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That presupposes that the left in the US wants to do the right thing. Something like government run grocery stores is not clearly correct and there is very litt

That presupposes that the left in the US wants to do the right thing. Something like government run grocery stores is not clearly correct and there is very little evidence supporting that it will work well yet it is a very popular leftist policy in New York.

galleywest200 2mo ago
City run grocery stores are certainly not evil.
- 0xWTF 2mo ago
  ... not overtly, intentionally evil. FTFY
  - tyre 2mo ago
    What’s the case that they’re secretly, unintentionally evil?
    - kortilla 2mo ago
      They destroy grocery stores that offer variety in every neighborhood they operate in. They offer worse service and people put up with it because the rest of New York is subsidizing them through taxes.
    - snakeboy 2mo ago
      Bad economic policy is subtly "evil", by way of allocating finite resources inefficiently. Usually this is unintentionally done by not appropriately taking second, third, ..., nth order effects into account.
      - jdub 2mo ago
        ... which would make (our current model of) capitalism especially evil. Compared to a supermarket.
    - naasking 2mo ago
      The margins for groceries are objectively thin. The only way to provide food at lower prices is to provide a worse good or service, eg. less variety, less quality, less availability, etc. You will see all of these outcomes in NYC, if anyone even accepts the bids to begin with.
- kortilla 2mo ago
  Based on zero evidence. It’s very easy for a government to step in as a participant, ruin the profitability of a sector in an area, and offer a worse service. They have no profit requirement or even revenue neutral requirement. So they can just operate poorly at a loss and still wreck other businesses because people will put up with breadlines to get bread for ultra cheap. The general thing to watch out for with all of these “surely it can’t be evil to do nice thing X” is suicidal empathy. It can seem correct to your gut on the surface while it’s extremely destructive in the long term despite participants wanting to destroy something as an explicit goal.

galleywest200 2mo ago

City run grocery stores are certainly not evil.

0xWTF 2mo ago
... not overtly, intentionally evil. FTFY
- tyre 2mo ago
  What’s the case that they’re secretly, unintentionally evil?
  - kortilla 2mo ago
    They destroy grocery stores that offer variety in every neighborhood they operate in. They offer worse service and people put up with it because the rest of New York is subsidizing them through taxes.
  - snakeboy 2mo ago
    Bad economic policy is subtly "evil", by way of allocating finite resources inefficiently. Usually this is unintentionally done by not appropriately taking second, third, ..., nth order effects into account.
    - jdub 2mo ago
      ... which would make (our current model of) capitalism especially evil. Compared to a supermarket.
  - naasking 2mo ago
    The margins for groceries are objectively thin. The only way to provide food at lower prices is to provide a worse good or service, eg. less variety, less quality, less availability, etc. You will see all of these outcomes in NYC, if anyone even accepts the bids to begin with.
kortilla 2mo ago
Based on zero evidence. It’s very easy for a government to step in as a participant, ruin the profitability of a sector in an area, and offer a worse service. They have no profit requirement or even revenue neutral requirement. So they can just operate poorly at a loss and still wreck other businesses because people will put up with breadlines to get bread for ultra cheap. The general thing to watch out for with all of these “surely it can’t be evil to do nice thing X” is suicidal empathy. It can seem correct to your gut on the surface while it’s extremely destructive in the long term despite participants wanting to destroy something as an explicit goal.