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That’s a nice axiomatic assumption made based on faulty observations. Not only are the facts to support that assumption not in evidence, the facts that exist a

That’s a nice axiomatic assumption made based on faulty observations. Not only are the facts to support that assumption not in evidence, the facts that exist about the history of the U.S. government show that (a) dysfunction is not the normal mode of operation of the U.S. government and that (b) the extraordinary prosperity of the U.S. since about 1930 has been to increasing levels of federal government involvement and investment in both infrastructure projects (e.g., the interstate highway system, the Internet, advances in medicine and sanitation) and social projects (the social safety net, some basic medicare services, education investment as a whole, desegregation and civil rights in general). The U.S. has not been this actively dysfunctional for at least eighty years, and more likely for about 160 years (and the secondary reasons for the dysfunction 160 years ago are not too dissimilar to the reasons for dysfunction now, as ways of life and economic growth are deeply threatened by modernization). I’m not sure that we've seen sustained partisanship for this long ever in the history of the U.S. (about 18 years since Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich’s clashes in ’95). Further, it’s questionable how sustainable the “prosperity” in the U.S. is over the 18–20 years, as has been well documented. Most of the money has flowed away from the middle class (the proverbial rising tide) and toward an already wealthy upper-upper class. That the U.S. and its constitution have survived several shorter periods of hyper-partisanship and a civil war suggest that it is, as a document, more resilient than the article suggests, but there has been a sea change in the U.S. where I no longer recognize the country of my birth and can foresee the day when I choose no longer to be a U.S. citizen because I no longer identify with what it has become.

VaedaStrike 13y ago
RE your point a) this gets into the semantics of the term dysfunction. I think if we did a point by point walk through of any given portion of the history of US government one could find a bounty of examples of dysfunction. It would simply be a matter of choosing what portions of history you wished to look closely at. and RE your point b) This is a far bigger set of assumptions and faulty observations. Firstly not all of those projects constitute a singular 'success' rather than simply the emergent of some system that produces a wide range of results. The funding is simply a component of that and the ultimate determining factor as to whether or not the net result of that funding was better than other alternatives that could have existed in it's absence is something that's not easy to quickly determine. Reminds me of getting a large and extremely demanding client. Certainly one may be gaining far more money than they ever did prior to having said client, but if the demands and side effects of having the client are too high then even the masses of money one makes, when placed in context to the big picture and the actual desired ends, may not result in an optimal, or even a positive, end. One needs but look at state welfare in Europe to see an example of this. The state takes care of people and one of the fall outs is that individual persons, beyond what they are obligated to give through taxation, help their fellow countrymen at far lower rates than they do in less socialized nations. There's always unseen costs.
- halostatue 13y ago
  Are you seriously going to try to make either of these arguments? a. Your original point suggested that continuous dysfunction is the reason that the U.S. is successful. Not only is this nonsensical, it is ahistorical. Yes, the U.S. has had periods of hyper-partisanship prior to the last fifteen years. The most serious of these resulted in a war. However, over most of the last 224 years, the U.S. has had more periods of cooperation and compromise than hyper-partisanship and dysfunction. Even during the 1930s (where there a plot to stage a coup d'état, defeated only because the plotters misjudged their preferred candidate) and the 1950s (e.g., McCarthy) the business of government moved forward and there were measurable improvements in the quality of life and infrastructure directly attributable to government intervention. (See also the TVA.) b. Your assessment is flat-out incorrect on numerous levels. Again, it assumes facts that are not only not in evidence, but contrary to the facts that actually exist. This is a common problem with choosing to believe ideological stances rather than comparing them against facts. Under no circumstances do I think that all government programs are successful; however, the U.S. saw greater real economic growth during times of higher government spending on infrastructure programs and social programs (as I indicated) than it has when these things fall to the best “interests” of the monied classes and so-called “Christian charity”. I don’t know what your particular political stance is, but your characterization of the charitable nature of Europeans is misguided, at best—a lot of the higher “charitable” donation rates in the U.S. are because (1) the government funds aren’t there to assist those in need, (2) there are greater tax incentives to donate more. I put “charitable” in quotes because all donations to churches—for any reason whatsoever—are considered tax deductible in the U.S. Most of those donations are not used for local charitable assistance (e.g., soup kitchens, etc.) activities; they are used for church building maintenance, salaries, mission work, etc. I suspect (because I don’t know where to find the actual numbers for this) that if you were to measure per-capita charitable assistance spending through charitable donations, it would be similar. I also don't happen to think that the success of a nation should be measured on how financially charitable its people are to those less fortunate members of society—I think it should be measured on how few of its people have what is now termed food insecurity. If that can be done with charitable donations, great—but as the U.S. amply demonstrates, it cannot and never could.
sseveran 13y ago
You would be hard pressed to say that the prosperity is the result of government. We were also aided by a war that killed 80M people left most of the industrialized world in ruins. And civil right, seriously? The government was the greatest force operating against civil rights last century. The notion that everything was civil in the past is also a fanciful notion. The country has often been deeply divided and I don't see any reason why it should remain so. Also the concentration of wealth this time around unlike a century ago has been caused by two things, technology and improvements to productivity and periods of artificially low interest rates. I don't see what we can do about the former and with the nomination of Yellen I don't think there will be significant changes to monetary policy.
- halostatue 13y ago
  Actually, I wouldn't be hard pressed to say that. If I had said that it was exclusively the result of government, then I'd be saying something even more nonsensical than what's been said by the folks who actually think that government dysfunction is a path to success. 1. The increased government spending on infrastructure and social structure reduces private spending on infrastructure and social structure, freeing up that capital to be spent on other projects, or even enabling projects that could not be considered previously. While we are facing a number of problems related to deep dependency on petroleum now, the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system revolutionized cargo transit. In general, greater spending on the highway system from the federal level required that states and municipalities spend more keeping their connecting roads up to date—to the point of paving more roads that had previously not been paved, increasing commercial access to everyone in general. I've made the point some time ago, but increased social spending allows businesses to exist that would not otherwise exist precisely because of that social spending. In economically depressed areas, there will be people employed because recipients of social spending have funds that they would not otherwise have available. While it is true that at times government gets in the way of progress, it is not generally because of an activist government looking out for the welfare of all of its citizens, but rather because of a conservative (meaning trying to preserve the status quo, not a political stance per se) government protecting the interests of an elite class. Both sorts of government can exist at the same time in a single administration. 2. The federal government has been the greatest force operating in favour of civil rights for about 150 years, although with a spotty record. The most recent failures exist primarily because of recidivist views about the nature of civil rights, primarily embodied in the views of the Roberts court and current (2010–2013) Tea Party Republicans. State governments, on the other hand, have by and large been powerful forces acting against civil rights that have been forced to act differently because of federal government intervention. Any argument otherwise had best be backed fairly heavily by reputable evidence, because that's the history. 3. I would appreciate that you not argue against a straw-man. I never said that the past was always civil. I said that the divisions that have existed in the past have never lasted this long and been this deep; they have (once) been deeper to the point of war, but most of those divisions have (i) been fairly short, limited to one or two sessions of congress, and (ii) not impeded the rest of the operation of government in any meaningful way. Even McCarthyism didn't break government the way that recent events have. Bills were still passed, and the business of government moved forward at a better pace than you would imagine. 4. Check your history again. IIRC, the monetary crises of the 1890s and the 1920s–1930s were caused in no small part by improvements to productivity (rapid industrialization, etc.) and technology (trains, cars, etc.) and low interest rates, as well as extremely loose regulatory environments. Both can be fixed by taking taxation seriously and not pretending that it is an evil thing, as far too many modern politicians and internet libertarians do.

VaedaStrike 13y ago

RE your point a) this gets into the semantics of the term dysfunction. I think if we did a point by point walk through of any given portion of the history of US government one could find a bounty of examples of dysfunction. It would simply be a matter of choosing what portions of history you wished to look closely at. and RE your point b) This is a far bigger set of assumptions and faulty observations. Firstly not all of those projects constitute a singular 'success' rather than simply the emergent of some system that produces a wide range of results. The funding is simply a component of that and the ultimate determining factor as to whether or not the net result of that funding was better than other alternatives that could have existed in it's absence is something that's not easy to quickly determine. Reminds me of getting a large and extremely demanding client. Certainly one may be gaining far more money than they ever did prior to having said client, but if the demands and side effects of having the client are too high then even the masses of money one makes, when placed in context to the big picture and the actual desired ends, may not result in an optimal, or even a positive, end. One needs but look at state welfare in Europe to see an example of this. The state takes care of people and one of the fall outs is that individual persons, beyond what they are obligated to give through taxation, help their fellow countrymen at far lower rates than they do in less socialized nations. There's always unseen costs.

halostatue 13y ago
Are you seriously going to try to make either of these arguments? a. Your original point suggested that continuous dysfunction is the reason that the U.S. is successful. Not only is this nonsensical, it is ahistorical. Yes, the U.S. has had periods of hyper-partisanship prior to the last fifteen years. The most serious of these resulted in a war. However, over most of the last 224 years, the U.S. has had more periods of cooperation and compromise than hyper-partisanship and dysfunction. Even during the 1930s (where there a plot to stage a coup d'état, defeated only because the plotters misjudged their preferred candidate) and the 1950s (e.g., McCarthy) the business of government moved forward and there were measurable improvements in the quality of life and infrastructure directly attributable to government intervention. (See also the TVA.) b. Your assessment is flat-out incorrect on numerous levels. Again, it assumes facts that are not only not in evidence, but contrary to the facts that actually exist. This is a common problem with choosing to believe ideological stances rather than comparing them against facts. Under no circumstances do I think that all government programs are successful; however, the U.S. saw greater real economic growth during times of higher government spending on infrastructure programs and social programs (as I indicated) than it has when these things fall to the best “interests” of the monied classes and so-called “Christian charity”. I don’t know what your particular political stance is, but your characterization of the charitable nature of Europeans is misguided, at best—a lot of the higher “charitable” donation rates in the U.S. are because (1) the government funds aren’t there to assist those in need, (2) there are greater tax incentives to donate more. I put “charitable” in quotes because all donations to churches—for any reason whatsoever—are considered tax deductible in the U.S. Most of those donations are not used for local charitable assistance (e.g., soup kitchens, etc.) activities; they are used for church building maintenance, salaries, mission work, etc. I suspect (because I don’t know where to find the actual numbers for this) that if you were to measure per-capita charitable assistance spending through charitable donations, it would be similar. I also don't happen to think that the success of a nation should be measured on how financially charitable its people are to those less fortunate members of society—I think it should be measured on how few of its people have what is now termed food insecurity. If that can be done with charitable donations, great—but as the U.S. amply demonstrates, it cannot and never could.

sseveran 13y ago

You would be hard pressed to say that the prosperity is the result of government. We were also aided by a war that killed 80M people left most of the industrialized world in ruins. And civil right, seriously? The government was the greatest force operating against civil rights last century. The notion that everything was civil in the past is also a fanciful notion. The country has often been deeply divided and I don't see any reason why it should remain so. Also the concentration of wealth this time around unlike a century ago has been caused by two things, technology and improvements to productivity and periods of artificially low interest rates. I don't see what we can do about the former and with the nomination of Yellen I don't think there will be significant changes to monetary policy.

halostatue 13y ago
Actually, I wouldn't be hard pressed to say that. If I had said that it was exclusively the result of government, then I'd be saying something even more nonsensical than what's been said by the folks who actually think that government dysfunction is a path to success. 1. The increased government spending on infrastructure and social structure reduces private spending on infrastructure and social structure, freeing up that capital to be spent on other projects, or even enabling projects that could not be considered previously. While we are facing a number of problems related to deep dependency on petroleum now, the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system revolutionized cargo transit. In general, greater spending on the highway system from the federal level required that states and municipalities spend more keeping their connecting roads up to date—to the point of paving more roads that had previously not been paved, increasing commercial access to everyone in general. I've made the point some time ago, but increased social spending allows businesses to exist that would not otherwise exist precisely because of that social spending. In economically depressed areas, there will be people employed because recipients of social spending have funds that they would not otherwise have available. While it is true that at times government gets in the way of progress, it is not generally because of an activist government looking out for the welfare of all of its citizens, but rather because of a conservative (meaning trying to preserve the status quo, not a political stance per se) government protecting the interests of an elite class. Both sorts of government can exist at the same time in a single administration. 2. The federal government has been the greatest force operating in favour of civil rights for about 150 years, although with a spotty record. The most recent failures exist primarily because of recidivist views about the nature of civil rights, primarily embodied in the views of the Roberts court and current (2010–2013) Tea Party Republicans. State governments, on the other hand, have by and large been powerful forces acting against civil rights that have been forced to act differently because of federal government intervention. Any argument otherwise had best be backed fairly heavily by reputable evidence, because that's the history. 3. I would appreciate that you not argue against a straw-man. I never said that the past was always civil. I said that the divisions that have existed in the past have never lasted this long and been this deep; they have (once) been deeper to the point of war, but most of those divisions have (i) been fairly short, limited to one or two sessions of congress, and (ii) not impeded the rest of the operation of government in any meaningful way. Even McCarthyism didn't break government the way that recent events have. Bills were still passed, and the business of government moved forward at a better pace than you would imagine. 4. Check your history again. IIRC, the monetary crises of the 1890s and the 1920s–1930s were caused in no small part by improvements to productivity (rapid industrialization, etc.) and technology (trains, cars, etc.) and low interest rates, as well as extremely loose regulatory environments. Both can be fixed by taking taxation seriously and not pretending that it is an evil thing, as far too many modern politicians and internet libertarians do.