You are not living under socialism, but under capitalism, don't try to paint it another way.
> It's a regulated market economic model
So is the USA.
Our model came first, then came the name. I explained it's origins thoroughly, it is rooted in economic theory and it is what is really happening in Germany. It's codified in Articles 20 and 14 of our constitution. Social welfare is among the best in the world and covers a lot, but taxes are high. This would never happen in any free market economic models. I recommend you read up on it a bit before making snarky comments on the internet.
Are those numbers indicative of socialism or capitalism?
> I recommend you read up on it a bit before making snarky comments on the internet.
It's not a snarky comment. Regulation and welfare are requirements even in a capitalist economy, otherwise you have people dying on the streets en masse and companies dumping toxic waste next to the fields where you grow food. You're essentially arguing that real capitalism hasn't been attempted yet - that more "freedom" (from regulation), more inequality will somehow fix things.
The US has more "freedom" in this sense than Germany - is the average person doing better over there? I don't think so, I certainly don't know any "average worker" currently living anywhere in the EU who would want to swap places.
Germany is a capitalist country with strong social welfare. If you think social welfare is a problem, feel free to argue that, but one thing that's not up for serious discussion is its economic model.
This sentence does not apply because "social market economy" does not imply that companies should be owned by their workes.
> What percentage are owned by capitalists, generating private profits?
This sentence does not apply because a "social market economy" does not forbid the generation of profits. Profits are to be shared with the populace to pay for social policies, which is happening.
> Are those numbers indicative of socialism or capitalism?
You should really - really - read up on "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" and ordoliberalism before you make a point. If you don't know how they are defined and what they mean, you cannot make a coherent argument.
> You're essentially arguing that real capitalism hasn't been attempted yet - that more "freedom" (from regulation), more inequality will somehow fix things.
I have not and you are free to cite where I did.
> Germany is a capitalist country with strong social welfare.
Congratulations, you combine this with "Regulation" and a state mandated "Economic Conscience", you have finally found out what "social market economy" means. It's not "capitalism with X". It's so far removed from the idea of capitalism that we use another term entirely.
> but one thing that's not up for serious discussion is its economic model.
I encourage you to look up the terms. Again.
>> You're essentially arguing that real capitalism hasn't been attempted yet
> I have not and you are free to cite where I did.
It's a straightforward logical inference. Your definition of capitalism excludes every capitalist economy that has ever existed.
Those are not my definitions.
> It's a straightforward logical inference. Your definition of capitalism excludes every capitalist economy that has ever existed
No. A social market economy is capitalism with rules and safety nets, like strong labor protections, healthcare, and pensions, to make sure people are protected from big hardships. The U.S. mostly has free-market capitalism, with fewer regulations and weaker social support. So the main difference is that a social market economy tries to control capitalism to protect people, while the U.S. mostly lets the market run on its own.
so it is not socialism, the whole point of this discussion.
Germany's market is an example of welfare capitalism, which is a type of capitalism.
What you're writing reminds me very much of "the USA isn't a democracy, it's a republic!" (as if a republic isn't a type of democracy called "representative democracy")
Good thing I haven't argued that at all. I was arguing that Germany, which calls its economic system "Social Economics" in fact employs this very economic strategy, which is defined as not being straight forward capitalist but as a mixture of capitalism and socialism.
> Germany's market is an example of welfare capitalism, which is a type of capitalism.
Germany's market is per definition not welfare capitalism, but "social economics". This term exists, it is well defined, you can look it up.
No, the whole point of this discussion is that someone claimed Germany was capitalist. Which it isn't. It's in between systems.
Sure. But that is as socialist as it was the National Socialist German Workers Party.
What you, mfru and dns_snek did here is not respectful, open-minded discourse and I'm amazed that selfmodruntime put up with it that long.
> What you, mfru and dns_snek did here is not respectful, open-minded discourse
Give me a break, the original complaint, the one you linked but apparently didn't read, went even further, likening the European economy to communism:
> The USSR was supposed to be a cautionary tale. Not a guidebook!
The goal of social market economy is to 'correct undesirable effects' of free markets. Depending on your perspective, you categorize it as capitalist, socialist or in-between system.
Because the reality of this is unpopular for critics of capitalism. Most people rarely have an idea how far removed from laissez faire capitalism European countries are. This doesn't stop critics from ironically mentioning that free markets altogether don't work for example in our renter's market (which is the most restricted market we have). The ill-effects we are now feeling are from strangulating regulation, bad policy and European countries with large welfare states like France or Germany having little moveable capital to invest into infrastructure, because most of it is forever bound to welfare. Note that I'm not critical of welfare, but we have lost the plot that money needs to be earned before it can be redistributed.
> Social market economy is the self-description in Germany, it's what you learn in school and how German politicians name the system.
All this and also scholars attributing this very real system to be effectively what we have in Germany is not enough for some.
The means of production are in the hand of capital. Profit is the driving factor of companies. "Number go up" is still the default goal.
If I ask the average person on the street if they think the moon phases have impacts on their life, chances are a good portion will agree. Majority opinion does not make for facts.
No, it's because you keep strawmanning like this for rhetorical effect. Laissez faire capitalism isn't the only form of capitalism that exists and nobody has claimed it to be the form of capitalism that applies to Germany.
Because they aren't public. They are provided by a company.
> And let's not mention the health care system, which literally has two tiers, one for the poor and one for the rich, with of course the poor-tier being barely functional, and still expensive as fuck
This is because of inefficiency, an aging demographic and regulation, not because of capitalism. The "system for the rich" was worse back in the day, and only became "better" for doctors because they adjusted their rates for covered services. In fact, because the "poor tier" insurance companies have not adjusted their rates according to inflation for a long time [1], services are of course getting worse. The average dentist earns 50% of what he earned 1970 adjusted for inflation. [2] This is called the "Punktwert", it hasn't changed since 1980 ([3]) and it is the single most important factor why services are getting worse and worse. No one is getting rich off of GKV members. Not doctors, and certainly not insurance companies.
> "Social market economy" my ass.
Sorry, no. This is the direct outcome of a social market economy, when the economic motor isn't doing so good, you still have to pay for permanent social gifts that were given to the largest voting class (old people). The government mandated insurance companies are close to being bankrupt because of this exact policy. In fact, they would already be bankrupt if we didn't have a social market economy [4], which pays billions of tax dollars to prop them up.
> The only people getting any kind of social benefits are the retired boomers and if you were to do the accounting, even they got massively shafted by the capitalists, because those boomers would be 3x richer if their lifetime savings were properly invested.
Well, boomers, pensioners and those close to retirement make up 60% of the voting base. They got what they voted for, good and bad, a social market economic model that bleeds the workers to pay for pensions. That matches the definition of a large welfare system exactly. They also voted pretty clearly against an investment backed pension scheme and have been voting like this for 4 decades now. As always, economic models have disadvantages, and we are finding out now that models close to socialism stop working when you run out of other people's money.
[1]: https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/amtliche-gebuehrenordnung-...
[2]: https://praxis-analysen.de/das-verfuegbare-zahnarzt-einkomme...
[3]: https://www.aerzteblatt.de/news/mehrere-vertragsarztliche-le...
> Because they aren't public. They are provided by a company.
If you are talking actual libraries here: Hm? Public libraries are provided by the city - all I have ever seen in Germany. They usually cost a member pass, though I have seen completely free ones, but it's either a one-time payment or a yearly recurring fee. Small numbers though, can be as little as 5 Euro.
Public libraries provided by a company are an oxymoron, I doubt that exists in Germany.
Nope, sorry, I made a mistake. I was writing about the public toilets from the sentence before.
The Korean healthcare system has a much worse aging demographic as well tons of regulations, being nothing like e.g. the US.
Yet in terms of "system for the poor" the difference with Germany could hardly be bigger.
To blame it on those is straight up wrong, in that it's an oversimplification of a complex topic to such a degree that it no longer makes sense.
This goes for nearly all of the discussion in this thread, for what it's worth. On these topics sociocultural and historical factors that aren't simply represented by "regulations" or "current tax burden" or "demographics" have an enormous impact.
It's the classic STEM, and especially CS, mistake, so it's no wonder HN is full of it on any governance-related topic. And I say this as a CS guy myself. As a group, we are predisposed to the idea that a set of rules, regulations and statistics leads to a certain set of real-world outcomes. The reality could hardly be less true.