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Wait - so you don't think any government social services are worthwhile? You don't have any faith at all in 100 years of social progress? I believe the reason

Wait - so you don't think any government social services are worthwhile? You don't have any faith at all in 100 years of social progress? I believe the reason that we have as many social services programs as we do is because this country has learned that helping out the poorest of our citizens significantly raises the productivity, happiness, and health of the country as a whole. Public health programs that keep those below the poverty line vaccinated prevent outbreaks of dangerous diseases. Unemployment insurance helps those who have lost their jobs get back on their feet before they become homeless and less likely to become employed, or desperate enough to commit crimes. Reduced-price meals for poor students ensure that they are focused on their studies rather than on trying to feed themselves, and therefore more likely to get the most benefit out of their education. The entire idea behind healthcare reform is the idea that if we work to insure every citizen, it will benefit all of us in the end by keeping us healthier, and hopefully driving down costs as a result. I don't like my money being taken by force either, but to think that the free market would provide any meaningful wealth distribution without being directly forced to is just naive.

xenophanes 17y ago
> Wait - so you don't think any government social services are worthwhile? Correct. You shouldn't be surprised, this is the basic libertarian view, and it's not rare at YC. > You don't have any faith at all in 100 years of social progress? What progress? I don't see progress in social services programs. So, correct, I guess. I do see "social progress" in the sense of, say, people having less fist fights, but I don't think Government is responsible for that. As to the rest, it basically says you aren't a libertarian, aren't a free market advocate, and don't want to be. It does not engage with libertarian ideas, or criticize them, or say anything new. It just repeats things libertarians have heard a thousand times, and refuted a thousand times. If you want to know more about libertarianism or free markets you can google them, but I don't think you do. In very short what you have said is, "Government programs are useful" which does not address the issue of whether they are efficient or wasteful relative to the free market alternatives that could exist instead (remember TANSTAAFL).
- SapphireSun 17y ago
  I'd be interested in hearing what the free market alternatives would be for some of these programs (such as universal vaccination). I'm not saying they aren't possible, but I have a hard time coming up with a business plan that doesn't rely on charity (which is also inefficient, although I'm not sure how it fares relative to government).
  - xenophanes 17y ago
    You can find free market alternatives for many issues in the book _The Machinery of Freedom_ by David Friedman As to vaccines, I wonder what proportion of the population wouldn't be willing to pay for their own vaccines. For any vaccine that we make 300 million of it's gonna be cheap, so the unwilling people would either be very poor or have some philosophical objection to vaccine (weird religious view, anti-science, etc). So the problem is only the size of, say, one million vaccinations. Existing big drugs companies today voluntarily give away substantial amounts of free medicine to poor people. My friend is a recipient. They do it to create good will and word of mouth and that kind of reasoning. I imagine if no one else was willing to do it, and one company stepped up and provided vaccines for poor people for a high profile disease, thus staving off a public health risk, it'd make them look so much better than the other companies it'd pay for itself. Or maybe that wouldn't work. It takes creativity to solve these problems. I don't see anything that makes this problem, in principle, more difficult than a variety of others. Also, it's not like the Government is offering a good solution. The Government's approach is to not find a way to do it for a profit, and not find a way to persuade people to do it voluntarily, and instead just to do it by force.
- bballant 17y ago
  This mention of efficiency reminds me of the time when the energy market in California was de-regulated and the result was sky-rocketing costs and rolling black-outs. America's free-market healthcare system is extremely inefficient. We pay roughly twice that of the UK (as percentage of GDP) and all the indicators (life expectancy, infant mortality, etc), are roughly the same. In the last two years, in the face of the stock market crash, Social Security has remained solvent and stable. If it had been privatized, as Bush wanted, it not only would have made wealthy bankers more wealthy (redistribution of wealth upwards, which tends to happen in free markets) by infusing the stock markets with billions, but it would have sent Social Security into the gutter with the rest of the pensions and 401Ks. In fact, lack of regulation in the markets, aka more free, lead to the great recession and the 10% unemployment that we find ourselves in. I could go on about the inefficiencies of the free market, and there are equally many cases where purely social programs also fail. In the end, the middle path -- a mix of free makets and socialism, a mix of laissez faire and regulation -- works best.

xenophanes 17y ago

> Wait - so you don't think any government social services are worthwhile? Correct. You shouldn't be surprised, this is the basic libertarian view, and it's not rare at YC. > You don't have any faith at all in 100 years of social progress? What progress? I don't see progress in social services programs. So, correct, I guess. I do see "social progress" in the sense of, say, people having less fist fights, but I don't think Government is responsible for that. As to the rest, it basically says you aren't a libertarian, aren't a free market advocate, and don't want to be. It does not engage with libertarian ideas, or criticize them, or say anything new. It just repeats things libertarians have heard a thousand times, and refuted a thousand times. If you want to know more about libertarianism or free markets you can google them, but I don't think you do. In very short what you have said is, "Government programs are useful" which does not address the issue of whether they are efficient or wasteful relative to the free market alternatives that could exist instead (remember TANSTAAFL).

SapphireSun 17y ago
I'd be interested in hearing what the free market alternatives would be for some of these programs (such as universal vaccination). I'm not saying they aren't possible, but I have a hard time coming up with a business plan that doesn't rely on charity (which is also inefficient, although I'm not sure how it fares relative to government).
- xenophanes 17y ago
  You can find free market alternatives for many issues in the book _The Machinery of Freedom_ by David Friedman As to vaccines, I wonder what proportion of the population wouldn't be willing to pay for their own vaccines. For any vaccine that we make 300 million of it's gonna be cheap, so the unwilling people would either be very poor or have some philosophical objection to vaccine (weird religious view, anti-science, etc). So the problem is only the size of, say, one million vaccinations. Existing big drugs companies today voluntarily give away substantial amounts of free medicine to poor people. My friend is a recipient. They do it to create good will and word of mouth and that kind of reasoning. I imagine if no one else was willing to do it, and one company stepped up and provided vaccines for poor people for a high profile disease, thus staving off a public health risk, it'd make them look so much better than the other companies it'd pay for itself. Or maybe that wouldn't work. It takes creativity to solve these problems. I don't see anything that makes this problem, in principle, more difficult than a variety of others. Also, it's not like the Government is offering a good solution. The Government's approach is to not find a way to do it for a profit, and not find a way to persuade people to do it voluntarily, and instead just to do it by force.
bballant 17y ago
This mention of efficiency reminds me of the time when the energy market in California was de-regulated and the result was sky-rocketing costs and rolling black-outs. America's free-market healthcare system is extremely inefficient. We pay roughly twice that of the UK (as percentage of GDP) and all the indicators (life expectancy, infant mortality, etc), are roughly the same. In the last two years, in the face of the stock market crash, Social Security has remained solvent and stable. If it had been privatized, as Bush wanted, it not only would have made wealthy bankers more wealthy (redistribution of wealth upwards, which tends to happen in free markets) by infusing the stock markets with billions, but it would have sent Social Security into the gutter with the rest of the pensions and 401Ks. In fact, lack of regulation in the markets, aka more free, lead to the great recession and the 10% unemployment that we find ourselves in. I could go on about the inefficiencies of the free market, and there are equally many cases where purely social programs also fail. In the end, the middle path -- a mix of free makets and socialism, a mix of laissez faire and regulation -- works best.