3 ms·

I don't think this supports that the government is bad or inherently bad, its just inefficient. The question you have to ask yourself, can you run a country (no

I don't think this supports that the government is bad or inherently bad, its just inefficient. The question you have to ask yourself, can you run a country (not even America, take a small country first like Belgium, less than a 10th the pop. of America), and can you run that country efficiently. Like it or not, most government systems humans have invented so far are woefully inefficient and provide perverse incentives from time to time. However it seems our current democratic/republican system works the best, if not on any objective scale, but for the fact is the most relatively stable and proven. Now, anyone can see that our current government has issues, much like the ones you pointed out. And most people have known that for ages, the hard part is can you devise a better system, and how would you go about testing it without ruining a generation? How do you go about minimizing corruption. Sure the "lets-all-live-in-the-forest" and "burn-down-the-institutions-and-the-rich" route is nice and ideal, but its a pipe dream that will fall apart instantly (some people like to point out examples of small villages living without electricity and money - but you simply cannot scale that "lifestyle" to 300 million people). I'm not a political philosopher or an economist so I won't assert that the system we have now is greatest and you are wrong. I just want to see more expanded thought on the idea that "politicians are crooks and we should get rid of the system."

snitko 13y ago
Why do you need to "run a country"? What does it really mean? What is it about a government that only it can do certain things, while private enterprises and persons are claimed to be incapable of accomplishing it? But the fundamental question is not whether we can make our system better or worse. The fundamental question is, is it okay to steal from others? When government takes taxes, it steals. You may call it a "perspective", but if I disagree to pay, you and I know very well I'm gonna be at the very least intimidated by the government agents and may possibly go to jail. If all people in a given country indeed agreed that taxes are good, you wouldn't need to enforce collecting it, you would just let people donate, like on kickstarter. If, however, some disagree, you can't claim it's fair simply because the majority is sort of okay with it. The majority supported a lot of horrible things throughout history, yet now we don't see them as being on the right side of it.
- nemothekid 13y ago
  If you drive on public roads without paying your taxes, are you stealing? If your car gets stolen and you ask the police for help, are you stealing? If you don't want to pay your taxes, leave the country and build your own, with roads, running water, infrastructure et. all. If you find you need outside investment to "bootstrap" your new country, then you may end up paying dividends to your investors just so you can have running water - how is this any different from taxes? Okay, you might say - but why don't we let private companies manage roads, infrastructure, and others? You should ask yourself, do you really want a company whos job it is to maximize profits to be running these basic services? We already have a couple examples of how privately run institutions with perverse incentives can ruin peoples lives. Lets look at the prison industry, which is now private. They benefit from the free labour of prisoners indirectly giving them an incentive to have as many people as possible in prison. As a result America has the worlds highest incarceration rate by a wide margin[1]. Often these people are in prison for reasons illegitimate. While these people are in prison they also represent an innumerable net loss to the actual economy. These are people who could be getting educated or running higher worth jobs. It shouldn't be a stretch of the imagination that running a country - managing the resources and happiness of millions of people as well managing relations with other countries as represented by millions of other people is an incredibly complex task. Simply boiling down "taxes = stealing" is too simple and naive to actually strongly consider. [1]http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarceration.aspx http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarcerati...
baddox 13y ago
Why would you say that something inefficient is not bad? To me, "inefficient" and "bad" are pretty close to synonymous, at least in a context where input energy is limited and costly.
- nemothekid 13y ago
  Gasoline engines (like the ones in a car) will only ever have at maximum 30% thermal efficiency. That means for every dollar you spend, 70 cents of your dollar is doing nothing. However despite how inefficient an engine is, academia, industry and the military pout millions of dollars every year to increase modern engines efficiencies by .1%. So is inefficient bad? Well its wasteful and we have worked very hard to reduce that waste, but it will never be physically more than 30%. However I would call a modern lamborghini engine "bad". With the tools and knowledge humans have at the moment lamborghini has managed to produce an amazing engine. Same goes for the government. Yes there are holes and I'd imagine there are people working to fix these holes. But is the government today objectively bad? Are we blindly driving ourselves to wall. I think its hard to say. Its easy to say that the government should do x, y, z and all our problems would be solved, but that is easier said than done. Modern human society is exceedingly complex. So to say the government is "bad" would require more knowledge on modern human society that is currently even possibly, just like to say if an engine is bad you would need to be an expert on engines. However just like I can say 70% of an engines energy is wasted on heat and is therefor inefficient, the government is also inefficient in a similar matter, without at all being "bad"

snitko 13y ago

Why do you need to "run a country"? What does it really mean? What is it about a government that only it can do certain things, while private enterprises and persons are claimed to be incapable of accomplishing it? But the fundamental question is not whether we can make our system better or worse. The fundamental question is, is it okay to steal from others? When government takes taxes, it steals. You may call it a "perspective", but if I disagree to pay, you and I know very well I'm gonna be at the very least intimidated by the government agents and may possibly go to jail. If all people in a given country indeed agreed that taxes are good, you wouldn't need to enforce collecting it, you would just let people donate, like on kickstarter. If, however, some disagree, you can't claim it's fair simply because the majority is sort of okay with it. The majority supported a lot of horrible things throughout history, yet now we don't see them as being on the right side of it.

nemothekid 13y ago
If you drive on public roads without paying your taxes, are you stealing? If your car gets stolen and you ask the police for help, are you stealing? If you don't want to pay your taxes, leave the country and build your own, with roads, running water, infrastructure et. all. If you find you need outside investment to "bootstrap" your new country, then you may end up paying dividends to your investors just so you can have running water - how is this any different from taxes? Okay, you might say - but why don't we let private companies manage roads, infrastructure, and others? You should ask yourself, do you really want a company whos job it is to maximize profits to be running these basic services? We already have a couple examples of how privately run institutions with perverse incentives can ruin peoples lives. Lets look at the prison industry, which is now private. They benefit from the free labour of prisoners indirectly giving them an incentive to have as many people as possible in prison. As a result America has the worlds highest incarceration rate by a wide margin[1]. Often these people are in prison for reasons illegitimate. While these people are in prison they also represent an innumerable net loss to the actual economy. These are people who could be getting educated or running higher worth jobs. It shouldn't be a stretch of the imagination that running a country - managing the resources and happiness of millions of people as well managing relations with other countries as represented by millions of other people is an incredibly complex task. Simply boiling down "taxes = stealing" is too simple and naive to actually strongly consider. [1]http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarceration.aspx http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarcerati...

baddox 13y ago

Why would you say that something inefficient is not bad? To me, "inefficient" and "bad" are pretty close to synonymous, at least in a context where input energy is limited and costly.

nemothekid 13y ago
Gasoline engines (like the ones in a car) will only ever have at maximum 30% thermal efficiency. That means for every dollar you spend, 70 cents of your dollar is doing nothing. However despite how inefficient an engine is, academia, industry and the military pout millions of dollars every year to increase modern engines efficiencies by .1%. So is inefficient bad? Well its wasteful and we have worked very hard to reduce that waste, but it will never be physically more than 30%. However I would call a modern lamborghini engine "bad". With the tools and knowledge humans have at the moment lamborghini has managed to produce an amazing engine. Same goes for the government. Yes there are holes and I'd imagine there are people working to fix these holes. But is the government today objectively bad? Are we blindly driving ourselves to wall. I think its hard to say. Its easy to say that the government should do x, y, z and all our problems would be solved, but that is easier said than done. Modern human society is exceedingly complex. So to say the government is "bad" would require more knowledge on modern human society that is currently even possibly, just like to say if an engine is bad you would need to be an expert on engines. However just like I can say 70% of an engines energy is wasted on heat and is therefor inefficient, the government is also inefficient in a similar matter, without at all being "bad"