In response to "Socialism collapsing in on itself"

A response to complaints by some conservatives that Greece is an example of failure because of socialism, mixed with a few other progressive ideas:



The Greek financial crisis has two major causes. Excess spending ("socialism collapsing in on itself") and failed investments (ultimately caused by the collapse of mortgage-backed securities after the housing bubble burst). Socialism is working just fine in Scandinavia, where responsible finances are mixed with a strong social safety net. The result is a very high standard of living resulting from shared wealth. Much of their wealth is from natural resources, the proceeds from which are shared, as they are viewed as societal property, not the property of whomever extracts it.

Concerning the general fear that the Left is trying to take over people's lives, isn't it possible that a happy medium can be found? A decrease in government regulation has been the trend over the past quarter century has not worked very well. Deregulated energy systems create power outages in CA. Unregulated health systems create a situation where people are unable to purchase insurance at any price. Deregulated mining safety systems create lax standards leading to preventable mine collapses and oil spills. The repeal of financial regulation leads to institutions that take unnecessary risks and leave the taxpayers with the bill once they achieve "too big to fail" status.

The Left doesn't want to control people and doesn't think people are too dumb to make good decisions (OK, some on the left do, but I will be speaking for myself), but rather wants to provide a strong safety net because anybody can find themselves in dire straits and all people are bad at judging risk. I would be much less likely to buy auto insurance if I wasn't forced to do so, and I would have a small but real chance of total financial ruin because of it. Very low probability events that have very high risks are hard to judge, and an error in judgement could have such drastic effects that a mandated safety net is generally the best bet for society. As long as everyone chips in, everyone benefits. Unfortunately, voluntary taxes do not work.

Finally, Marxism is influential to me not because I think it's the best economic system (it is probably the worst, it just doesn't take human nature into account), but it does provide an admirable system of personal responsibility: "From each according to his means, to each according to his needs" is tweaked to: "I, personally, should benefit society as much as I can, and I should take enough only to meet a median level of comfort."