In Finland we have high level taxation and low quality services so a nice drop from 46% to 40% would be a nice start. Bureaucrats are nominated by political reasons and the public sector is just too big because of alot of paper pushing and a complicated subsidies and tax system. according to international researchers we have no corruption, yeah right.

Finland and Northwestern Europe in general are good examples. This region is the world's most prosperous, and they all have high taxes.

The top ranking countries on the HDI are all what we would call "socialist":

1 Norway
2 Sweden
3 Australia
4 Canada
5 Netherlands
6 Belgium
7 Iceland

http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/...dic_8_1_1.html

The US comes in at 8.

Eurosocialist:

The Human Development Index is calculated using various indicators for quality of life, such as health indicators and access to healthcare services, life expectancy at birth, nutrition levels, education and literacy levels, access to basic needs such as water and sanitation, and so on. It also takes into account GDP per capita in terms of Purchasing Power Parity and percentage of the population living below the poverty line.

The HDI is a socialist-defined bullsh&% socialist measure. Even so, the US is ranked #6. Economic power is a proxy for a nation's geopolitical power so literacy levels, sanitation, etc. are meaningless relative to the strength of a nation's economic engine. Comparing nations with the HDI instead of by economic power is like comparing two basketball teams based on how well their 6th men played instead of by which team scored more points.

Yes they are removed by the state as the state is the only source of coercive power. Now you can argue that the power is given to them by the people through democracy but in that case all you have is the tyranny of the masses. Which was the whole point of the bill of rights and the constitution - limiting the powers of government so that no matter what the masses thought certain rights of the minority could be maintained. The constitution however has been eroded greatly - the Kelo VS new London ruling by the supreme court is a prime example. Special interests rule in democracy.

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"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end - Liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition - The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. [I]Every class is unfit to govern[/I]. - Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Action

Cygnus:

What could be more important than the long-term prosperity of the nation state? Address my point about pure libertarianism resulting in wealthy people being run over by an army from a dictatorship. Dictators are opportunists. Military spending is socialism - it is socializing the costs. Are you in favour of each man for himself. If the US adopted that policy, even the Canadian army would have you begging for mercy within a few decades. Where are your "constitutionally-enshrined" rights then?

It is much better to bring in the word citizen.

Speaking in loose terms like somebody loses right to someone else might mean that the loss of rights by non citizens is critical in democracy when obviously it is not.

So again, the issue in democracy is not to know whether socialism or not.
The issue is to know how to build a strong group of citizens who is able to strip down non citizens from their rights.

It is the core. Then indeed, in democracy, it is possible to enforce citizens' rights and freedoms without this being at the expense of another citizens' rights and freedoms but at the expense of non citizens. Non citizens allows the group of citizens to avoid the dangerous issue of internal reorganisation.

Using the citizen word is needed to clearly show that in democracy, the source of rights is the group, non citizens and citizens being distinct groups.

Pure libertarianism is a utopian ideal. I am well aware of that. If you cannot defend your rights your rights are meaningless. This is why I placed the the tax level at 15% because national defense is a qualified public good based on the criterian of it being non-rival, non-excludable. Currently our government supplies numerous "public" goods that do not meet the public good criteria. These goods could easily and readily be supplied by the private sector.

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"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end - Liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition - The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. [I]Every class is unfit to govern[/I]. - Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Action

You use an exclusivist notion of democracy. There's also an internationalist and inclusivist way of looking at things.

E.g. more and more voices are calling for world minimum norms qua health care and labor conditions, with even a world wide minimum wage. Of course, this discours speaks about "world citizens" and "human rights" as universal concepts.

Socialism has always been democratic and internationalist.

Cygnus - Point taken. I think that we are pretty much on the same page.

Eurosocialist AND TFBM -
It would seem that in theory Democractic capitalism is inward-looking and not in the planet's best interest, in the same way that, in theory, Communism sounded great on paper about 80 years ago. It is deregulation and the increased economic activity of capitalism that actually ties nations together with international trade and multinational corporations. This leads to the development of effective international law. That is the most effective contribution that can be made to global governance at this point.

True socializing of costs for international projects is near impossible(witness Kyoto), in a practical sense, so socialism is not even close to workable as a means of global government.

Everything is said, is not it?

As said, democracy is what democracy people do.

If democratic people give to see a exclusive system, why should one consider one hypothetical version, especially now that democratic people are total powers to achieve their project? That would not be a positive approach to tacke the reality of democracy.

As soon as democratic give to see an inclusive system, democracy will be talked about as being an inclusive system.

Until it is not, it will not.

Plain as plain.