5-dimensional political test

[Pidesco]

You are a: Left-Leaning Anti-Government Multilateralist Bleeding-Heart Libertine

Collectivism score: 17%
Authoritarianism score: -33%
Internationalism score: 50%
Tribalism score: -100%
Liberalism score: 100%

 

 

Green Party 96%

Democrats 95%

Socialist  74%

Libertarians 44%

Republicans 2%

 

 

 

[Malcador]

Communist Interventionist Cosmopolitan Traditionalist

 

Collectivism score: 83%

Authoritarianism score: 0%

Internationalism score: 33%

Tribalism score: -17%

Liberalism score: -17%

 

Huh.

[Rosbjerg]

I think Communal would be a better word to use than Communist, since non of the question were really commie in nature.

[Gorgon]

Didn't see a 'should the workers take over the means of production' question. Anyway the point is probably what Americans think Communism is. What is it anyway. Is it what the Soviet union was or what China is. Obamacare, Hugo Chavez ?

[Rostere]

Well China has certainly seized the American means of production, in any case. They must be wondering what to do next.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Rostere

[LadyCrimson]

I have the feeling a lot of Americans still just "know" Communism from the leftover flavors of propaganda from the World Wars and Cold War. And of course, the movies.

But as always, I could be wrong.

[Valsuelm]

 

 

 

 

The push to destroy the welfare state comes from the rich, all in an effort to push the state out of businesses (both in terms of regulation and ownership) so they can take them over and put all the profits in their own pocket. 

 

HAHAHA!!! Oh socialists and their class theories. None of it is ever based on facts; just ideology. The push to end welfare mostly comes from blue collar (I don't know if that's an American specific term; it basically means working class) people pissed off that they have to work while lazy slackers feed off the system.

 

Most of the political support FOR welfare comes from the upper-class communities. I can assure you in the US if you ask poor to lower-middle class people about welfare about 1/2 of them will want it eliminated, and the other half will only accept the programs grudgingly. Ask the rich and about 19/20 of them will give their complete support for welfare.

 

 

That's because neoliberal ideologues are working overtime to convince everyone that the theoretical "welfare queen" is to blame for everything. Its a project they've been doing ever since the Reagan/Thatcher era and its easy to prove where it originated. Just because some blue collar muppets took up the cause (that goes against their own interests) doesn't make them the real brains behind it. 

 

Its nonsense of course, people have no sense of the scale at which a country's economy operates. A certain number of people leeching the system at the bottom rung make absolutely no difference whatsoever to an economy that shuffles billions or trillions of (insert currency) per year. 

 

its easy to demonstrate how the current economic crisis and the recession are precisely the fault of the uncontrolled financial capital institutions from the housing crisis onwards. It was the result of systematic abuse that cost taxpayers across the world insane amounts of money and brought economies to the brink of collapse. In fact, it has been repeatedly demonstrated by top economists that that is in fact what happened.

Welfare itself has never been an economic threat to the system but it is a barrier to increasing profit margins and possibilities for corruption for people on the top. The money that can be made from privatizing health care and social services is unfathomably large. 

 

 

No. The primary reason is because people who work see the giant chunk the state takes out of their paycheck each pay period in the name of welfare. It's because some people are opposed to the evil of robbing from someone to give to someone else. It's never taken any propaganda from 'neoliberal ideologues' to get a great many people in the U.S. to dislike welfare.

 

It's also because many are aware of the rampant abuse and corruption in the system. And some, though fewer, realize that welfare ultimately causes far more harm than good on many levels. 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions' applies.

 

The various financial crisis as reported to you in the main stream media that you're referring to are other issues all together. Welfare itself is a financial crisis, just one almost never mentioned in a media that for the most part endorses and supports it.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Valsuelm

[Gorgon]

But Communism is not typically identified with democratic elections. It's not enough to simply throw  all the 'pro government', 'pro taxation','pro redistribution', 'anti individual rights'  markers together as the test has done and call it Communist. 

[Darkpriest]

 

Give people the fishing rod and learn them how to fish, instead of giving them the fish and making dependant. I will always disagree with the notion that you need redistribution. I can agree that in the case of physically and mentally disabled people you need some form of basic help to allow them to operate in the society in a civilized way, but no one will ever convince me that we need to pay taxes and give people social benefits. I don't mind the paid insurance for instances of losing a job, and equal chances at obtaining the basic education ( so basic learning materials and access to basic education). Everything else is in the hands of the individual.

 

I've climbed in 6 years from an intern to an Finance Manager in a global multibillion corporation, then resigned from that and went to start a career in another field after a long break and I am sure I will be successful in it too within 2-3 years. My father was starting up own business 4 times before he got successful. If I or my father, who came from poor family could do that, then everyone can do it. If you are too lazy to do that, then that's your fault, and no one elses. Do not put a burden of financing lazy or stupid people on people who worked hard to get to where they are.

 

As for the resources, how do you define "enough"? Enough does not equal unlimited, and as in case of everything that has limits (starting with fertile land and living space to diamonds) there will be a value. If you want socialism, you need redistribution. If you need redistribution, you need people doing that. The question is, how much reditsribution you need, and how much are you willing to pay for it. There are no "free" items in the world. Everything has its value, including human life, when you look from the limited resources perspective. There are however different value tags based on the perspective on given problems.

 

I've often found that people who accuse those not like them of being "lazy" are exactly that themselves and would prefer to do nothing, if they had the opportunity. I'm lazy too, I'm happy to admit - but that's not to say that everyone who fails is. Spend time with the people you criticize and you'll see they work hard for the things that matter to them. It's just that it might not be the things that matter to you...

 

 

And you general critique is still a monetary and industrial perspective - where an items 'value' is a function of the time and resources invested in it. With widespread renewable energy, it would be effectively free - with widespread and advanced 3D printing and robotics, the production costs would be effectively free.. with advanced computers, you don't even need human designers.. So what value would materiel things have then? What job could you hold that wouldn't be done better by machines in the next 100 years?

 

This model is making itself obsolete, capitalism is simply too effective at minimizing costs (that's a good thing). In a future capitalist society, no one can have a job, because humans are terribly inefficient and expensive. At the same time we are creating (or rather maintaining) an ideology of mindless consumption and waste, Black Friday being a scary manifestation of this - where people buy and consume products that are completely useless to them, simply because the dominant ideology compels them to (thank you Edward Bernays).

 

For a good critical critique of what I believe this ideology to be, see Sophie Fiennes 2012, "A Perverts Guide to Ideology". Wherein Slavoj Zizek goes through the tropes, memes and symbolism of popular American cinema, to expose the underlying ideology of western consumerist society.

 

 

 

 

There is always a value. Time is your resource as well. Unless you are dead every second you make a decision what to do with your resources, so you get the best value of the resources spent against the alternate choices you didn't make. Also, virtually free does not equal free. Unless you will create perpetuum mobile, there will always be a limitation, even if only the land on which you can build the power plants.

 

Unless we will create machines that operate well within the concept of empathy and can adapt on the fly like human do, you will always have the need for the human factor. If we will ever decide to create machines that look, think, behave and feel like humans, then we will come to the problem that they will want to be treated as equals to the humans in every aspect of any future legislation, so they will want to get paid and operate in the same way in the society like humans.

 

If you chose a different priority, don't whine and demand redistribution. It was your choice in the first place. If you are healthy and have equal rights, it is your choices that led you to your current situation as a consequence. If you don't like like it, too bad, it was your decisions, do....

 

I heavily emphasize that you have to have however equal chances at the start, so there can't be discrimination and there has to be education available for everyone who wants it, plus good information on the job markets... for this, I can happily pay the taxes, as well as for ensuring my safety and safety of my property (both intangible and tangible).

 

Sure I'd love to do nothing, but the things that I want at any given moment, but that's not possible, not until we will have no need for food, shelter and "entertainment", which needs to be provided by others

 

You operate with an old concept that minimizing costs is the goal of capitalism. The goal is maximizing income. You can do it the old fashioned way, through the drive on cost reductions (for example Walmart) or you can build intangible values for the customers, which in turn are willing to pay more for the same product. The cost reduction will always be limited by various factors, the other end is less limited, the difficult part is just convincing people that they want to pay more for the product, but that's why you have various branding strategies and you add intangible values, like the quality of the sales/customer/guest service. Paradoxically the human is the most valuable resource now. How well educated and motivated your employee is, is more important for your profit than the mere technology. Technology can be the same for everyone, humans diversify the value.

 

Mindless consumption is indeed a problem, but why are people attracted to it? I never understand people who get themselves in the debt loops, because they want some new shiny product... a lot of that consumption comes from the idea that the more I posses the higher my status in the society is... which is funny, because a lot of really rich people do not really show off with their wealth. They do not consume it, they invest it. If someone is too stupid to resist the overconsumption then it's his/her fault really...

 

The only real social issue I can see, is that in order to have children you want to have a stable economic situation and the demographics is one of few exceptions where I deem the redistribution of wealth as a possible solution, but it also cannot be made an excuse to not work and breed like animals...

 

I guess I should stop, because I feel like I am de-railing the thread

[Sarex]

You are a: Conservative Pro-Government Non-Interventionist Cosmopolitan Traditionalist

Collectivism score: -67%

Authoritarianism score: 33%

Internationalism score: -33%

Tribalism score: -33%

Liberalism score: -33%

 

I don't know what I am anymore...

[Darkpriest]

 

 

 

 

The push to destroy the welfare state comes from the rich, all in an effort to push the state out of businesses (both in terms of regulation and ownership) so they can take them over and put all the profits in their own pocket. 

 

HAHAHA!!! Oh socialists and their class theories. None of it is ever based on facts; just ideology. The push to end welfare mostly comes from blue collar (I don't know if that's an American specific term; it basically means working class) people pissed off that they have to work while lazy slackers feed off the system.

 

Most of the political support FOR welfare comes from the upper-class communities. I can assure you in the US if you ask poor to lower-middle class people about welfare about 1/2 of them will want it eliminated, and the other half will only accept the programs grudgingly. Ask the rich and about 19/20 of them will give their complete support for welfare.

 

 

That's because neoliberal ideologues are working overtime to convince everyone that the theoretical "welfare queen" is to blame for everything. Its a project they've been doing ever since the Reagan/Thatcher era and its easy to prove where it originated. Just because some blue collar muppets took up the cause (that goes against their own interests) doesn't make them the real brains behind it. 

 

Its nonsense of course, people have no sense of the scale at which a country's economy operates. A certain number of people leeching the system at the bottom rung make absolutely no difference whatsoever to an economy that shuffles billions or trillions of (insert currency) per year. 

 

its easy to demonstrate how the current economic crisis and the recession are precisely the fault of the uncontrolled financial capital institutions from the housing crisis onwards. It was the result of systematic abuse that cost taxpayers across the world insane amounts of money and brought economies to the brink of collapse. In fact, it has been repeatedly demonstrated by top economists that that is in fact what happened.

Welfare itself has never been an economic threat to the system but it is a barrier to increasing profit margins and possibilities for corruption for people on the top. The money that can be made from privatizing health care and social services is unfathomably large. 

 

 

The real issues is that some financial institutions created a product that bypassed the regular failsafe mechanics... they dumped bad debts into new papers which they marketed safe... the real problem was misinformed market, which then made bad decisions. This is more of a criminal/fraudulent act and it should be viewed as that. Do you see every neighbor as a thief if one of them steals from you?

 

Welfare is the threat to economics... please explain, why every single country, that is a walfare state (aside of Norway) has very high national debt and can't handle it? The economic crisis only opened up the eyes, that you cannot sustain systems which function in ever increasing debt loop, and that is what walfare states are right now. You will always have recessions once in a while, be that 15 or 25 years, the current system operates on the principle of trust, which is not covered by real value. This is why a lot of EU countries and the societies there are in for some hard awakening. This is also one of the reasons why US will never confront China, because China funds the US debts

[Valsuelm]

 

 China funds the US debts

 

 

That is a myth. The rest of what you say above is for the most part right on though.

[Rostere]

Well it is true technically speaking, but you could of course argue that China doing so is only a minor factor globally.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

They see government as a tool: It's good when used properly, and it can be bad when misused. A hammer for example is good for construction, but it's not so good when used to bash people's head in. The problem isn't the hammer; it's the misuse of the hammer.

 

Again; I'm only playing devil's advocate.

 

That's the problem with The State though, it's a tool with only malignant methods. The State only enacts anything through theft, kidnapping, and murder. Every act carried out by it, no matter what the goal nor intention is ultimately accomplished through theft, kidnapping, murder. There is nothing good or productive about forcibly organizing society around a compulsory system of theft and violence.

[Darkpriest]

 

 

 China funds the US debts

 

 

That is a myth. The rest of what you say above is for the most part right on though.

 

 

1) Check the purchases of gov bonds

2) Check the manufacturing plants placement of US based companies.

[Darkpriest]

Well it is true technically speaking, but you could of course argue that China doing so is only a minor factor globally.

 

well quite big populace and manufacturing region, which can hardly be replaced given the current geopolitical situation. If African countries would have chineese mentality, then that would be indeed less of a factor

[Zoraptor]

The real issues is that some financial institutions created a product that bypassed the regular failsafe mechanics... they dumped bad debts into new papers which they marketed safe... the real problem was misinformed market, which then made bad decisions. This is more of a criminal/fraudulent act and it should be viewed as that. Do you see every neighbor as a thief if one of them steals from you?

That isn't really accurate, the 'bad debts' in terms of sub prime were absolutely known and designed to be 'bad debts', and it was known that derivatives were based on them.

 

The big issues were that banks- and more pertinently the ratings agencies that were supposed to monitor them that provided the independent label of them being safe- thought they had a golden goose to get money from a new market and turn a 3% roi into a 10% one, and that there were no real consequences for them when it turned out the goose had died. People still listen to Moodys, S&P etc as if they know anything when they blithely labelled derivatives as AAA and the banks- in general- got both a bail out and maintenance of their special status.

 

The problem is not with fraud or criminal behaviour, the problem is that these people were morons. They believed they had developed the perfect system when in reality it was just another pyramid scheme, and have had no effective consequences for their actions. Not even a decade later and you already have people buying houses in places like London on credit- with no intention at all of anyone actually living in them- just to sell to some other person functioning on credit six months later. It's moronic, irresponsible and traps people like the perfectly innocent single house owner who ends up with negative equity when the bubble bursts, as well as all the people who cannot afford accommodation at all, and the taxpayer who ends up with their economy in recession when the bubble inevitably bursts. But it looks good in a narrow economic sense in the short term, so nobody wants to fix it.

 

Welfare is the threat to economics... please explain, why every single country, that is a walfare state (aside of Norway) has very high national debt and can't handle it?

 

We've got a far bigger welfare state than the US, but our debt: gdp ratio is way lower and would be even more so if we hadn't had a city flattened by an earthquake. And it ain't just Norway with their oil cash, all the Scandics are in the same situation as we and Australia are, far lower debt levels despite more welfare.

 

Welfare is not a large contributor to economic malaise because welfare gets spent, it goes into circulation in the wider economy. Indeed, cutting welfare usually intensifies recessions because it removes money that is being circulated which hits businesses leading to more layoffs, while people with excess cash tend to sit on it and cut spending in recessions those on low wages cannot cut spending unless forced.

 

The problem with the high debt European countries and the US is the same as with the banks- they've been run by morons, whether left or right wing. Ideological morons, short term vision morons, political benefit before actual benefit morons; people who think that the good times will last forever so never make hard decisions to actually pay down debt when they can. And that is irrespective of left/ right divide; our left party reduced debt massively last time it as in power, our right wing one runs massive deficits, cut taxes for the rich and raised GST during a downturn which actually turned it into a depression etc. Our left wing party wants to raise the retirement age (which is essential in the medium term, along with a capital gains tax to stop looney tunes housing speculation that should have come in yesterday) but the right wing one wants to keep it where it is. And you have plenty of right wing US politicians handing out massive corporate welfare packages- overpriced military contracts, agricultural subsidies that favour massive conglomerates etc etc.

[licketysplit]

I'm a right-leaning, interventionist nationalist liberal. Sounds about right. Answered no to most questions.

[Darkpriest]

 

Welfare is the threat to economics... please explain, why every single country, that is a walfare state (aside of Norway) has very high national debt and can't handle it?

 

We've got a far bigger welfare state than the US, but our debt: gdp ratio is way lower and would be even more so if we hadn't had a city flattened by an earthquake. And it ain't just Norway with their oil cash, all the Scandics are in the same situation as we and Australia are, far lower debt levels despite more welfare.

 

Welfare is not a large contributor to economic malaise because welfare gets spent, it goes into circulation in the wider economy. Indeed, cutting welfare usually intensifies recessions because it removes money that is being circulated which hits businesses leading to more layoffs, while people with excess cash tend to sit on it and cut spending in recessions those on low wages cannot cut spending unless forced.

 

 

 

 

When you are trying to treat walfare during the recession it's obvious that it's going to intensify it... after all you cut some souces of income and you would have to remove a lot of leeches from the redistribution system, which would have no income, because they would not be able to adapt and find new work during the recession, that's why it is important to make such changes during the high economic growth period, where such changes have lessvisible impact short term, but will benefit the overall economy long term.

[Rostere]

 

The real issues is that some financial institutions created a product that bypassed the regular failsafe mechanics... they dumped bad debts into new papers which they marketed safe... the real problem was misinformed market, which then made bad decisions. This is more of a criminal/fraudulent act and it should be viewed as that. Do you see every neighbor as a thief if one of them steals from you?

That isn't really accurate, the 'bad debts' in terms of sub prime were absolutely known and designed to be 'bad debts', and it was known that derivatives were based on them.

 

The big issues were that banks- and more pertinently the ratings agencies that were supposed to monitor them that provided the independent label of them being safe- thought they had a golden goose to get money from a new market and turn a 3% roi into a 10% one, and that there were no real consequences for them when it turned out the goose had died. People still listen to Moodys, S&P etc as if they know anything when they blithely labelled derivatives as AAA and the banks- in general- got both a bail out and maintenance of their special status.

 

The problem is not with fraud or criminal behaviour, the problem is that these people were morons. They believed they had developed the perfect system when in reality it was just another pyramid scheme, and have had no effective consequences for their actions. Not even a decade later and you already have people buying houses in places like London on credit- with no intention at all of anyone actually living in them- just to sell to some other person functioning on credit six months later. It's moronic, irresponsible and traps people like the perfectly innocent single house owner who ends up with negative equity when the bubble bursts, as well as all the people who cannot afford accommodation at all, and the taxpayer who ends up with their economy in recession when the bubble inevitably bursts. But it looks good in a narrow economic sense in the short term, so nobody wants to fix it.

 

Welfare is the threat to economics... please explain, why every single country, that is a walfare state (aside of Norway) has very high national debt and can't handle it?

 

We've got a far bigger welfare state than the US, but our debt: gdp ratio is way lower and would be even more so if we hadn't had a city flattened by an earthquake. And it ain't just Norway with their oil cash, all the Scandics are in the same situation as we and Australia are, far lower debt levels despite more welfare.

 

Welfare is not a large contributor to economic malaise because welfare gets spent, it goes into circulation in the wider economy. Indeed, cutting welfare usually intensifies recessions because it removes money that is being circulated which hits businesses leading to more layoffs, while people with excess cash tend to sit on it and cut spending in recessions those on low wages cannot cut spending unless forced.

 

The problem with the high debt European countries and the US is the same as with the banks- they've been run by morons, whether left or right wing. Ideological morons, short term vision morons, political benefit before actual benefit morons; people who think that the good times will last forever so never make hard decisions to actually pay down debt when they can. And that is irrespective of left/ right divide; our left party reduced debt massively last time it as in power, our right wing one runs massive deficits, cut taxes for the rich and raised GST during a downturn which actually turned it into a depression etc. Our left wing party wants to raise the retirement age (which is essential in the medium term, along with a capital gains tax to stop looney tunes housing speculation that should have come in yesterday) but the right wing one wants to keep it where it is. And you have plenty of right wing US politicians handing out massive corporate welfare packages- overpriced military contracts, agricultural subsidies that favour massive conglomerates etc etc.

 

I very much agree with the statement that most economic trouble stems from idiocy that is not inherent to either the right or the left side of politics. Just like left-wing politicians can end up spending too much on pointless schemes and projects which never bear fruit economically, right-wing politicians can sell off collective assets and lower taxes irresponsibly (I think it's called "Reaganomics" - running a massive deficit while still lowering taxes). The key is a balanced economy. I'll write a long post on left/right later, meanwhile, food for thought:

 

 

 

So the economic crisis was half as taxing as WW2 to the US economy. Reagan and Obama are competing for worst economic performance, although said crisis might play a part in this (and how was the economy looking during the eighties?). In any case, the conclusion from this is that economic responsibility has nothing to do with left or right on the political spectrum.

[Namutree]

 

So the economic crisis was half as taxing as WW2 to the US economy. Reagan and Obama are competing for worst economic performance, although said crisis might play a part in this (and how was the economy looking during the eighties?). In any case, the conclusion from this is that economic responsibility has nothing to do with left or right on the political spectrum.

 

In the 80's the economy was pretty bad until Reagan took over. The immediate situation was worse than it is now, but the long-term economic outlook was better. So, just as bad as now in it's own way. 

 

I would also agree with you that left-right does not equal fiscal responsibility. Especially when you consider that Reagan re-popularized military interventionism in the US. In the long term such a policy has costed us trillions of dollars, and many enemies. I loathe Reagan, but some on the right love him for various dumb reasons. 

 

Well really I have a hard time calling people like Reagan politically right wing. He certainly wasn't a champion of traditional American values; socially or economically. 

[Valsuelm]

 

 

 

 China funds the US debts

 

 

That is a myth. The rest of what you say above is for the most part right on though.

 

 

1) Check the purchases of gov bonds

2) Check the manufacturing plants placement of US based companies.

 

 

1) China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government bonds yes. However the vast majority of government bonds are held within the U.S.. That said, who holds the government bonds means very little in regards to how the U.S. (and the majority of other nations) accrues and fund it's debt. Also, last I looked (which was a few months back), China was divesting itself of a great deal of those bonds and other U.S. backed assets (i.e. cash)...

 

2) Irrelevant in regards to the deficit the U.S. federal government runs.

 

Edited December 1, 2014 by Valsuelm

[Gorgon]

It's got precious little to do with the president certainly. 

[Darkpriest]

 

 

 

 

 China funds the US debts

 

 

That is a myth. The rest of what you say above is for the most part right on though.

 

 

1) Check the purchases of gov bonds

2) Check the manufacturing plants placement of US based companies.

 

 

1) China is the largest foreign holder of debt yes. However the vast majority of government bonds are held within the U.S.. That said, who holds the government bonds however mean very little in regards to how the U.S. (and the majority of other nations) accrues and fund it's debt.

 

2) Irrelevant in regards to the deficit the U.S. federal government runs.

 

 

 

1) True, but it does affect the price

 

2) Directly, yes. Indirectly, it does affect it partly based on the tax acquisition. That however might be fairly irrelevant due to the size of economy. It could however affect the stock and the economy overall. Crisis comes and goes I guess...

[Darkpriest]

@Rostere

 

1) Please do add a name tag to the first graph.

2) Please add a graph with GDP growth and also highlight things like 70s oil crisis, etc. if you can easily find these things.