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[–] Charlez6 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

Those examples are not conflated with socialism, they are fragments of socialism that we've foolishly allowed because we were naive and they sounded nice. A "basic safety net" is a distortion of the market, not "for the market to reinforce itself", whatever that means. It's about as directly as you can possibly follow the core tenet of the ideology: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Along with education and health care, you managed to nail the holy trinity of sweet-sounding socialist society-killing poison.

Even law and roads could be argued as socialist implementations while the government has a monopoly on the provision of those and claims the right to extract funding via coercion, but I'm sure most would agree these are relatively tolerable transgressions.

Charity, education and health care are important; many would say that's why we need government to oversee them, I would say that's why we need to keep government very fucking far away from them so they can't screw it all up.

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[–] killercanuck ago 

That's true. But I've seen too many quacks and fraudsters running trains on innocent people with shit like quantum medicine, holistic treatments, homeopathy, and a ton of other bunk products. The governments definitely shouldn't be providing these services for sure but having some type of fallback plan to make sure you're population isn't getting fleeced by criminals or dropping dead from treatable diseases does benefit everyone. Having something like a resurgence in TB because that 3% of your population can't see a doctor can't be a good thing. Neither is mandatory insurance or medical insurance schemes that run the coffers dry. There's also a lot to be said about unemployment insurance or pension plans in countries that have a strong economy but not a very diverse one where you're sole cash cow is always in flux.

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[–] Charlez6 ago  (edited ago)

We fundamentally disagree on the best way to manage those things. It seems to me far more efficient and effective, not to mention ethical, to have people voluntarily allocating their resources to those causes as they see fit. Remember that governments are not perfect committees of omniscient wizards, they are just as flawed as any other person, with the added corrupting factor of power and all the negative outcomes that flow from being able to spend other people's money with disregard for the cost/benefit in pursuit of votes to maintain that power.

Take your TB example. Even if we assume a society composed exclusively of sociopaths who would rather step over their dying mother than assist her with medical expenses, they still have an incentive to help strangers with such infectious diseases for purely selfish reasons. Assuming most/all people are insured (based on the logical premise that insurance would be the most sensible, cheap and effective way to handle healthcare for almost all people in a free society), those insurance providers have a huge incentive to prevent outbreak of infectious disease among strangers to maintain the health of their clients. Add in the fact that people are certainly not sociopaths, generally speaking (need I mention Europe forfeiting their continent to foreigners based on feelz?), you'll find most people will bend over backwards to help those in need - especailly friends and family - and would be far more likely to patronise businesses that boast charitable policies (eg. insurance companies could commit to various charity programs, such as "free basic coverage for a homeless guy when you sign up to our premium subscription", to attract customers).

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[–] 9311174? ago  (edited ago)

A properly ordered group of intelligent people have a natural desire to improve their environment and preserve it for their children. The problem is obtaining "intelligence" and then imposing "proper order".