9 ms·
The problem in Keynes thinking on "social services" is that it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That know
by subverter 9y ago
The problem in Keynes thinking on "social services" is that it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That knowledge is dispersed among ~320m citizens (in the U.S.) who each have particular wants and needs. And even if you could somehow attain that knowledge in one place, the likelihood of finding consensus on how a particular "social service" should be offered is next to zero. The end result? Nearly everyone disagrees with some of what government implements, which breeds resentment and causes gridlock much like we're seeing today in the U.S.
It doesn't have to be that way. By decentralizing decision making down to a level closer to the individual (if not the individual), more people get what they want. For example, right now there's a federal mandate for health insurance. Not everyone agrees with this mandate, so why not at least push it down a level to the states? California can still have a mandate for health insurance, and Alabama can decide not to. And then, why not push it to the city/county level? If you don't agree with San Francisco's mandate for health insurance, simply move to Oakland. You don't even have to move states, let alone countries.
Why do so many oppose such a solution where everyone can much more easily find a place where they agree with the "social services" offered (or not)?
- bjl 9y agoBecause a lot of people (most, even) don't have the resources required to just up and move cities, let alone states. Your 'solution' would be massively regressive - what if Texas decides to rescind Medicaid? Are those people who cant afford to move just SOL?
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Your 'solution' would be massively regressive - what if Texas decides to rescind Medicaid? Medicaid is a voluntary state-run program with federal participation standards. Texas could withdraw from Medicaid if it chose to, now. All states have chosen to participate since 1982, but they are not required to.
- bjl 9y agoOK, so use any other example. What if Florida decides to roll back gay marriage? What if Alabama rescinds the Civil Rights Act? Are those who can't afford to move supposed to just deal with it?
- subverter 9y agoThere's a significant part of the U.S. population that wants to roll back gay marriage. What if that happened? As it is, you'd have to move out of the country. You're relying on the right people being in office/power making the right decisions in your opinion. But of course, at any point the wrong people can get into office and make the wrong decision in your opinion. For nearly half the country, that happened when Obama entered office, and then again when Trump entered office.
- gnaritas 9y ago> There's a significant part of the U.S. population that wants to roll back gay marriage. Oppressing others isn't something that should be allowed to happen, period; those people are simply wrong, the position is immoral and indefensible. These things belong at the federal level, states should not be allowed to say oppression is OK because a majority of our citizens want to oppress gays.
- subverter 9y agoTo quote you above[1]: > That's a matter of opinion. To be clear, I am not one who is in favor of rolling back gay marriage. But you cannot logically say > Oppressing others isn't something that should be allowed to happen, period while in the same breath calling for the oppression of those you disagree with. It's an inconsistent position using the same argument you're railing against. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14555374
- bjl 9y agoGood thing the paradox of tolerance has been solved for over a century! Now if only we could get the message out to people like you that seem to delight in ignoring centuries of philosophical discussion on this topic.
- subverter 9y agoHow is it more regressive than the status quo where you have to move to a different country? Moving states is less difficult, moving counties is even less difficult, moving cities is even less difficult, etc. The smaller you go, the less difficult it becomes.
- matchbok 9y agoBecause if you don't mandate insurance, then the entire system falls apart. Sick people need it, healthy people don't want to pay for it. You need everyone to pay to make it affordable.
- arcbyte 9y agoIf it's cheap enough, everyone will buy it.
- subverter 9y agoAffordable for whom? It has become much less affordable for those who are healthy. How do you justify the healthy paying for the unhealthy? And is it really affordable, even for the unhealthy?
- bjl 9y ago> How do you justify the healthy paying for the unhealthy? Because we live in a society, and in a society people help one another.
- subverter 9y agoI absolutely agree that people should help one another. In fact, it's inherently built in to a lot of people. I'm not arguing against that. I'm arguing against being forced to help others who I have no relationship with, live in far off places, hold different health standards than me, etc. Believe me, if a family member of close friend needed help with medical expenses, I'd be the first to volunteer.
- bjl 9y agoBut what about the millions of people with poor family/friends? Are they supposed to just roll over and die if they get sick? And don't say 'but charity', we already know charity is massively insufficient.
- 9y ago
- TerrificTom 9y agoThe further those services get pushed down, the less effective they become. With smaller groups to front costs, prices go up and less services are offered.
- subverter 9y agoWhat supports that conclusion? There are lots of services – most actually, even insurance services – that thrive with voluntary participation. And the prices are driven down by lots of different companies competing for those customers.
- hyperpape 9y agoHealth insurance is not like other insurance. As best I know, no other insurance has the feature that an identifiable subset of people will need more than they can reasonably pay in the future. If we somehow knew my house was going to fall down in the next ten years, I couldn't feasibly insure it, and there are people who'll need much more healthcare than my house costs. Arguably that militates against treating it as insurance as opposed to a straight-up single payer system or Singapore style system (http://theweek.com/articles/684952/republicans-should-blow-entire-healthcare-system http://theweek.com/articles/684952/republicans-should-blow-e...), but it does mean you can't argue from the success of existing insurance markets.
- subverter 9y agoI agree that the existing system is completely out of balance in terms of supply and demand. Why is that? I believe it's because government has intervened in the healthcare market, and removing them will lead to a market that's much more aligned with consumer demand. Even now, there are places like https://surgerycenterok.com/ https://surgerycenterok.com/ that prove high quality healthcare can be provided at affordable prices (they even list them on their website!).
- ErikVandeWater 9y agoIt would work this way if the supreme court hadn't killed federalism over time by ignoring the 10th ammendment. People don't really oppose federalism, but national level politicians win elections by promising benefits to interest groups to justify their existence. Promising to sit on your hands will never win an election.
- BoiledCabbage 9y agoWhy don't we just let individuals choose if they want to have car insurance? If they want it, they can have it - if they don't, they don't have to. The same (very good) reason we don't allow that is the reason we don't allow this: a lot of individual decisions have social costs.
- subverter 9y agoWhat is the social cost of some not having car insurance?
- bjl 9y agoThey run over a pedestrian without insurance, now that pedestrian has no way to pay for their medical care.
- subverter 9y agoWhat's stopping the pedestrian from either holding insurance to protect against that or suing the driver for damages?
- yock 9y agoYou liquidate the assets of the at-fault party. If that is insufficient you garnish their wages. Financial responsibility is something to be enforced by courts, not mandated by congress.
- Decathect 9y agoThey died in the accident, leaving behind a critically injured spouse and their kids. The medical bills for any one of the surviving parties dwarf the net assets of the deceased. Who pays the remainder?
- subverter 9y agoThere are already solutions available when there's no counter-party or the counter-party is unfit. i.e., uninsured motorist insurance, life insurance, etc. And who's to say the extended family or community wouldn't step up to cover their expenses?
- arcbyte 9y ago> it's impossible to gather all of the knowledge necessary to ascertain what those would be. That knowledge is dispersed among ~320m citizens (in the U.S.) Enough said. All our problems are caused by trying to fight against this simple fact.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Nearly everyone disagrees with some of what government implements, which breeds resentment and causes gridlock much like we're seeing today in the U.S. No, that's the electoral system; it's been empirically studied and established democracies with more proportional representation have much higher satisfaction with government than those like the US with poor proportionality, even though many of them also have much greater levels of public social support.
- rayiner 9y ago> Why do so many oppose such a solution where everyone can much more easily find a place where they agree with the "social services" offered (or not)? Because it creates collective action problems. Countries can exercise their sovereign powers to control commerce and the flow of people so as to reinforce their chosen social welfare systems. If they offer universal healthcare, for example, they can control immigration to manage the burden on their system (and keep out people who only move in when they get sick or to retire). U.S. states are precluded by the Constitution from doing that. Say Marylanders decide to pay higher taxes to support generous social services, and Virginians decide to stick to lower taxes and no service. There is nothing Maryland can do about free-loading Virginians who cross the border as soon as they get sick.[1] Likewise, say Virginia decides to reintroduce child labor, which gives Virginia a competitive advantage in producing cheap consumer goods. There is nothing Maryland can do to stop the flow of trinkets from Virginia undermining good Maryland companies whose prices are higher because they don't use child labor. It's helpful to view the Constitution's Commerce Clause and Privileges and Immunities Clause as a two-pronged economic construct. One prong says that the U.S. is a totally free market internally for goods and labor. The other says that the federal government can intervene to address any collective problem actions that creates. To the extent that the provision of social services has knock-on economic effects (and it has major knock-on effects), it comports with the Constitution's design for those things to get kicked up to the Federal government. [1] See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/supcourt/stories/court051899.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/supco....
- subverter 9y agoIn your example of Maryland and Virginia and universal healthcare, Maryland will continually need to ensure they're collecting enough money (i.e., through taxes of some sort) to pay for universal healthcare. If an influx of unhealthy people enter the state, they'll have to increase taxes to pay for the higher healthcare bills, which will in turn make them less competitive with other states, and cause people to leave. There's no way Maryland adds universal healthcare and remains equal in all other categories. In your example of child labor, it's arguably better for everyone if Virginia can produce cheaper goods. (Please don't think I'm in any way arguing for child labor.) Maryland benefits from the cheaper goods as well, and is able to free resources for other pursuits that are economically advantageous for them. We already see this to a degree in places that have an abundance of a natural resource – it's cheaper and more efficient for them to export the resource than it is for other places that don't have the resource.