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Free market enterprise requires, AFAIK, 'creative destruction' (business failure, freeing resources for new enterprises) and distribution of goods to those who

Free market enterprise requires, AFAIK, 'creative destruction' (business failure, freeing resources for new enterprises) and distribution of goods to those who can pay more. Therefore, I don't think it's a good solution when the specifications are that the institution cannot fail (e.g., you can't have the police department go out of business or otherwise fail to provide services), and when its good should be distributed regardless of ability to pay (e.g., voting, fire protection, etc.).

humanrebar 10y ago
So why not fix the problem at the demand side and not the supply side. If people can't afford essential-to-life services, isn't that the problem? While I'm on the subject, centrally planning and allocating the services doesn't really solve the problem of whether it's worth the cost to have one ambulance to serve a town of five people who live in the middle of nowhere. Someone still has to make the decision. We can contrast the ways to make the decision. In one proposal, the consumers of the services pay free market suppliers for emergency services. Various suppliers compete on features and price for servicing Buford, Wyoming (population 1). It turns out the resident of Buford, Wyoming needs to pay six figures per year to pay for his services. Either he's a Walton and it's not a big deal or he's a normal person and has to move somewhere that normal people can afford to live. Or maybe he signs a waiver stating he understands his home is outside the normal emergency services areas. In another proposal, everyone gets emergency services no matter what. If a town can't afford it, they lobby up (county, state, nation) to a bureaucracy to get the subsidies they need. Eventually the money gets allocated as a line item in a pork barrel rider on the Save Kids with Cancer Act. From then on it's political suicide and a huge waste of political capital to cut the Buford, Wyoming Fire Department from the budget since, relatively speaking, there's not much to gain by being sensible at this level of detail. The guy in Buford, Wyoming gets a permanent six-figure-a-year subsidy for having absolutely no neighbors. Hold on, you say, in proposal B you can have qualified bureaucrats (sorry, experts) picking which towns get services and which don't. In this case, we get to blame 'heartless republicans/democrats/whatever' instead of 'creative destruction'. People still have to decide some towns aren't worth it. But it's no longer people paying for what they use. It's someone you need to hire lobbyists to talk to.
- Trill-I-Am 10y ago
  How do you make people have more money to pay for services?
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    There are a few approaches. Basic guaranteed income approaches are popular on HN. Vouchers (like special use debit cards) could work, too.
- hackuser 10y ago
  You created a fictional scenario and fictional people taking fictional actions, and then object to it all. I'm not sure that represents (other than a frustrated narrator). I don't have the expertise or time to evaluate ambulance services, or water or police or road safety or much else; I have my own job to do. I don't want direct democracy, which is effectively what the comment describes (voting via checkbook). I like the republican model, where I elect representatives who study and decide these things for me. I call it "government".
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    What makes you think elected representatives have more expertise and time to evaluate ambulatory for every municipality in the country? In reality they don't. They rely on (unelected, rarely held accountable) bureaucrats and lobbyists to make those decisions. As to fiction... the town is a real town. The programs are fictional. But there are actual examples of where the 'experts' are completely absent or otherwise less qualified than the average voter: bridges to nowhere; destroyers and jets built for the last war; subway tunnels that take 100 years to build; veterans hospitals that don't provide treatment; crop-specific agricultural subsidies. The list goes on and on. No president or congressman gets fired because they played favorites or funded even a multi-billion-dollar failed product. People vote on bigger issues (war, 'the economy') and identity. I don't know why calling those perverse incentives 'republican' or 'government' should make me feel better about it.
    - 10y ago

humanrebar 10y ago

So why not fix the problem at the demand side and not the supply side. If people can't afford essential-to-life services, isn't that the problem? While I'm on the subject, centrally planning and allocating the services doesn't really solve the problem of whether it's worth the cost to have one ambulance to serve a town of five people who live in the middle of nowhere. Someone still has to make the decision. We can contrast the ways to make the decision. In one proposal, the consumers of the services pay free market suppliers for emergency services. Various suppliers compete on features and price for servicing Buford, Wyoming (population 1). It turns out the resident of Buford, Wyoming needs to pay six figures per year to pay for his services. Either he's a Walton and it's not a big deal or he's a normal person and has to move somewhere that normal people can afford to live. Or maybe he signs a waiver stating he understands his home is outside the normal emergency services areas. In another proposal, everyone gets emergency services no matter what. If a town can't afford it, they lobby up (county, state, nation) to a bureaucracy to get the subsidies they need. Eventually the money gets allocated as a line item in a pork barrel rider on the Save Kids with Cancer Act. From then on it's political suicide and a huge waste of political capital to cut the Buford, Wyoming Fire Department from the budget since, relatively speaking, there's not much to gain by being sensible at this level of detail. The guy in Buford, Wyoming gets a permanent six-figure-a-year subsidy for having absolutely no neighbors. Hold on, you say, in proposal B you can have qualified bureaucrats (sorry, experts) picking which towns get services and which don't. In this case, we get to blame 'heartless republicans/democrats/whatever' instead of 'creative destruction'. People still have to decide some towns aren't worth it. But it's no longer people paying for what they use. It's someone you need to hire lobbyists to talk to.

Trill-I-Am 10y ago
How do you make people have more money to pay for services?
- humanrebar 10y ago
  There are a few approaches. Basic guaranteed income approaches are popular on HN. Vouchers (like special use debit cards) could work, too.
hackuser 10y ago
You created a fictional scenario and fictional people taking fictional actions, and then object to it all. I'm not sure that represents (other than a frustrated narrator). I don't have the expertise or time to evaluate ambulance services, or water or police or road safety or much else; I have my own job to do. I don't want direct democracy, which is effectively what the comment describes (voting via checkbook). I like the republican model, where I elect representatives who study and decide these things for me. I call it "government".
- humanrebar 10y ago
  What makes you think elected representatives have more expertise and time to evaluate ambulatory for every municipality in the country? In reality they don't. They rely on (unelected, rarely held accountable) bureaucrats and lobbyists to make those decisions. As to fiction... the town is a real town. The programs are fictional. But there are actual examples of where the 'experts' are completely absent or otherwise less qualified than the average voter: bridges to nowhere; destroyers and jets built for the last war; subway tunnels that take 100 years to build; veterans hospitals that don't provide treatment; crop-specific agricultural subsidies. The list goes on and on. No president or congressman gets fired because they played favorites or funded even a multi-billion-dollar failed product. People vote on bigger issues (war, 'the economy') and identity. I don't know why calling those perverse incentives 'republican' or 'government' should make me feel better about it.
  - 10y ago