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Re:Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised f... by KingMob on Tuesday December 16, 2025 @05:01AM (#46286737)
Theory:

> In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries, friends and network of connections. The side effect is that the most productive individuals are discouraged and punished, with the whole society lagging in effect.

Evidence: the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine.

Re:Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised f... by jack_tripper on Tuesday December 16, 2025 @05:49AM (#46287048)
>>In socialism it's much more random: black markets, lists, lotteries

>Evidence: the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine.

That evidence of socialism working well, only works as long as there are enough resources to cover the needs of most people, basically some of the wealthier European countries.

But when those resources become scarce due to poor economic conditions and/or mismanagement, then you'll see the endless queues, black margets and nepotism running the system.

Evidence: former European communist countries who experienced both systems and where in some, nepotism to bypass lists still work to this day.

Re:Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised f... by intended on Tuesday December 16, 2025 @06:45AM (#46287423)
I think the 2024 Economics Nobel disproves this. It showed that nations with strong institutions create wealth - and it was a causative link they proved, not simply correlation.
Re:Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised f... by jack_tripper on Tuesday December 16, 2025 @06:51AM (#46287454)
How does that disprove what I said about abundance or lack thereof in socialized systems? Feels like an orthogonal issue.

Socialized systems don't work without abundance. How you generate that abundance is orthogonal to socialism since even countries that are wealthy on paper suffer from shortages and long waiting times in public healthcare leading to a gray-market of using connections to get ahead or more private use.

Re:Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised f... by layer8 on Tuesday December 16, 2025 @08:37AM (#46288319)
They are arguing that nepotism caused the lack of abundance, instead of the lack of abundance causing the nepotism as you are arguing.
Re:Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised f... by jack_tripper on Tuesday December 16, 2025 @10:37AM (#46289863)
Both are true. Because when the abundance runs out, people start using nepotism to get what they need. You can see it in the tech job market now. More and more good jobs are only through networking. Meritocracy alone was enough during the times of abundance.
Re:Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised f... by intended on Tuesday December 16, 2025 @09:55AM (#46289277)
Hmm. In the framing you are using, I would say that wealth is first generated from strong institutions - socialism or not.
Re:Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised f... by nickpp on Wednesday December 17, 2025 @03:37AM (#46299575)
> the vast majority of European countries who have socialized medicine and seem to be doing fine

You do realize that the "vast majority" of European countries doesn't mean highly developed Western Europe, right?

Here in Central and Eastern Europe (where I live) socialized medicine is not "fine". You should visit some hospitals in Bulgaria or Romanian to get a more complete picture. We pay the state outrageous insurance costs every month then go and pay out-of-pocket in private hospitals when we actually need them.

Re:Children with cancer scammed out of millions fundraised f... by KingMob on Wednesday December 17, 2025 @11:36PM (#46308932)
My point remains that there are plenty of thriving countries with socialized medicine, so socialized medicine _per se_ is not the problem.