The Liberal Utopia - What if..

texas_ex2000

texas_ex2000

2,500+ Posts
What if tomorrow liberals could hack reality and get their perfect world, economically, culturally, and in foreign policy/national security in the U.S., what would it look like and would you actually want to live there?

The caveats are:
1) While Earth's hydrocarbon fuel is what it is currently, the green energy technology needed to run this Utopia exists. So a Prius is just as practical and in the same price segment as a Civic. Same thing with a Tesla and an E-Class.

2) Even though they've hacked reality, everyone still has their current sensibilites. So HTown77 is still HTown and still pissed off at stuff. Smart hardworking people with character are still the same and lazy dumb people are still lazy and dumb.

3) The rest of the world hasn't changed.

So here's a few things that pop to mind:

- The goverent, with a few execptions, would outlaw internal combustion vehicles.
- Banks would be nationalized
- Universal healthcare...and I mean UNIVERSAL
- No guns at all
- Socialized education
- Everyone has a right to a job, and they will get one if whatever market that's around won't give them one.
- Birth control for every woman
- Everyone gets paid within $50k of each other.
- No God mentioned anywhere in Government activities
- The US has no borders and anyone anywhere becomes a citizen if they decided that's what they want.
- Basically Bernie Sandersland


Let's say because energy technology improved 100x some of this was actually kind of sustainable. Would you actually want to live in this world?
 
Last edited:
Oh LOL.

- The goverent, with a few execptions, would outlaw internal combustion vehicles.

The correct spelling is "government" and "exceptions" - you'll pardon the liberal pedantry. Why you hatin' on electricity?

- Banks would be nationalized

Maybe this would mitigate the need for bailouts when the bankers gamble with house money and wreck the economy? I don't know, you're the expert.

- Universal healthcare...and I mean UNIVERSAL

Do you mean Universal or UNIVERSAL? I'm cool as far as our solar system but beyond that we may need to discuss funding.

- No guns at all

I know some liberals who like to hunt. They are confused about this point. Can they have tactical assault blowdarts?

- Socialized education

Is this like socialized national parks and socialized interstate highways and socialized public libraries? Please elaborate.

- Everyone has a right to a job, and they will get one if whatever market that's around won't give them one.

You seem unclear on how "markets" work, but don't let that dampen the liberal bogeyman wet dream. I said dampen!

- Birth control for every woman

Start with my cousin please. I mean damn, girl. Critters everywhere.

- Everyone gets paid within $50k of each other.

Was that really on the platform? You could be making this one up.

- No God mentioned anywhere in Government activities

We have a secular republic with secular founding documents. Or is your spiritual experience incomplete without government sanction? That makes God sad.

- The US has no borders and anyone anywhere becomes a citizen if they decided that's what they want.

And let those filthy Canucks take our lawn care jobs? Come on.

- Basically Bernie Sandersland

Fair point.
 
finkstr said:
Oh LOL.

- The goverent, with a few execptions, would outlaw internal combustion vehicles.

The correct spelling is "government" and "exceptions" - you'll pardon the liberal pedantry. Why you hatin' on electricity?

- Banks would be nationalized

Maybe this would mitigate the need for bailouts when the bankers gamble with house money and wreck the economy? I don't know, you're the expert.

- Universal healthcare...and I mean UNIVERSAL

Do you mean Universal or UNIVERSAL? I'm cool as far as our solar system but beyond that we may need to discuss funding.

- No guns at all

I know some liberals who like to hunt. They are confused about this point. Can they have tactical assault blowdarts?

- Socialized education

Is this like socialized national parks and socialized interstate highways and socialized public libraries? Please elaborate.

- Everyone has a right to a job, and they will get one if whatever market that's around won't give them one.

You seem unclear on how "markets" work, but don't let that dampen the liberal bogeyman wet dream. I said dampen!

- Birth control for every woman

Start with my cousin please. I mean damn, girl. Critters everywhere.

- Everyone gets paid within $50k of each other.

Was that really on the platform? You could be making this one up.

- No God mentioned anywhere in Government activities

We have a secular republic with secular founding documents. Or is your spiritual experience incomplete without government sanction? That makes God sad.

- The US has no borders and anyone anywhere becomes a citizen if they decided that's what they want.

And let those filthy Canucks take our lawn care jobs? Come on.

- Basically Bernie Sandersland

Fair point.
Click to expand...
Fink, I typed this on my phone. So pardon the spelling errors and brevity.

Interpret these ideas how you want to. I was alluding to a single payer system.

Sounds like you'd like that place.
 
finkstr said:
Wait. I thought you were defining the liberal utopia.
Click to expand...
Not at all. I never said I was. I was just throwing these out there. Maybe there are some other ones that other posters have. Universal healthcare, equal pay, right to a job, free education...these seem to be important concerns for liberals.

I was alluding to a vapid post. We'll call it a draw.
Click to expand...
???

It's a just post on a football message board. Seriously, you don't like the idea of a single payer healthcare system? You wouldn't want to live in a world where maximum income is benchmarked to the minimum wage?

I don't know, you're the expert.
Click to expand...
My clients were buying prime mortgages. And my firm didn't take any TARP money.
 
Last edited:
Would Dems work in this utopia? That doesn't seem like a realistic point. I think you meant to say they will all receive the same amount of pay to work on their next feel good project.
 
texas_ex2000 said:
- The goverent, with a few execptions, would outlaw internal combustion vehicles.
- Banks would be nationalized
- Universal healthcare...and I mean UNIVERSAL
- No guns at all
- Socialized education
- Everyone has a right to a job, and they will get one if whatever market that's around won't give them one.
- Birth control for every woman
- Everyone gets paid within $50k of each other.
- No God mentioned anywhere in Government activities
- The US has no borders and anyone anywhere becomes a citizen if they decided that's what they want.
- Basically Bernie Sandersland
Click to expand...

I reject the premise that these agenda items constitute Sandersland. Sanders describes himself as a democratic socialist of the European fashion with some caveats.

First, we essentially have nationalized banks, at least with respect to losses. If the banks screw up, they get bailed out with the help of the taxpayer and the Federal Reserve. A guy like Sanders advocates much tighter oversight of the Fed and tighter regulation of the banking industry, but he hasn't called for having the government affirmatively take over the banks. I could live with his ideas on the banking industry until it stops being in the sack with the government. Start being real capitalists, and I'll oppose banking regulations.

Second, universal healthcare is a liberal slogan. Sanders supports a single-payer system in which the government is the primary financier of healthcare. I never thought I could live with a single payer system until I lived in a country that has a quasi-single payer system. (There is a very small private health insurance market in Germany.) We get exceptional care here, and the costs are far more reasonable. I don't know how this system would work in the US, but I can definitely live with it in Germany.

Third, Sanders has gotten flack for not being anti-gun enough. For a Democrat, he's actually pretty pro-gun.

Fourth, we already have socialized education in the United States. It sucks for how expensive it is.

Fifth, I would not want to live in a country in which the government guaranteed everybody a job. It would bid up the cost of labor, and we'd have a colossal government sector. Not good.

Sixth, women already have pretty easy access to birth control. In the liberal utopia, they'd have absolute access to abortion services. No, I'm not cool with that.

Seventh, no one has called for everyone to make within $50K of one another, but if they did, I would not like that idea.

Eighth, the liberal utopia would likely go further than removing God from all governmental activities. It would officially suppress religious expression. Big problems with that.

Ninth, I'll defend Bernie again. He is not an open borders advocate. He is a rare liberal who admits that immigration is bad for workers. As for other liberals who support open borders and turning the US into a third world country, I would not like that.

Finally, at least here in Europe, the internal combustion engine isn't outlawed, but its use is heavily taxed. I think that's what Sanders and most liberals would do. Here, they pay €.75 per liter (about $3.28 per gallon in taxes). (Because I'm in Germany under US government orders, I can avoid paying this tax by buying gas on a US military installation or at an Esso station in Germany but not in other nations in Europe.) That tax is brutal, but they get a hell of a lot for that - a very reliable, clean, and safe public transit system that can virtually eliminate the need to own a car. Such as a system wouldn't be practical in most areas of the US, which are far more spread out. I could live with it in the Northeast but not anywhere else.
 
This post sprouted from a discussion with a co-worker about France. He knows I'm a Francophile...love the people and would certainly love to live there. And of course he was surprised when I started waxing poetic about the country.

First, France is not Sandersland and the liberal utopia does not exist. The closest one might be the Netherlands? I don't know. And the points I listed weren't meant to be an authoritative description. They are a random list of things, certainly embellished (e.g. income capped at $50k from minimum wage), of various issues that are important to Liberals that I typed on my phone while waiting for my Ramen noodles. I just typed in the prohibition of internal combustion engines because naturally aspirated European sports cars are going the way of the dinosaurs because of their emissions laws. That's the level of thought I was putting into it, so this wasn't meant to be about specifics.

I told my co-worker, France's system is the system that is meant for them. They wouldn't be France if they were like the U.S. Likewise, the U.S. is too geographically and demographically diverse from any other country out there that pointing to another system as a plug and play solution doesn't work.

So I guess the ultimate question is, regardless of geography/demographics/technology limitations...assuming a pure Liberal Utopia were actually somewhat feasible, is that what you would want to have? With the exception of secular religious stuff it seems (purely my perspective) that liberal policies are primarily designed to achieve outcomes. And not only get outcomes, but get them in the most efficient manner possible. Are outcomes what makes us? I would argue no. Class polarization is a huge issue right now that seems to be dividing the country. Liberal policies like high minimum wage, executive pay disclosures, Hillary's "free" tuition for those who can't afford college (what I'm referred to as socialized education) are all meant to close the wealth gap.

Here's what I was taught. Money and a college degree does not give a man class. I'm not saying this as some kind of old money Yale prick marginalizing les "nouveaux riche." I'm saying this as a guy who's father didn't have any money or a college degree when he arrived here when he was 27 years old. People get wealthy because well paying companies want high character employees. A high character person is someone that seeks education, not because of money, but because they want to learn. And in life, we all know this, 90% of the time at those big and small character defining moments the right choices are the hard inconvenient choices - not the easy quick choices. One of the hardest choices, especially for a man with no money, is realizing wealth is usually built on generational sacrifices and making the hard responsible choices so his son can go to a good school.

Class is a projection of the character building choices a person has made in their life (maybe even the choices their parents have made). What is important to this person? Do they live by what they say is important to them even when it's inconvenient? Obviously, getting people to make the right choices in life all the time is an unrealistic utopia also, but I wouldn't want to live in a world where the real point in life, those character building choices, are diluted.
 
Last edited:
If oil is no longer needed, what will happen in the Middle East and in other countries that basically exist (now) to supply oil to the rest of the world? If we think we have some people there pissed at us now, imagine if entire regions are made financially irrelevant?

What value would a lot of OPEC countries contribute to the world and how would their citizens even eat?
 
CMimlSuWEAAnPUV.jpg
 
Mr. Deez said:
Fourth, we already have socialized education in the United States. It sucks for how expensive it is.

Fifth, I would not want to live in a country in which the government guaranteed everybody a job. It would bid up the cost of labor, and we'd have a colossal government sector. Not good.
Click to expand...

Agree with both, and point 5 negates the need for improving point 4.

texas_ex2000 said:
Obviously, getting people to make the right choices in life all the time is an unrealistic utopia also, but I wouldn't want to live in a world where the real point in life, those character building choices, are diluted.
Click to expand...

Well said

Spur 90 said:
If oil is no longer needed, what will happen in the Middle East and in other countries that basically exist (now) to supply oil to the rest of the world?
Click to expand...

See Sub-Saharan Africa for reference.
 
From the responses on this thread you can tell who likes cheap, lazy personal insults.

Liberal utopia is not just a dream or a theory. It exists today, the two physically closest examples being Cuba and Venezuela (see above). It doesn't work. If the 20th Century established anything, it was this. You were given roughly 100 years to show it can work in practice, and you failed. Miserably. You had to build a wall -- not to keep us out but to keep your own citizens in. Doesn't this alone tell you all you need to know? Even today, people risk their lives and even the lives of their children to get away from it. Can you imagine doing that? Can you imagine anything in life that you, as a parent, would feel so strongly about that you would willingly put your children in harm's way over? This is liberal utopia in practice. As opposed to theory (or the lyrics to some hippy song).
 
I'm not sure if I'd say that Venezuela would be the "liberal utopia", the socialist maybe but not most American liberals.
 
I've heard the western democracies in Europe described as socialist, France, Germany, UK, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands etc. as well as Canada. Those are energetic democracies, not autoritarian regimes. I think we can all agree authoritarian socialsm doesn't work. Western European socialism, which is really a capitalist sysem with protections for workers and provision of universal health care, protection of individual liberty and robust political activity have arguable comparable quality of life to us. Not as good for the rich nor as bad for the poor as the US, much kinder to the environment.
 
Crockett said:
I've heard the western democracies in Europe described as socialist, France, Germany, UK, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands etc. as well as Canada. Those are energetic democracies, not autoritarian regimes. I think we can all agree authoritarian socialsm doesn't work. Western European socialism, which is really a capitalist sysem with protections for workers and provision of universal health care, protection of individual liberty and robust political activity have arguable comparable quality of life to us. Not as good for the rich nor as bad for the poor as the US, much kinder to the environment.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I'd argue that would be closer to the American liberal "utopia" where workers have more protections than the US. I'm not talking France but rather Germany and the UK have some very positive characteristics. Liberals aren't anti-capitalist but believe reasonable controls can be put in place, a lot like gun control. The fact that we haven't put any reasonable controls in place after the financial meltdown in 2008 after the myriad of government bailouts is appalling. In some ways, socialism already exists.
 
Using Cuba and Venezuela as examples of "liberal utopia" is silly. Extremist Democrats lean towards the socialist end of the spectrum, but they do not advocate for pure socialism. Similarly, extremist Republicans lean towards the capitalist end of the spectrum, but they do not advocate for pure capitalism.

The choice between capitalism and socialism is a false one. The real choice is how much capitalism and how much socialism. Certain industries (roads, defense, education) have always been socialized to at least some extent, and most other industries have been subject to taxation and some level of regulation. The social safety net is a more modern invention, but is widely accepted as desirable (albeit bloated in many people's opinions).

The United States isn't all that close to either extreme, but my gut tells me we are much closer to pure capitalism that pure socialism. I've never seen a reliable quantification, but for the sake of argument I'll throw out 30% socialist. Sanders may want to push us closer to 40% (or even 50%) and the Tea Partiers may want to scale it back to 20%, but they both advocate for a blend between socialism and capitalism.

Canada and Western Europe are also far from both extremes, but some of the countries there come much closer to the middle, maybe even 50+%. Perhaps the Scandanavian countries blow past 50% and are much closer to socialism -- I don't know.

Reasonable minds can differ on whether life is better in the US, Canada, or Western Europe. All have what I'd call successful, even thriving, economic systems.
 
SeattleH, the financial meltdown wasn't caused because there was a lack of regulation. It was due to the distortion to the housing market instigated by the US govt and the monetary policy of the US Fed. I read somewhere recently that the Fed chairman at the time knew his policy was creating a housing bubble but thought it was the better option for the economy than if he raised interest rates.

The moral of the story is that governments don't "protect" the economy really. They distort and many times make things worse. Even when they don't make things worse they merely delay the inevitable. We can see that today in China. We can see that in the EU.

For me personally, I don't want an economy like UK or Germany. The UK economy doesn't grow or innovate like we do here. Germany's economy is predicated on massive exports, more than half of their economic output is exported to other countries in the EU. It is why they are always at the center of EU economic issues. If they don't hold it together, and it is starting to crack and fall apart, their economy falters badly. They are in a very vulnerable state.

No. The answer is free market economies that are truly free combined with minimal government. Sure, let's have a safety net for the unemployed and environmental protections, and regulations enforcing ethichs, but let's not have too much of anything.
 
The term "socialism" is severely misused. I think that if you have true socialism, you will almost per se have authoritarianism at least from an economic standpoint, and to maintain that, you'll often have to have social authoritarianism. (See the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Venezuela.) The Right calls anything the government touches "socialist" and puts it in a negative light, and the Left calls Europe "socialist" and puts it in a positive light, because businesses generally can't walk all over individuals just because they have overwhelming economic leverage. Colloquially, I call Europe socialist because everyone else does, but it really isn't.

For example, when I want a loaf of bread, I don't go to the People's Bakery and pick up my ration of bread for the week. To me, that would be socialism. I walk down to this bakery, where a 50 or 60 year old lady sells me a somewhat but not unreasonably expensive loaf of bread that is spectacularly good but will be noticeably stale the next day. The bread is made to fairly strict regulatory standards of purity, freshness, and cleanliness. The employees selling me the bread aren't rich by any means, but they make enough to get by as working class folks, which means they're paid extremely well by US standards. The bakery was started 6 generations ago by the Engel family, who still owns it. I could also go to this bakery down the street. It's owned by Barbarossa Bäckerei, a large but not colossal company that has a chain of bakeries in the area and operates under similar regulatory burdens as Engel does. I choose Engel's bakery, because it's cheaper, slightly better, and has nicer employees especially to English-speakers.

Where is the socialism is this equation? Everybody involved represents private interests and operates on private property, and there's direct competition. All three are inconsistent with basic socialism. The government's role is to regulate the public health, safety, and welfare of the people involved as well as the economics of selling bread in the area by restricting the number of bakeries in the community. Furthermore, that regulatory environment wasn't created by a populist or worker uprising. It was created by fairly corporate, establishment-friendly guys like Bismarck in part to stave off populist, socialist uprisings.

I deal with actual government personnel for public transportation, public utilities, and public education. That's really about it, which makes the socialism element pretty similar to what most in the US deal with. (Even Deutsche Post is private.) In the area of healthcare, the financing is usually (but not always) handled by government, but the delivery of care typically is not. For example, Deez Jr. was born in a private hospital by a private OB/GYN, who had a private office. When people say Europe has "socialized medicine," that's a misnomer, though one could argue that health insurance is socialized.

The missing term in the equation is fascism. Nobody likes to use that term, because of the negative connotations of it, but that's what Western European economies really resemble - command economies that consist of tightly regulated private interests whose risks and losses are often shared. They aren't really bastions of socialism.
 
Monahorns said:
SeattleH, the financial meltdown wasn't caused because there was a lack of regulation. It was due to the distortion to the housing market instigated by the US govt and the monetary policy of the US Fed. I read somewhere recently that the Fed chairman at the time knew his policy was creating a housing bubble but thought it was the better option for the economy than if he raised interest rates.

The moral of the story is that governments don't "protect" the economy really. They distort and many times make things worse. Even when they don't make things worse they merely delay the inevitable. We can see that today in China. We can see that in the EU.
Click to expand...

Yes, the housing market distortion was a large part of the problem but to neglect the role of banking deregulation (during the Clinton admin), introduction of unregulated overly complicated financial instruments (CDO's), and negligence by the ratings services is giving only part of the story. Unregulated Capitalism results in tremendous boom times and equally tremendous busts that most notably left the taxpayers footing much of the bill. Moderation in everything is important. Nobody is advocating a China level of government control but sensible measures like ensuring major banks have a larger % of equity to cover their large bets help protect against the inevitable major meltdowns.
 
Last edited:
SH, I totally agree that banks should be more careful with how much they hold in reserve. The problem is the Federal system allows them to hold less not more. It is hypocritical or maybe illogical to have a system that encourages to hold less in reserve by protecting them when they default and then writing laws telling them to hold more.
 
Mr.D, totally agree with you regarding fascism. Pretty much every Western economy is some type of fascism which is also described as mercantilism, cronism, corporatism.

It is easy to call any involvement of the government in the economy socialism but it isn't technically correct.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-HOGS *
Sat, Nov 16 • 11:00 AM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top