|
 |
Most Infuriating Myth about your Country? | ||
Tags: Stereotypes | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5674 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 153 of 177 21 July 2009 at 9:34am | IP Logged | ||
|
The problem here is that words like "socialism" and "capitalism" mean different things to different people. This is in part due to propaganda in all countries (not just Fox News in the U.S.), and also due to ignorance of the fact that there are different kinds of socialism, just as there are different kinds of capitalism. Or we can say that every country has a different mixture of capitalism and socialism.
What used to be called socialism is now better called social-democracy or democratic socialism. This is because the terms socialism and communism have become confused. This may have started when communist countries appropriated "socialism" to describe their countries, as in "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (not "...Communist Republics") or "Socialist Republic of Vietnam". They did this in order to confuse and co-opt the entire left-of-center spectrum in Western countries. The U.S. then went right along with that and said "socialism = communism; it's all bad", and that is what most Americans think today. In truth, there is no pure capitalist society and no pure socialist society. In a pure capitalist society there wouldn't even be public education. I don't think many people would want to live in such a society. As Sennin said, all of Western Europe (including Scandinavia) is fundamentally capitalist. If it weren't, it couldn't be so prosperous. Everywhere communism was tried it resulted in massive poverty and oppression. This is because the very idea of communism goes against human nature. You can't build a society by contradicting the very basis of human nature, which is that people want to live a little bit better than their neighbors. Competition is hard-wired into all of us to a greater or lesser degree. The genius of capitalism is to harness everyone's greed to create a better society for all. But to do that you need to have regulations in order to prevent monopolies from forming and to keep pollution in check, prevent food poisoning, etc. And some products have to be banned. Who would want a society where corporations can market heroin and cocaine to children the same way they now push cigarettes and sugary, fatty junk food on them? Who'd want a society where anyone can buy a grenade or a tank? Leftists criticize capitalism for things like pollution and "sweatshops" in third world countries. What they forget is that most of the world is still dirt-poor and happy for any job, even in a sweatshop (or a brothel), because the alternative is starvation. The world didn't get this way because Western countries are somehow sucking all the wealth out of the third world. On the contrary, these countries are poor because they're not capitalist enough. Just look at China for proof of that. In the last 30 years they've gone from communism to capitalism and lifted a billion people out of poverty. If anything, we can say that China has been sucking wealth out of the first world, but that's not exactly true either. Actually, there is more wealth in the world because China embraced capitalism and unleashed the energy of the Chinese people. What about Latin America? Well, most of it isn't exactly "capitalist" in the sense that the first world countries are. In fact, most of it is still essentially feudal; a handful of old families own almost everything, while the masses are dirt poor and own nothing. Most businesses are monopolies controlled by families that rule those countries. They can never get big because there aren't enough people with any money to buy their products. They can't develop advanced industries because there aren't enough educated workers. That's not capitalism, because there's hardly any competition and very little social mobility. Still, in all of Latin America no country is poorer than Cuba, the "socialist" (really communist) country leftists all over the world love so much. Nobody from other Latin American countries are trying to get into Cuba - no - they're trying to get into the U.S. The richest country in Latin America? Chile - the country leftists all love to hate because the U.S. helped the Chilean military overthrow a communist government that was destroying the Chilean economy in 1974. The military government restored order and developed the best economy in Latin America. But I guess ideology is more important than reality to leftists. Actually, there is one "country" in Latin America that's even richer than Chile - that would be Puerto Rico, an actual colony of the big, bad, imperialist America. So much for Marxist dogma. Just one more point. The middle class in Western Europe (and North America, Japan, etc.) is an artificial creation. Western governments created middle class societies in order to lessen the appeal of communism (a bogus appeal, but you can't trust the masses to know that). Now that communism has been thoroughly discredited and defeated, Western governments are letting the middle class sink and disappear, or at least become relatively poorer. This is most noticeable in the U.S., where the process started in the mid '70s. But it's happening everywhere - in Canada, Japan, and Western Europe too. Maybe the Scandinavian countries will be the last holdouts, but I don't know how long they can resist the trend. This is painful for most people in the first world, but very welcome to many in the third world. Globalization hurts two groups: the first world middle class and the third world monopolist class. It helps two other groups: third world masses and highly competitive first world corporations. I believe this trend will continue until there truly is one integrated world economy. At some point, when there is no more surplus cheap labor left in the world, rising third world wages will meet falling first world wages. From that point on a world middle class will begin to take shape as global corporations bid up the price of scarce labor. In the meantime, we should all do our best to get rich, because it's very risky to rely on corporations for a job or a government for healthcare or welfare (which might not be there when you need it). Edited by pmiller on 22 July 2009 at 8:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rhian Moderator France Joined 6497 days ago 265 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Personal Language Map | Message 154 of 177 21 July 2009 at 9:53am | IP Logged | ||
|
@pmiller - did you even note what patuco said? I know you posted shortly after patuco and so probably didn't see
the post whilst you were typing but at least you could have had the decency to edit/delete your post afterwards. Edit: typo. Edited by Rhian on 21 July 2009 at 9:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 155 of 177 21 July 2009 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Sorry Patuco! I get a little carried away sometimes... I will reform! My excuse: I play the perfect capitalist corporate slave at work, but when I come to this forum, I sometimes let the pot boil over... ! I realise it's wrong. In the defense of everybody, just to say that this is the least serious thread in the least serious room, so perhaps there is no great harm done...
@Mick --- Wow, thanks! Nice to hear! You'll be an honorary citizen! Extra dried reindeer meat ration for you in the glorious paradise Scandi dictatorship :-) @Jar-Ptitsa if you are still with us (hope so!) Yeah, Aurora Borealis (aka Northern Lights) are amazing beyond words, particularly in the far North where it is stronger. Up there it really blows you away. First time I really noticed a strong one, I was a child and didn't realise what it was... It seemed like old fairytales come true, or the End of the world... The strong ones make a very mysterious sound too.. No wonder the people in the past believed in old magic, seeing and hearing something like that. I wonder if anybody on the forum lives far enough North that they can see really strong ones all winter? Eg Lappland, Northern Siberia, far North America etc. @pmiller --- even worse ranter than me, haha, but interesting different perspective on the world. We'll have to leave it though! But in the hypothetical Scandi dictatorship I'm afraid you'd have to be sent on re-education in the mines of Svalbard... ! :-) Edited by cordelia0507 on 21 July 2009 at 4:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 156 of 177 21 July 2009 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | ||
I think pmiller sums it up quite well. Most of the heated discussion in this thread was caused buy people misunderstanding each other, so a clarification of terms was a good idea. If we are going to argue we should at least agree on a common terminology.
I don't totally agree with the things you said about China. Anyway, China is a special case - it is communist in the sense that there is only one party (the Communist parity) and only some regional authorities can be elected by the people. In the same time it is not socialist, it is capitalist. It is not in the least democratic (though things are changing slowly) but it is very capitalistic... I really find this discussion interesting but my hope is people will keep their emotions under control. Nobody is interest in insults and political evangelism. Edited by Sennin on 21 July 2009 at 4:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6678 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 157 of 177 21 July 2009 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | ||
I've spent a fair amount of time in Lappland (Arvidsjaur, Kiruna) since that's where my mom is from, but I've always missed those darn things! :P (Northern Lights!) I've never actually seen any of the strong ones, just milder versions. Lappland beats most parts of Sweden anyway in beauty all year long though! Edited by tricoteuse on 21 July 2009 at 4:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| piet Bilingual Triglot Newbie Northern Ireland Joined 5859 days ago 8 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English*, Lowland Scots*, French Studies: Dutch | Message 158 of 177 06 August 2009 at 4:09am | IP Logged | ||
|
I'm from Northern Irish, and ethnically a mix of ulster-scot, English, gaelic irish and a teeny bit of welsh. I would consider myself British by ethnicity and culturally, so its really annoying for me when I travel abroad and people insist I'm irish and drink a lot of Guiness (which is rotten by the way)...
Even when I (frequently) travel over to England i.e. London (which I would view as my nation's capital) sometimes English people treat me as a foreigner, which is quite frankly ridicolous as I'm just as ethnically and otherwise British as they are! I know this can be a touchy subject (I am from NI afterall) so if there are any die-hard Irish Nationalists out there PLEASE don't hate me....... Edited by piet on 06 August 2009 at 4:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hanni aka cordelia0507 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5604 days ago 69 posts - 92 votes Speaks: Dutch* | Message 160 of 177 06 August 2009 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
That's neat! 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
