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In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

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Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#131

Post by loewenskind »

nightlifelover wrote: post #66
zdw wrote: post #7

If you have less to lose, you're more willing to take risks. Thus having the government take care of basic welfare and health care benefits frees people to be entrepreneurial, in a sense. Compare to the US, where people are tied to a job based on the benefits they have through that job, and before the health care legislation's removal of preexisting conditions clauses, if you had a medical condition and lost your job…

> If you have less to lose, you're more willing to take risks. Completely disagree, social security has rather a negative on the willingness of the population to take risks. In countries with high social securities, such as Switzerland or Germany there are less startups founded on average. People instead are in a kind of security thinking and take the most safe jobs, get an insurance for everything, etc..

>high social securities, such as Switzerland

Do you actually know anything about these countries? I see a lot more entrepreneurs in Switzerland than I do in the US. That is, I see people with small businesses all over the place. It feels like every 3rd or 4th car on the road is a company car for some small business. Maybe there aren't thousands of useless, never-going-to-go-anywhere web start-ups starting every day, but who cares?

Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#132

Post by xlpz »

brc wrote: post #112
xlpz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who exactly gets to define that only authoritarian regimes with freedom restrictions practice anything that can be properly described as socialism?

I didn't. I said that a socialist country would have freedom restrictions in place. I didn't try and describe socialism as a construct, I described a country with a socialist government which referred to itself as such. I repeat, Norway is not a socialist country. I'm happy to be given an example of a socialist country in which you're free to leave and own private property. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social…

You are still saying the same thing. "A socialist country would have freedom restrictions in place". Who says that? Norway, and many other countries, have had socialdemocratic governments for a long time, who also define themselves as socialist (for instance, they belong to the socialist international). Why is an authoritarian regime describing itself as socialist actually socialist but a socialdemocratic government doing the same isn't? Honest question here, just trying to figure out how do you end up there.

Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#133

Post by Prisen »

dantheman wrote: post #86
Norse wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5. You can opt out, and live in the wilderness, not being a part of the economic system, and paying no taxes. 6. You can stop working, and live on the mimimum amount you get off other peoples taxes. 7. You can move to a country with lower taxes. If all these freedoms seem to much work to you, the only person enslaving you is you.

5. Why must one opt out of the economic system? 6. Why must one stop working? 7. Why must one move away from their friends and family, to a foreign land? What if there is nowhere else with lower taxes? I believe the the observation, about slave morality is being misunderstood. But more importantly, the crux of my argument is this - if people are truly happy about the level of taxation, then why is it mandatory. For i…

Tragedy of the commons. It's one of the most fundamental reasons that we have states.

Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#134

Post by relic17 »

GoogleMeElmo wrote: post #45
relic17 wrote: post #33

The article implies that most people in Norway believe that individual rights are less important than the average welfare of all individuals taken together and that personal lives are less important than the well-being of the collective. This is quite logical, because it is the acceptance of this view of the world that makes their system possible. A similar view is at the root of most governments around the world tod…

A bit of anecdotal evidence from a Norwegian citizen to counter your "doctor vs janitor" argument: I'm more than well aquainted with a doctor and she is more than happy to pay her taxes, in order to benefit the rest of society. You should also know that even though the tax system in Norway works to even the footing of different posed people financially, it does not wipe out the class difference between a janitor and…

Fundamentally, it comes down to the questions "Do you have the right to keep the fruit of your effort? And do you have the right to dispose of it as you see fit?"

It appears that your acquaintance agrees with having her government take away part of her income and give it to the janitor. She accepts the janitor's claim to part of her property as the janitor's right - i.e. the janitor does not owe her any gratitude, and her act is not a voluntary act of benevolence - she is simply giving him what is already his due.

So where does this right come from? The janitor's need. The question here is whether need can give rise to a legitimate right.

You say that your acquaintance thinks that her giving away part of her wealth helps prevent poorer people from becoming criminals. And that this danger gives them the right to claim part of her wealth. But if you extrapolate this thinking further, you'd get people keeping others hostage by means of a threat - i.e. if you refuse to share with me what you earned but I didn't, I'll turn into a criminal and hurt you. This way of thinking about rights is very dangerous.

My view of happiness is simply the achievement of your values, which you have defined consciously and rationally and which do not infringe on the rights of others. The questions for your acquaintance are "Is she feeling happy because she can buy a protection from criminals", or "Is she feeling happy because she truly loves all her fellow citizens (known and unknown, good and bad, lazy and hard-working)?". Regardless of the answer, the more important question is: "Why does she prefer a situation where she is given no choice, no right to refuse to give away, to a situation where she could give away voluntarily, as an act of kindness?"

Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#135

Post by loewenskind »

ThomPete wrote: post #32

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Norway don't say yes to socialism they say yes to social welfare in a different way than in the US. So do Denmark (where I am from) and Sweden. Yes the taxes are higher (up to 60% in Denmark with a progressive tax system) and about the same I believe in Norway. But it's not like everyone walks around an love it. In fact there is great opposition to the level that taxation have g…

>Norway don't say yes to socialism they say yes to social welfare in a different way than in the US.

But they do say yes to what most people in the US would call "socialism". When it comes to politics the words the US uses don't match what the rest of the world uses.

Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#136

Post by rue »

marvin wrote: post #53
ThomPete wrote: post #32

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Norway don't say yes to socialism they say yes to social welfare in a different way than in the US. So do Denmark (where I am from) and Sweden. Yes the taxes are higher (up to 60% in Denmark with a progressive tax system) and about the same I believe in Norway. But it's not like everyone walks around an love it. In fact there is great opposition to the level that taxation have g…

Thanks for setting the record straight on this. I'm Norwegian, and this is exactly what I would say about this. There are many things we do in Scandinavia that should be copied in the US, but start-up culture and small business is not helped along by the tax system and social services/benefits. In fact, the progressive taxation alone incentivizes everyone to _not_ earn more than about 100000 USD a year (if you work h…

> In fact, the progressive taxation alone incentivizes everyone to _not_ earn more than about 100000 USD a year […]

100k is a lot. Only people who've seriously lost perspective (or living in areas that have collectively lost perspective and have huge local inflation) think it's not enough. I'm quite happy to pay taxes to support social services. The only thing better would be to equalise incomes so that it wouldn't be necessary…

Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#137

Post by loewenskind »

gyardley wrote: post #64

Of course Norway's way of doing things could work in the United States - if the typical American had the underlying culture, beliefs, and attitudes of the typical Norwegian. Since they don't, and cultural change is the sort of thing that happens incrementally over a generation or more, there's no plan of action to be gained from such articles - they're valuable because they teach us a bit about other cultures, but tr…

How do you think these generational changes occur to begin with? Education.

Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#138

Post by Norse »

Symmetry wrote: post #94
Norse wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the bit of the article where it wsas pointed out that those countries have the highest number of startups in the world? Not "less on average" but "the most".

Its possible we shouldn't be too quick to infer too much from this article, however. Norway is a major oil producer and if Norway's startup creation rate is very different from Sweden and Denmark's maybe we should be looking at other factors.

Didn't the article mention that Denmark was number 2 in startups after Norway? So not very different at all. And I suspect Finland is quite up there too.

Along with the fact that Norway saves all its oil in a fund for a rainy day, I don't think oil figures that much.

Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#139

Post by Norse »

hmottestad wrote: post #99
nightlifelover wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have less to lose, you're more willing to take risks. Completely disagree, social security has rather a negative on the willingness of the population to take risks. In countries with high social securities, such as Switzerland or Germany there are less startups founded on average. People instead are in a kind of security thinking and take the most safe jobs, get an insurance for everything, etc..

As I recall Germany and Switzerland do not have particularly good social securities. They both differ from Norway (the country in the article) by having very, very, very limited base health insurance. Their system is pretty similar to the US.

Germany and Switzerland have insurance-based UHC systems. More market-oriented, and somewhat more expensive than the other European systems. In fact Switzerlands system is very expensive indeed, running at almost 66% of the USAs costs per head. But the results are on par with the other European systems. Social securities are fairly good.

Re: In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism

#140

Post by prodigal_erik »

dantheman wrote: post #86
Norse wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5. You can opt out, and live in the wilderness, not being a part of the economic system, and paying no taxes. 6. You can stop working, and live on the mimimum amount you get off other peoples taxes. 7. You can move to a country with lower taxes. If all these freedoms seem to much work to you, the only person enslaving you is you.

5. Why must one opt out of the economic system? 6. Why must one stop working? 7. Why must one move away from their friends and family, to a foreign land? What if there is nowhere else with lower taxes? I believe the the observation, about slave morality is being misunderstood. But more importantly, the crux of my argument is this - if people are truly happy about the level of taxation, then why is it mandatory. For i…

It's an enforceable commitment scheme. I will happily pay if everyone does. If it's optional, most people will become free riders, so I'm not going to be the sucker who bears more than my share while failing to actually solve the problem.
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