Why do Social Issues Almost Always Lose to Economics?

[Deleted]

Remarkably, despite the entire thread being filled with leftist talkers, who I might add really need to get out of their ideological bubble and truly listen to some different opinions once in a while (especially younger leftist-brainwashed people[blame your professors for those in the US]), this thread is still being civil for the most part. Well done all.

As to your question OP, economics is the foremost social science. Without economics, nothing functions. Even hunter-gatherers used proto-economics when distributing resources to themselves, and no, it was never an equal distribution, hunters and later the warrior class usually got more than the rest. Wealth accumulation is the basis of progress, together with competition-minded cooperation. Simple cooperation by itself accomplishes nothing but furthers the status quo and leads to stagnation, which leads to death. You said you preferred cooperation over competition, but those two are not mutually exclusive or an antithesis of one-another. They are complementary systems meant to go hand in hand in order to further our progress as a species.

Collectivism is flawed, and the true basis for a strong people, economy, government, nation and world is the individual. The individual is the foundation of all of these. Without a strong and free individual your people will be weak sheep, easily enslaved by dictators and others who only wish to control the people. Collectivism, marxist ideology leads to a weak people. It promotes sameness, ignorance of personal skills, talents and traits, open hatred between classes of people, arbitrarily created and defined by the rulers so as to keep their people divided and hating each other instead of them. It ignores the part of the human spirit for enterprise and reaching for the stars and gives you equality of outcome instead of opportunity, which denies people the chance to express their individuality and grow as they see fit.

To this ideology, you are not nanook12 of Bakersfield, California, you are white male #23151123, who just happens to be part of the group all the other groups are supposed to be hating in this current time period, and your job is to shut up and conform to their ideas of who you are and what you should be. They drive a false wedge between being economically minded and being socially minded, as if people who enjoy having a strong economy they can participate in and further makes them greedy assholes that want to see their fellow men brought and kept low.

I was born and currently live in Romania, a former communist country that had the great misfortune of falling into the Soviet sphere of influence for close to 60 years. Prior to our revolution and adoption of western democracy and capitalism close to 30 years ago, our people were suffering greatly under the yoke of communism. People were starving, there were lines for the most basic of foods like bread and milk, they were forced to work in the fields for most of their lives, only seeing at most 1% of their hard work returned to them. People were being spied on, children were taught to snitch on their parents to the "Securitate", the state's internal affairs secret service that terrorized, censored everything and kept the people in line with the ideology. Fast forward to today and we're still feeling and dealing with the after-effects of this disease.

Leftists will tell you, especially those who have never actually lived under such a system (mostly middle-class to rich people that have benefited from capitalism but are disillusioned because they cannot come to grips with their own inabilities or don't even see them), that true communism is great, that it has never been tried in earnest. To which I answer, not even that type of communism, where there is no scarcity at all, where people magically deny their individuality and all proclaim with a hive mind that they desire to meld into a mass of mindless worker bees will ever come to pass. There must, after all, be a queen bee, and that position will inevitably be coveted by others, because no matter how much brainwashing you do, you only need 1 individual to start thinking for themselves for the entire structure to collapse. Now consider that those conditions of individual surrender have never happened, so we need to be more realistic, and in doing so we find that there are far more strong individuals within any group than 1. And so we cannot ever drive out human nature's individualistic tendencies from an individual, no matter how much brainwashing and propaganda we do. And lucky for us that we can't, because we'd be inviting stagnation, which means death for a species.

I am white, we Romanians are mostly homogeneous in this regard. We have never owned slaves and throughout history we've mostly come under the dominion of other, stronger nations until we finally united as one people. Thus, we don't suffer from white guilt. I am not rich, my family was dirt poor and could barely afford to send me to university. And yet I work enough to get by and my life is mostly alright. What I know for sure is that I could be doing much better for myself, if I were to apply myself and put in the hard work required to get there. But you see, I'm lazy, and I love playing video games and smoking pot (and in a free, non-communist society I have this choice, not to say that people who play games and smoke weed can't get ahead either, but it's harder). So I don't. But at least I'm honest with myself, "honesty is the best policy" an American saying (I think, don't kill me Brits), that can and should also be applied to being honest with yourself. Which is the best answer you can get to when you ask yourself the question how could I make my life and by extension those around me better? And when enough people do this, your society will forever flourish.

Government cannot fix these problems, all it can do is make them worse. Which is why it's our job to make sure it doesn't, by fixing them ourselves, by using the free market to get ahead and promote our ideals and goals. I am not saying the free market is perfect, but it's the best we've got and we should use it to the best of our abilities.

[nanook12]

Greed being good is common sense to anyone who has studied economics.

Greed being good makes sense when the study of economics was entirely developed around greed, or should I call it"rational self interest" like economists do in order to be more politically correct?

"Hey guise, I the system of my country is based upon greed, so I am going to study that greed and call it economics and try to apply it to every society no matter what that particular societies core foundation is based upon. Then if anyone disagrees with me I will tell them to 'learn economics noob' herpdurp."

Economics is not a science for a damn good reason because it is not based on a solid universal foundation.

[BuckSparkles]

Because all those wonderful social issues would bankrupt us all. And people much prefer to afford a meal instead of not because they are taxed excessively so some lazy drug user can afford healthcare.

[Deleted]

Because it is difficult to care about gay rights when everybody is murdering each other and there is no food or running water.

[Amerrol]

I'm sure it's comforting for people that haven't accomplished what I have to insist that it's just because of discrimination, even though universities engage in substantial pro-black discrimination (one example here, med school specific).

The best and worst part of white privilege is being aware that your successes and failures are your own - there's no fallback of believing that you're actually really brilliant and it's just systemic racism keeping you down.

Don't even respond to him. It's obviously a troll meant to spout the most insane leftist talking points to get a rise out of sane people.

[tttsssrrr]

Maybe not all elements of society should be market driven. Just a thought.

If you like low prices, they should be.

[d00mGuArD]

Remarkably, despite the entire thread being filled with leftist talkers, who I might add really need to get out of their ideological bubble and truly listen to some different opinions once in a while (especially younger leftist-brainwashed people[blame your professors for those in the US]), this thread is still being civil for the most part. Well done all.

As to your question OP, economics is the foremost social science. Without economics, nothing functions. Even hunter-gatherers used proto-economics when distributing resources to themselves, and no, it was never an equal distribution, hunters and later the warrior class usually got more than the rest. Wealth accumulation is the basis of progress, together with competition-minded cooperation. Simple cooperation by itself accomplishes nothing but furthers the status quo and leads to stagnation, which leads to death. You said you preferred cooperation over competition, but those two are not mutually exclusive or an antithesis of one-another. They are complementary systems meant to go hand in hand in order to further our progress as a species.

Collectivism is flawed, and the true basis for a strong people, economy, government, nation and world is the individual. The individual is the foundation of all of these. Without a strong and free individual your people will be weak sheep, easily enslaved by dictators and others who only wish to control the people. Collectivism, marxist ideology leads to a weak people. It promotes sameness, ignorance of personal skills, talents and traits, open hatred between classes of people, arbitrarily created and defined by the rulers so as to keep their people divided and hating each other instead of them. It ignores the part of the human spirit for enterprise and reaching for the stars and gives you equality of outcome instead of opportunity, which denies people the chance to express their individuality and grow as they see fit.

To this ideology, you are not nanook12 of Bakersfield, California, you are white male #23151123, who just happens to be part of the group all the other groups are supposed to be hating in this current time period, and your job is to shut up and conform to their ideas of who you are and what you should be. They drive a false wedge between being economically minded and being socially minded, as if people who enjoy having a strong economy they can participate in and further makes them greedy assholes that want to see their fellow men brought and kept low.

I was born and currently live in Romania, a former communist country that had the great misfortune of falling into the Soviet sphere of influence for close to 60 years. Prior to our revolution and adoption of western democracy and capitalism close to 30 years ago, our people were suffering greatly under the yoke of communism. People were starving, there were lines for the most basic of foods like bread and milk, they were forced to work in the fields for most of their lives, only seeing at most 1% of their hard work returned to them. People were being spied on, children were taught to snitch on their parents to the "Securitate", the state's internal affairs secret service that terrorized, censored everything and kept the people in line with the ideology. Fast forward to today and we're still feeling and dealing with the after-effects of this disease.

Leftists will tell you, especially those who have never actually lived under such a system (mostly middle-class to rich people that have benefited from capitalism but are disillusioned because they cannot come to grips with their own inabilities or don't even see them), that true communism is great, that it has never been tried in earnest. To which I answer, not even that type of communism, where there is no scarcity at all, where people magically deny their individuality and all proclaim with a hive mind that they desire to meld into a mass of mindless worker bees will ever come to pass. There must, after all, be a queen bee, and that position will inevitably be coveted by others, because no matter how much brainwashing you do, you only need 1 individual to start thinking for themselves for the entire structure to collapse. Now consider that those conditions of individual surrender have never happened, so we need to be more realistic, and in doing so we find that there are far more strong individuals within any group than 1. And so we cannot ever drive out human nature's individualistic tendencies from an individual, no matter how much brainwashing and propaganda we do. And lucky for us that we can't, because we'd be inviting stagnation, which means death for a species.

I am white, we Romanians are mostly homogeneous in this regard. We have never owned slaves and throughout history we've mostly come under the dominion of other, stronger nations until we finally united as one people. Thus, we don't suffer from white guilt. I am not rich, my family was dirt poor and could barely afford to send me to university. And yet I work enough to get by and my life is mostly alright. What I know for sure is that I could be doing much better for myself, if I were to apply myself and put in the hard work required to get there. But you see, I'm lazy, and I love playing video games and smoking pot (and in a free, non-communist society I have this choice, not to say that people who play games and smoke weed can't get ahead either, but it's harder). So I don't. But at least I'm honest with myself, "honesty is the best policy" an American saying (I think, don't kill me Brits), that can and should also be applied to being honest with yourself. Which is the best answer you can get to when you ask yourself the question how could I make my life and by extension those around me better? And when enough people do this, your society will forever flourish.

Government cannot fix these problems, all it can do is make them worse. Which is why it's our job to make sure it doesn't, by fixing them ourselves, by using the free market to get ahead and promote our ideals and goals. I am not saying the free market is perfect, but it's the best we've got and we should use it to the best of our abilities.

Well said Please stop using drugs, so you can keep making such nice posts in the future

My parents remember well: when bulgarians and romanians were first allowed to leave their countries and some of them came to Greece, the first thing they said was "wow you can go to the shop and buy bread anytime you want? TWO breads? THREE? AND MILK at same day!!!! WOW

Even the simple things that are available to use daily (like being able to buy bread and milk same day!), they seemed extraordinary to them! (no offense)

[Sky High]

They don’t though? look at what props up either party in thier base’s eyes.

[nanook12]

Remarkably, despite the entire thread being filled with leftist talkers, who I might add really need to get out of their ideological bubble and truly listen to some different opinions once in a while (especially younger leftist-brainwashed people[blame your professors for those in the US]), this thread is still being civil for the most part. Well done all.

As to your question OP, economics is the foremost social science. Without economics, nothing functions. Even hunter-gatherers used proto-economics when distributing resources to themselves, and no, it was never an equal distribution, hunters and later the warrior class usually got more than the rest. Wealth accumulation is the basis of progress, together with competition-minded cooperation. Simple cooperation by itself accomplishes nothing but furthers the status quo and leads to stagnation, which leads to death. You said you preferred cooperation over competition, but those two are not mutually exclusive or an antithesis of one-another. They are complementary systems meant to go hand in hand in order to further our progress as a species.

Collectivism is flawed, and the true basis for a strong people, economy, government, nation and world is the individual. The individual is the foundation of all of these. Without a strong and free individual your people will be weak sheep, easily enslaved by dictators and others who only wish to control the people. Collectivism, marxist ideology leads to a weak people. It promotes sameness, ignorance of personal skills, talents and traits, open hatred between classes of people, arbitrarily created and defined by the rulers so as to keep their people divided and hating each other instead of them. It ignores the part of the human spirit for enterprise and reaching for the stars and gives you equality of outcome instead of opportunity, which denies people the chance to express their individuality and grow as they see fit.

To this ideology, you are not nanook12 of Bakersfield, California, you are white male #23151123, who just happens to be part of the group all the other groups are supposed to be hating in this current time period, and your job is to shut up and conform to their ideas of who you are and what you should be. They drive a false wedge between being economically minded and being socially minded, as if people who enjoy having a strong economy they can participate in and further makes them greedy assholes that want to see their fellow men brought and kept low.

I was born and currently live in Romania, a former communist country that had the great misfortune of falling into the Soviet sphere of influence for close to 60 years. Prior to our revolution and adoption of western democracy and capitalism close to 30 years ago, our people were suffering greatly under the yoke of communism. People were starving, there were lines for the most basic of foods like bread and milk, they were forced to work in the fields for most of their lives, only seeing at most 1% of their hard work returned to them. People were being spied on, children were taught to snitch on their parents to the "Securitate", the state's internal affairs secret service that terrorized, censored everything and kept the people in line with the ideology. Fast forward to today and we're still feeling and dealing with the after-effects of this disease.

Leftists will tell you, especially those who have never actually lived under such a system (mostly middle-class to rich people that have benefited from capitalism but are disillusioned because they cannot come to grips with their own inabilities or don't even see them), that true communism is great, that it has never been tried in earnest. To which I answer, not even that type of communism, where there is no scarcity at all, where people magically deny their individuality and all proclaim with a hive mind that they desire to meld into a mass of mindless worker bees will ever come to pass. There must, after all, be a queen bee, and that position will inevitably be coveted by others, because no matter how much brainwashing you do, you only need 1 individual to start thinking for themselves for the entire structure to collapse. Now consider that those conditions of individual surrender have never happened, so we need to be more realistic, and in doing so we find that there are far more strong individuals within any group than 1. And so we cannot ever drive out human nature's individualistic tendencies from an individual, no matter how much brainwashing and propaganda we do.

I am white, we Romanians mostly homogeneous in this regard. We have never owned slaves and throughout history we've mostly come under the dominion of other, stronger nations until we finally united as one people. Thus, we don't suffer from white guilt. I am not rich, my family was dirt poor and could barely afford to send me to college. And yet I work enough to get by and my life is mostly alright. What I know for sure is that I could be doing much better for myself, if I were to apply myself and put in the hard work required to get there. But you see, I'm lazy, and I love playing video games and smoking pot (and in a free, non-communist society I have this choice). So I don't. But at least I'm honest with myself. Which is the best answer you can get to when you ask yourself the question how could I make my life and by extension those around me better? And when enough people do this, your society will forever flourish.

Government cannot fix these problems, all it can do is make them worse. Which is why it's our job to make sure it doesn't, by fixing them ourselves.

Our hunter gatherer ancestors thrived precisely because they exploited collectivism.

Human beings cannot survive alone in the wild; therefore, for most of human history our species existed as hunter gatherer bands, but going on hunts or gathering stuff is not always successful. Our ancestors knew this and decided that they would share with each other when individuals got unlucky on their hunting or gathering expeditions because they knew the band as a whole was more important than the individual. Humans are codependent on each other for gaining food and resources; therefore, if they actually share and distribute goods and resources throughout the band they can protect against when one single person is unlucky on a hunt and ensure the survival and prosperity of the whole band. Individualism and greed was actively rooted out in those days because it destroyed group cohesion and endangered everyone's survival.

Collectivism at this level has lead to us becoming the most successful species the world has ever known.

So there you go, a brief history lesson about our ancient past, how collectivism has lead us to be at the very top of the food chain, and why communism is so deeply rooted in people. Collectivism has literally evolved to become a staple part of our DNA. Collectivism is tried and true based on hundreds of thousands of years of human success. Compared to such a time span, individualism is a tiny blip on the radar.

[melodramocracy]

If you like low prices, they should be.

If you think free markets drive prices down, you should go house shopping.

[Independent voter]

Universal healthcare, paid college tuition, UBI, etc. In the political arena it seems that economic issues always take precedents over social issues. Why is that?

People don't want to spend their hard earned money on it.

Why do you ask such simple questions?

[Thage]

Universal healthcare, paid college tuition, UBI, etc. In the political arena it seems that economic issues always take precedents over social issues. Why is that?

It's hard to make a sociopath care about other people. It's easy to make them care about their wallets. And unfortunately, many studies have shown there is an unusually-high concentration of people with antisocial personality disorder found among politicians and CEOs alike compared to other fields, meaning that's the tack you have to take to convince them to see things your way.

[Eldar45]

Universal healthcare, paid college tuition, UBI, etc. In the political arena it seems that economic issues always take precedents over social issues. Why is that?

Because you need money to pay for these things. The US Federal Government already pays more for healthcare than any other nation. We can't afford to universalize healthcare. We already have a social welfare program for the less fortunate. It is abused to hell and back but it is still there. And the US federal government does pay out a lot in college tuitions with grants.

Also these are Economic issues.

[Eldar45]

If you think free markets drive prices down, you should go house shopping.

You mean one of those markets that the US government has meddled heavily in?

[ro9ue]

Universal healthcare, paid college tuition, UBI, etc. In the political arena it seems that economic issues always take precedents over social issues. Why is that?

The way I view it is it's like the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The psychology pyramid that says work about food first. If you go hungry and die, you can't worry about things further up the pyramid.



For a lot of people social issues are an icing on the cake thing. It's hard to worry about people being polite when you can't afford your house. There's a flip side to this though because if you fall into a group of people that's being victimized, your very basic needs can be threatened. For example the civil rights movement.

However in today's age, most of the social issues aren't even 1st world problems, they are 1st world annoyances.

[Torrasque]

I'm assuming that you mean "business finance" and not "economics." All forms of economics are, in a matter of fact, social science.

[nanook12]

If you think that is what markets entail then you are simply ignorant.

That is what markets entail completely objectively.

[nanook12]

Do you really want to trade California for Brazil ?

Ohh well, sure we can... Lol

I am sure I will be poorer in Brazil, but I don't really mind if I am around happier people that care less about money and more about life. You can have my spot in America, but be careful what you wish for.

[nanook12]

Funny, feefees are what have always destroyed a country in the past while being an anti-social psychopath is what brings greatness to nations.

Ha, check this out fren. It states that extreme inequality was a major reason for the fall of the Roman Republic. Turns out the anti-social greed driven psychos where the ones that ruined the largest empire of the ancient world, not the "feefees." But that none of my business...

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/...s-in-rome.html

[Ozyorkbourne]

Steam engines worked great in their time, yet why are they pretty much extinct today? Everything changes, and entire socioeconomic systems are subject to that change also. Just because something worked in the past does not mean it will always work. Capitalism has been successful, the difference between me and you is that I am open minded enough to believe that there are other systems out there that will work just as good or better. Your mind is closed off to that idea, hinting that you lack future sight.

Go on then. Communism failed and capitalism is flawned. Tell me what's next in line when we evolve beyond our stream engine level economics. Enlighten me, oh 'woke' one.

- - - Updated - - -

I am sure I will be poorer in Brazil, but I don't really mind if I am around happier people that care less about money and more about life. You can have my spot in America, but be careful what you wish for.

People in Brazil care quite a bit about money, same as everywhere else. They just don't have much of it.