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was talking with a Portguese friend of mine about the catastrophic socialist policies of his government (ours now that I have citizenship), and he agreed that the bureauracy and poor incentives are bad, but he differed with me on the need for a social safety net.

I agreed a social safety net is important, but asked him, what’s the best way to go about building it? Is seizing significant portions of the population’s declining wealth via force and letting bureaucrats squander most of it, only to redistribute some of it, or to create the most prosperous society imaginable such that the amount needed for a safety net would be a tiny portion?

I get that we don’t want to count on the beneficence of our overlords, but what if it only required 5 percent of a country’s wealth to take care of the elderly, infirm and incapable rather than 50 percent? What if that 5 percent were delivered with 80 percent efficiency rather than less than 50 percent?

Per nostr:npub1s05p3ha7en49dv8429tkk07nnfa9pcwczkf5x5qrdraqshxdje9sq6eyhe technology makes things ever cheaper over time, and an ever more prosperous and progressing society should be able to trivially take care of those who really need it.

At 5 percent, it doesn’t take much beneficence to provide for those in need, but at 50 percent (and poorly managed), the immiserated many will fail the needy (as they do now) in myriad ways regardless.

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Discussion

slackerjoe 7mo ago

immiserated - that word really sums it up

Den Yellek 7mo ago

And what structure of safety net distribution has the best incentive structure.

Current government and taxation structure incentivises maximal corruption, burocracy and inefficiency, promoting rent seeking behaviour and perpetuating dependency

CitizenPedro 7mo ago

In my opinion, there's no way out of this conundrum with just education.

The people, everybody and the Portuguese included, will only learn with system collapse.

This is the learnings from Argentina. It simply doesn't work. A social welfare state will always fail unless it has precise incentives with direct democracy mechanisms like in Switzerland. The Swiss model can maintain a stable social welfare state, because the incentives there precisely define scarcity and meritocracy.

Anything else with worse mechanisms (i.e all the so called democratic world except Switzerland) will fail in due time. Fail in hyperinflation, economic collapse (asset bubble) or a combination of both.

Argentina shows that you can spend 60 years trying to explain this to people and only after the 5 or 6th hyperinflation scenario do people actually learn.

But let's see how it rolls in Portugal. The population is old also, which is not an advantage. For me the scenario in Portugal is inflation and slower economic bankrupcy for people far from the printer.

Basically a more divided, polarized Argentina on steroids because of much larger inequality (between haves and have not), much more debt, much more house/private debt, etc.

Chega if it ever gets power might delay the polarization somewhat. But they'll quickly be removed if they don't truly reform (Milei style, and much further).

It's a pre-Ditadura Militar of 1920s in Portugal but with much more inequality, polarization, debt.

By 1920s the Portuguese people were begging for the military and then the ditadura militar (which implements Salazar later on) gets implemented without opposition from anyone.

Let's see what happens :)

Den Yellek 7mo ago

Things change when people starve to death or there is violence in the streets.

I see the same cycle in Australia.

The runaway train doesn't stop because the passengers fix the train. It stops when it runs out of track and dramatically crashes.

𝕞𝕪𝕡𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕥𝕠𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 7mo ago

Most people happily follow any system implemented for them. It's those in power and the rich who like socialism as a way of maintaining their wealth and controlling the population. It's not like the average person has any choice in what goes down unless they go at it Rambo style.

Ryan Reynolds 7mo ago

Family & Charity. First has traditionally been the first net, for millenia.

Latter, funded by private, free-will donations, usually administered by the Church (especially Orders). Carries a little stigma, which reduces abuse.

No human system will be perfect - their will be fraud, abuse, and some will fall through the cracks. Better we have less of that, at lower cost, sans confiscation.