8 ms·

That’s an interesting way to look at the world, especially in terms of economic policy. I would surmise though that not a single person making those policies yo

That’s an interesting way to look at the world, especially in terms of economic policy. I would surmise though that not a single person making those policies you mention from the countries you mentioned hold up unfettered supply side / unrestricted free market as an ideal endpoint. None of the countries or politicians you mentioned have the same policies. Sanders doesn’t want government control of means of production (traditional left wing economics). All the European countries have universal healthcare and will never take it away.

thu2111 6y ago
That last statement is a bit weird. What do you mean by "universal healthcare"? Quite a few have what is basically Obamacare, i.e. mandatory health insurance purchases with subsidies for the poor.
- taurath 6y ago
  I mean universal as in it covers everyone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_systems_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_systems_by_count...
  - thu2111 6y ago
    But then doesn't the US have that, post Obamacare? I thought the point of that law was to make health insurance purchase mandatory.
rayiner 6y ago
Sure, think tanks often take a more purist ideological view than is actually implemented in the real world. But if you look at the direction the developed world has headed since the 1980s, Hoover Institution and similar organizations have been tremendously successful in moving things in the directions they espouse. In the 1960s, you had governments owning entire industries (state-owned enterprises), and micro-managing private businesses to the point where regulators were telling airlines and bus lines what fares they could charge. In Western Europe and Canada in particular, even though you didn't have "government control over the means of production" you had several countries (such as Canada) with more than 50% of the economy being the government or government-owned enterprises. That has been the "traditional left-wing" approach during the 20th century. Almost everyone moved away from those approaches starting in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1990 to 2000, Canada's government expenditures as a percentage of GDP dropped from over 50% to well under 40%. An entire tenth of the economy was returned to the private sector in just a decade. In Sweden, government spending peaked at almost 70% of the entire economy in 1995. A decade later, it was under 50%. One sixth of the economy was returned to the private sector. To give a concrete example, licenses to use radio waves used to be awarded by bureaucrats based on their assessment of what was "in the public interest." They would evaluate applications from different companies for different uses for spectrum and decide who should get a license. (That sort of sweeping grant of regulatory authority was common in New Deal-era legislation.) Today, we and most European countries have replaced that with market-based approaches such as spectrum auctions. This has happened world-wide: the EU has issued directives requiring privatization of post offices and railroads. Macron has floated the idea of privatizing SNCF (which would be like privatizing Amtrak here). Denmark's post office is owned by a Swedish company and Stockholm's subway is operated by a Hong Kong company. These are all the kinds of policies advocated by Hoover Institution and other outfits. You're also arguing to a degree against a straw man. Hoover Institution isn't some anarcho-capitalist outfit that advocates getting rid of the government. To use your universal healthcare example: Hoover Institution isn't suggesting to eliminate universal healthcare. But there are many different ways to implement universal healthcare. At one end you have the UK system, where the government employs the doctors and runs the hospitals. At the other end, you have systems like Switzerland's, based on mandatory private insurance. Hoover Institution does not propose eliminating universal healthcare. Their focus has been on the cost inefficiencies created by using insurance to pay for routine medical care. Since at least the early 2000s, they have been advocating an approach that provides universal insurance coverage from the government for catastrophic medical care. But routine medical care would be paid for through health savings accounts (HSAs), where costs could be subject to market competition. Even if you don't fully agree with that approach, there is something to it. It's hard to ignore the fact that procedures that aren't covered by insurance are vastly cheaper: you can get laser eye surgery for a couple of thousand dollars per eye, while simply putting a broken arm in a cast costs insurance $2,500 on average. You don't even have to go Galt with that approach--the government could deposit money into the HSAs of low-income people to pay for routine healthcare. That would still preserve the benefits of market competition for those services. No European country is going take away "universal healthcare." But, especially as social welfare systems get strained by aging populations, I can totally see countries adopting some of these ideas. Sweden recently partially privatized its social security system. Could they start moving some routine medical care into an HSA-type system with subsidies for lower-income people? It's totally plausible. Likewise, European countries are currently experimenting with Universal Basic Income. One of the early proponents of that was Milton Friedman, a long-time Hoover Institution Fellow. The idea behind UBI fits the ideology. If you're going to spend government money on welfare programs, it's better to just give people money that they can spend in the marketplace instead of creating government departments and hiring government employees to provide services. I wouldn't say Hoover or similar organizations have a universal consensus in favor of UBI, but there are many in these organizations actively advocating in favor of it: https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/08/stanford-scholar-explores-pros-cons-basic-income/ https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/08/stanford-scholar-explor...
- jahaja 6y ago
  > Sweden recently partially privatized its social security system 70% in Sweden is against this change to for-profit social security companies, but the parties in power doesn't prioritise it. And for whatever propaganda reason you keep using Sweden as some sort of objective evidence of free market utopia when the facts on the ground are just a vast increase in inequality due to aggressive neo-liberal policies for the last ~30 years.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    I'm not using Sweden as an example of "utopia." I'm using it as an example of a formerly left-wing country, where more than two thirds of the economy was the government, that has, as you put it, "aggressively" embraced "neo-liberal policies for the last ~30 years." Apparently, people have been satisfied enough with the resulting increased growth and competitiveness that they keep voting in "the parties in power." One can reasonably disagree on whether all the consequences of these policies have been good ones. But if a whole bunch of countries tried "A" and then for the last 30 years have shifted away from "A" to "B" that is powerful evidence that there must be something to "B".
    - jahaja 6y ago
      The collapse of the Soviet Union has left the world with "only one way" and the drift into privatization have accelerated since. But even the people in the US have been in favour of some sort of universal health care since well before USSR collapsed but still haven't been able to "vote in" people supporting that. So it's a pretty strange argument to make.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        "People" in the U.S. support lots of things in the abstract, until you force them to think about the trade-offs involved in actual policies. People might support universal healthcare, but nobody wants to pay the taxes to pay for it. Which is why Sanders promises not to raise taxes on people making below $250,000 (!). Biden beat Sanders because a large number of Democrats are actually quite conservative (especially people of color, who are often in the Democratic Party for reasons unrelated to economic policies). Biden, who doesn't support Medicare for All, and promises not to raise taxes on people making below $400,000 (!!). It is literally impossible to keep both promises (and people know it).

thu2111 6y ago

That last statement is a bit weird. What do you mean by "universal healthcare"? Quite a few have what is basically Obamacare, i.e. mandatory health insurance purchases with subsidies for the poor.

taurath 6y ago
I mean universal as in it covers everyone. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_systems_by_country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_systems_by_count...
- thu2111 6y ago
  But then doesn't the US have that, post Obamacare? I thought the point of that law was to make health insurance purchase mandatory.

rayiner 6y ago

Sure, think tanks often take a more purist ideological view than is actually implemented in the real world. But if you look at the direction the developed world has headed since the 1980s, Hoover Institution and similar organizations have been tremendously successful in moving things in the directions they espouse. In the 1960s, you had governments owning entire industries (state-owned enterprises), and micro-managing private businesses to the point where regulators were telling airlines and bus lines what fares they could charge. In Western Europe and Canada in particular, even though you didn't have "government control over the means of production" you had several countries (such as Canada) with more than 50% of the economy being the government or government-owned enterprises. That has been the "traditional left-wing" approach during the 20th century. Almost everyone moved away from those approaches starting in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1990 to 2000, Canada's government expenditures as a percentage of GDP dropped from over 50% to well under 40%. An entire tenth of the economy was returned to the private sector in just a decade. In Sweden, government spending peaked at almost 70% of the entire economy in 1995. A decade later, it was under 50%. One sixth of the economy was returned to the private sector. To give a concrete example, licenses to use radio waves used to be awarded by bureaucrats based on their assessment of what was "in the public interest." They would evaluate applications from different companies for different uses for spectrum and decide who should get a license. (That sort of sweeping grant of regulatory authority was common in New Deal-era legislation.) Today, we and most European countries have replaced that with market-based approaches such as spectrum auctions. This has happened world-wide: the EU has issued directives requiring privatization of post offices and railroads. Macron has floated the idea of privatizing SNCF (which would be like privatizing Amtrak here). Denmark's post office is owned by a Swedish company and Stockholm's subway is operated by a Hong Kong company. These are all the kinds of policies advocated by Hoover Institution and other outfits. You're also arguing to a degree against a straw man. Hoover Institution isn't some anarcho-capitalist outfit that advocates getting rid of the government. To use your universal healthcare example: Hoover Institution isn't suggesting to eliminate universal healthcare. But there are many different ways to implement universal healthcare. At one end you have the UK system, where the government employs the doctors and runs the hospitals. At the other end, you have systems like Switzerland's, based on mandatory private insurance. Hoover Institution does not propose eliminating universal healthcare. Their focus has been on the cost inefficiencies created by using insurance to pay for routine medical care. Since at least the early 2000s, they have been advocating an approach that provides universal insurance coverage from the government for catastrophic medical care. But routine medical care would be paid for through health savings accounts (HSAs), where costs could be subject to market competition. Even if you don't fully agree with that approach, there is something to it. It's hard to ignore the fact that procedures that aren't covered by insurance are vastly cheaper: you can get laser eye surgery for a couple of thousand dollars per eye, while simply putting a broken arm in a cast costs insurance $2,500 on average. You don't even have to go Galt with that approach--the government could deposit money into the HSAs of low-income people to pay for routine healthcare. That would still preserve the benefits of market competition for those services. No European country is going take away "universal healthcare." But, especially as social welfare systems get strained by aging populations, I can totally see countries adopting some of these ideas. Sweden recently partially privatized its social security system. Could they start moving some routine medical care into an HSA-type system with subsidies for lower-income people? It's totally plausible. Likewise, European countries are currently experimenting with Universal Basic Income. One of the early proponents of that was Milton Friedman, a long-time Hoover Institution Fellow. The idea behind UBI fits the ideology. If you're going to spend government money on welfare programs, it's better to just give people money that they can spend in the marketplace instead of creating government departments and hiring government employees to provide services. I wouldn't say Hoover or similar organizations have a universal consensus in favor of UBI, but there are many in these organizations actively advocating in favor of it: https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/08/stanford-scholar-explores-pros-cons-basic-income/ https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/08/stanford-scholar-explor...

jahaja 6y ago
> Sweden recently partially privatized its social security system 70% in Sweden is against this change to for-profit social security companies, but the parties in power doesn't prioritise it. And for whatever propaganda reason you keep using Sweden as some sort of objective evidence of free market utopia when the facts on the ground are just a vast increase in inequality due to aggressive neo-liberal policies for the last ~30 years.
- rayiner 6y ago
  I'm not using Sweden as an example of "utopia." I'm using it as an example of a formerly left-wing country, where more than two thirds of the economy was the government, that has, as you put it, "aggressively" embraced "neo-liberal policies for the last ~30 years." Apparently, people have been satisfied enough with the resulting increased growth and competitiveness that they keep voting in "the parties in power." One can reasonably disagree on whether all the consequences of these policies have been good ones. But if a whole bunch of countries tried "A" and then for the last 30 years have shifted away from "A" to "B" that is powerful evidence that there must be something to "B".
  - jahaja 6y ago
    The collapse of the Soviet Union has left the world with "only one way" and the drift into privatization have accelerated since. But even the people in the US have been in favour of some sort of universal health care since well before USSR collapsed but still haven't been able to "vote in" people supporting that. So it's a pretty strange argument to make.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      "People" in the U.S. support lots of things in the abstract, until you force them to think about the trade-offs involved in actual policies. People might support universal healthcare, but nobody wants to pay the taxes to pay for it. Which is why Sanders promises not to raise taxes on people making below $250,000 (!). Biden beat Sanders because a large number of Democrats are actually quite conservative (especially people of color, who are often in the Democratic Party for reasons unrelated to economic policies). Biden, who doesn't support Medicare for All, and promises not to raise taxes on people making below $400,000 (!!). It is literally impossible to keep both promises (and people know it).