Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

At 6/25/10 11:05 AM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: I have a question why should I get my taxes raised while some random person gets money for free?

You should think it over when
a. You graduate and you fail to land a job cause nobody wants to hire you
b. The company you are working for decides to lay you off because of insufficient funds
c. you get hit by a car and can no longer do the lifting you need to keep your job.

Though i hear a lot of people bitching about taxes, I've never known anyone managing his finances well who couldn't afford life because of it.

Hopefully I find time a good block of time to read through this!

If were deviating into the economic side of it again folks, fair enough. But it would also be good, especially from the non-socialists, to come up with a system where it would work and be used. Tell me your nightmare visions of what you think a socialist world would be like :)

Hopefully I will get time to reply also! A've only managed to skim read a wee bit.

At 6/25/10 04:22 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

It just gets to the point eventually where I feel like I've gone in a circle. My qualm with the free market is that it is essentially a blank ticket to businesses to do whatever they want to profit, and that the value of a "vote" when that vote is buying a product doesn't count for much.

It counts for more than your vote in politics, in virtually all instances. In fact i cannot conceive of an instance where it doesn't if you exclude certain private public partnerships or franchise monopolies. A particular market is most typically filled with a smaller, more particular, and generally more informed 'voter base' where voting patterns are systematically disincentive against being dogmatic or self destructive, either for oneself or for one's neighbors. I cannot trust a Barrack Obama or a John McCain because i recognize that these individuals do not represent a matter of choice by and measure,

::If I care about the environment, working conditions, or anything like that it doesn't figure into a Free market and it is not efficient to have every individual in the world have to worry about it.

Then you're better off taking politics out of government entirely; Just establish an enlightened Oligarchy.

Or, you can live under a system where one person's incompetence living hundreds of miles away doesn't affect who gets to fix your plumbing or set the number of volts in your electrical outlet and when you do decide who gets to fix your plumbing, you only have to rely on a relatively small number of people who have similar interests as yourself.

You somehow believe that there's something special or unique about the state that makes it care about human beings whose welfare or lackthereof has virtually no affect on their salaries or on their personal well being and that It's therefore acceptable to not simply impose this regime upon yourself but upon anyone and everyone who might be willing to use alternative and voluntary methods of providing certain goods and services.

That is the main reason I don't like it, beyond the fact that people jump into markets abuse them and jump out leaving everyone else to suffer, like a CEO raping his company and keeping millions of dollars when it crashes. Governments don't offer 100% protection, but what they do offer is better than none, imo.

What they offer is worse than nothing, it is negative protection. It allows the unscrupulous to indulge in every kind of greed imaginable unchecked and unregulated. It is unchecked and arbitrary and disconnected from reality. You as an individual have no control over the government.

Where this becomes a problem is when demand becomes a means to enslavement. We're not in this position, but if you lived on Mars and oxygen came from one or two companies, the owners of those companies would have undue power across everyone else. Could everyone revolt? Sure. But the business owner might be crazy enough to not care about mutually assured destruction. Look at Kim Jong Il. Yes, that's bad government, but a business could do that too. I mainly don't make that much distinction between a business and a government. I don't believe in THE STATE. I believe in limited government that still has enough teeth to prevent THE COMPANY.

And yet this fails to solve the problem of infinite regressions.

In the end, you're just replacing one form of enslavement with a bigger one. If you can't regulate a company with control over one market you can't control one company with [potential or not] control over all markets. And in this respect, limited government does not exist. states are as powerful as circumstances will allow.

>> I have never taken a course on economics. If I have ever sounded like I knew what I was talking about with economics it was due to a history lesson, an article I read, or some research I did when I came across a new idea having no idea what it was.

I don't judge people on a basis of how many formal classes in economics they've taken. None of the things I talk about come from my 2 semesters of Micro and Macro Economics. I study things i like independently.

I'd like to know what you mean by "hamfisted." That word unfortunately means nothing to me.

Vague, imprecise, indefinite.

I may eventually pick up a copy, but I've got other things I care about far more. In the end, I don't agree rationality (as you've defined it) makes a good basis for any system. Simply because you can think, doesn't mean you can think well. And while someone has to make that judgment as to what well is, its fairly easy to tell the difference between the extremes.

And again you make the same mistakes. All Praxeology says is that a particular conscious action has a goal in mind. Sacrificing a pig to the gods to bring rain is rational if it has an aim in mind which the human perceives can be achieved by the action taken, which it necessarily must. Ignorance or Omniscience, sanity or insanity are irrelevant in this context, nor does it matter what the goals are, and all action is necessarily rational in this regard, and any attempt to prove otherwise is most usually an attempt to perscribe what the critic thinks is 'rational' judgment. Praxeology **does** deal with the fact that some people are smarter than others, more aggressive, have more inherited wealth, and in general that all things are not distributed equally among men.

Gum, could you give an overview of how your conception of socialism would work, how you would stop it escalating into "total socialism", and why it escapes the huge number of demonstrably valid economic criticisms that traditional forms of socialism has faced.
Also, I find it funny how you say you "reject all economic theories", and then go on to admit you have a relatively limited understanding of economics.

At 6/25/10 09:33 AM, thedo12 wrote: The u.s. is a government as well , so I don't really see your point.

You're acting as if a total state is better than a (comparatively) limited state, though history has overwhelmingly demonstrated this to be untrue.

At 6/25/10 08:17 PM, Jon-86 wrote: If were deviating into the economic side of it again folks, fair enough.

ugh

given what we're talking about, economics is pretty much the ONLY think we should be talking about

It's all good and well to have a bunch of romantic rhetoric about how great socialism is, but at the end of the day, people are worse off the further a society deviates from free market principles

Tell me your nightmare visions of what you think a socialist world would be like :)

We don't need "nightmare visions". We just have to look at the literally DOZENS of failed socialist states over the pat century.

At 6/25/10 06:20 PM, RubberTrucky wrote: Though i hear a lot of people bitching about taxes, I've never known anyone managing his finances well who couldn't afford life because of it.

So if i take mug you and take half of your paycheck and give it to charity, this should be allowed because you can still "afford life", and this money is being used to help "society"?

At 6/26/10 04:30 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 6/25/10 06:20 PM, RubberTrucky wrote: Though i hear a lot of people bitching about taxes, I've never known anyone managing his finances well who couldn't afford life because of it.

So if i take mug you and take half of your paycheck and give it to charity, this should be allowed because you can still "afford life", and this money is being used to help "society"?

Probably not though, because I am selfish and there is quite some government supprot for the poor. All in all, the government should take care of the people and when there's quite some poverty it iskind of their job to fight it.
I get though that people can also feel it is not an applaudable think to steal their money, or take their money without their consent, and give it away to people they don't know well. But the fact remains that if this didn't happen, people who don't have the luck to make decent money are left to die. It will become some sort of survival of the fittest. I don't think that is desirable too, since it is not true that all those who make insufficient money are those who choose to be lazy and drink beer all day.

At 6/26/10 07:18 AM, RubberTrucky wrote: stuff

please. The government lacks the ability or incentive to truly help the poor.

Last year Americans donated over $300 billion to chairty.
If there were no taxes, and no government welfare programs (which would make people donate more because they will notice a greatly increased need for charity), then this already large figure would be far larger.
And because this money would be going to charities, which are run by people who dedicate their lives to helping the poor and who have a real desire to eliminate poverty (unlike politicians), they would do a far better job at helping the poor.

Were there no taxes, no minimum wage and no other government interventions and programs, the economy would be FAR better.
This means there would be far more jobs, everything would be far cheaper, and money would be worth more. Inflation, which the government is responsible for, hurts nobody more than the poor.

Not only does supporting taxation/welfare programs mean supporting extortion, it also is an ignorance of economic principles, which ultimately means the poor are worse off.

"hurr if we take money from the rich and give it to the poor then no one will be poor yaaay"

At 6/26/10 08:19 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 6/26/10 07:18 AM, RubberTrucky wrote: stuff

please. The government lacks the ability or incentive to truly help the poor.

Yeah yeah, I get it. You think that a state, humankind would be better off without others bossing them around all the time. You believe that people are capable of self controlling without anyone assigned to police them or tell them what to do.

I'm sure American government has spent money to maintain public property, to put stuff in everyone's retirement fund, to initiate programs for the physical/mental disabled or addicts,...

If not, then that is exactly the reason why America should wake up and become more socialist.

At 6/26/10 04:30 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 6/25/10 08:17 PM, Jon-86 wrote: If were deviating into the economic side of it again folks, fair enough.

ugh

given what we're talking about, economics is pretty much the ONLY think we should be talking about

No its not. Their economics then theirs the practical side of how things get done. Thats not anything you can romanticise about to be honest.

At 6/26/10 01:17 PM, RubberTrucky wrote: Yeah yeah, I get it. You think that a state, humankind would be better off without others bossing them around all the time. You believe that people are capable of self controlling without anyone assigned to police them or tell them what to do.

Ugh, laws would exist in a stateless society.

I'm sure American government has spent money to maintain public property,

Oh no, imagine if there wasn't any public property :'C

to put stuff in everyone's retirement fund,

So basically the government should take money from people, put it in their retirement funds, and then be given a pat on the back for giving people their own money?
Not to mention, taxing businesses makes things more expensive, meaning people have less money to put

to initiate programs for the physical/mental disabled or addicts,...

Ugh did you read NOTHING of my last post?

Charity would help these people out.

And if you think that people wouldn't care about the disabled in a stateless society (ignoring the fact that charities already DO help the disabled), the way government can have support programs for the disabled would be if the public supported the idea of helping out the disabled, because if people were really so mindlessly selfish as you would claim they are then a politician could just run on a platform of no government welfare for the disabled and would win.

You're acting as if government is run by a bunch of benevolent angels, when in reality they're more self-interested and self-serving than the regular person, and only "help the poor" or whoever if it is in their political interests to do so.

If not, then that is exactly the reason why America should wake up and become more socialist.

No, okay, you're a total moron. I have made a number of posts to you and other people as to why everyone (except the super rich) would be better off on a free market, and you just ignore this and say "yay socialism".
Stop being an ignorant cunt and learn some economics before you start advocating for the removal of the economic system that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other in history.

At 6/26/10 03:27 PM, Jon-86 wrote: No its not. Their economics then theirs the practical side of how things get done. Thats not anything you can romanticise about to be honest.

I'm assuming you're talking about achieving socialism?

If you would actually stop and consider the economics involved you would see that socialism isn't something that should want to be achieved.

At 6/26/10 09:38 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Ugh, laws would exist in a stateless society.

Only for those who can afford it...

So basically the government should take money from people, put it in their retirement funds, and then be given a pat on the back for giving people their own money?

Most people won't do it, and it is in their best interest... so yes. Yes we should.

And if you think that people wouldn't care about the disabled in a stateless society (ignoring the fact that charities already DO help the disabled),

The issue there is the assumption that the additional charity you assume will happen from the influx of money from lack of taxation will equal or better the amount spent through the state. Can you give some evidence that such an occurrence would actually happen?

You're acting as if government is run by a bunch of benevolent angels, when in reality they're more self-interested and self-serving than the regular person, and only "help the poor" or whoever if it is in their political interests to do so.

Saying that any one person is more self-serving than another, much less that they congregate in places of power within the state, is kind of bull. Also, assuming that those people wouldn't also position themselves in similar places of power and influence in a stateless society is disingenuous as well.

Stop being an ignorant cunt and learn some economics before you start advocating for the removal of the economic system that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other in history.

No u.

At 6/26/10 10:34 PM, Ravariel wrote: Only for those who can afford it...

It would be very cheap, and poorer neighbourhoods could easily arrange some kind of collective arrangement with a security agency whereby if the collective can manage to get, say, a few hundred people to subscribe to a particular agency the agency will give them each a 10% discount or something. Also, without a centralised state police agency, people will initially feel unsafe, and so will be far more likely (and able to, without gun control laws) to own a firearm and learn to use it (firearms will be cheaper because once again, we're on a free market), and when everyone owns a gun, criminals are going to be far less likely to say, break into people's homes or mug them.
This is just basic, violent crime. As for say, contractual law, that's pretty easy.
This explains it very well(start watching at 8:30)

Most people won't do it, and it is in their best interest... so yes. Yes we should.

So the government knows what is in everyone's best interests and should violently impose this?
I mean come on, you have to see why one would have a problem with this, especially considering that by being bad-off when you retire doesn't really hurt anyone else i.e. shouldn't the state ONLY intervene when people are negatively affecting other people?
Why not ban fast food etc etc, death is far worse than being poor when you retire, no?

The issue there is the assumption that the additional charity you assume will happen from the influx of money from lack of taxation will equal or better the amount spent through the state. Can you give some evidence that such an occurrence would actually happen?

1. Americans donate over $300 billion a year, and that is with heavy taxation. Americans are evidently charitable, and having greater disposable incomes, isn't it obvious that (at least some) people would donate more to charity?
"Well I've got this bunch of extra money now, but NO. Charities already have enough money." (???)

2. On a free market things would be cheaper and money will be worht more and thus it would be easier to help the poor.

3. Governments are EXTREMELY inefficient. Charities, run by people who voluntarily dedicate their lives to helping the poor will OBVIOUSLY be far better at helping the poor and so obviously wouldn't need nearly as much money.
If charities work hard and actually help poor people, then this means they have more money left to help OTHER poor people. However with governments, they can throw a bunch of money at poor people and when this inevitably fails at helping them, they can simply claim that they need more money to help the poor and raise taxes etc.

4. On a free market, the skilless (i.e. really poor people) will be able to be employed, because there will be no minimum wage. If you take an uneducated person with absolutely no skills currently, their labour is worth less than the minimum wage (as in literally worth less, in that they make less money for their employer than what their employer has to hire them for), and so a company can't employ them.

On a free market, a homeless dude could go to a charity. The charity will say that they will give him $X a week (or more likely, a combination of cash and vouchers for food, healthcare etc) if he agrees to work X hours a week at a job they will line up for him (which will be easy because no minimum wage +no taxes + no state-caused barriers to entry means that there will be far more jobs). This may be sweeping floors for $2 an hour, but this is fair given that he has next to worthless labour. Now before you cry "$2 an hour!?! That's practically slavery!", he is not living off this. The charity will provide him with what he needs to live. And he will be able to save what he earns, on top of his charity support. BUT, most importantly, he will be getting work experience and a foot in the door in terms of employment, which will enable him to work towards getting a better job, and ultimately working towards independence, UNLIKE the state which creates a state dependant class.

Saying that any one person is more self-serving than another, much less that they congregate in places of power within the state, is kind of bull.

Well I mean, look at politicians. They ultimately strive to be in a position of ultimate power (i.e. president) or something similar, whereas a charity worker dedicates their life to helping others.
It is stupid to assume those attempting to achieve as much power as possible will actually help the poor when we give them a monopoly on a bunch of stuff and the exclusive ability to extort funds from others.

Also, assuming that those people wouldn't also position themselves in similar places of power and influence in a stateless society is disingenuous as well.

Three words. monopoly on force. No one can compete with the government because the government is far too powerful, and have a steady, HUGE supply of guaranteed revenue i.e taxation.
However, with corporations, they are competing, and in order to become more powerful than another corporation they need more firepower and soldiers, which on a free market would be EXTREMELY expensive (because people join the US army because they feel it is the "right thing to do and as such don't mind risking their lives for their competitively small incomes, whereas soldiers on a free market do it it earn money, and aren't going to risk their lives for a small income). Furthermore, if a corporation starts becoming all evil and "word domination-ish", then people are obviously going to stop using their services (because if a company uses violence for anything other than defence then you generally aren't going to want to deal with them), and with their source of revenue gone they wouldn't be able to gain power (if you want to know why taxation on a free market would be impossible then I can explain).

No u.

YOU raise entirely understandable (though I believe false) objections to a free market, whereas Rubebr is simply saying "Socialism because we need to help the poor derp" with a total ignorance of the economic implications of teh system he advocates.
If you want to be against a free market, fine, but at least know some basic economics.
The soviet union was intended to "help the poor" with the biggest departure of free market principles in recent history, and all they achieved was essentially making everyone poor.

At 6/26/10 11:46 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 6/26/10 10:34 PM, Ravariel wrote: Only for those who can afford it...

It would be very cheap,

How cheap? Give me a dollar amount. You do realize that these are the people who live paycheck to paycheck WITH government assistance and without paying any taxes (or even negative taxes), right? ANY extra burden will harm them. I do not believe that the decrease in costs of products (if such a decrease even happens) would not be offset by the lowering of wages and removal of social plans, ergo any additional expenses would likely not be taken advantage of, leaving many poor people without any "legal" protection whatsoever.

And how will they reconcile the fact that the people they may have legal grievances with may have contracts with different organizations with laws catered to their interests?

So the government knows what is in everyone's best interests and should violently impose this?

Fuck you and this "violently impose" bullshit. Government might not know what is in each individual's best interest, but in society's best interest is people with retirement plans.

I mean come on, you have to see why one would have a problem with this, especially considering that by being bad-off when you retire doesn't really hurt anyone else i.e. shouldn't the state ONLY intervene when people are negatively affecting other people?

That you think that this will only effect the individuals who didn't save is the fatal flaw in your reasoning.

1.
2.
3.
4.

None of which answers my actual question. What you're arguing is a kind of generic "people will have more so give more, and it will be as good or better than when the government does it" with NO PROOF. Show me studies which prove not only that the amount that is given to charities will increase proportional to the increase in wealth (again ignoring the wage-crashing problem), AND cover more people in a better manner than current policies.

No, showing individual charities being more efficient than public ones is not enough.

No, saying people will have more to give and thus WILL give more (nevermind enough more to cover the loss of the state programs) is not enough.

Give. Me. Data.

Well I mean, look at politicians. They ultimately strive to be in a position of ultimate power (i.e. president) or something similar, whereas a charity worker dedicates their life to helping others.

Nice cherry-picked example there. What about CEOs, CFOs and business moguls? Do you think the head of Fortune 500 businesses are any less devious or power-hungry than politicians? And it is far easier to be a powerful businessman than it is to be a powerful politician, and their life-expectancy in that position of power is far greater on average.

Three words. monopoly on force. No one can compete with the government because the government is far too powerful, and have a steady, HUGE supply of guaranteed revenue i.e taxation.

Bullshit. The government has no such monopoly. Just because you can't break laws you don't like without repercussion doesn't mean that "the man" has some monopoly on legal force. Nevermind that the government is not a separate entity from the people it governs, so this modernistic separation of the two that you're doing just doesn't work. Also, the exact same dynamic would exist in your world, only under a different name, and mildly different mechanic... with the added fun of never knowing which legal system you're going to be privy to, the one you bought or the one bought by the guy who claims to have been legally wronged by you.

However, with corporations, they are competing, and in order to become more powerful than another corporation they need more firepower and soldiers, which on a free market would be EXTREMELY expensive

Yeah, because I'm interested in price wars involving guns.

Your vision of this utopian stateless society looks more and more to me like some hunter-gatherer, family group, warlord power struggle between small armed factions vying for whatever military power they can gain. See: Afghanistan, Darfur, DRC, and prehistoric humans.

Furthermore, if a corporation starts becoming all evil and "word domination-ish", then people are obviously going to stop using their services (because if a company uses violence for anything other than defence then you generally aren't going to want to deal with them)

Hah! You assume people will actually be well-educated enough to actually be able to tell when that happens? Remember when Time Warner and AOL merged? It was the single largest business deal in history, and hundreds (if not thousands) of people got filthy rich and now have a redonkulous amount of power in media (and thus determining what people think). Did you notice any difference in the world when that happened? No? Me neither.

Companies don't say "Hey guys, going evil and taking over the world" in their mission statement when they seek to consolidate power. They do backroom deals, grease palms, and MERGE with other companies, while keeping the normal goings on as smooth as possible, keeping the consumer blissfully ignorant. Currently there are some checks and balances in the form of government and watchdog groups. Could they be better? Sure, but you haven't given me anything but personal assurances, and vague corellational logic to assure me that your system would be any better.

At 6/25/10 10:09 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: It counts for more than your vote in politics, in virtually all instances.

That's an opinion I disagree with. Votes in politics come around less often. There is more information freely available. And you have more time to make an informed decision. Buying a product rarely reflects a "vote," but the need for a cheap product at the given moment, which I've already said I don't believe is best for the society as a whole.

In fact i cannot conceive of an instance where it doesn't if you exclude certain private public partnerships or franchise monopolies.

You can't except these things.

A particular market is most typically filled with a smaller, more particular, and generally more informed 'voter base'.

Sure, for hobbies and toys, but not food, medicine, doctors, and anything requiring a degree or specialization beyond what the typical abstraction consumer understands. Take computers. Almost no one who buys them in the larger market really understands what they are buying. People could research more, but they don't. And even though more people research computers when they buy them, you rarely see people doing this with food, furniture, paint, toys, gifts, etc.

where voting patterns are systematically disincentive against being dogmatic or self destructive, either for oneself or for one's neighbors.

But they aren't outside of your perfect little world.

I cannot trust a Barrack Obama or a John McCain because i recognize that these individuals do not represent a matter of choice by and measure,

The comma leads me to believe there was more here. I often see this in your posts... are you copying and pasting from somewhere else or are you merely distracted?

If I care about the environment, working conditions, or anything like that it doesn't figure into a Free market and it is not efficient to have every individual in the world have to worry about it.

Then you're better off taking politics out of government entirely; Just establish an enlightened Oligarchy.

Oligarchies don't change fast enough to meet new problems. And as we all know, we'd prefer to have as much freedom as possible. Which is why I favor democratic socialism.

Or, you can live under a system where one person's incompetence living hundreds of miles away doesn't affect who gets to fix your plumbing or set the number of volts in your electrical outlet and when you do decide who gets to fix your plumbing, you only have to rely on a relatively small number of people who have similar interests as yourself.

Blah blah blah. And you have deal with con artists due to the complete lack of regulation and the absence of a means for recourse when someone fucks you over.

You somehow believe that there's something special or unique about the state that makes it care about human beings whose welfare or lackthereof has virtually no affect on their salaries or on their personal well being and that It's therefore acceptable to not simply impose this regime upon yourself but upon anyone and everyone who might be willing to use alternative and voluntary methods of providing certain goods and services.

STATE IS EVIL BLARGH HONK.

As has been said before. The state is not some huge evil entity. Its composed of multiple people. Some are corrupt, most aren't. I'd wager most people who going into public service do so to better their world or accomplish something other than control others' lives.

What they offer is worse than nothing, it is negative protection. It allows the unscrupulous to indulge in every kind of greed imaginable unchecked and unregulated. It is unchecked and arbitrary and disconnected from reality. You as an individual have no control over the government.

No, I disagree.

And yet this fails to solve the problem of infinite regressions.

Its an unsolvable problem, but not attempting to solve it is worse than the alternative that you suggest: simply giving up.

In the end, you're just replacing one form of enslavement with a bigger one. If you can't regulate a company with control over one market you can't control one company with [potential or not] control over all markets. And in this respect, limited government does not exist. states are as powerful as circumstances will allow.

But states answer to the people their subjects if they are set up that way. A government which can break up a company, but is elected popularly is better than a government which refuses to do anything to protect its people because everyone is corruptible.

And again you make the same mistakes. All Praxeology says is that a particular conscious action has a goal in mind. Sacrificing a pig to the gods to bring rain is rational if it has an aim in mind which the human perceives can be achieved by the action taken, which it necessarily must. Ignorance or Omniscience, sanity or insanity are irrelevant in this context, nor does it matter what the goals are, and all action is necessarily rational in this regard, and any attempt to prove otherwise is most usually an attempt to perscribe what the critic thinks is 'rational' judgment. Praxeology **does** deal with the fact that some people are smarter than others, more aggressive, have more inherited wealth, and in general that all things are not distributed equally among men.

That's nice. The argument still stands that basing a government on "rational thought" is idiotic when rational thought is literally any thought. This is not an adequate argument for the justness or superiority of the free market.

I came back from a social event, no pun intended, and had the time to raise this issue. I have heard some pretty nice theories about American liberalism versus European socialism.

At 6/21/10 08:42 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:
And your "free" universities don't hold a candle to America's expensive private universities.

Just sayin'

I learnt from people who had experience with American education this:
American university degrees are essentially a status symbol more than actual proof of capability. The level of education compared to Belgian 'free' universities is quite lower. essentially Belgian universities can get a lot of applicants because it's so cheap but weeds them out fastly because the level is only for those motivated and 'smart' enough. In American universities it is more likely you will pass just because you are able to pay for getting in. Though this may also be due to the fact that in order top get in a lot of money has to be paid so there is some kind of faillure is not an option.
Nonetheless, in professional affairs the better, more expensive university you went to, the more likely you are to land a job, regardless of what your actual capacities are. Essentially, the more money you have, the more your degree is worth, the more you are likely to be successful. This is a very commercial/capitalist way to approach university/work.

When it comes to charity versus government initiatives there is also a huge difference in mentality between Europeans and americans. It is true, Americans tend to spend a lot of time more on individual charity, like a collection for the guy down the street whio just lost his ability to walk in an accident. Europeans tend to spend very little on individual charity.

However, individual charity over government projects has some disadvantageous. I'll show this in an allegory:
A city has a lot of hungry stray cats. The American/individal charity way to deal with it would be a lot of people would put a saucer with milk out for the cats to feed on. It is a noble gesture really. In a European city, there would be almost no saucer of milk, however, there would be a government run pound that would search these cats, give them shelter and find them a family. Individual charity calls for a personal initiative and with the right mentality a lot of people would ship in. However, it lacks a solid organisation and that's where the government might come in. It can not only help people with trouble a little further, it can institute means to guide them all the way. An example of such Belgian care: unemployed.
Belgian unemployed can get about 700$ a month to pay rent, buy food etcetera. The service for the unemployed searches for job offers, negotiates possibilities to get them employed, have a job database and all that. It also provides classes for skills to be learnt and so on. If an unemployed still refuses to take a job he gets refused the monthly funds though.

As for factory workers and unions etcetera, there is also a difference between Europe and Belgium. In Belgium there are a lot of rules extra companies have to adhere to and unions are on strike more often. That's why Belgium has better conditions to work in and labourers don't put up with crap. That is because in order to be hired Belgian labourers have to have gone through quite some education (high school educations trumps the American one) and are quite grown up. America has an abundance of available people to employ, often not as highly educated, which allows for a lot of exploitation and less than minimum wage working people. But that's become a mentality, so it is not perceived as outrages there than here. Probably the reason why I seem like an idiot when it comes to debating capitalism versus socialism.

Finally, in Belgium the state does take quite some money from civilians pay checks. however that covers quite some expenses they would make if they ever met some trouble. EG, I had been told the anecdote of a person staying in America for some time who had to get his root canal fixed and learned that in America it would standardly cost more than his flight back home. In Belgium you can get it done properly for 100 to 200$ maximum.

At 6/29/10 11:47 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 6/25/10 10:09 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: It counts for more than your vote in politics, in virtually all instances.

That's an opinion I disagree with. Votes in politics come around less often. There is more information freely available. And you have more time to make an informed decision. Buying a product rarely reflects a "vote," but the need for a cheap product at the given moment, which I've already said I don't believe is best for the society as a whole.

That voting opportunities are occur with less frequency than market exchanges makes it more difficult for one to change mistakes made by individuals (Or rather, when dealing with 'Democratic' States, mistakes made by the slim majority of voters) and fosters inertia to change within the system. If an elected candidate was the 'wrong' candidate, that candidate will negatively influence the system for a very long tenure in comparison to a personal error of judgment made on the part of an individual consumer or an individual business. And that changes to the consequences of previous decisions made simply cannot occur on as rapid a basis under a statist system in contrast with the market system is a systemic failure that cannot be avoided except by making services of the state subject to the market and not a Ballot process.

As for the actual amount of information freely available this is something that can be contested and I do not know if it is possible to empirically or logically verify it one way or another. You could claim that there is a greater deal of literature and information available in politics **in general** compared to that of any one market, but this is the natural result of politics **in general** being about such a broad range of things with a very broad history, not because the information that actually exists is clear and concise and can be easily interpreted and understood. And naturally, nowhere else but in politics will you find so much deliberate obfuscation of the truth by the sheer fact that the political system and the placement of power puts so much at stake. A bill which puts control over the entire health care industry will lend more to, and warrant a greater deal of DISINFORMING propaganda one way or another, certainly more so than a decision by a particular individual or group of individuals to visit one kind of doctor or another. And in the former instance there seems to be a much greater deal of common cause, or at least harmony, between 'all consumers' contrasted with 'all voters', and as such, are less likely to deliberately lie to each other or to stretch the truth since 'all consumers' recognize that common cause.

Information aside, as for whether or not market or electoral participants are informed, this is not a contest. Market participants are necessarily more informed, as the cost of their ignorance is not externalized like in your electoral system. I've explained rational ignorance before so I will not do so again. But I have not yet seen anyone, even heavy statists, make the case that Voters are more informed than market participants.

As for time to make an informed decision, no one **compels** anyone to engage in a market transaction at any particular time or another, so it is fallacious to say that voters are 'given more time' and thus are wiser on political issues versus their particular market interactions. People are free to make decisions not only how but also when they choose, and that a person decides to engage in a market transaction at a particular time suggests that they are comfortable with their decision or at least more so then alternatives that have entered their mind. However much time is needed to make a decision on a particular issue varies on a person to person basis depending on the time preference and values of the individual, not what is considered appropriate by an external critic.

A market transaction, or in this particular case, the choice to buy or not to buy, is a matter of what the individual felt was important. If someone bought something in a rush, is it because they valued time perhaps more than the optimal service that could be rendered, if they value 'Bargain prices' is it because they value what other things the money could buy over the service rendered. I would not be surprised if people who voted for or against Obama because he was "Black"- Whatever that means, would number in the millions, and I bet plenty of people, including political scientists, would not be surprised either. And yet no statist seems ever wholly frightened by the prospect that people will vote on the basis of values that they have that are not shared by the statist proper. Some idiot may value the race of a leader over his competence, and on a free market the decisions that this person makes would have a minimal effect on the statist.

And again, the individualistic nature of the process minimizes the dangers of "erroneous" decision making, and also gives someone such as yourself more power to influence how goods and services are rendered to YOU, maybe not your neighbors, but you. And under these circumstances you do not have to hope that 51% of everyone in a geographic area claimed by a state that meets some arbitrary qualifications shares your ideology on a particular topic as well as a wide variety of topics that would make them pick a politician who may or may not actually decide to follow with the stated policy, it is only that there are enough people with interests similar to yours that represent a sizable particular demand that a firm could cater to.

Your notions of a market selection process in comparison to an electoral one seem anecdotal at best. I hold that, one, Voters are systematically incentivized to be 'Uninformed' compared to market participants, two, sources of information regarding political issues are more likely to be twisted because the power is concentrated, three, the 'ignorance' of the massed electorate is enhanced by ideological dogmas which do not exist to nearly as strong a degree under the market system, and four, Market participants are systematically **disincentivized** to making uninformed or careless decisions.

But anyway, if you could give me an example of where the voluntary selection of a service where competition is not systematically and legally restricted and choices are rendered to individuals rather than to electoral majorities brings about a situation you seem as being 'bad for society as a whole', It might make this discussion less confusing.

Sure, for hobbies and toys, but not food, medicine, doctors, and anything requiring a degree or specialization beyond what the typical abstraction consumer understands. Take computers. Almost no one who buys them in the larger market really understands what they are buying. People could research more, but they don't. And even though more people research computers when they buy them, you rarely see people doing this with food, furniture, paint, toys, gifts, etc.

Specialization such as knowledge of economics? The history of Human civilization? Foreign affairs? Most people know absolutely nothing about the internal workings of their own state let alone the aforementioned topics which in themselves are exhaustive. This may be a case for enlightened oligarchy but democratic states do not exempt themselves of this problem.

People engage themselves thoroughly with hobbies because it is something which they value, it is not too far fetched to assume then that, since no one is forcing them not to acquaint themselves with one thing or another, that to the extent that a person values a thing, is the extent to which they will take the time to learn enough about it, to make informed decisions about it. With politics, no individual is rewarded or punished for his ignorance or knowledge.

Continued on the next post...

What a 'hobby is' is, in large part, arbitrary, but remember that we can only ascertain values from a person's actions. If someone spends a great deal of time coming to know a particular thing, it can be assumed that they value that thing, and if they don't, because they do not value it as much as those things that they do. With that in mind, it's not a very far logical leap to conclude that if someone values something, they will spend time learning about it to the extent that it is valued, and to the extent that they feel the knowledge is worth more than what other things they value. So if someone values their health, they will take the time to learn about it.

And even when a particular bureaucrat may know more about, say, medicinal drugs than any individual, it is impossible for any single agency to know about the particulars of each individual, no one has more opportunity and more of a reason to learn about an individual's needs than the individual himself.

And again, institutions which help to alleviate the asymmetry of information between producers and consumers exist where consumers do not need to be as informed as you apparently think they need to be for markets to have more desirable outcomes then elections, such as warranties and third party authentification.

But they aren't outside of your perfect little world.

They are.

"My little world" describes a world where people have preferences and values, where uncertainty exists with all situations, and nothing sacred, divine, or malicious and evil can be said about any one class of humans or another as an axiom.

Your world describes a platonic philosopher king who is enlightened to the collective will through the electoral process. (Two can play the strawman game) No individual suffers or is rewarded because one candidate or another and is thus impelled to do more research or to revise their decision as soon as the next opportunity arises, this is why 'the public' is notoriously ignorant of politics; they have no reason not to be.

The comma leads me to believe there was more here. I often see this in your posts... are you copying and pasting from somewhere else or are you merely distracted?

Should have said 'By any measure', Yes, I was distracted.

Then you're better off taking politics out of government entirely; Just establish an enlightened Oligarchy.

Oligarchies don't change fast enough to meet new problems.

I don't know what your basis is for this argument. 'Fast enough' compared to what? Democratic governments have proven themselves fairly slow to meet new problems, either slow or unwilling. I'm thinking of Katrina and I am also thinking of My point is this; if you think people are too stupid to make decisions regarding their lives alone, do not trust them to make decisions regarding the lives of millions of people they probably are not well informed about.

It must also be pointed out that the democratic process will generally fail to prevent interest groups from doing things that enrich themselves but externalize the costs onto 'society as a whole', as I argued in a previous thread, by means that only a state is capable of utilizing.

:And as we all know, we'd prefer to have as much freedom as possible. Which is why I favor democratic socialism.

This statement means absolutely nothing to me.

I can't argue against an anecdotal argument no more than you can. If I said "We all know that politicians are corrupt" That would be an anecdotal statement, it's nigh impossible to prove or disprove it.

If I said that "Federal politicians are systemically more corrupt than local politicians because more money is needed to run their campaigns and more power is at stake, and because it is easier for a corporation to bribe one federal official than hundreds of local politicians, especially when local activist voter pressures can be more easily mobilized against politicians who live closer to their constituents" That is not an anecdotal statement, it's aprioristic but it has a foundation.

The former argument could be called a rant against the state, the latter is not, it is specific enough that it can be proven or disproven one way or another p. Thus far all of your arguments have been of the anecdotal nature, apart from a few things towards the top that I've already dealt with concerning political and market information, you offer no reasons why a voter should be more informed than a consumer, you just say he is and expect me to accept the claim.

I don't rant against the state, I argue it is less apt to deal with problems for systemic reasons that you continually ignore.

As has been said before. The state is not some huge evil entity. Its composed of multiple people. Some are corrupt, most aren't. I'd wager most people who going into public service do so to better their world or accomplish something other than control others' lives.

Now this is a statement that can actually be argued for or against. When power is concentrated the state, and it's agents, tend to write and enforces laws in such a way that favor small groups at the expense of diluted majorities. This is because a the individuals of a small interest group have more to gain than each majority who may not even know about the law at all have to lose from it's passage. This is why the state tends towards 'bad laws'. It's not because the politicians themselves are evil, they may not even know, and probably don't since most congressman have no background in economics, why a particular law is 'bad for the common good' And even if they object to it on some moral grounds they may find themselves acquiescing because the loss of that interest group's support is worse then the loss of support from a couple of libertarian leaning thinkers who study those particular issues. Are corn subsidies good for society as a whole? A great deal of evidence suggests that the consequences of these subsidies are negative not only for American taxpayers and consumers but devastating for foreign farmers. Are we going to see an anti-corn subsidy movement grow in America? Of course not, hundreds of millions of people around the world might be harmed by the law but they may only be harmed an average of, say, 50 dollars each, that's not enough to compel them to join a movement against corn subsidies.

Bureaucracies tend towards bad service simply because they do not compete. The USPS is not bad because the people who run it are diabolical and evil [Congressmen generally write outlines for the operation of a bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats themselves may end up creating the rules that affect regular citizens, and once a bureaucracy is in place there is an incredible social stigma put against people who criticize it or try to reform it.] But because citizens are left no choice as to whether or not to take services from this bureaucracy. If the DMV provides bad service to you, who are you going to vote for in the next election?

The most democratic a government can get is a contest between two candidates chosen largely by how much money and media attention they can garner. (These are two things not disputed by even left political scientists) This would be called a duopoly in a market and I would not consider THAT to be enough competition in an area of three hundred million people to provide adequate protection against 'bad politicians' That is why I hold that the state is systemically less accountable.

Continued on the next post...

At 7/1/10 08:02 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: That voting opportunities are occur with less frequency than market exchanges makes it more difficult for one to change mistakes made by individuals (Or rather, when dealing with 'Democratic' States, mistakes made by the slim majority of voters) and fosters inertia to change within the system. If an elected candidate was the 'wrong' candidate, that candidate will negatively influence the system for a very long tenure in comparison to a personal error of judgment made on the part of an individual consumer or an individual business. And that changes to the consequences of previous decisions made simply cannot occur on as rapid a basis under a statist system in contrast with the market system is a systemic failure that cannot be avoided except by making services of the state subject to the market and not a Ballot process.

"Candidates are around too long when people vote for the wrong person and so what they do to the system negatively impacts everyone for a long time." does not imply "Market forces fix the system"

This is a failure of reasoning, or logic, or rational thought. It does not work. It does not make sense. And I disagree with it in its entirety. One potential failure in government does not mean suddenly that Market Forces are better.

A system with the proper checks and balances can weaken the effects from a bad politician. "Market Forces" offer no stability to a society.

certainly more so than a decision by a particular individual or group of individuals to visit one kind of doctor or another. And in the former instance there seems to be a much greater deal of common cause, or at least harmony, between 'all consumers' contrasted with 'all voters', and as such, are less likely to deliberately lie to each other or to stretch the truth since 'all consumers' recognize that common cause.

Again, you assume informed consumers. Consumers consume everything needed for daily life. If they focus on a doctor, they can't focus on too many more things (drugs, automobiles, food, safety of toys, safety of construction etc). The specialization needed to guarantee good products at a reasonable price from every individual is unobtainable and more laughable than guaranteeing good government. This is why over time humanity has favored specialized oversight boards or agencies. When the private market can't or won't protect its consumers we choose to have the government step in and hope that redundancy catches the problem.

Market participants are necessarily more informed

I doubt it. How many people pay attention to the ingredients in the food they eat every day? Probably less than 5%.

as the cost of their ignorance is not externalized like in your electoral system.

Externalization only matters a fraction when an individual has a limited capability to worry about things.

I've explained rational ignorance before so I will not do so again. But I have not yet seen anyone, even heavy statists, make the case that Voters are more informed than market participants.

I'll say it right now. People who vote often care more about their causes than people who buy food. And the importance of the election makes more people research. At least the lazy and misinformed or apathetic generally don't vote, which is more than you could say about eating.

As for time to make an informed decision, no one **compels** anyone to engage in a market transaction at any particular time or another, so it is fallacious to say that voters are 'given more time' and thus are wiser on political issues versus their particular market interactions

No, they are given timelines all the time in real world. You have to eat every day. Your lawn mower breaks, you need one right away. You need a hammer, but you don't know much about them so you go out and get one. You're eighteen, time to pick an educational facility based on that propaganda machine. There are nearly instantaneous buying practices conducted everyday during which people do not think or do not think hard or much at all. Life **compels** people to make 'Market Decisions.'

People are free to make decisions not only how but also when they choose, and that a person decides to engage in a market transaction at a particular time suggests that they are comfortable with their decision or at least more so then alternatives

This does not mean the decision they make is best for themselves or everyone else involved. You can wine about it being my word over theirs or me imposing my will, but tough shit. Some people are smarter than others. Some people are better than others at certain things. Those who are specialized in a task should be allowed to do it and everyone should benefit from it when possible.

At 7/1/10 08:02 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Some idiot may value the race of a leader over his competence, and on a free market the decisions that this person makes would have a minimal effect on the statist.

Yet these are rarely the problems "Statists" worry about, and in general far less people voted for Obama because he was black than voted for him for his policies and political ideas. Its likely the amount of white people afraid of Obama cancelled out the black vote anyway. Corporate corruption, poisoned products, placebos, shotty workmanship, a lack of recompense against those who purposefully deceive or hurt others.

And again, the individualistic nature of the process minimizes the dangers of "erroneous" decision making, and also gives someone such as yourself more power to influence how goods and services are rendered to YOU, maybe not your neighbors, but you.

Yeah, I think you still don't understand that an individual can't protect himself against every fraudulent product under the sun. No one pays attention to barbie dolls every day, but there is always a big spot light on politicians thanks to the media. Always.

Voters are systematically incentivized to be 'Uninformed' compared to market participants.

Anecdotal to the extreme, speaking of anecdotal.

two, sources of information regarding political issues are more likely to be twisted because the power is concentrated

States don't have to be as concentrated as a media black out which you seem to imply has to happen. You're arguing against the strawman of some ultimate dictatorship here.

three, the 'ignorance' of the massed electorate is enhanced by ideological dogmas which do not exist to nearly as strong a degree under the market system

Which is to say that traditions and bigotry never come into account in a "market system" That. Is. Laughable.

four, Market participants are systematically **disincentivized** to making uninformed or careless decisions.

No they aren't. Or at least, they are presented with so many options there's always another bad one out there regardless of how many times they get burned.

More people operate by the rules of gambling than by any really intelligent system. They bet short term and hope long term. Its been scientifically shown again and again and again. That kind of system is not anywhere near a voting system. And if you did away with a voting system like we had now, we would gravitate toward that all horrible "S.T.A.T.E" you are so afraid of as dictatorships and oligarchies formed everywhere.

I don't understand how you could argue that people are too stupid to pick their leader, but if you let them alone and somehow prevented government from rising to do good or ill that would somehow be better off. The only argument a socialist makes that I agree with is that the government is a tool that the people should be able to use equally to make life better for everyone.

But anyway, if you could give me an example of where the voluntary selection of a service where competition is not systematically and legally restricted and choices are rendered to individuals rather than to electoral majorities brings about a situation you seem as being 'bad for society as a whole', It might make this discussion less confusing.

Fast food --> really fat people --> strains the medical institution --> poisons children --> high death rate --> weakened populace --> disease --> etc.

Unrestrained lending practices (aided but not forced by the government) --> people want homes --> banks give people money who shouldn't have it --> Banks see a chance for a greater profit by manipulating the system --> huge fucking recession (even though the government incepted the initial cause, its not like market forces stepped in to correct it until that meant ruining everyone's lives)

Specialization such as knowledge of economics? The history of Human civilization? Foreign affairs? Most people know absolutely nothing about the internal workings of their own state let alone the aforementioned topics which in themselves are exhaustive. This may be a case for enlightened oligarchy but democratic states do not exempt themselves of this problem.

Social Democratic Republics often set up institutions such as the FDA, SEC, etc to deal with these problems. You're going to make the argument that they hurt more people than they help or someone will which is unprovable, so don't bother. I've heard it before. And anyhow, the abstraction is for the best.

People engage themselves thoroughly with hobbies because it is something which they value, it is not too far fetched to assume then that, since no one is forcing them not to acquaint themselves with one thing or another, that to the extent that a person values a thing, is the extent to which they will take the time to learn enough about it, to make informed decisions about it. With politics, no individual is rewarded or punished for his ignorance or knowledge.

Sure they are.

Anyhow, plenty of people have taken up the hobby of sniffing paint. Great decisions. *thumbs up, wink*

At 7/1/10 08:04 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: What a 'hobby is' is, in large part, arbitrary, but remember that we can only ascertain values from a person's actions. If someone spends a great deal of time coming to know a particular thing, it can be assumed that they value that thing, and if they don't, because they do not value it as much as those things that they do. With that in mind, it's not a very far logical leap to conclude that if someone values something, they will spend time learning about it to the extent that it is valued, and to the extent that they feel the knowledge is worth more than what other things they value. So if someone values their health, they will take the time to learn about it.

Yeah, but I'm claiming people don't know what to value correctly with out being taught. And if you want to argue against this, then we should all just throw our children out in the woods and hope they survive.

And even when a particular bureaucrat may know more about, say, medicinal drugs than any individual, it is impossible for any single agency to know about the particulars of each individual, no one has more opportunity and more of a reason to learn about an individual's needs than the individual himself.

We're talking about redundantly reducing risk through a series of checks and balances, while knowing we can never fix everything, but at least catch a lot more than we would have otherwise. This is a situation where we do the best we can, some people probably get hurt, but most people are better off. Sorry. Life sucks.

And again, institutions which help to alleviate the asymmetry of information between producers and consumers exist where consumers do not need to be as informed as you apparently think they need to be for markets to have more desirable outcomes then elections, such as warranties and third party authentification.

How do you enforce a warranty? How do you guarantee a third party is really a third party when it relies on both other parties to exist to begin with?

"My little world" describes a world where people have preferences and values, where uncertainty exists with all situations, and nothing sacred, divine, or malicious and evil can be said about any one class of humans or another as an axiom.
Your world describes a platonic philosopher king who is enlightened to the collective will through the electoral process.

No, I believe in systems of checks and balances where the king is meant to draw the fire and attention of idiots away from where the real decisions are made and the intelligent people get to actually make the decisions in places like the FDA, SEC, etc.

Your world is chaos, anarchy and a system of over eating followed by starvation.

I don't know what your basis is for this argument. 'Fast enough' compared to what? Democratic governments have proven themselves fairly slow to meet new problems, either slow or unwilling. I'm thinking of Katrina and I am also thinking of My point is this; if you think people are too stupid to make decisions regarding their lives alone, do not trust them to make decisions regarding the lives of millions of people they probably are not well informed about.

So, the government was too slow to intercede, but the market forces on the ground weren't fast enough either. Eventually the government did step in with the aid of market forces and together things have turned around. You need both.

It must also be pointed out that the democratic process will generally fail to prevent interest groups from doing things that enrich themselves but externalize the costs onto 'society as a whole', as I argued in a previous thread, by means that only a state is capable of utilizing.

In most cases its a benign side affect of government.

no reasons why a voter should be more informed than a consumer, you just say he is and expect me to accept the claim.

And you refuse to acknowledge there are too many products that people have to buy for them to be as informed as you claim is possible.

I don't rant against the state, I argue it is less apt to deal with problems for systemic reasons that you continually ignore.

The state should be put in place to prevent common fraud or crime, or to bar the market from regions we know are dangerous. The market will always exist and where it is possible for it to be beneficial it can be allowed to run free, but the market always relies on the exchange of goods where one party benefits and another loses, so it can't be trusted to make "good" decisions for society.

At 7/1/10 08:04 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Now this is a statement that can actually be argued for or against. When power is concentrated the state, and it's agents, tend to write and enforces laws in such a way that favor small groups at the expense of diluted majorities.

This does happen sometimes, but generally it harms people less than not having the government around at all. In response to corn, there are plenty of people who I know who actively appose the corn legislation and protest because of it, talk about it regularly, etc. Eventually we may see people move against it when that movement picks up enough steam, or as has been happening the corn market will not do as well as they predicted with their protections and changes will happen anyway.

Bureaucracies tend towards bad service simply because they do not compete. The USPS is not bad because the people who run it are diabolical and evil [Congressmen generally write outlines for the operation of a bureaucracy, but the bureaucrats themselves may end up creating the rules that affect regular citizens, and once a bureaucracy is in place there is an incredible social stigma put against people who criticize it or try to reform it.] But because citizens are left no choice as to whether or not to take services from this bureaucracy. If the DMV provides bad service to you, who are you going to vote for in the next election?

You can go work for the DMV, you can go campaign against the DMV, you can do all sorts of things. There are plenty of people who hate the DMV, and I'd be surprised fi the DMV was made a part of someone's platform if they weren't elected to a position to help change it. But in general, harmful service at the DMV is a rarity and in my opinion is better than having a reckless driver on the road.

The most democratic a government can get is a contest between two candidates chosen largely by how much money and media attention they can garner.

That's just the U.S. model. Take a look at the parliamentary systems out there of social republics. They are much different from our model and corruption generally brings a party down quickly.

(These are two things not disputed by even left political scientists) This would be called a duopoly in a market and I would not consider THAT to be enough competition in an area of three hundred million people to provide adequate protection against 'bad politicians' That is why I hold that the state is systemically less accountable.

But there's a DUOpoly in computing right now between Apple and Microsoft. Same thing really.

The things you argue against in government are in business and often worse for the rest of us. In business our leaders are the people who happen to bring more money into the company. They rarely even get looked at by the public.

At 7/6/10 09:03 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:

"Candidates are around too long when people vote for the wrong person and so what they do to the system negatively impacts everyone for a long time." does not imply "Market forces fix the system"

"Fixes"? No, "Systematically avoids the risk in the first place"? Yes.

This is a failure of reasoning, or logic, or rational thought. It does not work. It does not make sense. And I disagree with it in its entirety. One potential failure in government does not mean suddenly that Market Forces are better.

A systematic failing of a particular system that is not present in another for logical reasons implies superiority on those particular grounds. It does not imply general superiority but I can't make a case for general superiority except by considering all instances of particular instances of superiority.

A system with the proper checks and balances can weaken the effects from a bad politician.

The checks and balances present in voluntary and individual action are systematically superior to those of states, even 'democratic' ones. This is because they are done on an individual basis with vastly more opportunities to fix specific problems and, most importantly, a discrete method of punishing folly and rewarding good judgment. This offers more stability to a society.

certainly more so than a decision by a particular individual or group of individuals to visit one kind of doctor or another. And in the former instance there seems to be a much greater deal of common cause, or at least harmony, between 'all consumers' contrasted with 'all voters', and as such, are less likely to deliberately lie to each other or to stretch the truth since 'all consumers' recognize that common cause.

Again, you assume informed consumers.

Your argument is self defeating. Informed voters necessarily need to know about a wider variety of issues, many of which may have nothing to do with them, and these issues are necessarily greater in number and complexity than those issues only pertaining to their own subjective interests; this is tautological in a government with the 'regulatory' might you wish it to wield. That is, in a statist society, the building of roads in Alaska becomes an issue of everyone within the geographic area known as 'the united states of America' only because Politicians sign bills giving enormous amounts of money in earmarks (Per person at least) to such things as 'bridges/roads to nowhere', not because in a system where people built roads through the voluntary extraction of funds, everyone in 'The united states of America' cares about roads in the boonies. These kinds of issues now need to be 'known' by a 'rational' (Rationality how you define it) Electorate on top of the ones that govern their own lives. The centralization of power necessitates increased knowledge due to the increased complexity involved in a single agency governing the whole of society. And because, out of rational (How i define it) ignorance, voters will remain ignorant on those issues because the time and effort spent learning about them has an infinitesimally small connection to the political outcome. Unless i have a genuine interest in politics, i would not spend a minute of my time researching the oil spill in the Gulf because I am aware of the fact that, even though i can vote in the next election, my individual impact on the political outcome is, optimistically speaking, less than 1/1,000,000. The only people who know more about politics then their personal interests are nerds like me who view politics (Not really politics for me but political philosophy) as an interest in itself, and thus get subjective utility from self-education on 'political' issues in of itself.

Your appeals to 'popular knowledge' are also disingenuous. With respect to inspecting food products, or any product for that matter, there is a natural tendency towards crowding out when it is assumed that there is this government doing the job. The anecdotal response to consumer ignorance, unless backed up by some sort of empirical evidence, is meaningless. But in general, I observe that people are far more knowledgeable in 'their interests', the things they like to talk to me about and the things that seem to matter to them most in life, then their excitement of getting to chose between the tough choice of a republican or a democrat in the next election and the importance and intricacies of the various issues.

I am sure someone with a similar political view as you would not inspect the food they eat because they are fully confident that the state has 'redundantly' done it's job and inspected it for them, and so they spend their time learning about sports trends, or fad diets, or new IT products, etc.

Externalization only matters a fraction when an individual has a limited capability to worry about things.

It doesn't matter if people worry about something or not. Right or wrong, i am personally concerned that the government is going to wreck the economy, that doesn't mean I am going to participate in the electoral process as a 'citizens duty' because i know that my impact on the outcome is extremely small.

The tragedy of the commons works the same way, I might be a logging company that is personally concerned that forest resources are being depleted, but If i alone cannot chose to simply restrict logging activities if i suspect that no other companies are going to follow suit.

You are again trying to bolster your arguments through 'generally' statements, which are EMPIRICAL statements that are unsubstantiated. A logical statement doesn't need evidence to support it, but an empirical statement does. Rational ignorance is a logical statement and thus technically doesn't require any evidence for it to be true, though there are studies that voters have a frightening decree of ignorance concerning knowledge of politics.

But this also shows illogical double standard, you're basically saying elections work because 'people care' and markets work because 'Generally people don't care'. Also, caring is not the same as the incentive to research; Being intensely committed to an ideology is not the same as being intensely commited to finding out the truth. I could not argue that the free market is good for water distribution because individuals have simply have a strong DESIRE to distribute water, if that desire involved an intense ideological bent surrounded by faith in rain dances to acquire water, (And there were no incentives in place to stop people from believing in such nonsense) i never argued there was a strong desire, only there was a strong incentive to do things 'properly'. Likewise, the fact that people intensely love or intensely hate our president is not proof that people are systematically incentivized to at least try to study the issues.

If nothing it shows that forcing people into the same collective defense, welfare, and regulatory agencies creates enormous mutual conflict.

No, they are given timelines all the time in real world.

There are timeliness with everything, just because elections occur a particular date doesn't mean world issues will wait until then. The point is that there are no very weak pain signals that tell voters they are doing a crappy job, often because they are too ideologically indoctrinated to change their ways (which in a free society is fine because those individuals only hurt themselfs) I 'cared' enough about my education and was impartial enough to make what i perceived was a good decision, but I don't care on the other hand, enough about the 'national education' to research whether the republican or democrat is better at chosing the Czar (Who the voters knew nothing about) who would then make 'national education decisions'

This does not mean the decision they make is best for themselves or everyone else involved.

I'm not saying always and everywhere they will make the best conceivable decision, no one is omnipotent, but no state agent has any MORE reason to care about satisfying the subjective interests of a person than that person, on average.

At 7/6/10 09:24 AM, gumOnShoe wrote:

Yet these are rarely the problems

the 95% of African americans that voted for Barrack Obama and the enormous emphasis on getting the first black president says otherwise, i don't know what statistical evidence you are placing your claim on, if any.

Yeah, I think you still don't understand that an individual can't protect himself

And how can one agency supposedly protect every American from every conceivable misdeed under the sun? Better than every American can? The idea isn't that every American will care about the quality of every product on the market like an FDA does, but that they will care about only the products they buy, which is fewer in type and quantity than the agency must deal with, that doesn't mean that individuals cannot rely on third party regulators, but insofar as these regulators are involuntarilly established and their income is not dirrectly tied to consumer satisfaction, is the extent to which their decisions will not reflect the desires of their constituents. As a consumer i only have to care about the goods i buy, yet as a voter my job is supposedly easier now that i have to care mainly about goods that I don't buy.

You don't understand the difference between a logical and an empirical statement, my statements are logical, not empirical not anecdotal. I didn't say that they are 'generally' less informed like you claim they are 'generally more informed', i didn't give a statistic either, i said they are **systematically** disincentivized to uninformed decision making.

States don't have to be as concentrated as a media black out which you seem to imply has to happen.

Sure they don't **have** to be, though there is a tendency towards increased state power. But the state you are advocating and the state that most socialists advocate, even if the two are not the same, is necessarily going to be the strongest force, both from the economic and the militaristic point of view, in a given geographic area. And thus, to the extent that power is concentrated, is the extent to which you have the incentive to lie about political issues or buy off politicians.

Which is to say that traditions and bigotry never come into account in a "market system" That. Is. Laughable.

The two most ideological and dogmatic of areas I see in a market are, religion, which is currently in decline, and two, vanity and matters of group think. Religion doesn't surprise me very much given the intense historical correlation between religions, cults, and their evolutionary ancestors; states. And it seems to me that the internet has done a great job in decentralizing information and finally given atheism an even fighting ground where religion can be challenged on a purely logical basis rather than through appeals to popularity. Vanity and group think are inevitable to one degree or another but, not even the most die-hard star wars fans are so fanatical about their fandom that they would do what states do; rally their citizens to give their money and their lives to kill people in other states. I also think public education fosters collectivism and tribalism.

And as i argued before, centralization of power and involuntary association leads to conflicts between individuals. Whereas, in a market, whether i am a SWgeek or a Trekkie is my business and mine alone, The state monopoly on a good or service puts people with different beliefs in conflict with eachother. I don't think people would be so fanatic about god and morality if they didn't view everyone around them as a potential voter for the hedonistic democrat or the puritanical republican, and thus a threat to their way of life.

For example I just had college orientation and the incoming freshman were put into 16 groups and we had various physical and performing competitions between the groups, and people were chanting their group numbers and acting like these 'groups' were like ancient tribes they had grown up in. But no one was so intensely devoted to their **cough** State **cough** group that they would actually coerce one another or pay someone to coerce one another, outside of the unicorn world of good government that sort of behavior is seen as anti-social.

No they aren't. Or at least, they are presented with so many options there's always another bad one out there regardless of how many times they get burned.

I smell an arbitrary line between too many options and 'oligarchy' I asked you before what your problem was with a Dictatorial or oligarchical state where any ostensible freedom of choice is removed entirely, the democrat republican duopoly is 'too much choice' but the number of options that emerge from consumer demand are 'too much' Regardless, greater number of choices makes 'misdeeds' more difficult to get away with, and the number of opportunities to choose makes fixing mistakes all the easier. People MIGHT be dogmatic about decisions, but that someone insists on drinking a particular beverage that has preservatives doesn't force me to make the same decision.

More people operate by the rules of gambling than by any really intelligent system.

The state de-novo argument is something i refuse to respond to after dealing with it on three separate threads in specific detail with poxpower.

And voting is no 'less' short term, i don't know where you get this idea from. and i don't know what you think makes voters systematically less immediately minded. Most people i know have terrible long term memory loss with politics, forgetting the promises politicians made in elections

I don't understand how you could argue that people are too stupid to pick their leader, The only argument a socialist makes that I agree with is that the government is a tool that the people should be able to use equally to make life better for everyone.

I don't understand how you could argue people are too stupid to make decisions for themselves, but smart enough to make decisions for everyone else.

The only argument a libertarian makes is that any individual should be free not to participate in a government program provided it doesn't inter fear with the ability of anyone else to chose to involve themselves in a government program. I honestly wouldn't care if social security existed, if I was able to opt out of social security entirely. 'Should be able to use' is not a proper description of what states do, their programs compel compliance.

Fast food

The strain on the medical establishment is felt because those that engage in unhealthy practices are not being made to pay for the costs their actions have on society, this is the fault of community ratings making market responses to such activities illegal. Imposing a tax on fast foods opens up the whole problem of which businesses are fast food and which ones aren't, and whether or not a monopoly regulator would have more to gain by granting exemptions to particularly connected fast food chains (kind of like how the US government gave BP a categorical exclusion on deep sea drilling) Health insurance premium adjustments, even if we granted that state agents were completely benign, are far more actuarial than ham-fisted consumption taxes.

Also much of the health hazards can be attributed to high fructose corn syrup, a product food companies use because it is incredible cheap, why is it incredible cheap? Take a guess.

Unrestrained lending practices

Restraint was greatest in the area in which the real estate bubble occurred. Do not blame the voluntary society for doing something that a state wanted it to do; the government wanted banks to make loans, any loans, merely for the sake of stimulating the economy in the short run. It cut interest rates and generated an enormous moral hazard. Had bad decisions made by bureaucrats not been made in the past, this never would have happened. There is a reason Austrian economics called the real estate bubble ex-ante.

I'll deal with the rest of this later, I have to leave.

Social Democratic Republics often set up institutions

Number one this doesn't address the issue that voters still need to be knowledgeable in all of these things in order to make an informed decision, showing me the bureaucracies doesn't address this at all. That the FDA exists doesn't mean people know less about drugs they need than drugs they don't.

Any study related to the FDA has shown that it has killed more people than it has saved, based on the drug lag and testing the effects of different drugs that were/were not prohibited in other countries. And if you want to boldly assert that you cannot prove that a bureaucracy has done more harm than good, that also means you can't prove that it has done more good than harm, and any assertion claiming the net social benefit of a government program is a baseless one. Polylogism and appeals to ignorance are are always double edged swords.

Sure they are.
Anyhow, plenty of people have taken up the hobby of sniffing paint. Great decisions. *thumbs up, wink*
And I can give anecdotes on how state agents have failed to keep drugs out of prisons, without giving a specific proportion or some sort of logical explanation that shows beyond reasonable doubt that there is a link between say, Statism and the inability to control drugs within prisons, this is not an argument. Your scare stories don't mean anything to me.

At 7/1/10 08:04 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Yeah, but I'm claiming people don't know what to value correctly with out being taught. And if you want to argue against this, then we should all just throw our children out in the woods and hope they survive.

By 'people' do you mean children? Yes, parents need children just like Eggs need chickens to eventually become eggs. But if you are defining 'people' as 'Everyone except the state' need to be taught, presumably by agents of the state, what to believe in order to be 'good citizens' according to some external criteria not already pre-established by those uncouth masses you claim need educating. I'm not trying to straw man you, but when you say 'people' without talking about which kinds of people you are referring to, because using the word 'people' in this context is self-defeating if referring to 'everyone'. But there are no angels and even if they are there's no way for a society of non-angels to properly filter society into the classes of angels and non angels. But **you** are throwing the terms 'People' , 'We' and 'Children', (and you throw these words around so carelessly). And these words mean nothing to me unless you specify what they are and how exactly they can be identified. And when you say 'we the people' have a duty to give 'proper values' to the other 'people', This strikes me as little more than a way to describe the anti-educatonal and highly dysfunctional public education system in a way that is LINGUISTICALLY more pleasant to you. And yes I can make a case that public education is anti-educational and dysfunctional, but if that wasn't what you were referring to, there is no way I would be able to know.

That being said, as far as education is concerned, People acting with one another, for better or for worse, will tend to conform to one another, to an extent. Proper standards of behavior emerge and also change, this is not the same as laws though there are usually laws putting into positive force what standards a population considers worth enforcing; things like rape and murder emerge as 'antisocial' as a cause for, not the result of, laws prohibiting them. (That being said the form of enforcement and the organization of enforcement may be suboptimal but that is another story)

And even when a particular bureaucrat may know more about, say, medicinal drugs than any individual, it is impossible for any single agency to know about the particulars of each individual, no one has more opportunity and more of a reason to learn about an individual's needs than the individual himself.

We're talking about redundantly reducing risk through a series of checks and balances, while knowing we can never fix everything, but at least catch a lot more than we would have otherwise. This is a situation where we do the best we can, some people probably get hurt, but most people are better off. Sorry. Life sucks.

The checks and balances you are describing is the handing of ultimate authority, this is not redundant in the slightest, it is dangerous and brittle. The only legitimate redundancy is the kind that can (Realistically, not idealistically) fail and be replaced. What the world needs is a food and drug agency that has it's income directly tied to the satisfaction of those that care about the quality of their food and drugs, this agency that may or may not have multiple competitors though acts under the knowledge that no such competition is prohibited and thus could come into being at any time.

Any agency that operates where its income is collected through what is traditionally called 'taxation' will operate largely desensitized to the desires of society and thus be subject to political market failure. Interest groups will manipulate the law to the benefits of the few at the expense of the many, because the tangible benefits to the few almost always win out against the intangible potential gains of the many. If a state agent of agency X is bribed 50,000 to render a small group 100 million dollars of value, but costs each individual American, 50 dollars per year, The benefit to the interest group is enough to get them to give 50,000 dollars to a state agent but the cost of 50 dollars per American is likely not going to be enough to make them want to spent their precious time (Remember opportunity cost is involved in political activism) railing against this single act of rent seeking, and subsequent acts of rent seeking will naturally follow. The politicians, interest groups, and citizens/tax payers are all acting rationally in this instance, and on the whole humanity suffers. And I view any argument which supposedly chides the ability of individuals to refuse to participate in state programs as being 'treasonous' or 'undemocratic' as akin to saying that the very ability for 'citizens' to get a modicum of choice via the terribly fixed election system is 'treasonous' or 'undemocratic'.

How do you enforce a warranty? How do you guarantee a third party is really a third party when it relies on both other parties to exist to begin with?

How do we know that once Barrack Obama got into office he didn't continue george Bush's policy 100%?

If people are **allowed** to react to such acts of fraud quickly enough, you will find that the temporary benefit of ripping someone off most always is less than the cost imposed of everyone knowing that your word means nothing. This is why Ebay is capable of working functionally, The company itself profits from letting individuals know the buying history of their fellow traders prior to the engagement (it increases confidence in trading by giving people a genuine risk gauge)

Just consider what the world would be like if the counter factual would be true; trusting anyone outside of your friends and loved ones would be suicidal, no division of labor would be possible and extended orders of production would be impossible to maintain. Trusting state agents, even under democracy would be impossible because no expectations of fidelity could be made, if lying about one's intentions was an effective long-term strategy for personal gain one would expect politicians to become slave masters and police officers to be constantly backstabbing their citizens.

Market secession is individualistic and can happen at any time, this means dishonesty can be punished as soon as it begins by anyone with their skin in the game. Obama lies about his intentions to close Gitmo, those supporters stop paying into the 'Obama company', And since a company's margin of profit is considerably narrower than the less than 50% needed to win an election. (with the electoral college most election victories are not majority), odds are even if the secession is small, the company will need to reform itself simply to keep face.

There is also the matter of social expectations. There is no stigma effectively advocating an 'overthrow' of a business by non patronage or boycotting, whereas you MUST participate in state programs regardless of how wasteful or dishonest you think they are, and as far as I can tell the more involuntary a program becomes the more people call it 'democracy'

No, I believe in systems of checks and balances

And yet you have no theory of political economy that shows why 'intelligent people' end up being put into those offices through a systematic process. I've explained why political markets breed negative social outcomes and why the electoral process is not sufficient regulation to control a legal monopoly with the sole power to collect revenues involuntarily, I have no reason to believe that political agents have any reason other than lucky altruism to make their appointees on 'virtue' rather than political clout.

So, the government was too slow to intercede,

For starters, the market would have neither encouraged the sale of homes in that particular area, nor would it have been desensitized to the consequences of a flood and thus have poorly designed the levee system. (For both of which, blame can be layed directly on the state)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2005/09/20/AR2005092001894.
html

The market also does not punish 'price gouging' as an effective means of distributing resources to areas that need it most.

Worst of all is the tendency to crowd out private charity when you live in a society where such things are EXPECTED to be the preview of the state. Americans are traditionally more charitable than other westerners because they do not live under this fantasy structure. And so at least the portion of the aid sent to Katrina that wasn't tampered with by the feds was there, instead of it being funneled into the perverted and ineffectual and utterly disconnected aid of 'FEMA'

http://mises.org/daily/1934

In most cases its a benign side affect of government.

It is a disastrous side effect of governments, and unless you care to be more specific about why you think it's benign I'll be unspecific about why it's not. A single issue like tariffs would be bad enough in respect to it's wealth destroying effects.

And you refuse to acknowledge there are too many products that people have to buy for them to be as informed as you claim is possible.

Like well thought out ideas on political economy.

I don't rant against the state, I argue it is less apt to deal with problems for systemic reasons that you continually ignore.

Conservative rhetoric with some references to the outdated 'Zero sum game' theory of medieval Economics.

The only remotely interesting thing you said here was your claim of a zero-sum game. All trades are beneficial to both parties in the Ex-ante sense. Value is subjective, and try to aquire things we want in exchange for things we don't desire quite as much. I say Ex-ante sense because buyers remorse is a reality, but this reality isn't eliminated or even reduced with states, to the contrary.

At 6/19/10 08:14 PM, Jon-86 wrote: But my question to socialists here is how can you operate in a capitalist driven global economy?

Simple; You can't (That is if your socialist.)

What I have noticed the past 5 years many people of my age that they think the state knows what is right for them then they do.

What is going on?

At 6/20/10 07:13 AM, RubberTrucky wrote: To me socialism today is about preventing big companies to close down facilities putting a few 100 of their employees out of a job without any compensation so the company can save a few bucks by producing their merchandise in china.

Socialism is what it is. It refers to the public ownership and cooperative management of all productive resources. That's what it is, you can't reinvent the concept. Minor measures intended to create a more equitable society like the minimum wage, providing incentives for firms to stay in or set up disadvantaged areas, etc. could be called... I dunno, social demoracy? But such measures aren't socialism.

Anyway, where can socialism go from here? Hopefully nowhere. Hopefully it can be left on the scrapheap of history where it can not threaten human progress.