Divided by a common language? A Euro look at politics.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

The Americans call it a sidewalk - to us , it is pavement.
In England, women use garters to hold up their stockings - in America , men use ' garters ' to hold up their trousers. Well, we call them 'braces' - but we call an Eraser 'a rubber'. Yeah , it is complicated trying to talk to Americans , even if you speak English.

But in Politics, it gets worse.

England has a Queen . She is not elected, so we are not a Republic.
Oh yes you are, say some Americans. You don't vote yourself on issues, you vote for an elected rep who votes on issues on your behalf - so you are not a Real Democracy.(TM)

Er, we are not an Athenian ( or Direct) Democracy, we are a Representational Democracy.

No you're not - are a Republic.
Now we are not, republics don't have any monarchs, we are a Constitutional Monarchy because we have a Queen...

And so it goes on.

To some , Socialism is about workers owning the means of production, to me it's about having publicly run services inside a mixed Economy.

Er, no Minto, that is Social Democracy.

Ok, you call it what you will, but this is how we do things in Europe, and Ii will tell you why it works for us and ask you maybe if you want to try it.

Lets call it a Mixed Economy. The Government runs some things , but private Enterprise runs others.
And it's not like they all get drawn out of a hat, or get given out like apples , one for me , one for you.
The work is shared out largely on the basis of what I would call 'a natural monopoly' it works like this in the UK...

London is a big city, and people want letters and parcels delivered, sometimes at short notice.
Now, you can put a parcel in the post , or you can pay DHL or some other company to deliver it for you- there is no natural monopoly on owning a van. anyone can buy one and run a delivery service.

Now, what about a sewage system? see , there is already a sewage system in place. Why should I disconnect my house from the existing system and join the one you want to build, that is simply duplicating the effort?
you see why I consider sewage treatment a suitable case for public and not private ownership?

Yes , if someone runs a really bad delivery service that is late and loses things , then there ought to be an alternative and there can be one. competition in business makes for efficiency, I think.
But do we need 3 or more different sewage systems competing in London , or a few different air forces to defend us from attack? I don't think so. get one , staff it with service minded professionals and we will all be ok.

Only if we get to the point where a government service is not delivering the results we want should we consider sacking and replacing people in that service. Anmd if that don't work - go for private tender.

Some forms of business can be run side by side.in the UK, everyone gets Public Healthcare and Publicly Funded Education. now, if you want something better than what the State is offering , I am happy for there to be a choice- after all, if you go private for a hip replacement , say, well you shorten the queue for those that can't afford anything but State Care. If you send your kids to Eton, you free up space in the local State School. so long as there is some form of provision for everyone, I don't mind.

What I don't get is why Americans seem to object to this. I mean , Obama did not install Universal Health Care, he simply widened the net to include more people.
Arrgh! He is a Soshulist! He's a Commie!
Er, not really. socialist, to some extent, but socialism and communism are not identical. Not to europeans.
I can get that people like to do things for themselves, and not have other people tell them that they can't let their kids sell lemonade in their front yards.

hey, they are kids, not some multi million dollar corporation, just let 'em be - that is my take.
but if you are going to be employing other people and taking in serious money, buying up property all over town and such - well, let's talk about planning permission , building regulations , fire escapes and pollution controls.

Otherwise, you end up with a problem like the one BP caused.

See, people in Europe, at one time, thought that you needed to have the Government actually own the plant to make sure that the workers got treated fairly. And we wondered why the italians and the germans could make decent cars and we couldn't.

then we got it sorted out - we sold off British Leyland to a private investor and told them "You make the cars and we will make the rules". And it does seem to work better that way. So, that is the basis of the Mixed Economy. the goverment regulates the market in the interests of the consumer, and so long as the manufacturers and the entreprenuers follow the same rules, nobody gives them any bother.

The State pays for roads, and other infrastructure, workers supply time and skills, and the business people take all this and turn it into money. I mean , how do you improve on that?

But that's my take on a Mixed Economy and how it ought to be run . What's yours?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Minto, my man, I hate to break it to you, but Europe consists of more than the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. What works in one island country in Europe would not necessarily work in other European island countries. I favor a social democracy on the German model, not the British. A model that's been the center of one of the greatest economies in Europe since the 1880s has more to recommend it than Britain's does.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Fair enough - then tell us how they run their railways, their schools and their health service. can you tell us how their political system works?

I don't like the idea of a President being part of the political system, like it is in America, for a start.

I think that there ought to be a Premier, a cabinet of Ministers, but that the Head of State, the president, should be above Politics - like the Queen in England.

Of course, if you get a good one, it is wonderful - but you are limited to the eldest son as a successor.Not an ideal situation.

The Saxons chose the monarch from among the members of the royal family. The Witan did the choosing . Maybe we should have a president , chosen by the members of the elected upper house - who would probably go for someone who was a mix of Grace Kelley and Lady Diana Spencer.

But anyway - how do the Germans manage the situation? Not just in terms of running the political system , but everything else?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm not obligated to do this research for someone who wants to be an MP.

That describes how the President and Chancellor work under the Grundgesetz.

The Saxons, I might note, were originally Germans, hence reference to Saxony. The Germans run a parliamentary state and have the oldest, most intact welfare state in Europe. They also happen to be the most prosperous state in Europe and have tended to be such, and not co-incidentally had universal manhood suffrage and UHC long before the rest of Europe thought it was a good idea. Not that Imperial Germany was what I'd call good for all this, but it was the most modern European economy of its time.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

the italians make decent cars? fiat, i say.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I love the old fiat 500s. They're so adorable.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

the cinquecento. cute and practical too. you could push it to the side of the road whenever it broke down.

[prog-expat.livejournal.com]

Ferrari and Lamborghini, I say.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

cheap too!

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I don't know if they still make the Lamborghini Countach, but that was one hot car.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Aprilia, Motoguzzi, Ducati, MV Agusta, Benelli, Cagiva, Laverda, Vespa, Lambretta... I really like Italian motorcycles.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Fix It Again, Tony!

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

left the American market, had steady quality improvments, increased sales, had better market shares and then bought 35% of Chrysler when they were in the dumps.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

To some , Socialism is about workers owning the means of production, to me it's about having publicly run services inside a mixed Economy.

Er, no Minto, that is Social Democracy.

Okay, thanks. Note that we're probably both social democrats, so I wasn't arguing against it, just stating that it wasn't socialism.

Redundant infrastructure is definitely a good reason for public ownership of certain things like roads and sewer systems. Imagine if there were 3 or 4 sets of competing roads? More than one sewer system? It would take up an absurd amount of space. A lot of things are limited by size constrains, and only made sense if there is a monopoly, and if we're going to have a monopoly then it might as well be run by an organization that's accountable to the people- such as the government.

Also, citizens in local municipalities have much more of a say over these institutions than if they were private enterprises.

Now, if you want to try it differently, you can do what Germany does. They have a private healthcare system, but it is HEAVILY regulated. No such thing as 'pre-existing conditions' over in the deutschland. Private insurers are kept on a very tight leash, and are fully accountable to the government. To me, this seems redundant, because if they're accountable to the government, and the government is accountable to the people, why do you need the first one? There's also the fact that having a larger risk pool is better for all forms of insurance, which is easily achieved with a monopoly on healthcare. Even with countries with state-run healthcare, there are still private insurers that cater to the rich people that want to skip queues, the kind of thing that rich Americans would love, and they are doing well.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

In Germany, one has to get a prescription to buy effective levels of vitamins and such, so when you mention heavily regulated, I wonder about restrictions like that.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Er, no Minto, that is Social Democracy.

Would this be the same 'Social Democracy' that is officially listed by Wikipedia as a form of Socialism, and understood by most enlightened Brits as the only form of Socialism that actually works, perhaps?

But whatever it is called, however you want to define it, lets talk about what's under the bonnet, not the name on the boot.

If the German Government can run a private healthcare service, how would it cope with the following emergency :-

A child has got appendicitis, and the appendix actually bursts - it's peritonitis, in medical terms , and can be fatal.

Now, the mother says that the father is unemployed, or on low pay - either way the family cannot pay this bill on their own. What is going to happen next ?

Please note that this situation actually happened to me when I was 7. if I was born in Germany, would I have survived , I wonder?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A TRUSTWORTHY SOURCE MINTO. GAH!

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

In America men wear suspenders to hold up their trousers.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

i wear a belt.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my bad - I vaguely recall Jasper Carrot doing a comedy routine in which he ends up asking for a rubber in a stationers shop.

Yeah, a lot of British men like stockings and suspenders, but the
Americans think that this is weird.

So what do Americans call a suspender belt again ?

[okmewriting.livejournal.com]

Since when was England an island onto itself?

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

It depends who you ask.

Some would say "Ever since we beat the Spanish Armada",
Others will tell you 'Not since we built that bloody Channel Tunnel!".

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Heh.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

in America , men use ' garters ' to hold up their trousers

That's just crazy talk. Suspenders hold up trousers.

Lets call it a Mixed Economy. The Government runs some things , but private Enterprise runs others.
And it's not like they all get drawn out of a hat, or get given out like apples , one for me , one for you.
The work is shared out largely on the basis of what I would call 'a natural monopoly'

That's how it works here too. It is simply a matter of degree. Americans generally want private industry to be the default, government run services only when absolutely necessary. My impression is that it is often the opposite in Europe. We want this generally because of the size of the US government. It is a juggernaut that is highly resistant and costly to change once a service is implemented. Imagine if you would, the difficulties of running all of Europe and Northern Africa under a single government. We live with that every day.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Roman Empire called, they want to sue you for libel.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

The Americans call it a sidewalk - to us , it is pavement.

It's a goddamned footpath you freaks :P