6 ms·

It's a pro-private, anti-democratic push by chicago school, objectivists, and other groups, to essentially slander civic institutions as terrible and "privatize

It's a pro-private, anti-democratic push by chicago school, objectivists, and other groups, to essentially slander civic institutions as terrible and "privatize" them with capital extracting robber barons. "Government" is a 4 letter word and some people are insufferable in their hatred for it - thinking that some private selfish interest of people would magically make the world ... look, it's all preposterous ... it's apologetics and denialism wrapped in the religious fervor of a mythical free market.

lacampbell 10y ago
The issue is states trending towards the "mythical" free market have a track record of prosperity, while states tending towards mythical communism have a disastrous and bloody track record. East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Maoist Guangzhou and Unregulated Hong Kong. Time and time again it has been shown that a large collectivist state does not deliver on any of its promises, but instead creates poverty and misery. Now social democratic states can be relatively effective with a smaller population, and when administered by efficient, civic minded and hard-working people. The US Federal Government does not qualify.
- kristopolous 10y ago
  That analysis ignores imperialism, transnational capitalism, colonialism, different signifiers of progress, and cherry-picks evidence from random points of history without doing any type of rigorous analysis. It ignores the vast majority of history with no functional government, no taxes, and free markets such as say, 3000BC in Moscow --- take your pick. Was there technological advancements, well maintained cities, and a prosperous middle class of entrepreneurs and innovators in societies free of coercion? Where were the emergent social orders which arose as an inherent stochastic process from individual capital pursuit in say, 600AD in Berlin? These only started happening after the rise of civic society and only in places with well-organized, democratically run institutions. These apologists also choose to ignore any counter evidence. There's over twice as many doctors per 1,000 people in Cuba than the US, however those facts are dismissed. When people talk about how decrease in things like open sewage, food-borne disease and other civic advancements lead to increase in longevity, those facts are dismissed. When people talk about how there's more affordability and more equitable medical care under democratically administered health systems, those facts are dismissed. When people talk about what Nestle has done to privatized water, what the diamond industry has done to Africa, how the market-based oil system has kept the middle east in 21st century monarchies, those facts are dismissed. Such claims as miraculous progress due to privatization are absurdist fantasies and easily refuted without even having to bring up their abysmal failures such as Puerto Rico, Enron, Pinochet's Chile.
  - lacampbell 10y ago
    It's dishonest to accuse me of cherry picking statistics - particularly when I never claimed my short post was a rigorous statistical analysis - then reply to me with your own cherry picked statistics. Nevertheless... There's over twice as many doctors per 1,000 people in Cuba than the US, however those facts are dismissed. And how does this effect the quality of life in Cuba? Life expectancy is the same [0]. Are working class Americans creating makeshift boats to sail to Cuba in order to benefit from the superior conditions? When people talk about how decrease in things like open sewage, food-borne disease and other civic advancements lead to increase in longevity, those facts are dismissed. Those are good things. Low tax, high income places tend to have these features as well, strangely enough. I recommend visiting Hong Kong or Singapore. When people talk about how there's more affordability and more equitable medical care under democratically administered health systems, those facts are dismissed. Those aren't facts. Those are vague hand waves. When people talk about what Nestle has done to privatized water, what the diamond industry has done to Africa, how the market-based oil system has kept the middle east in 21st century monarchies, those facts are dismissed. I never claimed markets were always benevolent. Simply that they tend towards more prosperity than collectivism. Also none of what you pointed to is particularly free of state involvement - states are all complicit. You can "cherry pick" the worst examples of what corporations have done all you like, they pale into comparison to the cherry pickings of the worst thing public institutions like states have done (famines, genocides, world wars). Such claims as miraculous progress due to privatization are absurdist fantasies and easily refuted. And yet you have failed to do so. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_World_Health_Organization_.282015.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...
    - kristopolous 10y ago
      Look I understand free market beliefs are a religion. Maybe one day you'll look past it. It's fine About "fleeing", that's people emmigrating. Are Mexicans "fleeing" NAFTA? Canadians moving to the US fleeing Trudeau? No, there's lots of reasons to leave and that word choice ignores this fact - especially 67 years after the revolution; that's really taking your sweet time if it's Castro's Cuba making you leave.
- guelo 10y ago
  > The US Federal Government does not qualify. Part of the problem is that we keep electing people that want to destroy government instead of people that want to make government work better. > East and West Germany In your analysis does West Germany qualify as an example of glorious free market or as a social democratic state that is too small to serve as a good example?
  - lacampbell 10y ago
    The Federal Republic of Germany certainly was/is a much freer market than East Germany.
- Brakenshire 10y ago
  The poster above was discussing attitudes towards government in Canada, it seems a bit of a non-sequitur to bring up East Germany, North Korea, and Maoist China. This is one of the very strange dichotomies which seems to exist in the US, as if when considering economics or government there are only two sides of the coin, and anything even vaguely centre left is on the same side as Communism. What didibus said applies to almost every developed country in the world, there are definitely those ideas towards government in Germany (including West Germany before reunification), Japan, and the UK. In most developed countries, you would be hard-pushed to find any party which followed attitudes you might describe as 'starve the beast', 'the best government is the least government' and so on. Even the most conservative parties in those countries in general do not think like that.
  - lacampbell 10y ago
    Here's the crux of it - most developed countries in the world are poorer than the US. I'm in NZ, often held up as some kind of social democratic Utopia by progressive Americans. Salaries are lower, housing is unaffordable in places that are in no way comparable to San Francisco or New York, and goods are extremely expensive due to sky high import and sales taxes.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
      Is life for the median (or below) worker worse or better though, in terms of access to health care, housing, education, jobs, etc.? As a counterpoint, US is only #8 here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index#Very_high_human_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...
    - kristopolous 10y ago
      Well sure, but changing the economic system won't modify the fact that it's an island of 4 million people that's so far out on the periphery that it isn't even included on some world maps (https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/). The same economic realities can be said about Hawaii.
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
A huge part of the problem is that people think one system is better than the other when it's really a spectrum where both extremes are absurd. Suppose you want to have some roads, how do you do it? a) Pure Communism. The state builds the roads. The state needs road workers and workers need food so the state grows food. The workers need steamrollers so the state manufactures steamrollers. The workers need asphalt so the state mines gravel. The entire economy is centrally planned and collapses like the USSR. b) Pure Capitalism. A private company owns the road. You need their permission to leave your house, take deliveries, receive an ambulance, connect to the power grid, etc. They charge what the market will bear. Everyone becomes a serf of the road company. c) Capitalist Social Democracy. The state collects taxes and takes bids for private contractors to build the roads, which the state then owns and allows all people to use at no charge. Only one of those actually works.
- trome 10y ago
  Eh, c in many cases includes govt built & maintained toll roads, cause as it turns out roadways can cost tens of billions to build. Makes rail look cheap in comparison!
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    Toll roads are very stupid. The cost of the road is building the road, not driving on it. Even the maintenance cost is predominantly weather-related. A toll road pays the same construction cost and then gets less use out of it because the tolls discourage people from using the road. Tolls have the pricing wrong. There is no unit cost so the problem is apportioning the fixed cost. A platinum mine clearly derives more profit from the road than a potato farmer, so why should we charge per truck (tolls) rather than per dollar of profit (taxes)? All that does is price low-profit (i.e. more efficient) enterprises out of the market, which is exactly what we don't want. In addition to that we already have a tax collection infrastructure which is not going away, but collecting tolls would require a redundant toll collection infrastructure on top of that.
    - smallnamespace 10y ago
hoorayimhelping 10y ago
"People think differently than me cause they're brainwashed by charlatans." Don't try to give any benefit of the doubt to the people you disagree with on this. Don't try to see things from their perspective, and whatever you do, don't assume they have good intentions - you might just end up understanding someone else a little better and be forced to change your world view.
- kristopolous 10y ago
  That's not it at all. AEI, Heritage, Cato, Hoover, Heartland, these are real groups putting out literature advocating these actual positions. They receive multi-million dollar contributions from organizations whose riches were made from things like defense contracts, for-profit education and for-profit prisons. You are advocating to what? Ignore that? Beyond that their claims are faulty and not reflective of reality. I used to have a facebook group where I'd take the AEI posts and dissect them. They'd do something like have two circles representing values, but the values are actually the radius of the circles ... so they are off by 3.14*r^2 in representation of the differences. There were many other things where they would do something like float some chart so the bottom value is only 5% less than the top, and then zoom in so it covers a very small time period, and then purport it as being significant. Literally every day. It was amazing. I went there right now, second post, comparing planets to GDP (http://9ol.es/planet.png http://9ol.es/planet.png) using inaccurate metrics of planet size and inaccurate calculations with relative mass along with depicting 3d objects as 2d... it's wildly inaccurate.

lacampbell 10y ago

The issue is states trending towards the "mythical" free market have a track record of prosperity, while states tending towards mythical communism have a disastrous and bloody track record. East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Maoist Guangzhou and Unregulated Hong Kong. Time and time again it has been shown that a large collectivist state does not deliver on any of its promises, but instead creates poverty and misery. Now social democratic states can be relatively effective with a smaller population, and when administered by efficient, civic minded and hard-working people. The US Federal Government does not qualify.

kristopolous 10y ago
That analysis ignores imperialism, transnational capitalism, colonialism, different signifiers of progress, and cherry-picks evidence from random points of history without doing any type of rigorous analysis. It ignores the vast majority of history with no functional government, no taxes, and free markets such as say, 3000BC in Moscow --- take your pick. Was there technological advancements, well maintained cities, and a prosperous middle class of entrepreneurs and innovators in societies free of coercion? Where were the emergent social orders which arose as an inherent stochastic process from individual capital pursuit in say, 600AD in Berlin? These only started happening after the rise of civic society and only in places with well-organized, democratically run institutions. These apologists also choose to ignore any counter evidence. There's over twice as many doctors per 1,000 people in Cuba than the US, however those facts are dismissed. When people talk about how decrease in things like open sewage, food-borne disease and other civic advancements lead to increase in longevity, those facts are dismissed. When people talk about how there's more affordability and more equitable medical care under democratically administered health systems, those facts are dismissed. When people talk about what Nestle has done to privatized water, what the diamond industry has done to Africa, how the market-based oil system has kept the middle east in 21st century monarchies, those facts are dismissed. Such claims as miraculous progress due to privatization are absurdist fantasies and easily refuted without even having to bring up their abysmal failures such as Puerto Rico, Enron, Pinochet's Chile.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  It's dishonest to accuse me of cherry picking statistics - particularly when I never claimed my short post was a rigorous statistical analysis - then reply to me with your own cherry picked statistics. Nevertheless... There's over twice as many doctors per 1,000 people in Cuba than the US, however those facts are dismissed. And how does this effect the quality of life in Cuba? Life expectancy is the same [0]. Are working class Americans creating makeshift boats to sail to Cuba in order to benefit from the superior conditions? When people talk about how decrease in things like open sewage, food-borne disease and other civic advancements lead to increase in longevity, those facts are dismissed. Those are good things. Low tax, high income places tend to have these features as well, strangely enough. I recommend visiting Hong Kong or Singapore. When people talk about how there's more affordability and more equitable medical care under democratically administered health systems, those facts are dismissed. Those aren't facts. Those are vague hand waves. When people talk about what Nestle has done to privatized water, what the diamond industry has done to Africa, how the market-based oil system has kept the middle east in 21st century monarchies, those facts are dismissed. I never claimed markets were always benevolent. Simply that they tend towards more prosperity than collectivism. Also none of what you pointed to is particularly free of state involvement - states are all complicit. You can "cherry pick" the worst examples of what corporations have done all you like, they pale into comparison to the cherry pickings of the worst thing public institutions like states have done (famines, genocides, world wars). Such claims as miraculous progress due to privatization are absurdist fantasies and easily refuted. And yet you have failed to do so. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_World_Health_Organization_.282015.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...
  - kristopolous 10y ago
    Look I understand free market beliefs are a religion. Maybe one day you'll look past it. It's fine About "fleeing", that's people emmigrating. Are Mexicans "fleeing" NAFTA? Canadians moving to the US fleeing Trudeau? No, there's lots of reasons to leave and that word choice ignores this fact - especially 67 years after the revolution; that's really taking your sweet time if it's Castro's Cuba making you leave.
guelo 10y ago
> The US Federal Government does not qualify. Part of the problem is that we keep electing people that want to destroy government instead of people that want to make government work better. > East and West Germany In your analysis does West Germany qualify as an example of glorious free market or as a social democratic state that is too small to serve as a good example?
- lacampbell 10y ago
  The Federal Republic of Germany certainly was/is a much freer market than East Germany.
Brakenshire 10y ago
The poster above was discussing attitudes towards government in Canada, it seems a bit of a non-sequitur to bring up East Germany, North Korea, and Maoist China. This is one of the very strange dichotomies which seems to exist in the US, as if when considering economics or government there are only two sides of the coin, and anything even vaguely centre left is on the same side as Communism. What didibus said applies to almost every developed country in the world, there are definitely those ideas towards government in Germany (including West Germany before reunification), Japan, and the UK. In most developed countries, you would be hard-pushed to find any party which followed attitudes you might describe as 'starve the beast', 'the best government is the least government' and so on. Even the most conservative parties in those countries in general do not think like that.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  Here's the crux of it - most developed countries in the world are poorer than the US. I'm in NZ, often held up as some kind of social democratic Utopia by progressive Americans. Salaries are lower, housing is unaffordable in places that are in no way comparable to San Francisco or New York, and goods are extremely expensive due to sky high import and sales taxes.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    Is life for the median (or below) worker worse or better though, in terms of access to health care, housing, education, jobs, etc.? As a counterpoint, US is only #8 here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index#Very_high_human_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...
  - kristopolous 10y ago
    Well sure, but changing the economic system won't modify the fact that it's an island of 4 million people that's so far out on the periphery that it isn't even included on some world maps (https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/). The same economic realities can be said about Hawaii.

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

A huge part of the problem is that people think one system is better than the other when it's really a spectrum where both extremes are absurd. Suppose you want to have some roads, how do you do it? a) Pure Communism. The state builds the roads. The state needs road workers and workers need food so the state grows food. The workers need steamrollers so the state manufactures steamrollers. The workers need asphalt so the state mines gravel. The entire economy is centrally planned and collapses like the USSR. b) Pure Capitalism. A private company owns the road. You need their permission to leave your house, take deliveries, receive an ambulance, connect to the power grid, etc. They charge what the market will bear. Everyone becomes a serf of the road company. c) Capitalist Social Democracy. The state collects taxes and takes bids for private contractors to build the roads, which the state then owns and allows all people to use at no charge. Only one of those actually works.

trome 10y ago
Eh, c in many cases includes govt built & maintained toll roads, cause as it turns out roadways can cost tens of billions to build. Makes rail look cheap in comparison!
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  Toll roads are very stupid. The cost of the road is building the road, not driving on it. Even the maintenance cost is predominantly weather-related. A toll road pays the same construction cost and then gets less use out of it because the tolls discourage people from using the road. Tolls have the pricing wrong. There is no unit cost so the problem is apportioning the fixed cost. A platinum mine clearly derives more profit from the road than a potato farmer, so why should we charge per truck (tolls) rather than per dollar of profit (taxes)? All that does is price low-profit (i.e. more efficient) enterprises out of the market, which is exactly what we don't want. In addition to that we already have a tax collection infrastructure which is not going away, but collecting tolls would require a redundant toll collection infrastructure on top of that.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago

hoorayimhelping 10y ago

"People think differently than me cause they're brainwashed by charlatans." Don't try to give any benefit of the doubt to the people you disagree with on this. Don't try to see things from their perspective, and whatever you do, don't assume they have good intentions - you might just end up understanding someone else a little better and be forced to change your world view.

kristopolous 10y ago
That's not it at all. AEI, Heritage, Cato, Hoover, Heartland, these are real groups putting out literature advocating these actual positions. They receive multi-million dollar contributions from organizations whose riches were made from things like defense contracts, for-profit education and for-profit prisons. You are advocating to what? Ignore that? Beyond that their claims are faulty and not reflective of reality. I used to have a facebook group where I'd take the AEI posts and dissect them. They'd do something like have two circles representing values, but the values are actually the radius of the circles ... so they are off by 3.14*r^2 in representation of the differences. There were many other things where they would do something like float some chart so the bottom value is only 5% less than the top, and then zoom in so it covers a very small time period, and then purport it as being significant. Literally every day. It was amazing. I went there right now, second post, comparing planets to GDP (http://9ol.es/planet.png http://9ol.es/planet.png) using inaccurate metrics of planet size and inaccurate calculations with relative mass along with depicting 3d objects as 2d... it's wildly inaccurate.