Shooeee lots of questions. But I'll do my best
Could you give me the math behind this point. Please make sure that math includes what the cost of not having a welfare system would be. Medical aid, etc etc etc.
People who can afford medical aid are not going to stop paying for it. They don't trust government hospitals as far as they can throw them.
An economist quote in a thetimes.co.za article said it would be an extra tax 10% cost to those paying tax. Its obvious we can't afford that. If we can't afford to pay for those recent strikers demands (government said we would have to make cut backs in other areas) how are we going to be able to afford another 10% tax. Believe it or not, most tax payers live from salary to salary. If you take 10% of their income away they will also have to make cut backs. Making cut backs on that scale means a recession. I'm not an economist but I would imagine taking 10% of the purchasing power of the tax payer away is not going to stimulate the economy.
You claim:
1) We need a libertarian government. Yet other than mentioning red tape you dont say how this reduces poverty an unemployment. (Yet a welfare state does both...)
If you want people to start businesses you need to make it easy for them to do so. Starting businesses = more jobs = less unemployment
2) Getting rid of unions ( so basically you want to get rid of the people fighting for employee rights and more pay for the working class)
Unions don't create jobs, they care only about their members. If a union is demanding 5% over inflation every year, thats 5% that could have gone to employing more people, starting new business (which employ more people) etc. Also unions make it harder to run a business and as per the above point hard to run a business = less businesses started/successful
3) Freedom of Press (seriously? Do they have press freedom problems in Canada or Sweden and what does this point have to do with the concept of a welfare state?
I agree, we need free press, but how that works into our discussion on financial models.. mmmkay)
Like I said in my first post freedom of the press is important to keep the government in line (in other words keep them from stealing as much money as they can get their hands on). All first world countries have freedom of press
4) Democracy, (something that all examples of welfare states are best known for!)
Democracy keeps the current government in line. If they know they will get voted out if they **** up/be corrupt etc, chances are they are going to do their best not to **** up/be corrupt etc
So how am I meant to get a "better solution" from the points you bring up? You are not really offering any solutions with dealing with poverty and unemployment, in fact the solutions you suggest would mean the poor get poorer and the rich get richer and lead to a more unequal state.
No the system that I am suggesting has worked all over the world. Yes it has created incredibly rich people but it has also lifted the majority of their population out of poverty. Look at the demographics of all the countries that are run in the manner I suggest.
Now before you reply please think about what I am saying. Would you not like a country that had a majority middle class and little unemployment? Surely we should be looking at the most successful countries in the world and trying to emulate them? Well those countries are the ones in Europe and America.
You already want us to emulate them regarding universal health care, to do that successfully we need to emulate them in the other ways too.
