Quote:
Originally Posted by headhorse
lol you realize that by all measures China is now much more technologically advanced than any European nation/colony? Europe was never the most technologically advanced area, Mesopotamia and China were much further ahead.. people confuse mass industrialization with technology..
and if it doesn't lead to increases in quality of life, why does a place like Cuba have way better health indicators than the US and even Canada?
|
The free market is a spectrum stretching from full on communism to oligopolies where a few people own everything and everyone else. Both ends of the spectrum are terrible. If Cuba really does have better health indicators than the US and Canada, it's probably because of a combination of free competent health care and the better work life balance afforded by the socialist economy. I would balance this argument by saying that if Cuba can afford free effective healthcare for their population in spite of their socialist economy, this is an indictment of the inefficiencies of the oligopolistic health care system we live with but NOT of the free market itself. We're probably too far toward the other end of the spectrum.
Finally, even though Cubans arguably enjoy better health than North Americans, this is not the be all and end all of happiness (although it's clearly important). I always like to consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Socialism works to ensure that everyone's basic needs are met, but unfortunately this comes at a cost whereby no one can ever hope to reach the top of the pyramid. As someone who's lived under socialism, I can attest that it breeds a type of hopelessness in people, a constant yearning for what could be. The system takes away people's motivation to do more and better. Actually, the competition becomes about who can get away with doing less. The economy inevitably takes a nosedive until some form of market economy is restored.