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Originally Posted by Arminius
...Also, you create a false dichotomy, as if Sweden doesn't have a stock market and cares nothing about it, and America does, but cares about nothing else. Your position is extreme and emotional, but is far from reflecting the reality. Sweden cares about its stock market just like we care about ours.
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I'll agree on the emotional aspect, but I never said Sweden is a model nation. I brought them up because the average American equates socialism to the bleakness of the USSR. Sweden has shown that making an effort towards a welfare state does not spell doom.
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As for the NewEconomist's comments, I think they make my point. Given the opportunity, almost no one wants to live in a country where nothing has changed for 40 years, unless it has come from the outside. No, there is not more upward mobility, since there are only so many positions available at the top. Unless there is class, gender or racial discrimination, this is usually the case.
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I guess this is just where we differ in opinion. I think upward mobility is only a virtue until it establishes a place you are willing to live for the rest of your life.
Beyond that, the only change worthwhile is that which improves your role as a human. Buying a 4,000ft2 house is not improvement. Improvement is struggling through a decade worth of school to become a doctor only to serve the third world.
It's all about the means and the ends. Money is a necessary means. Altruism is a noble ends.
Virtue is of our own choosing. Live as you wish...
- LostCause