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Eh, I take your point but I think it’s at least debatable. Bell Labs via sanctioned, de-facto subsidized monopoly gave us everything from the transistor to the

Eh, I take your point but I think it’s at least debatable. Bell Labs via sanctioned, de-facto subsidized monopoly gave us everything from the transistor to the laser to Unix (you know the list, some readers might not). DoD/ARPA/DARPA funding was responsible for countless innovations, notable to this readership TCP/IP etc. (again, you know the list probably better than I do). Public funding for innovation demonstrably works extremely well at least under some circumstances. Private investment capital has been demonstrably effective at growing that pie somewhat, but it’s arguably been privatizing the resulting wealth even faster than its grown it, and almost definitionally privatizing it into the pockets of people with significant equity portfolios. We’ll obviously never know what would have happened if Bell had been broken up and parceled off in the 1930s instead of the 1980s, but it’s far from obvious to me at least that it would have been better.

WalterBright 4y ago
> Private investment capital has been demonstrably effective at growing that pie somewhat Compare the success of the free market at raising the standard of living as opposed to other forms of government - by a lot. > arguably been privatizing the resulting wealth The only way that wealth would have grown is if that investment paid off in providing goods and services that the rest of the country preferred to buy, and they would only prefer spend their money on it if it made their lives better. For example, people like to rag on Amazon, but Amazon's products and services has personally benefited me greatly. Shopping online saves me a ton of time, and wear and tear on my car. As for equity portfolios, anyone in America can invest in equities. Etrade, Robinhood, etc., have done a great job democratizing investing. Want a piece of the action? Buy some equities.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  > Compare the success of the free market at raising the standard of living as opposed to other forms of government - by a lot. Generally alongside massive government-directed/-financed social programs, often much higher tax rates than we’ve seen for decades, alongside a powerful labor movement, and alongside substantial regulation like antitrust. To the extent the raised standard of living has been anything remotely like equitable, anyway. To wit: > For example, people like to rag on Amazon, but Amazon's products and services has personally benefited me greatly. Shopping online saves me a ton of time, and wear and tear on my car. That’s great, for you. And the conditions their warehouse workers experience more closely resemble the conditions of workers in similar jobs a century ago, than the conditions of equivalent jobs which no longer exist many places Amazon operates warehouses. In the same time that this more-free market has been allowed to grow such behemoths, wealth and income disparity have ballooned incredibly. To that point, if I said something like this to many family members and several friends: > As for equity portfolios, anyone in America can invest in equities. Etrade, Robinhood, etc., have done a great job democratizing investing. Want a piece of the action? Buy some equities. They’d either laugh out loud or stop speaking to me. Buy some equities with… what? They’re struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Given the circumstances, where I’ve taken over mortgage payments for my parents so they can have a home and where there’s hospital bills much larger than the value of the house, I suspect some of them would disown me for being so callous. I sincerely am glad that you’re enjoying the benefits of the free market such as it is. But you shouldn’t be under the illusion that it’s anywhere near as available to others as you seem to think.
  - eyelidlessness 4y ago
    Phew this went somewhere entirely different than I thought it would when I wrote the first paragraph. My original point was going to be that freedom of market wasn’t the ingredient that allowed standards of living to increase in anything like tandem. It was freedom of society. As our “rising tide” lifted all boats, our economic policies mostly resembled socialist countries’, and their effectiveness was mostly attributable to living in a society where you don’t get dead or put in prison or similarly punished for advocating things you think would improve your life or the lives of those with whom you have solidarity. That’s still true. The free market is an awful vessel for that. And there’s no reason to conflate social freedom with it, if anything there’s every reason to assume unfettered market freedom loves social constraint.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      The free market is orthogonal to other measures of freedom like democracy. Voting rights are not required for free market to deliver prosperity, as China has demonstrated. > there’s every reason to assume unfettered market freedom loves social constraint. I don't know where that came from. I don't see any such relationship. > where you don’t get dead or put in prison or similarly punished for advocating things you think would improve your life or the lives of those with whom you have solidarity. That’s still true. The free market is an awful vessel for that. I'm not sure what you're thinking a free market is. A free market, to be a free market, does not put people in prison for improving their lives.
      - eyelidlessness 4y ago
        > The free market is orthogonal to other measures of freedom like democracy. To the extent it is, it’s a failure which erodes or prevents those freedoms from thriving. > A free market, to be a free market, does not put people in prison for improving their lives. I was going to invite you to learn more about labor history in the US, but… > as China has demonstrated. Never mind, you clearly already understand the point that a state which has mass forced labor camps is compatible with what’s called a free market. But you certainly can’t say no one’s imprisoned with a straight face.
adhesive_wombat 4y ago
> TCP/IP etc. Fun fact, that was building on earlier work on switched packet networks at the UK National Physical Laboratory during the 60s, which is also a public laboratory.

WalterBright 4y ago

> Private investment capital has been demonstrably effective at growing that pie somewhat Compare the success of the free market at raising the standard of living as opposed to other forms of government - by a lot. > arguably been privatizing the resulting wealth The only way that wealth would have grown is if that investment paid off in providing goods and services that the rest of the country preferred to buy, and they would only prefer spend their money on it if it made their lives better. For example, people like to rag on Amazon, but Amazon's products and services has personally benefited me greatly. Shopping online saves me a ton of time, and wear and tear on my car. As for equity portfolios, anyone in America can invest in equities. Etrade, Robinhood, etc., have done a great job democratizing investing. Want a piece of the action? Buy some equities.

eyelidlessness 4y ago
> Compare the success of the free market at raising the standard of living as opposed to other forms of government - by a lot. Generally alongside massive government-directed/-financed social programs, often much higher tax rates than we’ve seen for decades, alongside a powerful labor movement, and alongside substantial regulation like antitrust. To the extent the raised standard of living has been anything remotely like equitable, anyway. To wit: > For example, people like to rag on Amazon, but Amazon's products and services has personally benefited me greatly. Shopping online saves me a ton of time, and wear and tear on my car. That’s great, for you. And the conditions their warehouse workers experience more closely resemble the conditions of workers in similar jobs a century ago, than the conditions of equivalent jobs which no longer exist many places Amazon operates warehouses. In the same time that this more-free market has been allowed to grow such behemoths, wealth and income disparity have ballooned incredibly. To that point, if I said something like this to many family members and several friends: > As for equity portfolios, anyone in America can invest in equities. Etrade, Robinhood, etc., have done a great job democratizing investing. Want a piece of the action? Buy some equities. They’d either laugh out loud or stop speaking to me. Buy some equities with… what? They’re struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Given the circumstances, where I’ve taken over mortgage payments for my parents so they can have a home and where there’s hospital bills much larger than the value of the house, I suspect some of them would disown me for being so callous. I sincerely am glad that you’re enjoying the benefits of the free market such as it is. But you shouldn’t be under the illusion that it’s anywhere near as available to others as you seem to think.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  Phew this went somewhere entirely different than I thought it would when I wrote the first paragraph. My original point was going to be that freedom of market wasn’t the ingredient that allowed standards of living to increase in anything like tandem. It was freedom of society. As our “rising tide” lifted all boats, our economic policies mostly resembled socialist countries’, and their effectiveness was mostly attributable to living in a society where you don’t get dead or put in prison or similarly punished for advocating things you think would improve your life or the lives of those with whom you have solidarity. That’s still true. The free market is an awful vessel for that. And there’s no reason to conflate social freedom with it, if anything there’s every reason to assume unfettered market freedom loves social constraint.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    The free market is orthogonal to other measures of freedom like democracy. Voting rights are not required for free market to deliver prosperity, as China has demonstrated. > there’s every reason to assume unfettered market freedom loves social constraint. I don't know where that came from. I don't see any such relationship. > where you don’t get dead or put in prison or similarly punished for advocating things you think would improve your life or the lives of those with whom you have solidarity. That’s still true. The free market is an awful vessel for that. I'm not sure what you're thinking a free market is. A free market, to be a free market, does not put people in prison for improving their lives.
    - eyelidlessness 4y ago
      > The free market is orthogonal to other measures of freedom like democracy. To the extent it is, it’s a failure which erodes or prevents those freedoms from thriving. > A free market, to be a free market, does not put people in prison for improving their lives. I was going to invite you to learn more about labor history in the US, but… > as China has demonstrated. Never mind, you clearly already understand the point that a state which has mass forced labor camps is compatible with what’s called a free market. But you certainly can’t say no one’s imprisoned with a straight face.

adhesive_wombat 4y ago

> TCP/IP etc. Fun fact, that was building on earlier work on switched packet networks at the UK National Physical Laboratory during the 60s, which is also a public laboratory.