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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   27227 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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Life in a social democracy with more robust social services, in other words. Sounds great to me.

The problem is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

That's not really in evidence. The Nordic social democracies that are held up as exemplars may not be entirely what some of their external fans believe they are (in particular, they still have poor people, you still have to go to work, and they have high taxes on everyone, not just the rich), but they're not in danger of running out of money.

Do the Nordic social democracies provide to everyone:

  • Unlimited world class healthcare
  • 40 hours of (free) childcare a week
  • No more than two children per bedroom, and older children should not have to share a room for as many children as you can have

As far as I can tell the answer is "no" to all three. I assume the answer is the same for the rest of the list.

Yes, yes, and within reason.

This is very easily googleable or verifiable by either going there or asking anyone from those places.

That last one is iffy though; I was told (in Oslo, at least) that if you want a big house for any amount of money you are gonna have to be willing to move outside the metro area.

Unlimited healthcare? Any procedure you want, the government will cover 100%?

40 hours of free childcare a week does not appear to exist, but maybe I missed it.

Last one is just totally false as far as I can tell. If you make enough money, sure.

I don’t know about the others, but unlimited world class healthcare is not unlimited healthcare to the maximal extent possible.

Unlimited means unlimited.

I'm middle-income in Finland, and we currently have two kids who both have their own bedroom and get 30 hours of free childcare for the older one per week. (Could be more but my wife doesn't want it, and wants to keep the younger one completely at home for a bit longer.) I'm not sure what "unlimited" means regarding health care in this context.

Do unemployed people also have 3+ bedroom apartments within biking distance of downtown?

There is a world of difference between your strawman and real existing social democracy societies to which many younger people in the us aspire to. And you can easily have tens of thousands affordable 3+ bedroom apartments near the downtown. You just need to accept the glory of the commie block! Or at least, it's variation more palatable to the western tastes.

  • it's not my strawman
  • a guy jumped in and said that the strawman sounds great
  • I've been in commie blocks and the people who grew up there rarely had one bedroom per kid unless they only had one kid
  • the societies that built commie blocks were more into "if you don't work, you don't eat" than ensuring that the underclass gets their share of social benefits

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