I find it ironic that most people see europe as more liberal than the USA yet most people I know who move there are staunch conservatives who move there because the policies they care about and the people themselves are overall **less** liberal than the USA.

It seems very few people even realize that by many measures europe is more conservative rather than liberal. A prime example of this would be the taxation scheme which in much of europe has a lower ratio between the poor and the rich classes (closer to flat tax).

#uspol

@freemo Which policies you have in mind? I think that both economic and political policies of Europe are much more liberal than in USA (there are some exceptions and mostly in eastern europe, [hello Poland!]).

Why is taxation scheme example of liberality? I would say its not about how much one taxes rich vs poor, but about how that taxed money is then distributed.

@vnarek
Well its important to understand what liberal and conservative mean. I think they tend to be inaccutate terms since liberal generally is used to refer to neoliberals specifically. In other words liberal is generally used as a synonym for democratic socialism. The primary principles of liberalism and socialism is a large degree of government regulation and oversight as well as using taxation to redistribute wealth from the rich. Conservatism generally has at its central point the opposite, minimal government regulation and intervention and relying on free markets.

Taxation is relevant as the usa has a more progressive tax scheme, that ia, a scheme intending to put a higher tax ratio between poor and rich in an attempt to redistribute wealth.

We find the same pattern in other areas. Europe is generally much more noninterventionist when it comes to foreign affairs, which again is along the lines of small governance associated with the right.

@freemo Wikipedia defines liberal as someone who is for free economy without goverment interventions + individual rights/equality.
From what you said earlier I deduced that you are using liberalism as synonym for social democracy and used your definition in my last answer.

It is not about tax collection, but distribution. Taxes that are collected in europe are distributed via strong welfare systems for health care, education, and social funding. USA does not really have this kind of safety nets.

@vnarek Yes the wikipedia uses the classical definition of liberal. This is not what most people in the USA today mean when they say liberal, they usually mean neo-liberal, which is effectively the opposit of that.

Free economy (free markets) with minimal government intervention would be more in line with modern day conservatisim in america, or classical liberals

They are very confusing terms for that very reason.

The spending is a relevant point, of course, to some degree. Except I wouldnt argue welfare as being the same as redistribution of wealth.. a flat (or flatter) tax system that feeds those who starve isnt really redistributing wealth to any significant degree. That just keeps the poor from starving and does little to nothing to eliminating the rich from the population.

@freemo @vnarek would you be in support of a UBI in replacement of all government funded welfare?

@adi_k @vnarek I dont think the current welfare model works, but I think UBI is a step backwards not forwards.. throwing money at the problem doesnt help. We need to enable the poor with proper marketable skills and mental health support if we are to see a difference.

@freemo @adi_k Yeah that would be nice. Proper education that is on par with education given to richer folks is essential. I'm still interested in the result of the experiment that Finland did two years back. Not everyone wants to be in jobs that are profitable and we need those people too so still some wealth redistribution is needed to guarantee good life to most of the people.

I am personally really interested in cooperatively owned companies, but still did not have enought time to do my research.

@vnarek

I dont think people wanting to do low-paid jobs is really a good argument. Most people would probably love to do a low-paid job that requires little skill im sure... hell most people would probably love a job where they watch TV all day too.. just because you want that sort of job doesnt mean society has an obligation to pay you for it.

As for us needing such jobs... somewhat, for now, but they are quickly being replaced by technology. but the fact is taht there are clearly more people who want to do those jobs than there is money to pay them well. thats exactly why their low paid. So we still need to get most people away from performing such jobs.

I feel most low-skill jobs should be focused on people who are handicapped and really cant do normal jobs. Those people need jobs within their means but we dont need people doing these jobs en masse.

@adi_k

@freemo @adi_k I don't think that most of the people want to do these kind of jobs, but maybe I just live in my little social bubble.. 😄 Okay, but this is a stretch. Watching tv is not a job. You are not contributing to society nor you are generating profits and not every low paid job is automatically low skill job. I know you are not saying that but I mentioned it just to be sure.

I agree that we need to tackle this low skill job by education for sure.

@vnarek

Obviously watching TV isnt a job. My point was simply that what people want to do as a job doesnt matter, we arent, or at least should not, try to be giving people whatever job they want and then try to throw money at them to make it "fair"... If you arent paid enough for a certain job then the job is clearly either not very critical, or more people want to do the job than we need doing it.

@adi_k

@freemo @adi_k
I had problem with watching TV example, because I don't think it represents my argument well. I am not saying that we should force some jobs to exist just so somebody could do them, but if someone is doing job that is useful, critical and can't be done by robots right now he should
not live on the line of poverty.

This is a problem that wealth distribution tries to solve, atleast in my opinion and as I said there are jobs that are hard as f and still are not paid well (in my country).

@vnarek

If people are doing a job that is in demand, then they will be paid well.

If someone isnt paid well it means that fewer people need the job done than people want to do it.

Watching TV is occasionally a job (people get paid for reviewing TV shows is a thing).. but they get paid very little because, well, anyone is willing to do it. But if you want to be part of a focus group, they will pay you.

Its a good example because while there is a need for the job, and people do pay for it, far more people are willing to do it than people need it done for them.. so its low paid... just as it should be.

@adi_k

@freemo @adi_k Watching TV and reviewing TV shows is again not the same thing I know it sounds pesky, but one is a job (produces review of the show) and one just consumes. And I would said it is a high skill job (not everyone has the knowledge of doing the review). If its a full time job and contributes to the community, it should be payed enought to keep someone out of poverty (directly or indirectly). This is more my personal belief.

@vnarek

I dont think that just because someone is working full time and contributes minimally to the community (does a job we dont really need them doing because we have too many people doing it already) should keep someone out of poverty.

If youw ant to stay out of poverty you should be expected to do jobs that society needs done to a great enough extent that society would pay well for it in the first place. If the job doesnt pay well then there is a low need in society for workers to do such a job.

@adi_k

@freemo @adi_k Yeah that seems reasonable in this concrete example. Still jobs like storeman, teachers are paid badly even though they contribute a lot to the society. We need them, they are full time jobs and people doing them are not paid well according to contributions to the community.

@vnarek

A doctorial professor makes, on average, 141K in the USA, I'd say thats pretty damn good.

Remember its not just about how important the position is, its also about how skilled. High skilled positions will pay more since it takes more effort to do it.

Compare the above figure to a public school teacher at a remedial level and they only make 30K not 141K, huge difference. Sure we still need remedial school teachers, but it doesnt take nearly as much skill to be one.

There are two ways to solve that, one is to ensure more people are highly skilled, thus more wealth is generated and less competition for lower paying jobs. thus you will see less disparity as demands balance out

Or two, increase the skill we demand from teachers in the first place, which would also drive higher pay

But that would also start to get into a huge tangent around restructuring the education system in the first place. Currently I think in all countries we set the bar so low on education at the lower levels that the vast majority of children never reach their potential. a lot of this has to do with teach techniques.. but again this is a tangent.

Most kids could be doing college level work by middle school if they had teachers who provided the right education IMO.. but as I said, we are way below our poential there.

@adi_k

@freemo @adi_k I would say people in remedial level are doing much harder job than their paycheck tells. Even harder than doctorial professors do (it is much easier to work with adults than with children I would say). Should we take that into account at all when we pay them?