gellar wrote:khomotso wrote:That society will just win and attract the winners.
I hear you, and you may be right. But then I want to ask: winning according to what standard? Let's say you have a very productive society with a better bottom line, and it starts to compare itself to a society with a much weaker market, but much lower working hours and much higher personal satisfaction among its citizens? Who is winning? Which society will envy the other? Depends on which person you talk to, I'd imagine.
I think you'd find a situation where people would start to migrate - probably in both directions, depending on what gets the individual going - and neither one would overwhelm the other.
I think I see a case not for winning, but coexistence.
Well look what we have now. Japan and the US both have a considerable amount of innovation going on, while Norway doesn't really have crap. Now don't get me wrong, I loves me some Norway, but the rewards there are far lower than they are in the more Capitalistic societies. And Norway isn't exactly 100% Socialist.
gellar
I think the best example of what gellar is describing is Cuba.
Cuba has probably the highest standard of living (and of course not financially) behind the industrialized nations in America. There simply is no competition. They have free education for all, free healthcare for all, free food (to an extent) for all, and either 99% or 100% employment.
However, because they are an island (in so many senses) of socialism, people know that they could get all kinds of cool shit in the US and risk their lives to obtain it. If you ask most of the working class folks who land on the shores of Miami if they hate Castro and Cuba, you'll mostly hear "no." The rich Cubans in Miami hate Castro. The poor people (as is almost always the case, worldwide) don't really care one way or the other. They just want good food and shelter. Many Cubans leave Cuba with strong communist ideals, but stronger "I want money" ideals. Top that with a bizarre immigration policy implemented by the US and you have quite a lot of Cubans coming to Miami, escaping what some around the world would consider a poor person's paradise.
Cuba provides a great deal of innovation in terms of medicine, creating vaccines for diseases the US drug companies could care less about. The world's biggest killer, Malaria, could be solved with, according to many, about $10 billion, but since it isn't profitable to exterminate the disease and build free wells and water purifiers for poor people, the US isn't doing it. Cuba is trying, even with its meager resources.
If you go to any other American country (besides the US) and ask them what Cuba does for America, as opposed to what the US does for America, they will respond with mostly enthusiastic praise for the medicine and doctors Cuba provides. When Hurricaine Mitch devestated Central America, it was Cuban doctors who provided the most for Americans. The Cuban government trains poor people from around America, even the US, to become doctors for poor communities for free. I met a woman from Oakland who was studying to be a doctor for her community in Oakland. She was in Cuba pretty much against the will of her government for the sole purpose of helping her community in Oakland. The majority of the American people, the peasants and campesinos and farmers, all believe Cuba is a wonderful place. But a lot of those same people in Cuba think it is just okay, and leave for the US.
It is all very interesting.