Mayday

[TPD]

The only good thing that came out of it is that we have a day off. Although I did like the parades as kid.

[jethro]

Come comrades, let us celebrate with the execution of a few bourgeoisie!

Any person that only calls for the execution of a few bourgeoisie is obviously a bourgeois himself. Real proletarians celebrate by executing as many bourgeoisie as they can find.

Damn, you caught me. I'm a kulak who owns his own home and a small plot of land. I'm an Enemy of the People who will be dealt with accordingly.

TPD, where did you grow up originally? One of the few truly good memories from my childhood were the May Day parades. Always a spectacular event, put most of the pissant celebrations the US puts on every now and then to shame. To be fair, I might have preferred if a few of those resources were diverted towards keeping the cold out of our apartment, but you can't argue with a good celebration.

[TPD]

TPD, where did you grow up originally?

Born and raised in Slovakia. It's also where I currently reside. I too have vivid memories of certain things from the regime being much fun for kids. Those big events were really thrilling and you'd get stuff for free, get to wave with flags, balloons or those things that somewhat resemble a pom pom. It was a big get together among many others, which seemed like fun, apart from the fact that participation was obligatory and I suppose you had to listen to how many cows got milked and how much progress we've made. But what did I know, I was barely 7.
Did you spend your early childhood in Russia then?

[Molotov]

To be fair, I might have preferred if a few of those resources were diverted towards keeping the cold out of our apartment, but you can't argue with a good celebration.

"Comrade Chairman, the people are freezing!"
"Worry not, Comrade, they'll warm up once they start marching."

edit: Mr.Yankees, why is the American May Day in September? Sorry for being sarcastic earlier, by the way, I was drunk and rather miffed because I lost at darts.

[GreekIdiot]

The irony is that the socialdemocratic wellfarestate killed the labour movement. There is no need for it in a country that is as wealthy as ours as everyone has the chance to educate themselves. Our "working class" sits at offices instead of factories. The left is still alive thanks to the unemployed who still support it to keep the money flowing for them, while even the Social Democratic Party is centrist today. Everything the left wanted became true and the people started to reject the very basics of their ideologies, forcing the parties to either evolve towards center and right or die out completely. But then again our conservatives are also pretty much liberals when compared to other countries, so we do not have the "strong right". Still I find ridiculous that the scandinavian wellfare-state is used as an example by the lefties here, as they have obviously failed to see the fact that these countries are ran by the right and centrists, not socialists.

I have allways seen my country as the living proof of the fact that socialism and freedom of choice can't coexist. Universal wealth kills socialism.

That's brilliant. The left is very much alive in Greece and despite not all of us believing in socialism, we all support universal wealth. But I always thought socialism was government intervention and therefore state sponsored social services. Therefore universal wealth. But if what you described is true about your country, than that's a heaven-like place in comparison with fucked up Greece - literally. I wonder, do you guys have any problems there?

[Khaler]

That's brilliant. The left is very much alive in Greece and despite not all of us believing in socialism, we all support universal wealth. But I always thought socialism was government intervention and therefore state sponsored social services. Therefore universal wealth. But if what you described is true about your country, than that's a heaven-like place in comparison with fucked up Greece - literally. I wonder, do you guys have any problems there?

Well, even the right does not propose to kill of the wellfare-state or the progressive taxation and so on. It would be political suicide to propose something that endangeres the public healthcare or public education for example. But in the other hand, as long as they do not touch the basics of the wellfare-state, everything else is pretty much run on free market basis. It is also part of the protection of our society. There is no street in this country where I would be affraid to walk through. The wellfare-model is imporant factor in fighting crime, as no-one is "forced" to become a criminal if their level of life is acceptable. Even the wealthiest are ready to pay for that kind of safety.

I think, as a member of the right-wing party here, that the basis of our rightist ideology is equality. Everyone must be provided the same chances to succeed and that your parents or your own wealth shouldn't affect it. It is not fair or even productive to the society if potential talent in economics for example is lost to crappy jobs just because someone's folks can't pay for their kid's education. With our system, we can produce the best possible talent from our entire population to compete in the global market. And everyone benefits from it, the private sector and the individuals. So who does all the "crap" jobs then? Well, those who didn't try enough for some reasons. They have the same, equal chances as everyone, but for some reason they don't make it. Most of the time it is because they are lazy. Or just don't have the brains for it. Some end up with the not-so-good jobs, and some end up doing nothing and living on social security, which is still much better for the society than them turning into crime.

But no, this place is no heaven. The biggest problem we will face in the next decade is the fact that we have too much highly educated people. The education does not guarantee you a good job in the future anymore, and well, some will end up to fill up the not-so-good jobs. That is why the gov has been trying to rise the profile of the lower-level education (ammattikoulu - vocational school) and for the first time in decades, last year, more students entered them than high-school. The irony is that because of the rising level of highly-educated, some of the lower-educated jobs have become extremely profitable and that interests the youth. Finland is most likely one of the few countries where a plumber can earn more money than the national average salary, but it is direct result of the fact that there just are not enough plumbers at the moment. Some mechanics earn twice the amount of average salary. So the drop of the level of education does not bring back the left, because the lower-educated are now getting wealthier, and socialism is not in their interests either because of that. Biggest problem with both, the higher education (Universities and Colleges) and the vocational schools is that there are many lines of education that produce people who are just not needed. Many IT-business related lines are putting out up to ten times too many graduates for example. The government should act on this now and cut the starting positions on lines that are just not needed in the society. We have no use for thousands of historians graduating every year, we would do fine with just couple hundred. But no worries, even though the beginning of the next decade is going to be problematic, the end of it is going to be great as the largest generations are going to retire, which will open the job market for the highly educated again, and to everyone actually. After that we just have to worry about the taxes we have to pay to provide their pensions, but it is not that big of a problem really.

It is actually weird how the free market walks hand in hand with the government regulation. Before we joined the euro, the forrest industry was kept extremely profitable with devalvation. (Well, we can't do that now, and the damn Swedes are doing it right now and stealing our contracts). Now that Russia set wood-tolls, the forrest industry, that has always been the backbone of our entire economy, is getting f'cked up. But we have so much wood in Finland that we could have ten times as many forrestry as we have now and it wouldn't still result in any remarkable changes in the amount of our forrests. The problem is that the land is owned by thousands and thousands individuals and you need to buy the forrest from several sources, while the wood that came from Russia never had that problem. That is why the Right-Wing government should actually force people to sell their forrests to save the forrest industry. Government intervention is needed to secure the free market and through that, our economy, which makes the wellfare-state possible in the first place. Sure some people will get mad if they are forced to sell their wood, but that is a sacrifice they have to do to keep this country running.

But the cold fact is that no scandinavian wellfare-state can exist without global market. Our wealth comes from the poverty of someone else. It came from Soviet Union at first (we actually traded pairs of socks for oil back in the day), and now, thorugh several routes, from the third world. Even the damn oil-rich Norwegians wouldn't survive without globalisation, as no-one would buy their crap. That actually makes using our wellfare-state as some kind of crown jewell of socialism even more ridiculous.

Now I know no-one really cares about anything I just wrote, but I really hope you socialists would just stop using us as an example of your socialist utopia. We are not that, we are greedy capitalists and exploiters and our wealth is based on poverty of others. Maybe you could say this is the centrist utopia?

[JuliaAJA]

Come comrades, let us celebrate with the execution of a few bourgeoisie!

Any person that only calls for the execution of a few bourgeoisie is obviously a bourgeois himself. Real proletarians celebrate by executing as many bourgeoisie as they can find.

As long as we don't kill my mayor, he's Jewish.

To be fair, I might have preferred if a few of those resources were diverted towards keeping the cold out of our apartment, but you can't argue with a good celebration.

"Comrade Chairman, the people are freezing!"
"Worry not, Comrade, they'll warm up once they start marching."

Americans never march, I wish we did.