In Sweden, we have had numerous incidents where fake news has been spread with the purpose of spreading anti-immigrant sentiment. A recent example is a rumour stating that we had banned christmas decorations as it might offend muslim immigrants. What actually happened was that the Swedish Transport Administration had urged people not to decorate street poles as it might be a violation of our electricity laws. [0]
We haven't really figured out how to address these issues. The best we've got now is an initiative by Metro called Viralgranskaren (~"viral post inspector") that debunks myths like these. [1] What I think needs to happen is for the education system to start putting a larger emphasis on skepticism and source criticism. These skills and qualities are crucial for a 21th century liberal democracy.
The idea of a six hour workday is an extremely politically divisive issue in Sweden. It's even controversial _within_ the Swedish left. The Moderate party in Gothenburg isn't being driven by a lack of understanding but by ideology (the Moderate party being the largest conservative party in Sweden).
Can you help us understand more about the test? The benefits seemed great, but obviously the cost was subsidized by the government. Did they feel that a shift to 6-hour workdays would be fully subsidized by the government, and hence the test shows it's unworkable? Or did they think it would be funded by employers, and were willing to saddle them with the costs? I'd be interested in more background.
There is no general test. A home for the elderly in Gothenburg with about 70 employees is trailing shortening working hours. It's done as a test to see how it affects productivity, working environment etc, and meant to serve as basis for future political decisions.
That's not entirely true though. There are a lot of leftists who oppose the EU because they believe it is to neoliberal, prioritizing the protecting of businesses rather than the interests of the people. At least that's the case here in Sweden, and I'd be surprised if we were unique in this aspect.
In Sweden private for profit schools and schools run by the municipalities compete with each other. All of them are funded by the tax payers and they get a certain amount of money for every student.
The system is a disaster, with a lot of for profit schools slashing costs to maximize profits regardless of what the consequences are for the students. And that's just one of the many failures of the system.
Basically, the problem is that markets don't necessarily generate the best solutions from a social perspective, markets generate the solutions that create the largest profits. You have to some how get the markets to stop chasing profits, which is easier said than done.
There is nothing wrong with firms making profits, it is a sign of efficiency, and a sign of where resources should be allocated; with time, the least efficient firms are eliminated, and only those which create the most value at the lowest cost remain. The problem is that the product (and its value) may not reflect the objective(s) of the policymakers and the public, and the chief goal of those creating any system should be to properly align rewards with desired outcomes.
Easier said than done. I think it's probable that some problems are so difficult to translate into proper market motivations that the cost of the perverse incentives inevitably produced by your attempts will consistently exceed the potential for increased efficiency and miraculous innovation that the market promises.
You are neglecting to examine the counter-factual. The current system is abound with perverse incentives and flaws. As to the difficulty of designing a new system; we have thrown money at a poorly designed system for many years with little success, perhaps a redesign would be worth it.
>> In Sweden private for profit schools and schools run by the municipalities compete with each other. All of them are funded by the tax payers and they get a certain amount of money for every student.
How the hell can a school be "private", while being funded by taxpayers?
They call these "PPP" public private partnerships. What happens is cronies of the ruling party are given money to avoid risk and get to run the business extracting all profits for themselves. The taxpayer is told hey this would cost 10x as much if we ran it.
>You have to some how get the markets to stop chasing profits
There is another solution. You could set up the markets so that the way to maximize profits is to create the best solution. For example, imagine if we had a perfect measure of student outcome. You could make the school's pay dependent on their outcome, then the market will find a way to maximize the f(outcome)/cost.
To minimize cost. A better example than education would be carbon emissions. Suppose we want to reduce our carbon emission to X tons per year. If we auction off X credits permitting 1 ton of carbon each, the market will find the cheapest way to reduce our emissions to X. Simply being able to measure emissions would allow us to reduce emissions (say, by requiring all companies to reduce by Y%), however, this is almost defiantly going to be more expansive.
But are profits the best way to measure a "quality product" when it comes to something like education?
I would argue not, or at least that externalized costs need to be internalized somehow (regulation or taxation are the typical means).
That is to say, if we have for profit public schools, I'd want their profits to be tied to the long term effects of results of their students, not to yearly test scores.
Are you suggesting that I can't determine for myself if a particular school is providing a good long term education for my child? Or that I shouldn't be able to choose to take them to a different school?
>if we have for profit public schools, I'd want their profits to be tied to the long term effects of results of their students, not to yearly test scores.
This is a great idea! Why not do the same for government-run schoolteachers? This may help attract and retain high quality staff, as well as providing low-skilled teachers an incentive to leave.
There's no inherent incentive to produce a quality product when chasing profit either, just one that people will give you money for. Sometimes this aligns with quality, other times, it does not.
Why do Americans always insist on conceiving of children as products? Why do they always insist that schools produce children? Last I checked, we disallow reproduction at schools.
You are being racist. What you're saying is that immigrants are somehow more inclined to commit crimes simply because they're immigrants. That _is_ a racist statement and you're also ignoring the real reason.
The reason crime is increasing is that Sweden has become a more unequal and segregated society. Immigrants have been hit harder by this development because of, for example, discrimination on the job market.
So basically you should stop complaining about the immigration policy and start demanding equality.
That said, a very recent report in the UK shows that immigrants are more productive and add value in the UK, contrary to right wing hate mongering. No idea if that is the same anywhere else, but it does show a difference between what we are told and the actual economic facts.
While it is true that "immigrant" is not a "race", the idea that swedes are inherently less criminal than all other ethnicities is still racist.
One might argue that "racist" should be replaced with the term "xenophobic" or something like that. However the underlying assumption is still that some groups are "better" than others simply because of their ethnicity.
They are inclined to commit crimes because they are poor and because they fit poorly.
Both things are because they are immigrants.
If you bring 10 mln new immigrants into a country tomorrow, of course they will all resort to crime - you didn't provide them with a job and maybe there isn't a job for them, you didn't let them entangle with the rest of population, etc...
Even when viewing from non-racist POV it should be obvious one should be very careful with bringing in large qualities of immigrants, especially poor and undereducated ones. When you do, everyone will suffer including already-integrated immigrants from previous wave.
Enforcing equality has historically shown to have the opposite effect. Thomas Sowell, an African American (discrimination is more prevalent in the states) has written extensively about this, as have many others regarding quotas and other forms of forced 'equality'. So no, I won't demand equality, also because I believe in the fact that employers should have the freedom to hire whoever they want without state regulation.
I really don't like this mentality of entitlement, and the excusing of any negative aspects of poorer groups on the richer. Interestingly this behaviour is more passionate in the middle classes than from people who are actually living in poverty. Ted Kaczynski talks about this.
So you think it's perfectly fine to refuse to hire somebody just because of their ethnicity? Wow.
Also, just because you can find one right wing economist supporting your view doesn't mean you're right. There's an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the fact that inequality leads to higher crime rates.
I'm sort of starting to think that you're really just trolling, seeing how Ted Kaczynski is a convicted serial killer with pretty crazy idea. Not someone I'd use to back my ideas in a discussion. I guess you have to use whatever you can get your hands on.
Yes, I think employers should be able to refuse somebody based on ethnicity, whether I agree with the act itself or not is irrelevant, I believe in the freedom to do so. My personal opinions regarding employment do not affect my belief that you can't force equality.
One economist supporting my view doesn't make me right, okay, but you haven't really added anything, you just labelled him right-wing and left it there, probably because being right-wing means being wrong to you. The arguments and evidence is there though.
Your posts are full of logical fallacies, another one is present in your last paragraph (ad hominem - is Kaczynski's work on maths now wrong too because he murdered someone?), so I'm going to stop responding to you. I've had these arguments with liberals too often, where they accuse me being an evil, immoral person because I don't think a better society will result from just giving and giving until everybody's seemingly equal.
Your economist being right wing is relevant because most libertarians refuse to acknowledge the positive effects of equality. Noting that a source is biased is a valid point.
I agree that pointing out that Kaczynski is an insane serial killer who forced a bunch of papers to publish his anarcho-primitivist manifesto by threatening to keep bombing people (WTF?) doesn't prove he's a poor mathematician. However, we're not talking about his maths skills. Being a brilliant mathematician doesn't really make you an expert on social issues.
"Economic inequality is positively and significantly related to rates of homicide despite an extensive list of conceptually relevant controls. The fact that this relationship is found with the most recent data and using a different measure of economic inequality from previous research, suggests that the finding is very robust." - Wikipedia
While not everything on Wikipedia is true, it's certainly a less biased source than the ones you refer to.
> libertarians refuse to acknowledge the positive effects of equality
You just made this up, or, you don't understand the difference between trying to force equality and equality itself. Equality may have positive effects, trying to force it upon people does not, this is a well-documented phenomenon Example, colleges - entry requirements are lowered in top colleges for Black students, who, in turn, have higher drop out rates because they can't keep up.
>While not everything on Wikipedia is true, it's certainly a less biased source than the ones you refer to.
This is the equivalent of saying "your sources are biased, mine are not" to affirm your socialist ideas.
1) Equality doesn't "just happen". It's something that must be actively pursued. Basically all equality is "forced".
Also, the type of positive discrimination that you describe is irrelevant to this discussion. Your ramblings on "forced equality" were in response to my view that you shouldn't discriminate job applicants because of their ethnicity.
The absence of discrimination is not the same thing as positive discrimination.
2) Whether or not my ideas are socialist (I think "progressive" is a better word) is irrelevant here. The truth is, I can back my claims with credible sources. You cannot.
We haven't really figured out how to address these issues. The best we've got now is an initiative by Metro called Viralgranskaren (~"viral post inspector") that debunks myths like these. [1] What I think needs to happen is for the education system to start putting a larger emphasis on skepticism and source criticism. These skills and qualities are crucial for a 21th century liberal democracy.
[0]: http://www.snopes.com/sweden-bans-christmas-lights/
[1]: http://www.metro.se/nyheter/viralgranskaren/ (sadly only available in Swedish, it seems)