--->
> A welfare state is one that provides a subsistence
> existence to the
> poor. A capitalist economy must have many poor. To
> abolish poverty
> would be to sign the death warrant of capitalism.
> Just as universal
> economic security is incompatible with a capitalist
> economy, poverty
> is incompatible with a socialist economy. So it
> follows that a
> welfare state cannot be a socialist state.
>
The thing about you I love, Bill, is your absolutely unshakable confidence in your politics-by-definition. Oops, there's a poor person, we have not atained socialim, must have a revolution and overthrow the regime.
Your comment about the miseries of the welfare state are insteresting too. Whatever our Swedi8sh friends say about life in the last 20 years (the comment I quoted from the Swedish commie was made adecade ago where I traveled to Scandanavia), it seems to me that the beneficiaries of the social democratic welfare states of WEstern Eurpe are pretty picky about their benefits, to the point of being willing to go on mass strike to protect them. But I am no doubt contravening anther Billian definition.
jks
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