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KingMob 16 hours ago

Theory:

> In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries, friends and network of connections. The side effect is that the most productive individuals are discouraged and punished, with the whole society lagging in effect.

Evidence: the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine.

jack_tripper 16 hours ago | parent [-]

>>In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries

>Evidence: the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine.

That evidence of socialism working well, only works as long as there are enough resources to cover the needs of most people, basically some of the wealthier European countries.

But when those resources become scarce due to poor economic conditions and/or mismanagement, then you'll see the endless queues, black margets and nepotism running the system.

Evidence: former European communist countries who experienced both systems and where in some, nepotism to bypass lists still work to this day.

intended 15 hours ago | parent [-]

I think the 2024 Economics Nobel disproves this. It showed that nations with strong institutions create wealth - and it was a causative link they proved, not simply correlation.

jack_tripper 15 hours ago | parent [-]

How does that disprove what I said about abundance or lack thereof in socialized systems? Feels like an orthogonal issue.

Socialized systems don't work without abundance. How you generate that abundance is orthogonal to socialism since even countries that are wealthy on paper suffer from shortages and long waiting times in public healthcare leading to a gray-market of using connections to get ahead or more private use.

layer8 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They are arguing that nepotism caused the lack of abundance, instead of the lack of abundance causing the nepotism as you are arguing.

jack_tripper 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Both are true. Because when the abundance runs out, people start using nepotism to get what they need. You can see it in the tech job market now. More and more good jobs are only through networking. Meritocracy alone was enough during the times of abundance.

intended 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Hmm. In the framing you are using, I would say that wealth is first generated from strong institutions - socialism or not.