Subject:
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Re: Libertarianism again.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 1 Sep 1999 10:03:37 GMT
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Viewed:
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1911 times
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Mike Stanley <cjc@NOSPAMnewsguy.com> wrote
> So because a significantly significant number of people are
> stupid/selfish/non-forward-thinking enough to not save ANY of their
> income over their entire working lives that justifies the taking of
> money from others to pay for their problems?
Yes. How we do so is the question, not whether we do it at all. Unless you
have some cost-free way of removing them from society.
> Better yet, how about _you_ explain why, if so, you think that what's
> mine isn't mine.
What's "yours" is vested in you by the government, and those property rights
especially are respected only because of the force of law. Without community
we have simple anarchy, which knows no property rights at all. Even if we
simply say "I paid for it, it's mine", that is rarely if ever the case.
Like it or not, you recieve subsidies from the government as well as
protections, and those are paid for partly by your taxes. The marginal
cost of adding you to government facilities is low, but the cost should
you need to provide them for yourself would be high. Thus, you can choose
to have a communal doctor, teacher or librarian, or to hire your own as
and when you need one, hoping that others around you do the same often
enough that those people are available when you need them at a price you
can afford to pay.
In a rational system those services are provided as "basis services",
yours as of right simply because you are a citizen. This leads to economies
of scale that saw New Zealand paying less than 10% of GDP to provide health
care to 95% of its population to standard equal to that enjoyed by the
richest 40% or Americans who paid approximately 15% of GDP plus private
health care "fees" for the privelege. When you can pay less but serve more
people better, why choose the more expensive evil? Don't ask me, but it's
what New Zealand did starting in about 1986.
> I've personally _seen_ people who don't work much, if at all, get along
> pretty well, mostly with the aid of tax money from people like me.
The problem is in removing the state subsidies from those people. I mean,
the farming lobby in the USA is stupidly powerful, as is the aerospace
lobby. Those provide both hugely subsidised jobs to the masses and stupidly
large payments to a few fortunate fat cats. Could you dismantle that
system without leaving everybody worse off? I don't know, but I suspect
you'd end up with a lot more unhappy people on welfare, which both costs
more and hurts more people.
So while I'd like to see Jesse Helms working for a wage, I don't see how
to arrange it without putting a lot of people into terrible positions.
> Don't paint me as either an economist or a Libertarian apologist - I'm
> neither. I'm talking common sense and basic "let them who do not work
> not eat" philosophy.
Let those who need "structural unemployment" pay for the structurally
unemployed. Listen to Greenspan some time, Mike. He's talking about
lifting interest rates if the number of jobless shrinks any more. What
is that if not a coldblooded recognition that without the threat of
poverty the corporations that run America would be unable to function?
> Depends on how you define community.
A group of people who live in a defined area, or arrange themselves so
as to fit together some other way. From what I've read the USA strongly
prefers community of work and social interests over neighbourhoods.
> I have to admit some basic ignorance as to your particular brand
> (color?) of socialism, though.
I suspect I'm off the far left end of the USA scale. I think that the
government has an obligation to directly control natural monopolies
and to legislatively control others. The presumption should be that
businesses are in there to make profits in the short term, while
government's place is to consider the long term and the non-monetary
values of the community. Specifically, the environment is governments
job both locally (do not allow instant slums to be constructed) and
globally (the oil crisis is real, stop pretending). We can either
address social problems proactively (if we build good schools and
support families there will be fewer juvenile delinquents) or
reactively (lets hang the buggers after they murder someone).
Generally the earlier you address a problem the cheaper it is to
fix. Just like software :)
> All I know is that in just about any system, the politicians at the
> top end are milking it for all they're worth, lining their pockets for
> their own benefit.
Yes, we have structured the system so as to favour that outcome. Perhaps
the time is approaching when a little direct democracy might be necessary.
Personally I have great hopes for the balkanisation process, it may well
be that we end up with a million city-states around the world, which has
in the past been a very stable arrangement. It tends to keep rulers in
touch with the rules, and also requires co-operation while reducing the
amount of damage any single ruler can do.
> I don't have any solutions. I just vent every now and then when I see
> more of the money taken from me being spent on stupid things and even
> stupider people.
I don't see that. But then I live in a country where the top 10% are
only 100x richer than the bottom 10%. The USA has it much worse.
Moz
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Libertarianism again.
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| Ruthlessly snipped so I could snipe at a few points (...) Disagree. Whether we do it at all is INDEED the question. For those who choose not to make provisions for their future, or choose not to decide, still have made a choice. THEIR choice, THEIR (...) (25 years ago, 1-Sep-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Libertarianism again.
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| was: Re: Misperceptions of America (Was: Conversation w/ a LEGO Rep) Mike Stanley <cjc@NOSPAMnewsguy.com> wrote in (...) I can, but none of them strike me as realistic. The scenario itself seems to be more or less believable, in the sense that it (...) (25 years ago, 31-Aug-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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