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> All states provide services, or they wouldn't exist. Sure. There are vast differences in the amount of services provided, from minimalist contract enforcemen
by morgante 10y ago
> All states provide services, or they wouldn't exist.
Sure. There are vast differences in the amount of services provided, from minimalist contract enforcement all the way up to full government control of everything in the economy.
> The internet, wifi... many interesting modern developments have been government funded.
Yes, and they generally only saw consumer adoption once for-profit businesses got involved. I can't imagine the nightmare that a government-provisioned Google would be, for example.
> No, SpaceX and NASA are very different. SpaceX is a for-profit business
They operate differently, yes. But the service they provide (space exploration) is largely identical. By all accounts, SpaceX has been much more successful at that and has dramatically lowered the cost of launches.
> You are incorrect.
No, I'm not. I have studied Chinese history in depth and have visited many times. I recognize that many services are government provisioned, but that doesn't change the reality that the market is more capitalist than it was 50 years ago.
> You know, medicine or food or real estate or whatnot. We were not talking about cars.
You think under UBI people would use their limited income to hoard medicine?
The idea that some central planner knows better than people what they need is the height of arrogance.
Where did I argue that all services should be privately provisioned? It probably makes sense for governments to build roads, since that's something that really does benefit from central planning. Even for things which I think the government should do (ex. universal health care) I think it should do it through a free market (ie. provide a national insurance company which competes directly with private insurance).
Capitalism does not automatically imply corruption or inefficiency. The Japanese rail system, for example, is admired around the world. Yet it's entirely privatized.