It must mean that high taxes don't have a negative effect on capital formation and that "developed" is more about fairness and justice of the system and not about "how many more billionaires there would be if the system was less fair?"
1. Development can roughly be summarized as a measure of per capita GDP.
2. The rest of the world has been gaining ground on the developed world over the last 50 years. A common pattern could be that countries institute sensible economic policies, based on what science (Economics) says works, and then when they get wealthy, become complacent, and adopt all sorts of anti-capitalistic policies that retard economic growth rates, which in turn results in all socioeconomic metrics stagnating.
Speaking of socio economic indicators, wanna talk about homicide rates in US, ten times higher than the European average and 1.5 times worse of Nigeria?
It means that every 2 homicides in 100K citizens in Nigeria there are 3 in USA.
It's easier to get shot and killed in USA than in Nigeria.
Doesn't sound very developed nor that the system is working towards a better life for everybody.
If you were right that would not be possible
If fighting for the children to stay alive after being born is anticapitalistic, than BIG THUMBS UP for the anticapitalism
Inequalities lead to very few living very well and the rest just surviving
Economics IS a science. This anti-Economics bias rears its head whenever people find economic evidence contradicts their ideological narrative.
It's similar to the anti-Medicine bias exhibited by anti-Vaxxers, who frequently cite the many mistakes made by the Medical establishment and orthodoxy, in an attempt to discredit it.
>>Unfortunately it also has one of the worst children mortality rate among the 36 most developed countries
The correlation between per capita GDP and quality of life is not perfect, yet it's there nonetheless.
Pointing out an outlier doesn't invalidate my point that development is generally a measure of per capita productivity.
And while we're on the subject: the US has unique attributes that have nothing to do with its economy, that result in higher infant mortality statistics.
For example, the US has a much higher proportion of its population of sub-Saharan African ancestry, which is a cohort that has higher infant mortality rates in European countries as well.
The US also has the best neonatal facilities in the world, with a much higher proportion of premature infants being counted as live births and subsequently cared for, than the norm in the developed world. Counting the deaths of premature babies as infant deaths, instead stillborn, is the biggest contributor to the US having higher infant mortality rates.
The rest of your comment is you veering even further from the subject matter, to attack the US. This shallow and overly emotional treatment of Economics doesn't do the complexity and importance of the subject justice.
>>Not because I am anti economics, but because there is no proof available
Yes, it is. Scientific proof is not available in economics, but that doesn't make it not a science.
You're disagreeing with academic consensus on what economics is when you claim it is not a science.
>>My parents are doctors
>>I know the difference
That you have these advantages and are exhibiting this clearly ideologically motivated anti-science bias is even worse.
>>Have you ever had an emperor that ruled your continent born in Africa?
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
>>Are you a racist?
Again, what do these despicable attempts at character assassination have to do with anything I argued.
>>It actually does not
People of sub-Saharan African ancestry in Europe DO have higher infant mortality rates..
>>Proof?
Do some research on the causes of higher infant mortality rates in the US. It mostly comes down to more pre-term births being counted as live births, and the deaths of these infants being counted toward infant mortality statistics, instead of being counted as stillbirths.
“Scientific proof” isn't a thing. Empirical falsification of a hypotheses is, and it is absolutely available for the subject matter of economics (as conventionally understood; Austrian-school ‘economics’ overtly is a system of working out the implementation of deontological principles and is thus more a branch of moral philosophy than of social science, but that's an exception.)
It's true that a lot of the work done on economics is or builds on speculation beyond the present practical capacity of reliable testing due to complexity, but that's not uncommon (even if the ratio may usually be lower) in other scientific disciplines.
Lay (and particularly government) people frequently fail to understand the status of various economic ideas and treat speculation on shaky foundations of simplified models taken outside of their area of utility as approximations as truth, but that is also not uncommon in other scientific domains, though the practical consequences of it in economics may be more pronounced.
> but that doesn't make it not a science.
Not being a domain in which hypotheses are subject to empirical falsification (the closest thing there is to “scientific proof” in any domain) would, indeed, make it not a science.
Economics is a social science, and is widely acknowledged as such.
Economic theories are not falsiable, but neither are climatology theories, and no one would claim climatology is not a science.
Soft sciences are distinguished from hard sciences for not being subject to controlled experimentation, which can derive something approaching scientific proof, pedantry notwithstanding.
What's motivating the 'economics is not a science' narrative here is the same thing that motivates attempts by anti-vaxxers to discredit Medicine and Epidiomology: their beliefs are being contradicted by the experts in the field.
Sorry I don't have the time to respond in more detail to your comment. I just wanted to quickly make that point.
> Yes, it is. Scientific proof is not available in economics, but that doesn't make it not a science.
It literally does.
> That you have these advantages
A doctor parent in Italy is not advantages, my parents come from poor families, are born during the ww2 and studied a lot to get there, working hard while studying to support their families
They are now retired and worked their whole.life for the public healthcare systems, they weren't high paid surgeons the like you see in US TV shows, they simply wanted to help people, not get rich.
That's why they never made a lot of money.
It is possible in countries where studying doesn't mean taking a loan of hundreds thousands of dollars, but it's almost free for everybody
You know that thing you hate there, called social welfare?
Makes miracles, especially for keeping babies alive.
> What the hell does that have to do with anything?
That most of us in Italy have African ancestry in our DNA
> People of sub-Saharan African ancestry in Europe DO have higher infant mortality rates..
They don't.
Look at France, 8% of the population comes from Africa, their infant mortality rate is 35% lower than the US
Not 1,2 or 3% less as one would expect from the richest country in the World, 35% less
It means US has 1.5 times worse infant mortality rate than France
Every 2 in France in US there are 3
That's a very large difference!
What's the explanation for having a 3.625 times worse infant mortality rate than Estonia whose GDP is so low that it is measured in billions?
> Do some research on the causes of higher infant mortality rates in the US.
Do some research on what make other countries have a better record than US
There are at least 33 of them
BTW what's your excuse for the mass shootings or the homicide rates worse than countries controlled by warlords or having the lowest life expectancy of the west?
Are those traits that actually make US better than, for example, Sweden?
Can you prove in any meaningful way that growth = general wellbeing?
I mean, without blaming black people if you can...
>>That most of us in Italy have African ancestry in our DNA
First of all, that has no relevance to the debate. Second, everyone has some trace of DNA from every region. That's not a revelation. Third, it was almost all North African admixture in the Italian population, not sub-Saharan African admixture, and it was people of sub-Saharan African ancestry which I specified as having high infant mortality rates in the US and Europe. So even your Red Herring is incorrect.
>>Look at France, 8% of the population comes from Africa, their infant mortality rate is 35% lower than the US
North African is not "sub-Saharan African". Most people of African ancestry in France are of North African descent.
And I didn't say demographics constituted the entire cause of the US's lower infant mortality statistics. I clearly said it's mostly due to methodology, with the US counting more premature births as live births, and consequently, the deaths of premature babies as infant deaths, while other countries count more deaths of premature babies as stillbirths.
Anyway, you've completely avoided dealing with the original subject matter. It was a broader point about how economies are organized, and all you seem to want to talk about is the US and how its national healthcare program doesn't offer universal coverage.
You seem have a very narrow agenda, focused entirely on confronting whoever you imagine to be opposed to socialized healthcare in the US. Diverting the discussion like this, to push your agenda, is very rude, and harmful to the public discourse.
