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You might not have meant it this way, but such phrasing is a dogwhistle for fervent capitalists. Usually the saying is: "If the damned government would just ge
by dijit 3y ago
You might not have meant it this way, but such phrasing is a dogwhistle for fervent capitalists.
Usually the saying is: "If the damned government would just get out of the way and we had unfettered capitalism we would have enormous growth".
The issue with Capitalism (as many economists will tell you) is that it causes monopolies, in fact the game monopoly was designed to teach exactly this.
Growth is not by-in-itself a good thing for most people, it typically is because wealth generally gets distributed a bit; however countries like the UK (which is a rich country by most metrics) has a lower QoL for a common person than Estonia does despite Estonia only having a fraction of GDP per capita relative to the UK.
Wealth naturally centralises in a closed capitalist system; regulation is the only force that stymies that.
If wealth is too concentrated then growth is meaningless to the majority.
- rahen 3y agoIsn't the government also a monopoly? Can you really get rid of it and its corruption by just voting? What about state monopolies when they become inefficient and debt ridden, and can just _forbid_ competition? No private monopoly is forever, whether it's the Hudson's Bay Company, the East India Company, GM, Kodak, IBM, you name it. All those empires fell because eventually there will be more innovative offers from lighters, more agile competitors. Government monopolies are much harder to get rid of.
- dijit 3y agoGovernments are designed primarily to serve it's citizens and not the needs of shareholders or profit. They are designed additionally to prevent externalising of costs to some third party. IE; forced servitude or significant harm to the population while chasing profit. Your same statements could be reflected inward of course: British empire, the several thousand peaceful transfers of power that come and go without fanfare and of course very violent revolutions that pass with very significant fanfare and attention. A seated government, especially a democratically elected one should be capable of serving the needs of people, however governments are made of people and the smaller the government is the easier it is to buy it off. - The smaller the government, the easier the corruption. (which is why "small government" capitalists always end up embroiled in corruption scandals eventually). A good example of this is denoted "the keys to power" in the easy to understand video essay by CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs