“but in the last three years sweeping cuts to social services, healthcare and benefits by Finland’s rightwing government have seen the country’s success story go into reverse”
Easy concept: Put money in to save and gain money long term -> investment.
Conservatives come in and cut so much, that there is no more long term gain -> see all those social investments do not work!!!oneoneeleven!! They only cost money!
The unfortunate fact is that these left wing policies cost money and despite fairly high tax rates, they had to borrow a ton of it. Now that’s being overcorrected for by the right wing and I bet they’ll also lower taxes, causing even more debt.
Much of EU is seeing an increase of both its debt to GDP ratio as well as the average age of its citizens, so a few decades from now, many countries will be proper fucked by debt.
So, what you are saying is that it is not possible, under capitalism, to provide a solution for the problem that planned economy solves, and that, under capitalism, people will necessarily be tortured by being denied basic necessities like that. If so, I would argue that you are, indeed, correct.
Let me remind you that the problem in question was homelessness. Planned economy solve that problem by making it so that all economic agents (in this case we only care about one - the state) are interested in providing guaranteed housing.
As for running out of working-age people, planned economies have been able to provide favorable conditions to people having children and universal healthcare and guaranteed housing so that people don’t die simply because that would make some rich guy even richer.
They do pay tax in Finland, it’s much harder to evade than somewhere like the US or UK. And the tax rates are pretty high.
It’s easy to think that the government having more money can solve everything, but there’s still a limited and shrinking pool of labour available. Money doesn’t make young people materialize out of thin air.
If you look at the average age graph for Finland, you’ll notice that 70 years ago it was very young (tons of children who don’t work) and now it’s pretty old (tons of retirees who don’t work). In the middle there, it was a very strong economy with a strong workforce.
The only way around this is to start importing young people from 3rd world countries while they can still afford to allow their people to emigrate - as their own populations start aging, they may have to start restricting it. That’s unpopular because it drives people’s wages down, but if your labour pool is shrinking faster than the amount of people who need to be supported by the labour pool, you need to expand the labour pool somehow. Unless you want to start killing off old people or raise the retirement age to 75 eventually.
but there’s still a limited and shrinking pool of labour available.
That’s true, but productivity is also part of the equation. A shrinking quota of young people does not mean that the economy can’t be sustainable, when the outpot of a worker grows.
That is why “just money” can actually go a very long way in solving “all the problems”.
Already explained this elsewhere in the thread, but that doesn’t magically make young people appear out of thin air. Money can be used to motivate people to work, it doesn’t make them appear out of thin air.
You’ll have to start importing people from the third world to make up for your aging society while that’s still an option (i.e while they still have enough young people to allow emigration).
I swear it seems that most people here seem to think money alone can solve every issue without humans being involved when it comes to these issues. If that were the case, why do we need people in the first place? Just have the money farm for food, build housing, etc.
It… doesn’t matter if you use money or not? An aging society has fewer people working, i.e fewer people helping other people? You’ll have the same problem regardless of capitalism vs communism. Or rather, under capitalism it might even be easier to abuse young, able-bodied folk into supporting a bunch of people who don’t work, we just call those people capitalists rather than retirees or disabled people.
This is why I don’t trust the “SocDem” way (Scandinavian socialism.) If you let the capitalists control capital, especially media, it’s just a matter of time before they ruin everything.
“but in the last three years sweeping cuts to social services, healthcare and benefits by Finland’s rightwing government have seen the country’s success story go into reverse”
Classic
a staple amongst right wing governments always give a less fortunate group to look down upon to distract.
Easy concept: Put money in to save and gain money long term -> investment. Conservatives come in and cut so much, that there is no more long term gain -> see all those social investments do not work!!!oneoneeleven!! They only cost money!
Yup. We can learn that left wing politics are humane and right wing politics can only destroy. So nothing new.
The unfortunate fact is that these left wing policies cost money and despite fairly high tax rates, they had to borrow a ton of it. Now that’s being overcorrected for by the right wing and I bet they’ll also lower taxes, causing even more debt.
Much of EU is seeing an increase of both its debt to GDP ratio as well as the average age of its citizens, so a few decades from now, many countries will be proper fucked by debt.
There’s one left wing party and the major right wing one is the one taking record high loans. They’ve had financial control for decades
So, what you are saying is that it is not possible, under capitalism, to provide a solution for the problem that planned economy solves, and that, under capitalism, people will necessarily be tortured by being denied basic necessities like that. If so, I would argue that you are, indeed, correct.
Yes. It is not possible, under capitalism, to provide a solution for the problem that planned economy solves: Running out of working age people.
I’m not exactly sure how a planned economy solves it, but I guess you can explain that to me.
Let me remind you that the problem in question was homelessness. Planned economy solve that problem by making it so that all economic agents (in this case we only care about one - the state) are interested in providing guaranteed housing.
As for running out of working-age people, planned economies have been able to provide favorable conditions to people having children and universal healthcare and guaranteed housing so that people don’t die simply because that would make some rich guy even richer.
The borrowing is because right wing oligarchs evade taxes. If we made sure that the reactionary elite actually gets dealt with, it’d solve a lot.
They do pay tax in Finland, it’s much harder to evade than somewhere like the US or UK. And the tax rates are pretty high.
It’s easy to think that the government having more money can solve everything, but there’s still a limited and shrinking pool of labour available. Money doesn’t make young people materialize out of thin air.
If you look at the average age graph for Finland, you’ll notice that 70 years ago it was very young (tons of children who don’t work) and now it’s pretty old (tons of retirees who don’t work). In the middle there, it was a very strong economy with a strong workforce.
The only way around this is to start importing young people from 3rd world countries while they can still afford to allow their people to emigrate - as their own populations start aging, they may have to start restricting it. That’s unpopular because it drives people’s wages down, but if your labour pool is shrinking faster than the amount of people who need to be supported by the labour pool, you need to expand the labour pool somehow. Unless you want to start killing off old people or raise the retirement age to 75 eventually.
I don’t think I can even imagine what a society that has an average age of 25 even looks like.
That’s true, but productivity is also part of the equation. A shrinking quota of young people does not mean that the economy can’t be sustainable, when the outpot of a worker grows.
That is why “just money” can actually go a very long way in solving “all the problems”.
Well then, tax the rich.
Already explained this elsewhere in the thread, but that doesn’t magically make young people appear out of thin air. Money can be used to motivate people to work, it doesn’t make them appear out of thin air.
You’ll have to start importing people from the third world to make up for your aging society while that’s still an option (i.e while they still have enough young people to allow emigration).
I swear it seems that most people here seem to think money alone can solve every issue without humans being involved when it comes to these issues. If that were the case, why do we need people in the first place? Just have the money farm for food, build housing, etc.
Finland right now has the highest unemployment rate in the EU, so lack of young people can’t explain this particular problem.
If money is stopping us from helping people, then we need to stop using money, rather than stop helping people.
It… doesn’t matter if you use money or not? An aging society has fewer people working, i.e fewer people helping other people? You’ll have the same problem regardless of capitalism vs communism. Or rather, under capitalism it might even be easier to abuse young, able-bodied folk into supporting a bunch of people who don’t work, we just call those people capitalists rather than retirees or disabled people.
Are you suggesting… stealing?
This is why I don’t trust the “SocDem” way (Scandinavian socialism.) If you let the capitalists control capital, especially media, it’s just a matter of time before they ruin everything.