To me, Singapore is not a model to follow, but and experience to learn from nonetheless. According to what I have read, thirty four years ago the average American was three times as wealthy as the average person in Singapore. Today, the average person in Singapore is wealthier than the average person in U.S. No other nation that has a population of one million, or more and does not export much oil has achieved this. No other nation has deregulated its economy as much as Singapore has deregulated its economy either.
A number of years ago I had read an article about Southeastern Asia in Encyclopedia Britannica. The editors of the encyclopedia had received from me a letter in which I had said that I disagreed with the author of that article about the reasons why different countries in that part of the word had different standards of living. I had said in that letter that what makes the greatest difference for the economy is how difficult it is to do business. Incomes grow faster in those countries where it is easier to do business. Incomes grow slower in those countries where it is more difficult to do business.
In less than twlve months after that I had received a letter from the editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. That letter had said that I was right and the article that I disagreed with would be dropped. That article did not appear in the subsequent edition of that encyclopedia.
--- In Politics_CurrentEvents_Group@yahoogroups.com, "Gary" <garyrumor2@...> wrote:
>
> I guess it depends on how you define what a socialist run country. Singapore is a fairly dictatorial state politically and is anti-communist. It favors the big corporate enterprises. China is run by Communists but it is also a haven for corporate capitalism. Sweden has a strong social welfare system and is many people's model of socialism, but it is a mixed capitalist-socialist economy and a democratic government. Every example is different so I guess I would need to know what socialist state you are talking about.
>
> --- In Politics_CurrentEvents_Group@yahoogroups.com, "zeus32117" <zeus32117@> wrote:
> >
> > It is usually a lot more difficult to find a well paying job in those countries that are ruled by socialists than in a country like Singapore, where socialists are a very small minority.
> >
> > --- In Politics_CurrentEvents_Group@yahoogroups.com, "Gary" <garyrumor2@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Left Out In America
> > > April 26th, 2011
> > >
> > > Last night I was caught up in reading a site called "Socialist Voice" that seemed to have a Trotskyist slant to it. I hadn't really taken the Trotskyist viewpoint seriously for a long time, but the debate on the pages of this web-publication was actually pretty interesting, not all convoluted Marxist rhetoric at all. I could actually follow the debate. It seems that after the fall of the Soviet Union the Trotskyist factions have had a crisis of meaning. They no longer were the left opposition to the Stalinists, because for the most part the party of Stalin had collapsed. They could participate in the anti-war opposition, like ANSWER, but without a draft, the anti-war movement seems to be floundering. The left, in North America, and in the USA in particular seems to need to be against something. It has a hard time rallying energy around being for a particular program.
> > >
> > > The democratic left of the Democrats, used to rally around DSA, Democratic Socialists of America, which came from the old Socialist Party. Now we have a Progressive Caucus in Congress, one socialist Senator, and that is about it in Congress. There is an anemic Green Party, various Marxist sects that call themselves "Parties", a variety of social movements such as gay rights, abortion rights, and that is the American left. We have a fairly strong anarchist movement that is mostly made up of students and former students who have not yet entered the work force or found their legs in academia yet. There is an environmental movement that seems to be wandering down its own path of incorporation into the capitalist system. We have a very motivated immigrant rights movement among Latinos, a Black Caucus in Congress, and a labor movement that seems to be on its last legs but every now and then shows a little vitality, like the opposition to the Wisconsin Governor removing some of the bargaining rights of public workers in the state. This is a reactionary movement, and ultimately will probably lose steam as Americans get used to having no labor representation other than what protection the state offers. That leaves us with President Obama and his presidential campaign. I watched the video to rally the troops put out by his reelection committee. It was lame, there was no content, only a weak pep rally, go team. Not one word on policy, just a rehashing of the `community worker' line, as if Obama was just off the streets himself working in a homeless shelter. It made me wonder if anyone buys this crap and that is what we are offered as the alternative to the Republicans.
> > >
> > > Is the left wing in America anachronistic? Are they stuck looking at labor in the past, the good old days of the sixties, or the thirties or even the teens? Yesterday's labor movement, or left wing activism are not going to bring about transformation. So where do we look for the future? Latin America seems to be moving along in a progressive direction with Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil edging along in a progressive direction. Cuba seems to be taking a right turn with its willingness to privatize sectors of the economy. Socialism is beginning to look like something they cannot afford to maintain in a sea of state sponsored capitalism, or perhaps it is capitalist sponsored statism.
> > >
> > > The problem I see with these insurgent states is that they are one coup away from a right wing dictatorship, unless they have thoroughly purged their militaries of the CIA and School of the America's trained thugs. We can see how in Venezuela they attempted a coup and failed narrowly. The USA was ready to celebrate the victory of the `forces of democracy', but fortunately it didn't happen. Anarchists in Venezuela are not particularly happy with the Bolivarian movement. They don't seem to have much of an alternative unless they can align with a local indigenous and peasant movement. Most anarchists tend to be urban creatures. The World Social Forum seems to be a place where a lot of steam is gathered. The question is, are they generating any heat with all that steam?
> > >
> > > The Arab world is going through radical change. It is the place where the action is, and Africa as a continent perhaps is right behind them. Asia seems to have gone for capitalist transformation and is integrated into the world market at various levels. Africa remains the world raw material center and seems doomed to remain so unless there is serious social change. The Marxist wave seems to have passed and now they are about ready for their version of neo-liberal democracy. But first it must transform the Arab world. If neo-liberalism succeeds in creating a series of successful Mini-Europe's in North Africa and the Middle East, then Africa south of the Sahara will be next and it will be interesting to see if semi-socialist Latin America manages to maintain an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism.
> > >
> > > Certainly Obama has sold it to the Arab world with his kinder, gentler, face of capitalist exploitation. His is imperialism with silent drone attacks instead of F-16's and Apache helicopter assault ships. Obama likes to use his proxy warriors in Europe, prodding the British and French into action in Libya, rather than showing off the big American stick. A more subtle approach, one that seems to be appreciated in the sophisticated circles of the upper ruling classes, is the Obama tactic, velvet encased and pearl handled sticks. Although I am sure there are more rough and ready ruling class types who can't wait to sweep out the tea drinkers and bring back a more two fisted crew. The Tea Party represents that mentality, although in reality the Tea Party is all for show. It is simply another ploy to rally the socially conservative mass of white males and their mates if they will buy into that nonsense. It has replaced the old racist `good old boy' redneck approach of past decades. Without a working class left wing set of values, to oppose the right wing takeover of the working classes, there seems to be little chance of a resurgent labor movement or a left outside of academia and the upper middle class professionals who seem to have taken the mantle of liberal social concern, a more pedestrian version of upper class charity wives.
> > >
> > > The vision I am painting is rather bleak. It need not be so. At any time the mass of workers could simply get fed up. But if the last recession is any example, they simply complained and listened to Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck and blamed the immigrants for stealing their jobs and benefits. The great communist conspiracy has become a Muslim one, and the rich, get richer while the politicians wring their hands and pretend to do something about it. Ignorance is bliss. How true.
> > >
> > > Watch out or they will be taking your Medicare and Social Security away. Blaming the budget deficits, as if that ever meant anything to a politician, is a great smokescreen. Deficit spending has been normal for as long as rulers could figure out ways to extract wealth from the merchant classes. When the debt got too great they simply declared a jubilee, or threw the merchants in prison until they wrote off the debt. Any fool should understand that debt is a tool for allocating resources and if too much power is given to creditors they will abuse their privilege. Debtors thus must periodically expropriate the wealth and reestablish a more balanced economy. Otherwise the wealth will continue to accumulate in fewer and fewer hands and eventually the economy will stagnate. It is simply a poorly designed system but until socialism of some sort is implemented, this see-saw will continue to be the system in practice.
> > >
> >
>
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