Could Democratic Socialism work in Ireland

GerB40

Could Democratic Socialism be a solution for Ireland ?

Could Democratic Socialism be a possible solution for Ireland ?

The current economic crisis would never have occured if Ireland had been using a Democratic Socialist system.

Democratic socialism proposes that : 

- Resources and wealth should be used to benefit all members of a society.
- Economic institutions should be controlled and owned by the public affected by them
- All members of a society should have an equal voice in the decisions that affect them. 

(In contrast to the communist form of socialism in which an all-powerful government owns all the resources and industries, and decisions are made for the people instead of by them.)

A key goal of democratic socialism is an economy where resources are shared, rather than left in the hands of large private corporations as is often the case in a capitalist economy. 

One way of accomplishing this would beworker owned and operated cooperatives.

Another option would be putting corporations under public ownership, and having them managed by both the consumers and the workers. 

Extremely large industries, like energy, might require some type of government ownership or control, but the main goal would be to keep the economy under the control of the general public.


I took the above question from another site but I'd like to know what boardsies think about this..

Black Swan wrote: »

MOD REMINDER:
Some comments have been getting a bit too personal. Please focus on making meaningful contributions to the thread topic, and not each other.

GarIT

Ireland is already too socialist that over half of my college year and I have plans to leave Ireland when we graduate.

The educated young and the rich are already considering leaving, more socialism would mean even more leave. People should benefit from their own work and nobody else's.

I don't want to share the money I earn and if I have to I will leave to somewhere I wont. I don't study hard for someone else to claim part of my wages on the dole.

nokia69

do we really want the likes of david begg and jack o' connor having more power

View

GarIT wrote: »

Ireland is already too socialist that over half of my college year and I have plans to leave Ireland when we graduate.

The educated young and the rich are already considering leaving, more socialism would mean even more leave. People should benefit from their own work and nobody else's.

You mean the tax-payers shouldn't have paid for/subsidised the cost of your education at primary, secondary & now tertiary level?

How many "educated young" would we have, had the State followed your advice?

GarIT

View wrote: »

You mean the tax-payers shouldn't have paid for/subsidised the cost of your education at primary, secondary & now tertiary level?

How many "educated young" would we have, had the State followed your advice?

I never mentioned education. Education should be free up to second level and into third level where the person being educated can show the career they aim to achieve from their education and that there is work available in that field.

The educated are the only group that is funding education. The average uneducated PAYE worker isn't even paying enough tax to fund their own cost to the country.

The middle class needs to stop being shafted with the social welfare bill.

alastair

GarIT wrote: »

I never mentioned education. Education should be free up to second level and into third level where the person being educated can show the career they aim to achieve from their education and that there is work available in that field.

The educated are the only group that is funding education. The average uneducated PAYE worker isn't even paying enough tax to fund their own cost to the country.

The middle class needs to stop being shafted with the social welfare bill.

I think your education has been something of a failure. I demand my money back.

Cedrus

GarIT wrote: »

People should benefit from their own work and nobody else's.

GarIT wrote: »

I never mentioned education. Education should be free up to second level and into third level where the person being educated can show the career they aim to achieve from their education and that there is work available in that field.

I pray to all of the gods that you're not studying Economics, Politics or English. If you can find a country to take you, they are welcome.

Manach

Perhaps we could mix some nationalism with the socialism to make it even more interesting.

View

GarIT wrote: »

I never mentioned education. Education should be free up to second level and into third level where the person being educated can show the career they aim to achieve from their education and that there is work available in that field.

Ah, so much for your philosophy of:

People should benefit from their own work and nobody else's

You clearly believe that YOU should be able to benefit from the work of others while - rather hypocritically - object to making your tax contribution to society when your turn comes to pay.

PS And the point about others paying for your education applies equally well to other services from your local hospital, roads, parks, library etc.

GarIT

Cedrus wrote: »

I pray to all of the gods that you're not studying Economics, Politics or English. If you can find a country to take you, they are welcome.

Do you realise that this attitude would destroy the country. I could move to Germany earn more and still pay less tax.

A PAYE worker on the average wage does not pay enough tax to fund their own cost to the state. If the country forces the higher earners out with more socialism, it will be left with a much higher percentage of people that aren't paying enough tax to fund themselves.

GarIT

View wrote: »

Ah, so much for your philosophy of:



You clearly believe that YOU should be able to benefit from the work of others while - rather hypocritically - object to making your tax contribution to society when your turn comes to pay.

PS And the point about others paying for your education applies equally well to other services from your local hospital, roads, parks, library etc.

Education is an exception, education benefits everyone in the country so overall it works out to be fair. Those who spend more time in education will contribute more tax that levels out.

As for everything else you have mentioned everyone benefits equally, they are fair.

In a completely fair world, everybody would pay the same amount of tax no matter how much you earn.

alastair

GarIT wrote: »

Do you realise that this attitude would destroy the country.

Actually, a sweep out of poorly educated dunces who don't believe their taxes in Germany would also support the dole (arbeistlosigkeit) there too, is probably going to only do the country a favour. Auf wiedersehen!

Cedrus

GarIT wrote: »

Ireland is already too socialist that over half of my college year and I have plans to leave Ireland when we graduate.

I think the correct word here is IF, unless you are studying something to do with faeries and leprechauns. Don't bang the door behind you.

Black Swan

MOD REMINDER:
Some comments have been getting a bit too personal. Please focus on making meaningful contributions to the thread topic, and not each other.

Cedrus

GarIT wrote: »

In a completely fair world, everybody would pay the same amount of tax no matter how much you earn.

How would that work? Someone on €100K pays a tithe of €10K, Someone working for them on €10K pays the same €10K then starves. No more labour, no more €100K salary.

Cedrus

GarIT wrote: »

A PAYE worker on the average wage does not pay enough tax to fund their own cost to the state.

This comment needs to be substanstiated, prove or retract.

Cedrus

GerB40 wrote: »

Could Democratic Socialism be a solution for Ireland ?

Could Democratic Socialism be a possible solution for Ireland ?

The current economic crisis would never have occured if Ireland had been using a Democratic Socialist system.

Democratic socialism proposes that : 

- Resources and wealth should be used to benefit all members of a society.
- Economic institutions should be controlled and owned by the public affected by them
- All members of a society should have an equal voice in the decisions that affect them. (Electoral register)

(In contrast to the communist form of socialism in which an all-powerful government owns all the resources and industries, and decisions are made for the people instead of by them.)

A key goal of democratic socialism is an economy where resources are shared, rather than left in the hands of large private corporations as is often the case in a capitalist economy. 

One way of accomplishing this would beworker owned and operated cooperatives. (Co-ops exist nationwide mostly agricultural but also credit unions)

Another option would be putting corporations under public ownership, and having them managed by both the consumers and the workers. (shares can be bought by anybody)

Extremely large industries, like energy, might require some type of government ownership or control, but the main goal would be to keep the economy under the control of the general public. (Like ESB, Bord Gais, VHI???)


I took the above question from another site but I'd like to know what boardsies think about this..

By and large this is how Ireland works, apart from the highlighted line, we are very dependant on commercial banks BUT our credit unions are much more prominent than say the UK where payday loan sharks are exploiting people

magma69

GarIT wrote: »

Education is an exception, education benefits everyone in the country so overall it works out to be fair. Those who spend more time in education will contribute more tax that levels out.

As for everything else you have mentioned everyone benefits equally, they are fair.

In a completely fair world, everybody would pay the same amount of tax no matter how much you earn.

In a completely fair world, the working class would be getting far higher wages as they are the ones that actually create the wealth. The middle classes being taxed higher is a way of balancing it but the true beneficiaries of the current system of course are the upper classes who exploit the labour of the middle and working class.

If you want to talk about fairness, maybe you should be looking above you rather than below.

GarIT

Cedrus wrote: »

This comment needs to be substanstiated, prove or retract.

All you have to do is get the states total expenditure divided by the population which works out at about 14,000 per person per year. Someone earning the average wage(average of people working only) earns 37,000 and pays 8,000 per year between PAYE, PRSI and USC. If you want to include all other forms of tax (VAT, average sized car, property tax and others) you do get up to 15,000. But that is an unfair comparision, you are comparing the average working person to the spending per person. If you calculate gov spending per working person it comes out at 28,500 which is much higher than the high estimate total tax of 15,000 on a person working on the average wage.

When earnings increase so do tax bands, and the wealthy pay disproportionately more than the lower income earners. The high income earners are massively subsidising everyone else with their taxes.

Unless you earn 35k+ you are being supported and not supporting anybody else.

Someone said about social welfare in Ireland and how it still exists in Germany. They are right, it does but it is much proportionately lower compared to the average wage and average tax per person. Germany is also much better are chasing up fraud and people that we would call 'lifers'. In Germany if it is not clear you are making yourself more employable you get nothing. Also if you take the average wage of a software engineer in Germany vs Ireland you would be earning 10k more, and then the tax paid on those wages and you would be paying at least 5k less tax. When people see that they consider leaving, who wouldn't want to be 15k better off per year, and when the higher earners leave you have a big problem called brain drain.

GarIT

Cedrus wrote: »

How would that work? Someone on €100K pays a tithe of €10K, Someone working for them on €10K pays the same €10K then starves. No more labour, no more €100K salary.

Essentially you wouldn't have tax you would pay for the services you use. Can't afford it, don't get the service, but most people don't like pure capitalism. There are a much larger group below the average wage than above it. and large groups win elections.

Iwasfrozen

So let me get this straight. The solution to the socialisation of banking debt is more socialism? Well I guess it worked in Eastern Europe.

Taxes in this country for higher earners are a joke, if SF comes into government and implement a higher band of taxation I will seriously consider moving.

Annasopra

GarIT wrote: »

Do you realise that this attitude would destroy the country. I could move to Germany earn more and still pay less tax.

You clearly know nothing about Germany then.

GarIT

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

You clearly know nothing about Germany then.

Why do you think that?

alastair

GarIT wrote: »

Why do you think that?

Try a few salaries and see how you get on:
http://download.pwc.com/ie/budget-2015/index.html
http://www.parmentier.de/steuer/steuer.htm?wagetax.htm

Three examples (single employed earner, no kids)-

Salary of €75,000
Ireland Total deductions 2014 budget - €25,471, 2015 budget - €24,675
Germany Total deductions 2014 budget - € 33.853,63


Salary of €50,000
Ireland Total deductions 2014 budget - €15,131, 2015 budget - €14,585
Germany Total deductions 2014 budget - € 21.984,88

Salary of €37,000
Ireland Total deductions 2014 budget - €9,281, 2015 budget - €8,865
Germany Total deductions 2014 budget - € 15.813,13

Best of luck!

BoJack Horseman

Is every western European nation not socially democratic?

What the OP describes seems more like if Freeman Ben Gilroy & communism had a baby and the OPs idea was spawned.

K-9

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

So let me get this straight. The solution to the socialisation of banking debt is more socialism? Well I guess it worked in Eastern Europe.

Taxes in this country for higher earners are a joke, if SF comes into government and implement a higher band of taxation I will seriously consider moving.

Or another way of looking at it: the solution to increased risk taking and freer regulation of markets is socialism, capitalism when things are good and the profits are rolling in, socialism when things go bad!

Fun game this!

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

FreudianSlippers

Cedrus wrote: »

How would that work? Someone on €100K pays a tithe of €10K, Someone working for them on €10K pays the same €10K then starves. No more labour, no more €100K salary.

That's a bit of a slippery slope argument. I've discussed this in other threads, but a flat tax does not mean that everyone pays the same amount; they pay the same percent. Plus, there would obviously be a cut-off.

Iwasfrozen

K-9 wrote: »

Or another way of looking at it: the solution to increased risk taking and freer regulation of markets is socialism, capitalism when things are good and the profits are rolling in, socialism when things go bad!

Fun game this!

Or you know just capitalism, make banks responsible for the risks they take.

Black Swan

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

...make banks responsible for the risks they take.

Banks need some proper regulation and oversight, not a free market without regulation. If not, you are letting the foxes watch over the chicken coup, with financial risks that may lead to investment bank failures (e.g., Bear Stearns, etc.), and unrealistic mortgage loans that may lead to huge bank failures (e.g., Washington Mutual, etc.), all contributing to what made the Great Recession "Great." What constitutes "proper" regulation? That's where the real debate begins, addressing Capitalism more than Socialism, although massive worldwide recessions may add fuel to socialist ideas.

Iwasfrozen

Black Swan wrote: »

Banks need some proper regulation and oversight, not a free market without regulation. If not, you are letting the foxes watch over the chicken coup, with financial risks that may lead to investment bank failures (e.g., Bear Stearns, etc.), and unrealistic mortgage loans that may lead to huge bank failures (e.g., Washington Mutual, etc.), all contributing to what made the Great Recession "Great." What constitutes "proper" regulation? That's where the real debate begins, addressing Capitalism more than Socialism, although massive worldwide recessions may add fuel to socialist ideas.

The word regulation is thrown around a lot but what regulation? In what areas and how? The financial industry is far more complicated than most people realise.

Valmont

In a 'free market' without centralised regulation the recession simply would not have occurred:

There would have been no implicit bail-out guarantee forcing the banks to make better commercial decisions

• There would have been no EU-led manipulation of interest rates leading to the creation of a massive and unsustainable housing bubble

As usual the statists ignore the omnipresent reality that banks, people, and builders respond to market signals - even when they're foolishly manipulated by central planners who don't know what they're doing.

I don't know about anyone else but I do not trust the eejits who couldn't figure out how to stop this from happening the first time around to now say 'oh yes sorry about that now we will regulate the banks properly'. Ah grand so I was worried there for a while.

Valmont

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The financial industry is far more complicated than most people realise.

Most importantly it is more complicated than governments realise - leading to the tendency for it to blow up in their faces every now again.

micosoft

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Or you know just capitalism, make banks responsible for the risks they take.

Banks aren't like other businesses. If your local shop goes bust you just go to another shop. If your bank goes bust you lose all your savings and you have no access to an account to pay for things.

And the interconnected nature of banking makes it impossible to contain a bank failure. Even the Americans realise that. Banks are too big to fail. Therefore they must be regulated. Also I find the idea that a bank failing has no "negative" impact.

Letting our banks fail would have cost everyone far far more then bailing them out.

Iwasfrozen

micosoft wrote: »

Banks aren't like other businesses. If your local shop goes bust you just go to another shop. If your bank goes bust you lose all your savings and you have no access to an account to pay for things.

And the interconnected nature of banking makes it impossible to contain a bank failure. Even the Americans realise that. Banks are too big to fail. Therefore they must be regulated. Also I find the idea that a bank failing has no "negative" impact.

Letting our banks fail would have cost everyone far far more then bailing them out.

So cut the problem off at the source, mandatory deposit insurance for everyone with an account. The next time the banks fail (and they will fail again) the insurance companies take the heat, not the government.

Scofflaw

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The word regulation is thrown around a lot but what regulation? In what areas and how? The financial industry is far more complicated than most people realise.

I think most people do realise that, and when they say "properly regulated" they mean "regulated so that doesn't happen again", with the details being left up to the very clever people who do understand finance and its complexities.

Is it even possible to regulate the financial industry so that it doesn't blow up in our faces with unfailing regularity? Probably - over time most complex and apparently intractable systems have eventually yielded to human ingenuity, and most explosions in complex systems are a result of wanting things that are incompatible with stability and sustainability. If we want a financial system that delivers boom-style profits and rewards, bust is a concomitant.

Is "proper regulation" likely to emerge from the current regulatory 'revival'? Probably not. There are good scientific reasons to think that what really counts to ensure the stability of a complex system is a combination of diversity and separation - that is, that there should be a diversity of strategies and companies, and that those companies should not all be strongly interlinked.

Current regulation and crisis management does not address these issues - in fact, the latest round of regulation is characterised by something of a concentration on "bigger is better", or regulations that push banks in that direction, while the forced acquisition of smaller banks by larger ones has reduced the overall diversity of the financial system. Given the difficulties of entering banking (also largely regulatory, also increased), the response to the crisis has probably reduced the overall diversity of the financial industry, when what is needed to stabilise the system in the long term is the opposite.

It's also the case in the real world that there will inevitably be a push-back by the acolytes of economic theories that assume the market to be self-regulating, which is true only in the short term. In the long term, markets evolve, which is not self-regulation in the long-term, because markets can become unstable in themselves. For example:

Understanding the fundamental mechanisms behind the complex landscape of corporate mergers and acquisitions is of crucial importance to economies across the world. Adapting ideas from the fields of complexity and evolutionary dynamics to analyse business ecosystems, we show here that ancestry, i.e. the cumulative sum of historical mergers across all ancestors, is the key characteristic to company mergers and acquisitions. We verify this by comparing an agent-based model to an extensive range of business data, covering the period from the 1830s to the present day and a range of industries and geographies.

This seemingly universal mechanism leads to imbalanced business ecosystems, with the emergence of a few very large, but sluggish ‘too big to fail’ entities, and very small, niche entities, thereby creating a paradigm where a configuration akin to effective oligopoly or monopoly is a likely outcome for free market systems.

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/470/2171/20140370

and:

In earlier research, we developed a tool to evaluate the ecosystems of financial markets, which identified two mechanisms that act as catalysts for the emergence of a crisis. The first is banks copying the business models of the most (short-term) successful bank, which leads to loss of both diversity and resilience. The second is investors such as fund managers increasing their appetite for risk by trying to outperform competitors. In our view, those two items are to banks the equivalent of fast food and alcohol to a person on the verge of diabetes – factors that speed up and enhance the onset of disease.

Once we accept the view that, over a long-term evolutionary period, free markets have significant flaws that will eventually lead to crises, then this leads to a number of expected consequences. Instead of demanding "no more boom and bust" as the UK's former prime minister Gordon Brown did, regulation should be focused on (a) slowing down the development of the ecosystem's imbalance; and (b) mitigating the effects of such an imbalance. Therefore, the ideologically driven debate as to whether markets require more regulation or can regulate themselves, can be moved to a more productive principle: new regulation should be brought in only if it helps to maintain the overall diversity of the economic players in the system. A big concern for us is that most regulation introduced since the 2008 financial crises is actually reducing diversity, and therefore storing up even bigger problems for the future

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

So cut the problem off at the source, mandatory deposit insurance for everyone with an account. The next time the banks fail (and they will fail again) the insurance companies take the heat, not the government.

Problem with that is that it would have done nothing to change the cost of the Irish banking crisis. Depositors weren't bailed in, and deposit insurance wasn't a factor in the bailout costs.

The basic sticking point is that governments don't allow big banks to fail - they prefer not to allow even small banks to fail. And why would they? It's like allowing the electricity grid to collapse, or (!) the water infrastructure. Banks are utilities - they pump money.

So even with depositor insurance, it seems likely that governments will continue to rescue banks. With depositor bail-ins, the government will shift some of the burden to insurance companies, but if we're not to have the insurance companies collapse in turn, the premiums for deposit insurance will have to be realistic, which basically just means passing the cost of bank rescues onto the public by another route.

I'm not saying it wouldn't help, it just doesn't strike me as anything like a complete solution.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Black Swan

Valmont wrote: »

In a 'free market' without centralised regulation the recession simply would not have occurred

Are you suggesting that in an absolutely free market without regulation there would be no business cycles?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Suryavarman

micosoft wrote: »

Banks aren't like other businesses. If your local shop goes bust you just go to another shop. If your bank goes bust you lose all your savings and you have no access to an account to pay for things.

If a bank goes bust, a bank sells off its assets and you only lose a small amount of your savings, not all of them. You then just set up a new account with another bank to fulfill your banking needs.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

K-9

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Or just regulators and Government!

Good point though.