[vacri]

> But hey, since 40 years of social democracy has failed, let's keep doubling down and giving people more "free" money.

... you mean the countries with the highest quality-of-life measures? The Scandanavian nations, Canada, Australia, NZ, all of which have vibrant economies, high average wages, and strong middle classes?

The US with their pathological fear of their own government is not what I'd use as a particularly characteristic example of social democracy.

[aminok]

They don't have "vibrant economies". They have strong economies, that long ago stopped being "vibrant" (by vibrant, I mean fast-developing).

Europe and Canada have seen stagnant wage and economic growth since adopting social democracy. What are you basing your claim that these policies are working on? I strongly advise you to stop assuming that what you're told by the media and echo chambers on the internet is correct, and actually do research on these issues, by looking at statistics.

Social democracy has not worked in Scandinavia. The author of Scandinavian Unexceptionalism explains how it has harmed Sweden:

"From 1870 until 1970, Sweden was a free market success story. Sweden had the highest growth rate in the industrialized world. .. [After taxes were raised in the late 60s and 70s] Sweden stagnated":

https://youtu.be/D0hnA341AWE?t=5m23s

Sweden was the 3rd wealthiest country in the world in 1968. After it created a massive welfare state in the 1970s and 80s, its growth stagnated, and by 1991, it was 17th highest income country in the world.

Other important facts:

http://iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/San...

• Scandinavia is often cited as having high life expectancy and good health outcomes in areas such as infant mortality. Again, this predates the expansion of the welfare state. In 1960, Norway had the highest life expectancy in the OECD, followed by Sweden, Iceland and Denmark in third, fourth and fifth positions. By 2005, the gap in life expectancy between Scandinavian countries and both the UK and the US had shrunk considerably. Iceland, with a moderately sized welfare sector, has over time outpaced the four major Scandinavian countries in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality.

• Scandinavia’s more equal societies also developed well before the welfare states expanded. Income inequality reduced dramatically during the last three decades of the 19th century and during the first half of the 20th century. Indeed, most of the shift towards greater equality happened before the introduction of a large public sector and high taxes.

If you want a more equal society, you need a more free market. It is regulatory prohibitions (anti-free-market policy) on economic activity that are contributing to growing income disparity:

"Make elites compete: Why the 1% earn so much and what to do about it":

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/social-mobility-memos/posts/2...

>The US with their pathological fear of their own government is not what I'd use as a particularly characteristic example of social democracy.

By every broad-based objective measure, the scale of forcible income redistribution has massively increased in relative and absolute terms in the US. The raw statistics show that the US has by every objective measure moved drastically in the direction of social democracy over the last 40 years. The same applies to every other major Western economy.

[vacri]

> (by vibrant, I mean fast-developing)

Nice, you take a word I introduced to the conversation, explicitly redefined it in a way I wasn't using it, and then proceed to demand I prove your new definition. Why should I bother, if you're just going to change the way I was using a word and then tell me I'm sheeple?

And since you like statistics so much, population growth, a foundational element in economic growth, also stagnated in Sweden starting in the '80s. If the population stagnates, then of course you expect growth to stagnate. So not only are you missing the point and creating a strawman, you're also being hypocritical about your own patronising demands on 'looking at the data'. Likewise this crazy expectation that human lifespans just linearly expand with improved circumstances - but what would you expect when you're citing data from a source whose raison d'etre is specifically promoting the free market? Hardly a neutral source.

But I will leave you with this: economic growth isn't everything. That's the point of quality-of-life measures. People have a high quality of life in Sweden. Whereas China has recently had a rapidly-growing economy, and life sucks there. People escape it when they can. The gradient of the growth chart doesn't tell you much about freedom of expression or the happiness of citizens.

[aminok]

>Why should I bother, if you're just going to change the way I was using a word and then tell me I'm sheeple?

It doesn't really matter how you define it. What matters is that they have not improved much from the position they were at when they adopted social democracy, and the reason is because their rate of economic growth has stagnated.

The way to measure the success of a policy is to see how much a country has improved from the position it was at when it adopted the policy relative to other countries.

>And since you like statistics so much, population growth,

Gee why would anyone base their views on large-scale phenomena on statistical evidence!? Why don't I just base my ideas on what's culturally popular and which notions give me warming feelings!?

>If the population stagnates, then of course you expect growth to stagnate.

You're taking an amateur approach to this, in missing all sorts of facts to arrive at your predetermined conclusion. The fact is that per capita GDP growth has slowed, not just GDP growth. Moreover, wage growth has slowed, and wages are a per-capita measure.

>Likewise this crazy expectation that human lifespans just linearly expand with improved circumstances

There's no indication that it's a "crazy expectation". The point I was making is that there is no evidence that social democracy has actually made anything better in the countries where it has been adopted. The trends in place before the adoption of social democracy were superior to the trends that came into effect after its adoption. So there is no objective evidence to support your ideological inclinations.

>but what would you expect when you're citing data from a source whose raison d'etre is specifically promoting the free market?

There's absolutely no evidence that the source's raison d'etre is to promote the free market. It's entirely possible that they want to further public welfare, and have concluded, based on empirical evidence, that the free market is the best way to do that.

>But I will leave you with this: economic growth isn't everything. That's the point of quality-of-life measures. People have a high quality of life in Sweden. Whereas China has recently had a rapidly-growing economy, and life sucks there.

More bullshit logic indicative of an amateur approach to economics and society.

China is still extremely poor relative to the West. But people in China are FAR better off now than they were 30 years ago, and that's primarily down to the massive economic development the country has experienced. Wages growing by a factor of 4-5X is hugely important to quality of life.

[vacri]

> Gee why would anyone base their views on large-scale phenomena on statistical evidence!? Why don't I just base my ideas on what's culturally popular and which notions give me warming feelings!?

'number of humans' is a statistical measure, not a huggy feeling, you dolt. You are the living definition of selection bias. And for proof:

> There's absolutely no evidence that the source's raison d'etre is to promote the free market.

https://iea.org.uk/about-us - they explicitly say it themselves.

Stop calling other people amateurs and bubble-dwellers; you're in no fit state to make such accusations.