3 ms·

Like what?

by kiddo 17y ago

Like what?

bokonist 17y ago
1) Read "Gang Leader for a day" or watch the Wire and then compare it to a first hand account of the slums of the 1900s. We are richer now thanks to technology. But the pathologies and decay of the slums is much, much worse. The progressive movement replaced a highly functional system of private and city government charity with a bureaucratic system that creates dependency, has no interest in actually solving the problems of the people it serves, and leaves housing projects to rot away. 2) Credentialism. From the Pendleton Civil Service Act to laws giving monopoly rights of practicing medicine to the AMA guild, the progressive movement towards credentialism gave government subsidies and monopolies to a class of people who could pass the civil service exam. These artificial barriers to entry result in a direct transfer of funds from the poor and working class to the college educated elite. For one example of many: http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html 3) The Fed/Bretton Woods/Fiat currency. The progressive movement turned our financial system from a bottom up system (loans and banking happened at a community level) to a top down system ( all banking originates out of Fed guarantees and a government printed currency). This has resulted in insane profits for Wall St. At the same time, because the USD is the reserve currency of the world, the U.S. exports dollars, and then gets back real goods at a very cheap price. This is great for the civil service and for Wall St. But it sucks for those in manufacturing jobs, as they cannot compete when the currency is artificially priced so high. 4) Griggs Supreme Court case. The Griggs case basically banned the use of IQ tests by employers. So now bright young kids must spend lots of money on a 4 year long IQ test proxy, rather than getting a job directly. 5) Taxes. Overall tax burden has increased enormously since the early 1900's, even on the working classes. The working class has by no means received a corresponding increase in benefits. For example, poor people must now pay heavy education taxes. This is despite that after seventy years of massively increased taxes and longer hours at school, rates of vocab and numeracy have been flat (http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-make-you-smarter-349 http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-... ). The ROI on this education spending was zero. Yet we all continue to pay. Worse, progressive judges in the 1970 eliminated the ability of teachers to effectively discipline students. Now are schools have become Lord of the Flies hell holes, with the inner city schools being the worst. Taxes on the rich are bad for the poor too, if the government does not use the money any more effectively than the rich do ( as is often the case). The rich often invest in charity ( like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates or Buffet), or reinvest in companies and growth ( like Paul Graham or Marc Andressen). Either way, it increases the prosperity of the nation much more than government spending has. 6) Lax crime policies of the late 60's were primarily responsible for the dramatic increase in crime. This crime hit poor people the worst. It also drove the middle class, and the jobs, out of the inner cities. 7) Immigration. Whatever the other merits of immigration may be, it no doubt drives down the price of low skilled labor. Thus it is bad from the point of view of the American poor and working class. 8) Democracy promotion abroad. The U.S. has had the insane idea that simply by forcing elections in countries with 20% literacy rates, no judicial system, no institutions, no heritage of civic participation, and highly combustible tribal relations, that these countries would magically turn into replicas of America. In reality, the result has been civil war, coups, bad government, and corruption. U.S. imposed anti-imperialism and democracy promotion has been an unmitigated disaster for the third world. Read this article for one example, but there are many, many more: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country-that-used-to-exist.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country... 9) The interstate highway system. Created by progressives, it has increased the cost of living for everyone.
- msluyter 17y ago
  Most of these points are highly debatable. I don't have time for all of them, but taking a couple... Re: #3 -- I assume you'd prefer the gold standard. Most (non-Austrian) economists believe that the gold standard actually exacerbated the great depression. I simply would recommend readers read the entire wikipedia article including the section on disadvantages. Or read this: http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.html http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.... Re: #6 -- your claim that lax crime policies were primarily responsible for the rise in crime. Evidence is actually that it was mostly demographics -- a rise in crime prone young men -- combined with the rise of drugs like cocaine, crack, etc... And there's little evidence that "tougher" and longer sentences do any good. Re: #8 -- Democracy promotion abroad isn't necessarily a progressive idea. After all, our recent experiment in democracy promotion in Iraq is the brainchild of neoconservatives.
  - bokonist 17y ago
    Most (non-Austrian) economists believe that the gold standard actually exacerbated the great depression. It's possible to run a sound currency regime using fiat dollars. But the U.S. has not done so. And the people pushing our decidedly unsound monetary policy were mostly progressive Keynesians. As for the depression, the problem was that the government printed far more greenbacks than it could back with actual gold. As a result, people started trying to redeem their notes for gold. Since banks did not have enough gold to redeem, the banks failed. The government refused to devalue for many years, resulting in a catastrophic deflation. The depression could have been avoided by devaluing while still still maintaining the gold standard. If you step in front of a freight train and get run over, do you blame the freight train? Re: #6 -- your claim that lax crime policies were primarily responsible for the rise in crime. Evidence is actually that it was mostly demographics -- a rise in crime prone young men -- combined with the rise of drugs like cocaine, crack, etc... And there's little evidence that "tougher" and longer sentences do any good. The homicide rate in Baltimore, DC, and Philadelphia increased ten fold. Were there ten times the number of young men? Re: #8 -- Democracy promotion abroad isn't necessarily a progressive idea. After all, our recent experiment in democracy promotion in Iraq is the brainchild of neoconservatives. By any historical standard, neoconservatives are progressives. They did not splinter off until the 1960's when they got upset with the excesses of the left. Before that, they were Trotskyites. They are only considered "conservative" because the country as a whole has moved so far left in the past century. Neoconservatives inherit the tradition of promoting democracy from progressives like TDR, Wilson, FDR, etc. If you read the Weekly Standard or any other neocon rag, you'll find that they hold TDR as their idol. TDR founded a party called, "the Progressive party", and was an original proponent of promoting democracy abroad. The neocons are very much a part of the progressive movement.

Like what?

by kiddo 17y ago

Like what?

1) Read "Gang Leader for a day" or watch the Wire and then compare it to a first hand account of the slums of the 1900s. We are richer now thanks to technology. But the pathologies and decay of the slums is much, much worse. The progressive movement replaced a highly functional system of private and city government charity with a bureaucratic system that creates dependency, has no interest in actually solving the problems of the people it serves, and leaves housing projects to rot away. 2) Credentialism. From the Pendleton Civil Service Act to laws giving monopoly rights of practicing medicine to the AMA guild, the progressive movement towards credentialism gave government subsidies and monopolies to a class of people who could pass the civil service exam. These artificial barriers to entry result in a direct transfer of funds from the poor and working class to the college educated elite. For one example of many: http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html 3) The Fed/Bretton Woods/Fiat currency. The progressive movement turned our financial system from a bottom up system (loans and banking happened at a community level) to a top down system ( all banking originates out of Fed guarantees and a government printed currency). This has resulted in insane profits for Wall St. At the same time, because the USD is the reserve currency of the world, the U.S. exports dollars, and then gets back real goods at a very cheap price. This is great for the civil service and for Wall St. But it sucks for those in manufacturing jobs, as they cannot compete when the currency is artificially priced so high. 4) Griggs Supreme Court case. The Griggs case basically banned the use of IQ tests by employers. So now bright young kids must spend lots of money on a 4 year long IQ test proxy, rather than getting a job directly. 5) Taxes. Overall tax burden has increased enormously since the early 1900's, even on the working classes. The working class has by no means received a corresponding increase in benefits. For example, poor people must now pay heavy education taxes. This is despite that after seventy years of massively increased taxes and longer hours at school, rates of vocab and numeracy have been flat (http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-make-you-smarter-349 http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-... ). The ROI on this education spending was zero. Yet we all continue to pay. Worse, progressive judges in the 1970 eliminated the ability of teachers to effectively discipline students. Now are schools have become Lord of the Flies hell holes, with the inner city schools being the worst. Taxes on the rich are bad for the poor too, if the government does not use the money any more effectively than the rich do ( as is often the case). The rich often invest in charity ( like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates or Buffet), or reinvest in companies and growth ( like Paul Graham or Marc Andressen). Either way, it increases the prosperity of the nation much more than government spending has. 6) Lax crime policies of the late 60's were primarily responsible for the dramatic increase in crime. This crime hit poor people the worst. It also drove the middle class, and the jobs, out of the inner cities. 7) Immigration. Whatever the other merits of immigration may be, it no doubt drives down the price of low skilled labor. Thus it is bad from the point of view of the American poor and working class. 8) Democracy promotion abroad. The U.S. has had the insane idea that simply by forcing elections in countries with 20% literacy rates, no judicial system, no institutions, no heritage of civic participation, and highly combustible tribal relations, that these countries would magically turn into replicas of America. In reality, the result has been civil war, coups, bad government, and corruption. U.S. imposed anti-imperialism and democracy promotion has been an unmitigated disaster for the third world. Read this article for one example, but there are many, many more: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country-that-used-to-exist.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/08/country... 9) The interstate highway system. Created by progressives, it has increased the cost of living for everyone.

msluyter 17y ago
Most of these points are highly debatable. I don't have time for all of them, but taking a couple... Re: #3 -- I assume you'd prefer the gold standard. Most (non-Austrian) economists believe that the gold standard actually exacerbated the great depression. I simply would recommend readers read the entire wikipedia article including the section on disadvantages. Or read this: http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.html http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/12/the_gold_standa.... Re: #6 -- your claim that lax crime policies were primarily responsible for the rise in crime. Evidence is actually that it was mostly demographics -- a rise in crime prone young men -- combined with the rise of drugs like cocaine, crack, etc... And there's little evidence that "tougher" and longer sentences do any good. Re: #8 -- Democracy promotion abroad isn't necessarily a progressive idea. After all, our recent experiment in democracy promotion in Iraq is the brainchild of neoconservatives.
- bokonist 17y ago
  Most (non-Austrian) economists believe that the gold standard actually exacerbated the great depression. It's possible to run a sound currency regime using fiat dollars. But the U.S. has not done so. And the people pushing our decidedly unsound monetary policy were mostly progressive Keynesians. As for the depression, the problem was that the government printed far more greenbacks than it could back with actual gold. As a result, people started trying to redeem their notes for gold. Since banks did not have enough gold to redeem, the banks failed. The government refused to devalue for many years, resulting in a catastrophic deflation. The depression could have been avoided by devaluing while still still maintaining the gold standard. If you step in front of a freight train and get run over, do you blame the freight train? Re: #6 -- your claim that lax crime policies were primarily responsible for the rise in crime. Evidence is actually that it was mostly demographics -- a rise in crime prone young men -- combined with the rise of drugs like cocaine, crack, etc... And there's little evidence that "tougher" and longer sentences do any good. The homicide rate in Baltimore, DC, and Philadelphia increased ten fold. Were there ten times the number of young men? Re: #8 -- Democracy promotion abroad isn't necessarily a progressive idea. After all, our recent experiment in democracy promotion in Iraq is the brainchild of neoconservatives. By any historical standard, neoconservatives are progressives. They did not splinter off until the 1960's when they got upset with the excesses of the left. Before that, they were Trotskyites. They are only considered "conservative" because the country as a whole has moved so far left in the past century. Neoconservatives inherit the tradition of promoting democracy from progressives like TDR, Wilson, FDR, etc. If you read the Weekly Standard or any other neocon rag, you'll find that they hold TDR as their idol. TDR founded a party called, "the Progressive party", and was an original proponent of promoting democracy abroad. The neocons are very much a part of the progressive movement.