What are the Major Advantages and Disadvantages of Socialism?

[BSM1]

Better wages and benefits provided by the company would be ideal so the tax payers do not have to cover what isn't. If you work full time (or close to it since many places avoid OT at all costs, typically by capping hours to 36-38 a week), your basic needs should be met.
Ideally our needs would be real needs and we wouldn't have so much material junk in our lives, not so much waste, and we would have more resources to go around. But because we live in a society were your options for eating are having money, begging, or eating out of a dumpster, living wages and better benefits must be enforced. Social safety nets are great, but the working class should very rarely have to rely on them.

But what if the company doesn't want to or can't provide the wages or benefits that you or some other arbitrary entity decides everyone deserves? Do you force the company to comply? Do you shut it down? What happens to the employees then?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But what if the company doesn't want to or can't provide the wages or benefits that you or some other arbitrary entity decides everyone deserves? Do you force the company to comply? Do you shut it down? What happens to the employees then?

This is why I said the worker should rarely have to rely on social welfare.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

But what if the company doesn't want to or can't provide the wages or benefits that you or some other arbitrary entity decides everyone deserves? Do you force the company to comply? Do you shut it down? What happens to the employees then?

It's not that radical an idea. I assume there is some form of minimum wage, and this is really just talking about increasing that to the point that basic healthcare is covered, and living costs are catered for. Obviously I'm over-simplifying somewhat, but my point is, there is a cost to doing business. If you can't afford to hire staff at or above minimum wage, with the 'arbitrary body' being the government, then don't hire staff.
If I can't afford my tax bill, my company shuts down. If I can't afford my insurances, my company shuts down.

Sensible setting of a minimum wage is not easy because it needs to balance employer and employee, but it's hardly reason for panic. My understanding of US minimum wage structures is very limited, but I believe they are on the lower end when compared to other first world nations.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Sensible setting of a minimum wage is not easy because it needs to balance employer and employee, but it's hardly reason for panic. My understanding of US minimum wage structures is very limited, but I believe they are on the lower end when compared to other first world nations.

They are. In Canada the mimum wage is 10 an hour, in England, where the minimum wage is tiered according to age, it's even higher.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

$16.87 here. (Australia)

 

[Yerda]

Rewarding the lazy and penalizing the hard working folks is a disincentive to productivity.

Production has given way to predation.

 

[Yerda]

But what if the company doesn't want to or can't provide the wages or benefits that you or some other arbitrary entity decides everyone deserves? Do you force the company to comply? Do you shut it down? What happens to the employees then?

If a company cannot source the resources it needs to produce a profitable product it is surely not viable.

 

[Reverend Rick]

It's absolute bull**** that anyone who is American has to go through with that. It's terrible anywhere it happens, but America is just far too wealthy of a nation for any of its citizens to go without needed health care. I'm not even 30 yet but I have painful arthritis in my knee because I went for a few years with a torn ligament and cartilage. One place I worked for provided very crappy insurance, and the machines we had to use gave alot of people carpal tunnel syndrome. The company was able to get out of paying for coverage (with one manager even taunting people to just try and take them to court), and because they did offer insurance no one qualified for any state insurance unless they were old, disabled, or pregnant.
There is a very serious problem when your most pragmatic options to health care become fraud (a few people I know in Tennessee offered to let me claim their address as my home address), robbing a bank (I personally know someone who done this to try and raise money for his mother's health care), or getting pregnant (does anyone really need it explained to them on why this is not a good thing?).

I think it is B.S. to feel entitled to health care. In the future, the rich will live to be 150 years old while the lower class folks will not live half as long.

Just because there is expensive medical procedures does not mean everyone is entitled to them.

It would be easier to give everyone a house and a car than unlimited expensive medical care. It's just too damn expensive.

Should everyone be entitled to unlimited transplants?

There is a larger need than the supply. Who is going to force people to give stuff away for free?

 

[Reverend Rick]

I think the basic principle here is if you have minimum skills, you should not make enough money to raise a family.

A living wage should be paid to folks who have a skillset or degree

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I think the basic principle here is if you have minimum skills, you should not make enough money to raise a family.

A living wage should be paid to folks who have a skillset or degree

It depends on what you mean by skillset. Having a trade is important. However how do you get to that point? Everyone (unlsess they have gone through college) starts off with zero skills in their skillset. How does one obtain these skills in your model?

I have a feeling that we are on totally different ends of the argument. I personally believe that if you work full time you should make enough to not quality for food stamps.

 

[metis]

I think the basic principle here is if you have minimum skills, you should not make enough money to raise a family.

A living wage should be paid to folks who have a skillset or degree

So people who have no marketable skills should just die?

 

[metis]

I think it is B.S. to feel entitled to health care. In the future, the rich will live to be 150 years old while the lower class folks will not live half as long.

Just because there is expensive medical procedures does not mean everyone is entitled to them.

It would be easier to give everyone a house and a car than unlimited expensive medical care. It's just too damn expensive.

Should everyone be entitled to unlimited transplants?

There is a larger need than the supply. Who is going to force people to give stuff away for free?

So, only people who make some significant amount of money need to live? Yes, there has to be some limitations on what can be done, and private insurance companies act in that way as well.

BTW, the U.S. still doesn't have universal coverage and yet we pay more than double of what's found in the U.K. and France, both of which have a better track record than we do according to the W.H.O.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

What are the major strengths and weaknesses of Socialism?

The major strength of socialism is that it strives to treat all people as equal.

The major weakness of socialism is that it ignores the fact that all people aren't equal.

 

[Revoltingest]

Russian political jokes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- So long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work.
- Lenin has died, but his cause lives on! (An actual slogan.) I would prefer it the other way round. (The joke.)
- How do you deal with mice in the Kremlin?
Put up a sign saying "collective farm". Then half the mice will starve, and the rest will run away.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I think it is B.S. to feel entitled to health care. In the future, the rich will live to be 150 years old while the lower class folks will not live half as long.

Just because there is expensive medical procedures does not mean everyone is entitled to them.

It would be easier to give everyone a house and a car than unlimited expensive medical care. It's just too damn expensive.

Should everyone be entitled to unlimited transplants?

There is a larger need than the supply. Who is going to force people to give stuff away for free?

Who said anything is free? Why do you incessantly persist we are delusional and believe it will be free? Do we ever state roads are free? That the military is free? That the fire department is free? That school is free? Why do you endlessly go on about medical care being free?
And why should people be entitled? Because it's a greater burden to not. Many diseases can be easily treated by drugs that only cost pennies to make compared to what are charged for them, but without treatment they may grow into severe diseases that require extensive treatment. In my case, because going without medical care was not only eroding my quality of life, it would have put me on disabilities instead of putting me back to work (and I can say I got two jobs, while taking 14 (18 next semester) credit hours, while still under doctors restrictions). Without the surgery I had, which had to be covered by the state because private insurance refused, I would not be working right now (especially not even in a library where, quite surprisingly, I do alot of getting up and down and using my knees).
And of course when people don't have medical care and can't afford to take a day off work, they go to work, spread their germs, which ends up costing more money had the one person been covered and able to be prescribed a cheap antibiotic that cost's a kidney in the first place.
And, FYI, the average life expectancy is already around or over half of 150 in many places throughout the world.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I think it is B.S. to feel entitled to health care. In the future, the rich will live to be 150 years old while the lower class folks will not live half as long.

Just because there is expensive medical procedures does not mean everyone is entitled to them.

I think the basic principle here is if you have minimum skills, you should not make enough money to raise a family.

A living wage should be paid to folks who have a skillset or degree

Wow! How heartless! And you say you're a Christian?

The song is satire, but the mentality is all too real:

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

It's always lovely to see that people really do think that myself and my family don't deserve to have health care or to provide for ourselves because just don't happen to have $$$$. I guess I should have my Medicaid taken from me and I'll just kill myself since I can't afford health care without it. That's what those types would really want to see happen. Just shut up and die. How dare you exist? It's your fault that you're poor!

Such a mentality with such a lack of empathy and compassion is basically borderline sociopathic.

 

[Yerda]

It's always lovely to see that people really do think that myself and my family don't deserve to have health care or to provide for ourselves because just don't happen to have $$$$. I guess I should have my Medicaid taken from me and I'll just kill myself since I can't afford health care without it. That's what those types would really want to see happen. Just shut up and die. How dare you exist? It's your fault that you're poor!

Such a mentality with such a lack of empathy and compassion is basically borderline sociopathic.

Welcome to Ayn Rand's wet dream.

 

[Reverend Rick]

So people who have no marketable skills should just die?

What a silly assumption in a feeble attempt to discredit anyone who preaches taking responsibility for one's self.

All I am saying is, you can't expect to afford to live alone and raise a family on a minimum wage job.

You can live out in the world with room mates and pooling resources, but expecting to be gainfully employed and able to start a family is unrealistic.

Some of you may imply I am heartless, but not compared to third world countries who don't even have clean drinking water.

I have no compassion for people uninterested in bettering themselves who complain on the internet about not being able to access expensive medical procedures or why they can't afford to raise a family when they have no marketable skills.

You flush your toilet with clean drinking water for God's sake. Poverty looks pretty good to people in other places in the world.

We have raised a generation of spoiled lazy brats!

 

[dust1n]

$16.87 here. (Australia)

To give you an idea, I'm never made more than $11.25. I'm working overtime now just to be able to afford my bills, including the scams that are car and health insurance.