Socialism, Capitalism, Communism - at Spartan's request

Spartan asked that I write an article about having lived in a Socialist Country.  I have also visited a Communist country, and have lived in the good ole' US of A most of my life.

So I will take this a step further and offer some comparisons between a socialistic government, a communist government and our capitalistic government.

First, let's take Canada.

I lived in Canada for 9 years, 8 in Montreal, 1 in Toronto. Canada is a democracy with a Parliamentary system of government, rather similar to our Congressional system, but as you know, the terms for Prime Minister are not set but are based on how popular the PM is: - he or she can be voted out by referendum if he or she screws up once too often.

That facet of the Parliamentary system is a great boon because truly great leaders can be in for a long term, the better to effect positive change, whereas truly ineffective or simply awful leaders can be out on their keister before you can say George W. Bush.

I don't actually call Canada a Socialist country (nor do I call Britain or Sweden or Germany Socialist countries) but they are Democracies with a substantial social welfare safety net.

Many people in the US call this type of Government a Socialist government, so I don't want to argue about semantics.

As you know, Canada has nationalized health care.

The Canadians on Gather may rush here to tell me how inadequate the health program is, and yes, they are right.  I do think the health care was likely better in the 70s in Canada.

However, people in the USA are left to die; these are the elderly, the minorities, the poor, non-minorities, the very ill, those whose jobs and health insurance was terminated and who no longer have health insurance and thus no health care; these numbers are growing larger by the minute.

Many industries in Canada are 'nationalized.' Trains, banks, many industries.

Banks make a profit, believe me.

The banking crisis in the US is not nearly so deep in Canada; nor were the bank profits so high in Canada. Canada is fairly immune to SOME of the effects the US feels, because it is more financially stable.

True, the CDN$ was higher then the USD$ just a year ago, and has fallen to about 74.77 US cents, but so far the CDN$ has not sunk to the low of about 66 cents it had for many years.

Homes in Montreal are much less expensive than homes in the North East and Midwest of the US. Homes in Toronto are considerably more expensive than Montreal, but still do not reach the extremely high cost of New York City, Boston or San Francisco. I think Los Angeles and Chicago are still higher than homes in Toronto.

True, people in Canada have to pay about 40 percent of their income in tax. Perhaps more.  What do they get?

If you are a  student or a person with very little money, you do not have to contribute any income to the Quebec health care system, called Medicare.

But you can still benefit from it. If you have a cold, pneumonia, are pregnant, have bacterial infections, cancer, heart disease, or need surgery, yes, you will be seen by doctors and nurses.

What about college?

McGill University is one of the top 25 universities in the world. It is considered the Harvard of Canada. Its quality is very high (I went there), and my parents taught in the Faculty of Medicine there. It is difficult for non-Canadians to get into McGill, because the average GPA for foreigners (including US) is about 3.8.

Tuition for McGill (non-Canadian) is about $10,000 and that does not include room and board and expenses. That would probably be another $10,000. My figures are about 3 years old, so the cost is likely higher. However, smart Americans and overseas students see the advantage of going to McGill rather than many US Ivy League schools, which are higher than 40K.

But how can the Quebecois and Ontarians afford college?

A Quebec resident pays about $2,000 - $3,000 per year; a non-Quebec, Canadian resident pays half what overseas residents pay, so that would be about $5,000 for tuition and another $5,000 room/board/expenses. Or just rent a cheap apartment. Here in the US that would be about the cost of Community College, a 2 year program.

There are many other fine universities in Canada, such as the University of Toronto; all Canadian Universities are roughly the same price, which spells A-F-F-O-R-D-A-B-L-E for Canadians and the same for overseas and US students.

Cigarettes and alcohol are expensive, because they are heavily taxed via the SIN tax provision.

Gas is by the liter and it is a lot more expensive than in the US. But people in Montreal, for example, rarely drive a car in the city, so many urban dwellers don't even own a car. Like in Manhattan.

Canadians have the same personal and political freedoms that we Yanks have.

The major difference is they can actually afford to go to college, go to the doctor and to buy a home.

My niece and nephew are still in college, yet they bought a small home a few years ago. They are also paying for their tuition from their salary, working full time and going to school part time.

How many of us know 22 year olds who have bought their own home while still in college?

That, my dear readers, is called a social welfare safety net.

And THAT is what a so-called Socialistic system can do for you. MAKE YOUR LIFE AFFORDABLE.

Canada also has unemployment insurance, disability, welfare and such, and no, they are not easy to get, and no, they are not perfect. And yes, people do fall through the cracks in Canada, but far fewer people DO fall through the cracks. Oh and Gay Marriage is legal in Canada, and Abortion has been legal for awhile, though it was not legal in the 70s. There is no Capital Punishment.

From Fareed Zakaria's article in Newsweek last month, these facts:

Canadian home ownership: 68.4 percent; US - 68 percent.

Canadian banking system - healthiest in the world; USA - 40th, Britain, 44th.

Life expectancy, Canada  - 81 years; USA - 78 years.

The cost of the Canadian health care system is cheaper than ours in the US by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of GDP, versus 15.2 percent here), and yet does better on all major indexes.

Communism

My stepmother came to the US in 1960 on a post-doctoral fellowship (she was an MD but doing research with my father as a PhD student in Pharmacology); she defected from Communist Poland and married my father in 1963.

Her defection meant that she could not return to Poland. She had committed a criminal act. By 1971, she still could not return, but my stepbrother was able to return to the still-Communist Poland.  It would be some years yet before my stepmother was able to return, though she was able to return in the late 70s and early 80s.  Bribery must have had something to do with it.

Mikhail Barishnikov defected from Russia in 1975 and landed in Toronto (at the home of a Globe and Mail reporter, I was told when I worked at the Globe and Mail), then came to the US. When his movie White Nights was made in 1986, it was filmed in Finland because Barishnikov would have been imprisoned in Siberia had he tried to return to Russia at that time.

I visited Poland for one month in 1971, when it was a Communist Soviet Satellite in the then Eastern Europe. I had been brought up to believe that the Soviets did a good job in Poland, so I was shocked to discover huge concrete block apartment buildings all over Warsaw, left over from the rapid building in the 1950s, after the massive Nazi destruction of Warsaw during WWII.

The middle class apartment buildings looked exactly like US HUD Housing Projects.  Things are much, much better now, nearly 20 years after the fall of Communism, in Poland, but in 1971, things were far from perfect.

My stepmother routinely sent money so her mother could get her own apartment and her own telephone. This process took years and a lot of money. The lot of money spells B-U-Y- the O-F-F-I-C-I-A-L-S.

Corruption is a way of life in a totalitarian state.

Hoarding and scarcity was omnipresent. When toilet paper came into the stores, it was immediately snatched up, because people were afraid they would not have any. So, it ran out immediately.

Apartments had 5 locks on the doors, to prevent break ins.

The telephone lines were extremely poor in Poland in 1971. It was impossible to hear unless you yelled as you were talking on the phone.

Even in 1990, we could not get a line out of Poland from the Polish operator, to call Boston.

In Stare Miastro, the Old Town in Warsaw, a beautiful area that was completely rebuilt right after WWII - due to compulsory civil service from every able bodied young person for a 2 year period, but there were long lines for treats such as Iced Kawa (Iced Coffee) lines such as 45 minutes. Lines were everywhere. Believe me when I tell you I practically starved waiting in line for food and drink.

In the south of Poland, in the lovely Tatras mountains where the horizon stretches to the former Czechoslovakia, meals in restaurants were sparse.

I ate Steak Tartare (raw, chopped steak with raw egg) because that was the only thing on the menu.

I was pretty fussy still about eating in 1971 and would only eat Stroganoff or Goulash, neither of which the restaurants had.

Gypsies followed us everywhere.  We wore American jeans. We took the train to Krakow, first class, which cost us only a few dollars, (a cabin), but which was unaffordable to most Poles.

Most Poles stood crammed like sardines along the outside of the cabin, as I had done earlier in the month when traveling from Vienna to Warsaw, because I did not realize that second class was such a hellish way to travel.

So-called Lemonade was merely dirty pink water, with a touch of sugar, a minute amount of sugar. My face was blackened from the coal dirt from Katowice, the coal mining region, as the train lumbered along slowly.

In 1971, many Poles resembled the stereotype of the Russian peasant - heavy set, wearing a large babushka, (colorful headscarf), and having a poor complexion that rarely saw fresh air, fresh fruits or exercise.

Military guards were everywhere. Nobody spoke a negative word about the Government in public. Nobody spoke a negative word about the government on the telephone, because 'you never knew who might be listening.'

My postcard from Vienna never arrived, because postcards were given the last priority. Mail to and from Poland to the US was routinely censored. Medicine was limited, and yes, my stepmother had to send Ritalin for her nephew who suffered attentional deficits due to infantile meningitis.

Communism is a totalitarian government, a government of total oppression of the many by a few.

People had no personal or political freedom. We saw how the local Communist leaders lived - in large mansions with large, expensive cars. Most Poles took the ramshackle tramway. Pollution was horrible and water was not safe for Americans to drink.

My father's rangefinder camera caused quite a stir at the Czech-Polish border. The Polish border guards came in and took my camera. Fortunately, there was a young lady also from Montreal who spoke Polish. The guards did not want to let in my camera, as cameras were strictly forbidden. Even in 1990, guards were still around Krakow and Warsaw and prevented me from taking pictures.

In 1971, this young lady disappeared into the back with the guards who had confiscated my camera. I am certain she had to pay them a considerable sum, as bribery was the currency of totalitarianism. I had been well-schooled in that by my stepmother. But thinking back on the plight of the young  Polish Canadian from Montreal, I worry that things even worse than her giving them a sum of $USD, could have befallen her. She was pretty angry when she returned to the train cabin.

That, my dear readers, is Communism.

And what we have here in the US is a Capitalist democracy.

But the free enterprise system upon which many tenets of this country are founded, has been let loose of the necessary checks and balances that keep corruption and greed from taking over.

Well ,greed took over.

The New York Times this morning reports that

The people who complain the loudest about the paying taxes to the US government so we all can benefit are ALSO people WHO NEED THESE BENEFITS.

Any of you who complain about social benefits  -  such as Social Security Disability, Unemployment, Social Security Retirement, lack of adequate health care.

Well, if we did not have these, many more of would simply DIE in the STREET.

Happy Spring.

Enjoy your personal and political freedoms, because that is all we have left.

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." Janis Joplin.