The Rise of Far Left Extremism

[Adam Strange]

The Soviet Union and Cuba both seem to have had better results than the US in terms of education and health care, but worse results in terms of personal freedom of choice and opportunity.

I think I'd rather live in the US if I could be certain that I'd be rich, and in the Soviet Union or Cuba if I knew I was going to be poor.

Clearly, we don't have an all-inclusive solution to this problem yet.

Since there is more than enough food, wealth, and opportunity to lift everyone out of poverty and give them a shot at a good life, you have to ask yourself why this hasn't happened? Personally, I believe the answer is found in Michael Kalecki's essay
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012...mployment.html,
Section IV, part 3.
Basically, Kalecki says that, while government spending to achieve full employment could easily be done, the rich oppose it, even though they would be financial beneficiaries of it. Apparently, they don't like the idea of full employment because it would cause the workers to "get out of hand". In other words, some rich people prefer to give up some potential wealth if it keeps other people down.

I believe this is the reason that the Communists in China succeeded in overthrowing the old system, and why there is a desire in some people to shoot the rich. I feel that way myself towards anyone who wants to keep me down.

[xerx]

Basically, Kalecki says that, while government spending to achieve full employment could easily be done, the rich oppose it, even though they would be financial beneficiaries of it. Apparently, they don't like the idea of full employment because it would cause the workers to "get out of hand". In other words, some rich people prefer to give up some potential wealth if it keeps other people down.

I believe this is the reason that the Communists in China succeeded in overthrowing the old system, and why there is a desire in some people to shoot the rich. I feel that way myself towards anyone who wants to keep me down.

yep. sometimes the cream rises to the top. oftentimes it's the scum that rises to the top.

[Raver]

So I looked in the "Our Mission" section of the website, which bombastically proclaims their organization's desire to defend "Judeo-Christian" culture, making them comically not neutral on the question of Muslim immigration.



Regardless, the article was written in 2015, so I checked around to see how well the refugees in Germany are integrating. It seems like of the 1.5 million, 400,000+ are already either working or in job training. The article doesn't say what % of that 1.5 million are children, elderly, or women raising children. These figures are, in fact, ahead of what experts predicted. Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a8901161.html

Regarding long-time Muslim immigrants to France: if integration is that bad (and I believe it is), then the problem could be structural, whereas the integration of long-time Muslims immigrants to Germany is significantly better, with unemployment matching the national average. Source: https://www.thelocal.de/20170824/int...rest-of-europe



Regarding immigration to America, according to the CATO institute, which is a right wing / small-government think tank, legal and illegal immigrants receive less welfare benefits and commit fewer crimes than ordinary Americans.

Source 1: https://www.cato.org/publications/co...-welfare-state.
Source 2: https://www.cato.org/publications/im...egal-immigrant

I noticed your first link mentioned this:

One reason why immigrants use fewer benefits is because they are often not eligible for them. Legal immigrants cannot get welfare for their first five years of residency, with few exceptions, mostly at the state level. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for welfare except for rare circumstances like emergency Medicaid.

This certainly obfuscates things because not being allowed to use something is certainly going to distort the statistics profoundly at least in the US. The main issue though isn't that immigrants are more likely to use welfare or commit more crimes than natives. It's that immigrants add in welfare costs and more crime in the long term (post 5 years) simply by entering because you are adding in more people by default if you don't control immigration. However, I never mentioned the US in terms of welfare or crime as I was talking about Europe. You don't really need a study to see how mass immigration/open borders is draining the welfare states of Western Europe and rising crime rates.

@Raver

Both legal as well as illegal immigrants to America use less welfare and commit fewer crimes. If I was going to be a dick about it, I'd point out how replacing ordinary Americans with illegals might actually make the country better.

Legal and illegal immigrants to America use less welfare than natives because they are not allowed access to welfare. You need to be a US citizen for 5 years to be eligible for welfare and newly arrived legal immigrants and illegal immigrants don't qualify for welfare. This doesn't apply to Europe though because they have much less stricter rules for welfare than the US.

Australia has about 86% Europeans and Canada has about 73% Europeans. 30% of Australians are born overseas, and I'd suppose they take in a lot of European immigrants.

Australia frequently has these conservative, reactionary PMs, but I doubt that things will change very much.

Fair enough, I agree that Australia is destined to become a multi-ethnic nation because of its history and culture. However, it will do more to stop it than countries like Sweden and Canada at least.

The Soviet Union and Cuba both seem to have had better results than the US in terms of education and health care, but worse results in terms of personal freedom of choice and opportunity.

I think I'd rather live in the US if I could be certain that I'd be rich, and in the Soviet Union or Cuba if I knew I was going to be poor.

Clearly, we don't have an all-inclusive solution to this problem yet.

Since there is more than enough food, wealth, and opportunity to lift everyone out of poverty and give them a shot at a good life, you have to ask yourself why this hasn't happened? Personally, I believe the answer is found in Michael Kalecki's essay
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012...mployment.html,
Section IV, part 3.
Basically, Kalecki says that, while government spending to achieve full employment could easily be done, the rich oppose it, even though they would be financial beneficiaries of it. Apparently, they don't like the idea of full employment because it would cause the workers to "get out of hand". In other words, some rich people prefer to give up some potential wealth if it keeps other people down.

I believe this is the reason that the Communists in China succeeded in overthrowing the old system, and why there is a desire in some people to shoot the rich. I feel that way myself towards anyone who wants to keep me down.

An all inclusive solution already exists, it's called social democracy (nordic model) and it was implemented in Scandinavian countries like Sweden after socialism failed decades ago and they replaced it with social democracy. The problem is the US has problems implementing it due to exorbitant military spending and troops overseas in war. This is one of the main reasons why the US is the only 1st world developed nation without universal health care.

[xerx]

This certainly obfuscates things because not being allowed to use something is certainly going to distort the statistics profoundly at least in the US. The main issue though isn't that immigrants are more likely to use welfare or commit more crimes than natives. It's that immigrants add in welfare costs and more crime in the long term (post 5 years) simply by entering because you are adding in more people by default if you don't control immigration. However, I never mentioned the US in terms of welfare or crime as I was talking about Europe. You don't really need a study to see how mass immigration/open borders is draining the welfare states of Western Europe and rising crime rates.

Legal and illegal immigrants to America use less welfare than natives because they are not allowed access to welfare. You need to be a US citizen for 5 years to be eligible for welfare and newly arrived legal immigrants and illegal immigrants don't qualify for welfare. This doesn't apply to Europe though because they have much less stricter rules for welfare than the US.

OK Raver, I don't think we're going to agree.

To be honest, I've always known that some people will be resistant to outsiders under virtually every circumstance. It's futile to change deep-seated habits, so let's just focus on what we both can agree on: fewer people will need to emigrate from these countries once they become better places to live. This process is slowly happening, but it can obviously be accelerated if the third world receives massive investment and technology transfers from the first world.