Socialistic Nations = Happiest People

[xotoxi]

All but one of those countries, Switzerland, leans more to the socialist side of the spectrum. Switzerland actually is closer to the our philosophy of a more limited government. At our current rate however, we will become more like the rest of those socialist type countries than Switzerland.

If you want this country to become more like Switzerland, first we will have to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and then give everyone in the armed services a fancy multi-use pocket knife.

 

[editec]

Perfect example,, We want dental care just like Great Britain has don't we? Can't fucking wait!

Have you ever been to Maine and looked into someone's mouth?

Welcome to Great Britain.

True dat.

Dental care is the great divide between near poverty and sheer poverty.

Here's an interesting factoid...

Maine offers something called Maine CARE for those who are lacking health care.

Now Maine CARE will happily remove teeth for those whose teeth are killing them (as teeth will over time, if they're in bad shape..usually by heart disease, I'm informed).

But here's the fly in that ointment.

MaineCARE doesn't help people get dentures.

Apparently not being able to chew one's food isn't thought a significant health risk in Maine.

Chew over that for a while...if you still can.

 

[JBeukema]

Here's the other thing about these socialistic countries: they don't worry about being thrown out in the street, they don't worry about bankruptcy because of medical bills, they get at least a month of vacation a year, they don't work 40 hours a week, they get time off for all sort of reasons, and money isn't the most important thing in the world, like it is here for many people. Yet most people in these socialist countries have a lifestyle that is equal materially to people living in the US.

They're not supporting a 3rd world shithole whose 2nd largest source of national income is American dollars sent across the borders, largely by illegals

 

[JBeukema]

[

having lived in danmark for a year .... not even close ....

Outside of Danemark, we call it 'Denmark' Kinda like how 'Deutchland' becomes 'Germany'- noone said it made sense

Call it Danmark and noone will know what you're talking about

 

[auditor0007]

All but one of those countries, Switzerland, leans more to the socialist side of the spectrum. Switzerland actually is closer to the our philosophy of a more limited government. At our current rate however, we will become more like the rest of those socialist type countries than Switzerland.

If you want this country to become more like Switzerland, first we will have to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and then give everyone in the armed services a fancy multi-use pocket knife.

We'll also need to make certain more people have their own guns. Gun ownership per capita is higher in Switzerland than in the US. Also, every young male will need to serve two years of active military duty, followed by three weeks per year of reserve duty, usually up to the age of 30.

Don't make fun of the Swiss and their pocketknives. They know how to shoot and their army, while vastly relying on reserve forces, is over 600,000 strong.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Do you have a response that results from actually reading the article in question, or are meaningless platitudes all we can expect from you?

We hear, repeatedly, how socialism = bad. It's practically modern American dogma. But, it appears to me that those countries simultaneously have some of the HIGHEST productivity levels AND the highest happiness levels. So, the standard response that socialism kills personal motivation appears to be false.

Maybe, people can be MORE productive when they aren't walking around with a toothache or in chronic pain because they can't afford health or dental care? It's a thought I am having more often these days, spending most of my time working with poor people.

i think its a little bit more than that Cat....the pressure to live in countries who have tremendous economies compared to the Scandinavian countries who have much smaller economies and population,and basically concentrate on taking care of themselves compared to the US,Japan and others....i am sure there is a big difference.....there is also a monster difference in the size of the operation....California has a bigger economy than any one of the Scandinavian Countries,and more people.....yea its much easier taking care of 4-6 million people compared to 300 million in a country 20x their size....

 

[xotoxi]

All but one of those countries, Switzerland, leans more to the socialist side of the spectrum. Switzerland actually is closer to the our philosophy of a more limited government. At our current rate however, we will become more like the rest of those socialist type countries than Switzerland.

If you want this country to become more like Switzerland, first we will have to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and then give everyone in the armed services a fancy multi-use pocket knife.

We'll also need to make certain more people have their own guns. Gun ownership per capita is higher in Switzerland than in the US. Also, every young male will need to serve two years of active military duty, followed by three weeks per year of reserve duty, usually up to the age of 30.

Don't make fun of the Swiss and their pocketknives. They know how to shoot and their army, while vastly relying on reserve forces, is over 600,000 strong.

Plus, they provide complete military services for another sovereign nation.

And their uniforms are rather fanciful.

 

[auditor0007]

My mother is Swiss, born in Bern, raised in Lyss, and worked at Nestle's headquarters in Vevey for many years as a chemist.

 

[Sinatra]

World's Happiest Places

I find this study very interesting. I've always been a free market capitalist, but find myself wondering if America's emphasis on work, above all else, is really working for us, or healthy.

Is work more important than life? Or do these northern European countries know something we don't? Have they learned to balance work and life in a way that we haven't?

I think the question we have to ask ourselves, as a country is: "Is the American way of life working for the vast majority of Americans?" I'm not sure, and I don't have any answers, but thought I'd share.

these countries aren't socialist.

They are hybrid economies that balance euntrepenurship with generous social welfare states.

Socialism is a system where all means of production and distribution is owned by the state. I think Scandanvian corporations like Volvo or Nokia would laugh at being called socialists.

The swedes, the dutch, and the danes are outstanding euntrepeneurs. I seriously doubt they are fans of Lenin or bolshevism.

I think the reason they are happier is those countries place a healthy balance between family life, the greater good of society, and cut throat capitalism. They found a middle ground.

I don't see anything wrong with 8 week vacations, mandatory paid maternity leave, subsidized child day care, and 35-40 hour work weeks. I don't think its a big secret these societies are happier. That sounds like a good deal to me.

Glad someone caught this simple fact as it pertains to this thread.

Some would do well to travel a bit more - go to Denmark and call them socialist and see the response you will likely get. Or Norway, Sweden, etc.

These nations are example of western European big government models that have socialized aspects to them, but are hardly "socialist".

As to their boundless happiness...a recent report indicated alcoholism in Swedish women increased by 50% in the last decade. Either they are piss drunk depressed, or happy sh-t faced. Not sure on that one...

 

[GHook93]

World's Happiest Places

I find this study very interesting. I've always been a free market capitalist, but find myself wondering if America's emphasis on work, above all else, is really working for us, or healthy.

Is work more important than life? Or do these northern European countries know something we don't? Have they learned to balance work and life in a way that we haven't?

I think the question we have to ask ourselves, as a country is: "Is the American way of life working for the vast majority of Americans?" I'm not sure, and I don't have any answers, but thought I'd share.

I don't buy it! People can manipulate a survey to get the results they want.

 

[Red Dawn]

Do you have a response that results from actually reading the article in question, or are meaningless platitudes all we can expect from you?

We hear, repeatedly, how socialism = bad. It's practically modern American dogma. But, it appears to me that those countries simultaneously have some of the HIGHEST productivity levels AND the highest happiness levels. So, the standard response that socialism kills personal motivation appears to be false.

Maybe, people can be MORE productive when they aren't walking around with a toothache or in chronic pain because they can't afford health or dental care? It's a thought I am having more often these days, spending most of my time working with poor people.

i think its a little bit more than that Cat....the pressure to live in countries who have tremendous economies compared to the Scandinavian countries who have much smaller economies and population,and basically concentrate on taking care of themselves compared to the US,Japan and others....i am sure there is a big difference.....there is also a monster difference in the size of the operation....California has a bigger economy than any one of the Scandinavian Countries,and more people.....yea its much easier taking care of 4-6 million people compared to 300 million in a country 20x their size....

So if you lived in a country of ten million people, you would gladly and happily abandon your rightwing republican unfettered free market ideology, and vote for liberal social democratic governments?

 

[Old Rocks]

Simple facts. The Europeans live longer, and have healthier old age. They have a much lower infant mortality. They do not have old people losing their homes because of medical bills. Their workers have much more vacation time per year than ours, and the vacation time goes with them from job to job.

I have been one of those lazy blue collar liberals all my life. Other than the period I worked for the Forest Service, I have worked as a millwright in sawmills, construction, and steel mills. In six months, I will be 66, and on full rocking chair. I look back at the amount of time I have spent at work, six day weeks normal, seven day weeks often, many weeks with more than 84 hours on the paycheck. Do I feel that the system has rewarded me in a equal manner that it has rewarded those that shuffle paper? No, not at all. In fact, I see so many of those in management as parasites.

When people in my position screwed up, they went out the door. When people in management screwed up, they often recieved bonuses.

In the US, the CEO's recieve hundred's of times what a worker recieves. In Europe, at the most, it is tens of times. Yet Europe also has successful people who start new businesses. The problem is the incestuous relationship in the boards of directors in our businesses. Our model has now successfully embroiled the world in a deep recession created by these very people that have recieved so much of the wealth this nation creates. Does that not indicate that our model is deeply flawed? Rewarding incompetance in high places while failing to reward competance on the factory floor?

Yes, it is time for major change in this nation. I really do not care what labels you choose to put on it, but we must start rewarding competance at all levels. And incompetance must be rewarded as well. Rewarded in exactly the way that it is at my level.

 

[Old Rocks]

Do you have a response that results from actually reading the article in question, or are meaningless platitudes all we can expect from you?

We hear, repeatedly, how socialism = bad. It's practically modern American dogma. But, it appears to me that those countries simultaneously have some of the HIGHEST productivity levels AND the highest happiness levels. So, the standard response that socialism kills personal motivation appears to be false.

Maybe, people can be MORE productive when they aren't walking around with a toothache or in chronic pain because they can't afford health or dental care? It's a thought I am having more often these days, spending most of my time working with poor people.

i think its a little bit more than that Cat....the pressure to live in countries who have tremendous economies compared to the Scandinavian countries who have much smaller economies and population,and basically concentrate on taking care of themselves compared to the US,Japan and others....i am sure there is a big difference.....there is also a monster difference in the size of the operation....California has a bigger economy than any one of the Scandinavian Countries,and more people.....yea its much easier taking care of 4-6 million people compared to 300 million in a country 20x their size....

So if you lived in a country of ten million people, you would gladly and happily abandon your rightwing republican unfettered free market ideology, and vote for liberal social democratic governments?

 

[Tech_Esq]

American is currently flummoxed by a myth that we've taken to heart.

The myth of the almightly individual.

Now it is very convenient for those on top of the heap to keep driving that myth into the zietgiest since by doing so, they insure that people don't get together and take down the ediface of lies that keep so many of us fearful.

Up here in this neck of the woods of Maine, I can take you to people who live on welfare who vote Republican and who swear that unions are the worst thing in the world even though most of them have never been involved with a union and few of them have ever worked for anything but minimum wage.

Such confused thinking is, I think typical of a people who have been fed complete nonsense by the media.

Most of these types have thousands of dollars worth of guns which they are sure they're going to need when the BLACK uprising happens and all those urban minorities (who are also all collectivists) come to Waldo county to steal their doublewides and rape their (second fattest in the USA) women.

If their confused attitude wasn't so tragically ignorant, and wasn't making them into perfect tools for the people who have nothing but contempt for them, it'd actually be funny.

Interestingly, at least to me, I was reading Obama's buddy Cass Sunstein's book Nudge recently. I wanted to taste the Kool-aid from the other side.

Basically, it boils down to this: You people are too stupid to run your own lives. The choices in the real world are far too complex for you to grasp. It isn't your fault you're so dumb, it's just that system is stacked against you. Every industry is created by people wholly occupied with getting your dollar, so the idea that you could actually come out a winner in any transaction with these providers of necessities and desires is extremely minimal. You are simply out classed.

Having said that, what would work is if this playing field was modified a little. You need someone that knows a lot about all of these things you need to look at them for you and pick out a few that actually make sense and provide you with a more limited, but safer array of products and services. That way you can't hurt yourself you dumb little imbecile.

I haven't finished the book so maybe there is another message buried in there, but it looks like we're all bound for the short bus and the scissors that are blunt pointed and not too sharp.

Thanks for the offer Edi....but I'll pass. You let them run your life if you think you're too dumb to do it yourself. That would be my observation of you, but I guess that's what you want.

 

[Old Rocks]

All but one of those countries, Switzerland, leans more to the socialist side of the spectrum. Switzerland actually is closer to the our philosophy of a more limited government. At our current rate however, we will become more like the rest of those socialist type countries than Switzerland.

If you want this country to become more like Switzerland, first we will have to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and then give everyone in the armed services a fancy multi-use pocket knife.

We'll also need to make certain more people have their own guns. Gun ownership per capita is higher in Switzerland than in the US. Also, every young male will need to serve two years of active military duty, followed by three weeks per year of reserve duty, usually up to the age of 30.

Don't make fun of the Swiss and their pocketknives. They know how to shoot and their army, while vastly relying on reserve forces, is over 600,000 strong.

Perhaps we also need to support some mental health initiatives as the Swiss gun violence level is far lower than that of the US.

I believe that every citizen should have national defense and national emergency training. And all should do at least 18 months of national service of some sort. And, yes, I have a little peice of paper called a dd214 that says honorable.

 

[Red Dawn]

i think its a little bit more than that Cat....the pressure to live in countries who have tremendous economies compared to the Scandinavian countries who have much smaller economies and population,and basically concentrate on taking care of themselves compared to the US,Japan and others....i am sure there is a big difference.....there is also a monster difference in the size of the operation....California has a bigger economy than any one of the Scandinavian Countries,and more people.....yea its much easier taking care of 4-6 million people compared to 300 million in a country 20x their size....

So if you lived in a country of ten million people, you would gladly and happily abandon your rightwing republican unfettered free market ideology, and vote for liberal social democratic governments?

apparently there is some magical "size" when liberalism is demonstrated to be the world's best system of society and government. And even rightwingers evidently freely admit that liberalism is the absolute far and away best system "below" a certain population number.

Canada is number 6 in happiness, with 20 million people, so I wish rightwingers would tell me what this magical number threshold is.

 

[midcan5]

The problem with this type of question of happiness is most people are not happy. They always want more and they assume their present location affords them the best opportunity to get to point 'happy.'

Since material well being is probably the biggest determinant of happiness, or an least the essential ingredient, then socialistic type humanitarian societies with safety nets and freedoms are way ahead of the dog eat dog world of most Americans.

This fellow challenges most Americans desire to get there, wherever that may be.

"Psychologist Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel real, enduring happiness, he says, even when things don't go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness "synthetic happiness," and he says it's "every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for.""

Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy? | Video on TED.com

Listening again to the above made me aware of why most Americans are unhappy.

"The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice." Adam Smith

 

[Old Rocks]

American is currently flummoxed by a myth that we've taken to heart.

The myth of the almightly individual.

Now it is very convenient for those on top of the heap to keep driving that myth into the zietgiest since by doing so, they insure that people don't get together and take down the ediface of lies that keep so many of us fearful.

Up here in this neck of the woods of Maine, I can take you to people who live on welfare who vote Republican and who swear that unions are the worst thing in the world even though most of them have never been involved with a union and few of them have ever worked for anything but minimum wage.

Such confused thinking is, I think typical of a people who have been fed complete nonsense by the media.

Most of these types have thousands of dollars worth of guns which they are sure they're going to need when the BLACK uprising happens and all those urban minorities (who are also all collectivists) come to Waldo county to steal their doublewides and rape their (second fattest in the USA) women.

If their confused attitude wasn't so tragically ignorant, and wasn't making them into perfect tools for the people who have nothing but contempt for them, it'd actually be funny.

Interestingly, at least to me, I was reading Obama's buddy Cass Sunstein's book Nudge recently. I wanted to taste the Kool-aid from the other side.

Basically, it boils down to this: You people are too stupid to run your own lives. The choices in the real world are far too complex for you to grasp. It isn't your fault you're so dumb, it's just that system is stacked against you. Every industry is created by people wholly occupied with getting your dollar, so the idea that you could actually come out a winner in any transaction with these providers of necessities and desires is extremely minimal. You are simply out classed.

Having said that, what would work is if this playing field was modified a little. You need someone that knows a lot about all of these things you need to look at them for you and pick out a few that actually make sense and provide you with a more limited, but safer array of products and services. That way you can't hurt yourself you dumb little imbecile.

I haven't finished the book so maybe there is another message buried in there, but it looks like we're all bound for the short bus and the scissors that are blunt pointed and not too sharp.

Thanks for the offer Edi....but I'll pass. You let them run your life if you think you're too dumb to do it yourself. That would be my observation of you, but I guess that's what you want.

LOL. A Conservative talking about people too dumb to run things? What about the last eight years? Your bunch ran things with such incompetance that we have had a major attack on the US, with the instigator of that attack getting away scot free. We have two failed wars, one started on the basis of lies. And an economic debacle that is still threatoning to create the Second Great Republican Depression.

Of course, you just cannot understand why the voters rewarded you with the soundest drubbing that the Republican Party has received since 1932. For the very same reasons.

 

[auditor0007]

So if you lived in a country of ten million people, you would gladly and happily abandon your rightwing republican unfettered free market ideology, and vote for liberal social democratic governments?

apparently there is some magical "size" when liberalism is demonstrated to be the world's best system of society and government. And even rightwingers evidently freely admit that liberalism is the absolute far and away best system "below" a certain population number.

Canada is number 6 in happiness, with 20 million people, so I wish rightwingers would tell me what this magical number threshold is.

It is not sustainable. So whether it is a better system or not is a moot point. Actually, it's not a moot point. What is the point of having such a wonderful system if future generations will not have the same benefit? In fact, is it right to borrow and force future generations to pay for our indulgences? How does that make it a great system? It doesn't.

We are facing this right now by borrowing so much against the future. Those countries have been and are doing it in a much worse way.

 

[Tech_Esq]

The problem with this type of question of happiness is most people are not happy. They always want more and they assume their present location affords them the best opportunity to get to point 'happy.'

Since material well being is probably the biggest determinant of happiness, or an least the essential ingredient, then socialistic type humanitarian societies with safety nets and freedoms are way ahead of the dog eat dog world of most Americans.

This fellow challenges most Americans desire to get there, wherever that may be.

"Psychologist Dan Gilbert challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we don't get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel real, enduring happiness, he says, even when things don't go as planned. He calls this kind of happiness "synthetic happiness," and he says it's "every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for.""

Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy? | Video on TED.com

I think that once people have their "needs" met, (i.e. not worried about food, shelter, health, transportation and paying their basic bills), they tend to get to a place where they are satisfied to some extent where they are and live their lives in comparative happiness. I don't think most people feel like they need a million dollar salary to get there either.

That's not to say that everything is milk and honey and people wouldn't take more if it were offered.