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So we would all be better off in a society with no policies to increase the education of the poor/working class? Lower literacy rates are a boon to society? It
by randallsquared 17y ago
So we would all be better off in a society with no policies to increase the education of the poor/working class? Lower literacy rates are a boon to society?
It's not obvious that policies intended to do X actually help X very much. In fact, there are so many counter-examples (I'm sure you can think of many yourself) that suggesting that the absence of government policy to do X would result in X not being done falls flat. Most of the time, people overall are better off without a government policy concerning them.
Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious that most people are better off if more (other) people are literate.
- pyre 17y agoHe's not railing against any particular policies. He's railing against all government interaction.
- randallsquared 17y agoYeah, that's why I generalized the argument to X. Government intervention is generally a bad thing, not only a bad thing in a few very limited cases.
- pyre 17y agoWouldn't it then be better to rail against specific policies that are either not proven or proven to be bad than to just say, "screw it all, we'll do nothing?"
- randallsquared 17y agoIt might be more effective, but it's unclear: I don't know of any strategy that's likely to actually help significantly in rolling back the scope of government, by any metric. (I'm not saying there isn't any, only that I don't know what it would be). Note, though, that even people who want the government to do less aren't saying "we'll do nothing", they're saying "we want to choose which things to do ourselves". No one needs a law or regulation to spend their own money, it's only required when you want someone else's money spent without having to convince them they should.