Economic Freedom of the World, by Milton Friedman, is the most referenced study of economic freedom's correlation to standards of living and growth. That study has shown that economic freedom correlates strongly with higher average income per person, higher income of the poorest 10%, higher life expectancy, higher literacy, lower infant mortality, higher access to water sources and less corruption. Economic freedom is tracked by 38 variables. Obama's socialist policies would move us lower on the economic freedom index, and thereby correlate with lower average income, lower life expectancy, etc etc.
Friedman's model has, admittedly, been massively influential, but to suggest that it's the be-all end-all of economic analysis is fairly naïve, particularly when 1) the westernized nations with the highest living standards are some of the most compromising adopters of Friedman's ideas, 2) many writers and economists have actively spoken out against Friedman's writings, and stated that their natural extension is a society with greater gross wealth that's not effectively redistributed, and 3) the United States - the world's biggest advocate of lazee faire economics - just approved a bailout package that constitutes one of the largest acts of socialism in world history, and which was complimented by the prime-time TV commentary of one Jim Cramer: "we're all communists now."
From what basis do you conclude that the role of government is to "generate equality"? That's a gigantic normative, ethical claim which a huge portion of Americans, and our Founding Fathers, would probably disagree with.
I didn't mean to infer that the cultivation of 'equality' is the normative standard by which all governments will measure their achievement, but simply that when Americans assert that their country offers "equal opportunity" the claim is somewhat paradoxical, as America is so aggressively backward in its social policies (it's an anamoly among westernized nations in so many ways: high poverty, high crime, high religious worship - this one must have some positive implications - irrationally nationalistic politics) that many of its citizens are born into settings in which success is virtually unattainable.
False. Leftist policies reduce economic growth. The young are the biggest beneficiaries of economic growth, as the growth compounds throughout their lifetime. Moreoever, socialist policies of the more moderate sort you are proposing almost always involve a redistribution from the working (young) to the non-working (elderly). They also serve to put a damper on your income through higher taxation, which in turn prevents you from savings and capital accumulation that would enable you to gain social mobility.
Your presumption is based on the notion that centre-left policies lead to massive reductions in economic growth and standard of living, when in actuality they typically benefit the majority of people (if not the gross wealth of society, which is still unchanged enough to justify the model). In Canada tuitions are far lower than in the United States as a result of government subsidization. Is that worth remarking? Inevitably, many young people who would have difficulties gaining an education in the U.S. are able to garner one here, and subsequently pursue careers in the service sector that help rapidize our shift to a contemporary economy.
Of course, Canada has its problems, too: some of our provinces - ones that spent a long time under far-left rule come to mind, excepting B.C. - cultivated governments that weren't receptive to economic growth, thereby crippling their economies to the point where provinces with more realistic models had to buoy them year after year (this was more prevalent in the nineties than today, though it still exists). But it's hard to describe a province like Ontario, that uses a centrist model and manages to 1) have
far less crime than the United States, 2) have
far less poverty than the United States, and 3) actively support its business sector and produce surpluses while paying $10b a year out in transfer payments - as any kind of failure.
Also, everyone here who keeps citing the European model really needs to review simple demographics. Demographics is destiny. Demographics says the European model is BROKEN. They can't sustain their welfare state; welfare economics reduced the birth rate, and with fewer children, there aren't enough workers to pay for it, and the population is aging so fast, the whole system will simly collapse. It's game over in a generation.
Uh... the incompetence of American policymaking just resulted in their triggering potentially the largest recession in the past century, short of the great depression. The U.S. has debt coming out of its ears. And you think things are going worse in Europe? Apparently, welfare states are a lot
more sustainable than unilaterial military takeovers and pseudo-libertarian economic models that come with their own array of problems.
And noone could sustain their welfare state in holistic terms after the recession of the eighties, including the United States. But that doesn't mean that it's economically or pragmatically intelligent to abandon the idiom of social compassion entirely. Your comment about birthrates is deft, too: yes, Canada and most of Europe have lower birth rates than the United States (and if you look at who in the U.S. is having the children, you're essentially priding your country on its own impovershment anyway), but Canada is in the throes of addressing the problem via allowing more immigration, hence our even more-than-in-America vehemence about multicultural tolerance.
Let's not inflict that on America.
What? Lower poverty? Lower crime? A more even redistribution of wealth? People come from all over the industrialized world and chuckle at how backward American social policies are, and the extent to which the country has convinced itself regressive models are somehow akin to patriotism. And FYI: I'm not anti-American - the country has an exuberant artistic history, a culture that's unique and commendable (far moreso than Canada's), and its citizens are byinlarge intelligent and personable people. I just wish it could implement governmental decision-making that did its multifaceted greatness justice.
P.S. I volunteered for the Conservative Party in the last Canadian election, who are - like many of the conservative parties in the developed world - somewhere left of the Democrats, and Barack Obama.
Every socialist society has lead to a dictatorship and then crumbled under it's own stupidity. The concept is stupid, the practice is idiotic, and the supporters are hippie pot smoking college students who are going to be embarrassed with themselves when they look back on this type of idiocy. Socialism is NOT a good thing, and it has never BEEN a good thing.
Except that Barack Obama hardly qualifies as a 'social democrat', and I don't see Canada going to hell in a handbasket any time soon.
I might add that this $250k limit of taxes for Obama? That includes businesses, thanks to corporate personhood. Tax business, lose jobs. Lose jobs, we get deeper into this rabbit hole.
This is incredibly oversimplified - the supposed American axiom of of "tax more, vaporize economy" is baseless, particularly when the amount of poverty in the United States, for example, is causally a large part of what prevents their economy from being as efficient as possible. Moreover 'economy' is not tantamount to 'standard of living' - the latter of which being the gauge by which the benefits of living in westernized countries are generally gauged (the leaders in this are typically the Norwegian countries; Canada and Australia).
