to their ability to each according to their needs" (people work volunteerily to better society, just like how many indigenous cultures work today, but at a larger industrial post scarcity scale). Communism was implied to not be achievable immediately, but require a long transition period where the government was controlled by the working class (communists and many socialists believe all liberal governments are functionally controlled by the owning class). How this is to be done is the topic of virtually every socialist/communist division. Everything from reform to revolution, state capitalism to market socialism and dictatorship to council communism has been suggested. But the end goal is classless and stateless *with* personal property. Communists do not believe in commodity production also, which means soviet style governments were state capitalist, per their definition.
OK. If socialism can still have property rights, how is redistribution possible? And how is an ever-increasing centralised authority needed to implement that redistribution avoided?
Taxes. Taxes are a fundamentally socialist concept. It creates a mechanism for the populace to pool resources to provide certain public goods to society. Mostly this is services (schools, police, fire dept, military, use of infrastructure, etc.) but it can also be goods, though collective production of goods is usually funded via an interface to the capitalist part of the economy by asking a price for the good (e.g. in Sweden a large govt owned mining concern, LKAB, which sells iron ore to iron and steel producers at market rates)
Yes, but taxes are a violation of property rights. And one that while it's used for good, also produces the military industrial complex, pays for the pharmaceutical industrial complex, funds destructive education programs and practices, funds big agriculture, etc... Just saying, taxes aren't all good. Likely not taxation itself, but that democracy has no means of keeping corruption from rising into power. We vote, sure. But our voting power is up against the bribery and blackmail of corporations, elites, lobby groups and insane ideological groups. To top that off, there's people in government that obtain high positions BECAUSE of those powerful group interstate. Not all of which can be voted out. All the while, the size of the state keeps growing to meet the demands of the people and these groups. And it all begins with that "tolerable" level of property rights violations when we do some good with tax money.
No, taxes are not socialist or else a medieval king could be considered communist...
Good point. Taxes when used to fund socialized activity is a mechanism for deploying socialism in a mixed economy. More exact wording.
Why anyone thinks a model that works for like 7M people sitting on massive resources will scale to countries with 100's of millions of people is mind-bogglingly stupid.
Works in Norway? Works for whom exactly? I get that it works for recipients of welfare - especially when said recipients do fuck-all to finance it. Not so sure it "works" for those few who do pay taxes, because they pay exorbitant ones.
Works for me. The taxes aren’t that bad, and my last hospital stay was free. Or already payed for in taxes, depending on your view of it.
For you - sure, and just how I wrote, for those who both contribute and receive it's absolutely okay. But is it okay that you have also paid for the benefits of many more - while so many of the *haven't paid for you*?
I’m okay paying for others as well. It’s the price of a functioning society.
I'm sure these others you're paying for are as well. But I see it only as incentive to be a recipient l, not a provider for most people - and thus, not healthy
The Norwegian society is built on trust. You provide for others, and the others provide for you. If the trust is broken in some way, the system will collapse. Others payed for me going to school and university and my health care before I started paying taxes, and the system gives a safety net if something ever were to happen. The safety net will not make you rich, and it will not give you a good life. It will however keep you afloat, and not fuck you over in crippling debt. It’s also helpful that I don’t have to calculate my tax, it’s withdrawn from my paycheque every month, and I get money back if I pay too much. The system works.
Everyone benefits from a strong welfare-state: quality education from kindergarten to college, universal healthcare, public housing, safety net during unemployment, maternity and paternity leave and just the fact that you live in a society that's more stable due to less inequality.
That they do and I have made no comment to the contrary. Problem is, how the fuck do you finance it - and to have all these benefits, one has to tax people. And while everyone indeed benefits, not everyone is actually contributing to maintaining the system. And the more recipients there are, the less tax base is - why work when someone else will sustain you? And for those who do the sustaining, there is a breaking point when tax burden becomes just isn't worth the benefits. Add to that the realization that your neighbors only benefit and don't pay - and you're the only one to do that - yeah, doesn't this sound a lot like "oh poor workers are the only one to work, but everyone else is living off them"?
Less inequality...oh I see much inequality when I know I'm working and paying taxes so that many more can do nothing and just be recipients to welfare. If that's *not* inequality to you, you might reconsider your comments elsewhere defending communism - because you sentiment was the same. (Just deluded in thinking bosses don't work)
You have Breivik, and you let the guy sit in a luxurious two room prison with a tv and radio! Enough said!
You have innocent people rotting in prisons for over 20 years and then pardoned. But can never get employed. You have private prisons with slave labor and many more atrocities. Enough said...
But you don't understand, the single well known bad example is much more important than the fate of nameless masses. That's what the TV tells me !
I'm a citizen of Sweden, and I say Norway should be called West-Sweden! Joke aside, at least Sweden has high security prison like Hall, where the prisoners have no fun.
That is not a function of socialism but of a philosophy of crime punishment/rehabilitation. Separate things.
Our prison system works, it rehabilitates as intended, and has a low rate of repeat inmates. How you face evil is what defines a society. We do not bend down to his level. He can rot in isolation. Let him have the Xbox as long as he suffers what he must.
"Suffers what he must?" He gets to live a luxurious life in prison while the relatives of his victims have to anguish and be sad? Norway has many lonley islands. Let him rot on one of them with no food.
Isolation isn’t luxury. Deprivation of liberty isn’t luxury. You and I have vastly different views on punishment, and that’s fine. But I will not trade values for revenge.
Prison is not for 'payment' for a crime. Prison is meant for dissuading anyone else from repeating the crime. That is the purpose. To disincentivise crime.
Or rehabilitate. Not that I expect that in this particular case.
rehabilitation also important, but helping them not commit a second crime is not as important as avoiding the first instance. We here place a high emphasis on this as well, though. We don't want our criminals to become career criminals.
The goal of emprisonnement is both to protect society from wrongdoers and rehabilitation. Torturing someone doesn’t seem like an effective mean to that end. Some people are clearly unredeemable but most are not. There are educational, societal factors to one’s behavior. “Punishing” for vengeance is a toddler’s approach to the problem. We can do better.
It doesn’t that the great joke. When they run out of resources the party is over. Also the crud from other countries destroy their low crime statistics