From: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE (Tomas Eriksson)
Subject: Re: Business (was Re: Immigrants and employment)
Reply-To: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 15:15:18 GMT

In article <sooz.714253653@vincent1.iastate.edu>, sooz@iastate.edu (Susan F Bradley) writes:
>In <1992Aug19.145423.20232@eua.ericsson.se> euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman) writes:
>
>[previous posts by J.A. Fagertun and H. Vaisenen deleted]
>
>>Yes. Society has a need to see that these people get themselves a job.
>>Therefore, it shouldn't hinder, with taxes on finances and companies
>>and their owners, comprehensive labour legislation, and compulsory 
>>administrative tasks, an entrepreneur to start a new business taking 
>>advantage of the cheap labor available.
>
>Spoken like a true, libertarian capitalist. You probably wouldn't feel an ounce
>of shame at the return of sweatshops, child labour, and abolition of labour
>unions would you? Every man for himself, only the strong shall survive, and all
>that other individualistic rot, eh? 

You're overreacting! He didn't say any of those things!

>> [About Soviet Union]
>
>Of course it would be useful. Whether people like you really want to admit it
>or not - the Soviets *did* manage to give the average person there a better 
>life than what they had before.

Oh yes, I'm sure that it was wonderful to have several of your close 
relatives shot! And it was equally wonderful to have almost the same 
number again dead in a war, that probably never would have started if it 
hadn't been for Stalin.

>There are a quite a few people here from what 
>used to be the Soviet Union. None of those I've spoken to wants to completely 
>abandon the old system - they realize that capitalism a la USA is just as bad
>a system in a different way than their old system. They hope to be able to
>find a balance between the two systems. 

Who ever said USA (that *very* strange country) was the only alternative 
to rule by the likes of Stalin and Lenin? In Sweden in 1989 and 1990, the
Social Democrats believed that countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia 
would become Social Democratic "because the wouldn't like to adopt the 
raw capitalism of the West and would choose a middle way instead". This 
was not the case. They choose to get rid of as much of socialism as they 
could. Of course, the Social Democrats wanted to justify their own 
position as some kind of "golden middle way" between communism and 
capitalism, and this was the reason for their fit of wishful thinking.
("Third Way Politics" was the main slogan for Swedish Social Democrats 
during the second half of the 1980's.)

>"Gee, folks, since we can't take care of the whole world, we just won't take
>care of anyone!" What a warm, caring attitude that is. But that's just it, 
>isn't it? People like you, Mr. Ortman,
                                ^^^^^^
(I believe his name is O"stman.)

>don't care about what happens to anyone
>else, so long as you've got what you want.

Please stop "thinking" for him. It's a very impolite way of debating to 
"give" people views the don't have. It's also a good way of starting a 
flame war.

>In my country the gap between rich and poor is widening every day.
>People who were middle class tax-paying 
>citizens just a couple of years ago are living in homeless shelters and in 
>the streets today. They never thought it could happen to them, but it did. It
>can happen to anyone of us in this country far more easily than any of us want
>to believe.

Excuse me, but this newsgroup is hardly an appropriate forum for a 
general discussion about how bad things are in the USA. As I mentioned 
before, I (and I dare say many Scandinavians with me) think that USA is 
a strange country. I dislike a lot about the USA. I do definitely not 
consider USA a model country, even though I'm "to the right" by Swedish 
political standards. By US standards, I think I would be more likely to
be called "liberal". (Are you automatically a liberal if you want to 
puke every time you hear a politician say "God bless!"? >-: )

>We are constantly telling ourselves that we are the richest nation on the
>face of the earth - yet we have the highest infant mortality rate of the
>industrialised world because so many women can't afford prenatal care.

You're the richest (or second richest or something like that - depends 
on exchange rates) country in the world judged by GDP per capita, or GDP 
per capita adjusted for consumer prices (a calculation that would show 
the total standard of living). But you probably also have the largest 
differences in wealth between individuals among the industrialized 
countries. And you have some other peculiarities...

>Medical care in this country is only for those who can pay for it, you see.
>Is this the kind of society you want for Sweden?

No. USA spends approx. 11% of GDP on health care (no. 1 in the world), 
Sweden spends 9% (or perhaps a few tenths of a % less - somewhere among 
the top 10 - no. 2 and several more hover around 9% - Sweden was no. 2
a few years ago, but I'm not sure if we're no. 2 now). It seems that you
have a *very* low inefficiency (because our's is far from the most
efficient you can imagine... although the are some signs things are
improving) in your health care system, as a whole. Perhaps your physicians
earns unreasonably much, plus that your system of "suiting everyone"
(one of the things about USA that usually make us shake our heads on this
side of the Atlantic) has gotten out of hand (which e.g. forces
obstetricians to pay *huge* sums of money to insurance companies, which
his/her patients of course pays in turn...)?

>Before you decide, perhaps you should remind yourself that YOU could be
>one of the ones who doesn't make it. No, I know you won't believe that -
>not you, Fredrik Ortman, you're too good, too important, too intelligent
>to ever be unemployed and homeless, aren't you?

Again, this is a rather ugly way of "debating". But I think that Fredrik
O"stman would manage in a USA-like society, and so would I. But isn't
that beside the point?

>Well that's what some of the people living in shelters here used to
>think. I'm sick and tired of living in a society which worships the
>individual at the expense of all else. I'd be more than happy to pay
>twice the taxes I do now, if it would give us a system like the one
>you seem so eager to abandon.

Well, emigrate then! Wouldn't Canada be a kind of halfway compromise 
between USA and Sweden? It's also much closer. And they speak English in 
large parts of the country. Think about it! :-)

>The US government has a huge deficit. We got it building bombs.

Partly, yes. USA spends approx. 6% of GDP on defence (or let's say 
"military purposes" - if you don't think your armed forces are defensive 
enough), which is more than most Western countries (Sweden spends about
2,5%, Finland and Denmark a little less, Norway a little more).
Of course, you could have built as many bombs without accumulating any
deficit if the budget had been balanced by e.g. raising taxes. 
("Read my lips..." (-: )

>Better to destroy the entire world than let our precious country fall
>to the hands of the Godless commies, they told us.

Well, I don't think the risk of a Soviet invasion of mainland USA has 
ever been very imminent. And you probably could have been quite safe 
against that kind of threat while still cutting your military expenses
by, say, 50%. You (or at least the governments of USA) wanted to make
sure that Soviet Union wasn't given the chance to invade Western Europe,
Israel, South Korea and Japan, South East Asia (remember Vietnam? (-:
)-: ) and some other places, as well as keeping naval superiority on
the high seas. If these countries had been left to themselves after 
WWII, many of them would have come under Soviet rule, so this hasn't 
been an entirely pointless exercise. More and more, Germany and Japan
are relied upon to defend themselves, which will mean that you gradually
can cut your military expenses. This could have happened earlier, if USA 
had been more willing to *let them* defend themselves (especially in the 
case of Japan).

>Meanwhile our cities were crumbling. Our babies were dying. Our youth
>were snorting cocaine and shooting each other over pairs
>of sport shoes. What kind of a society did we think we were defending? This 
>seems to be what you want.

Again, I've never heard *anyone* want to make Sweden a copy of the USA!

>Please come take it away. I don't know if I can
>stand it much longer, myself.

Sounds serious. Are you sure you wouldn't develop that kind of reaction 
to *any* country? Perhaps you would miss the apple pies after a while? 
:-)

Tomas

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomas Eriksson                                          tomas_e@physchem.kth.se
            Surface Force Group, Department of Physical Chemistry,
               Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden