

North Dakota, socialist haven? - MaysonL
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/29/north_dakota_is_bringing_socialism_back_partner/

======
onemorepassword
State-owned banks of state-owned anything have nothing to do with socialism.
Enforcing the opposite, i.e., not allowing state owned companies at all is
right-wing extremism.

Many free market countries do perfectly fine with a mixture of independent and
state owned companies, even within the same sector (banking, public transport,
medical care). Socialism has fuck all to do with it. It's called _pragmatism_.

~~~
hackerboos
Socialism has been redefined in the United States to mean state interference
with any industry. But ownership of a corporation by the state is better
labeled as Social Democracy.

The traditional definition:

1\. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of
the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of
capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

2\. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.

3\. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a
society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of
collectivist principles.

\- <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism>

~~~
m0skit0
Depends if the state is democratic... The US government interferes all the
time with private-owned industries by putting in place laws (e.g. anti-trust)
and monetary policy. So this is socialism by the US definition...

There's neither free market today in any country, nor there has been one ever.

~~~
hackerboos
Socialists of the latter definition would argue the same stating there has
never been a `pure` socialist society without interference from an
authoritarian government.

It's utopian to expect either ideology to be implemented in `pure` form.

------
gavanwoolery
First of all, this has nothing to do with socialism. It does not matter which
banks hold the money or issue _loans_ \- Federal _or_ private. Issuing a loan
to a private company (using tax dollars or otherwise) is the opposite of
socialism, which tends towards de-privatization.

Secondly the author seems to push for socialism based on bank-bailouts. There
is nothing wrong with private banks, but there IS something wrong with bailing
them out using government money. Private enterprise must be able to fail,
regardless of how "big" it is, in order to represent a properly capitalistic
economy.

In shorter words, real capitalism = no government bailouts. Government
bailouts = crony capitalism.

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csomar
_Through its Partnership in Assisting Community Expansion, for example, it
provides loans at below-market interest rates to businesses if and only if
those businesses create at least one job for every $100,000 loaned. If the $1
trillion that now flows to Wall Street instead were deposited in public state
banks in all 50 states using this same approach, up to 10 million new jobs
could be created. That would effectively end our destructive unemployment
crisis._

He lost me here. Something that works at a small/sample scale, doesn't
necessarily (and almost certainly) work at a large scale. There is a finite
number of jobs in a certain economy (depending on its capacity and size).
Providing more or less money doesn't help create jobs.

~~~
NateDad
I'm sure it doesn't scale perfectly. However, it is not unreasonable to think
that lending small businesses money can spur job growth. If you need that 100k
to expand your shop and pay for a new hire to help, it totally can work. This
is how capitalism and economics work in general. Someone borrows money to
start/expand a business. They hire someone to work, that person makes money
that they then spend at other businesses, which then gives those businesses
more money to expand and hire. If lending money didn't create jobs, we'd be
back with horses and wagons.

------
m0skit0
Right-wing social policies + state-owned economy = fascism, or national-
socialism (nazism), as Germans called it.

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XEKEP
Great article, but totally misleading title. It's about a secret Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) agreement which Wall Street may use to kill one very sound
state bank.

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tzs
Some context: a libertarian think tank recently named North Dakota the freest
state [1]. Salon ran an article on this disagreeing somewhat [2].

[1] <http://freedominthe50states.org>

[2]
[http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/libertarians_name_north_dako...](http://www.salon.com/2013/03/28/libertarians_name_north_dakota_most_free_state/)

------
pandaman
The article says that the bank creates jobs by offering below market rate
loans if and only if the debtor creates a job for every 100K borrowed. And
then the author concludes that if 1T of states money were deposited in the
state banks under the same conditions then 10M jobs were created.

How can this possibly make sense to anybody? What if I offered a loan bellow
market rates if and only if the debtor cures a case of cancer for every penny
borrowed? 10 grand under the same condition would cure a million people of
cancer... not.

~~~
Evbn
The article makes the plausible claim (but perhaps incorrect) that Dakota is
tapping less than 1% of the addressable market, and has shown a sustainable
MVP.

The cancer example does not have these qualities.

~~~
pandaman
No, the article makes a fantasy claim that an intent is as the same as the
reality. This is the same magical thinking I observe on the Left routinely.

An intent to give a loan under certain conditions does not mean these
conditions will ever be satisfied even less so that these conditions will be
satisfied for any amount of the loan.

------
DanielBMarkham
Please. Enough with the essayists who don't understand something feeling free
to wave their hands around as if they had something interesting to say.

As another commentator pointed out, the role of banking and the state has
fuck-all to do with socialism. This is click-bait intellectual junk food. It's
the third article in as many days on the front page of HN where the author has
no idea what he's talking about. (There were probably more. I only clicked on
a couple each day.)

Yes, I understand if you squint your eyes the right way "socialism" can be
damned near anything. But I fail to see why yet another argument on the
definition of socialism interest me as a hacker. Or a discussion about state-
run banks that's framed in idiotic terms.

If there was something redeemable here, I'd let it go. Hell I'm extremely
liberal about topics on HN. I think we can take on just about anything as long
as we're civil. But I feel that this kind of stuff, where the subject and
title are spun in such a way purposely drive out criticism about things we
will never agree on? It just tears communities apart. It does not help build
them.

~~~
MaysonL
"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate
for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to
its page and clicking on the "flag" link. "

~~~
Stratoscope
But you can be punished for that. Flag enough links and you lose your ability
to flag links. Perhaps that makes people reluctant to do it.

------
znowi
Heh, I always find it amusing how Americans go berserk at the word
"socialism". Marx would be proud :)

Yet at any rate, socialist policies are virtually non-existent in the U.S
(well, except the oldies like 8-hour workday or paid vacations). The fear of
it is so strong that people prefer to slave themselves out to the Wall Street
overlords rather than allow a hint of _social_ in the sacred capitalism.

------
msandford
And as soon as a bunch of other states follow suit so will the Wall Street-ers
and then we'll all be in trouble again. The bank works not because it's state
owned, but because it's small enough that none of the rape-and-pillage bankers
work there. If California did something like that it'd be big enough to get on
their radar and it'd blow up just like LTCM or the 2008 bubble pop.

------
starnixgod
What does this have to do with tech?

~~~
xfm
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

------
Aardwolf
What is called red in the US is laughable compared to the socialism going on
in Europe. Discuss.

~~~
TorbjornLunde
I’m always annoyed when Norway is called socialist. It’s social democracy
(which I think could be called socialst-capialist democracy). I think the same
applies to many european countries.

~~~
Aardwolf
In Belgium, if you have studied engineering at university for 5 years, you get
a pay not that much higher than those who immediately start working without
university, at least in technical/programming jobs. It's, after taxes are
removed, not that much higher than the minimum wage in fact. Except that you
have had 5 years less of pay due to the studying. You also pay 60% income
taxes, when taking everything into account. And where does it go to?
Definitely nothing that benefits the people who actually work. Definitely not
roads and other public infrastructure, because when driving from another
country into Belgium you immediately notice the difference in road quality and
trains are unreliable. If those who want to work, those who study to work more
complex jobs, do not get appreciated, while not working gives you benefits,
and in some cities they have a "tolerance policy" for criminals, then tell me
how that isn't socialist. Quality of schools is dropping, because there is
more equality if the curriculum is lowered. They still call Flanders a
"knowledge economy". I think they're not seeing something.

~~~
gngeal
"In Belgium, if you have studied engineering at university for 5 years, you
get a pay not that much higher than those who immediately start working
without university, at least in technical/programming jobs."

And in the US, whatever extra pay you get by virtue of having a degree gets
eaten up by the loan debts...

~~~
Evbn
Sshh. Benefits that I get are human rights. Benefits that other people get
care socialism.

