4 ms·

That vast resources were confiscated from the public at large and spent with some notable successes (waste & failures are conspicuously absent), does not trump

That vast resources were confiscated from the public at large and spent with some notable successes (waste & failures are conspicuously absent), does not trump the conspicuously absent analysis of what that money would have been used for outside of confiscation.

rayiner 13y ago
Sure, but what's notably absent is any sort of major counter-example. What civilization has build massive technology and infrastructure without government-coordinated programs? The U.S. government has had a tremendous impact on everything from aerospace to medicine to nuclear energy to computing. Where in the world does that development happen without the government? Not in China, where centralized government is transforming the country from a backwater into a world power. Not in Singapore or Taiwan, where government investment into R&D turned poor countries into rich ones. Not Great Britain, not Rome not Ancient Egypt. It was government that built the Roman road network, government that split the atom, and government that sent man to the moon.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  The Internet. Government served only to set some basic standards and fund initial military & research networking. Factory farming. Food costs have been driven down tremendously, and productivity increased hugely, by private farming. Heck, Y Combinator. Smaller scale, but it sure isn't public money that's going into funding these startups which make a big difference. That the government simply established standards amid otherwise competing options is a proper role (nice that we're all agreed to drive on the same side of the street). Government is also sometimes useful to force concentration of funds into something that needs development but has prohibitive startup costs. But there are certainly plenty of vast proliferations of spending which occur absent of, or even contrary to, government involvement. Don't confuse the presence of free money (say, farm subsidies) with the successes; anyone will accept a large enough check. Don't overlook the destructiveness (say, many wars, or the "Cash for Clunkers" disaster that destroyed the used car market, or the multi-billion-dollar "bailouts" that lost vast sums of cash, or the 100M dead from government conquest spending including the Chinese Great Leap Forward). Yes, there are some successes. Let's talk about private successes, which DO exist. Let's talk about public-funded failures, which DO exist. Yes, large-scale government spending not pure evil incarnate, but it sure isn't the benevolent deity which many are increasingly making it out as.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > The Internet. Government served only to set some basic standards and fund initial military & research networking. The internet was highly developed and had been for decades by the time commercial industry got their hands on it. Government-funded research did all the "hard parts" (reliable communications over lossy protocols, etc). The private sector figured out how to make money off it with advertising and entertainment. > Factory farming. Food costs have been driven down tremendously, and productivity increased hugely, by private farming. Agriculture is the single industry in which the government has most and for the longest time intervened with subsidies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_policy_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_policy_of_the_Unit.... See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution.
    - meric 13y ago
      Might want to correct that to something like "Large-scale agriculture". It sounded a bit off to me when I recalled agriculture has ten thousand years of history, and for most of that time government did not exist beyond the level of family/clan/tribe, and said government is unlikely to have intervened in agriculture with subsidies...
- JackFr 13y ago
  The industrial revolution in the Great Britain. All technological development in the The US and UK prior to WWI. One other thing I might add, is that your last statement would be better phrased "It was the military that built the Roman road network, the military that split the atom, and the military that sent man to the moon."
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > All technological development in the The US and UK prior to WWI. Like the transcontinental railroad? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts.
    - nickff 13y ago
      Building a railroad is different from developing steam engines, designing locomotives, and devising railroad-related technologies.
    - glenra 13y ago
      America had a privately built and privately funded transcontinental railroad. Without the option of government land grants there presumably would have been others, though their timing would have been different (they would have been built more slowly with more economically sustainable routes). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.)
  - Retric 13y ago
    Hardy, for a specific counter example: Longitude Act 1714 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act Ed: "In total, Harrison received £23,065 for his work on chronometers. He received £4,315 in increments from the Board of Longitude for his work, £10,000 as an interim payment for H4 in 1765 and £8,750 from Parliament in 1773." which works out to around 4 million USD inflation adjusted. Also, NASA is not part of the military, the air-force has it's own space program that was sending a lot of unmaned missions during that time period. But, the moon shot had no military applications.
Retric 13y ago
On average, governments spend a higher percentage of their income on innovation and investments for the future than individuals or corporations do. Infrastructure, Education, Innovation, and Civil Order are critical to society's long term success. Eating out does not.
- nickff 13y ago
  >"[G]overnments spend a higher percentage of their income on innovation and investments for the future than individuals or corporations do" I would like to see a citation for this, as it seems unlikely (due to the vast sums of money which governments spend on redistribution); but even if I assume arguendo that you are correct, the spending is not at issue, the results of the expenditure are what is important.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

rayiner 13y ago

Sure, but what's notably absent is any sort of major counter-example. What civilization has build massive technology and infrastructure without government-coordinated programs? The U.S. government has had a tremendous impact on everything from aerospace to medicine to nuclear energy to computing. Where in the world does that development happen without the government? Not in China, where centralized government is transforming the country from a backwater into a world power. Not in Singapore or Taiwan, where government investment into R&D turned poor countries into rich ones. Not Great Britain, not Rome not Ancient Egypt. It was government that built the Roman road network, government that split the atom, and government that sent man to the moon.

ctdonath 13y ago
The Internet. Government served only to set some basic standards and fund initial military & research networking. Factory farming. Food costs have been driven down tremendously, and productivity increased hugely, by private farming. Heck, Y Combinator. Smaller scale, but it sure isn't public money that's going into funding these startups which make a big difference. That the government simply established standards amid otherwise competing options is a proper role (nice that we're all agreed to drive on the same side of the street). Government is also sometimes useful to force concentration of funds into something that needs development but has prohibitive startup costs. But there are certainly plenty of vast proliferations of spending which occur absent of, or even contrary to, government involvement. Don't confuse the presence of free money (say, farm subsidies) with the successes; anyone will accept a large enough check. Don't overlook the destructiveness (say, many wars, or the "Cash for Clunkers" disaster that destroyed the used car market, or the multi-billion-dollar "bailouts" that lost vast sums of cash, or the 100M dead from government conquest spending including the Chinese Great Leap Forward). Yes, there are some successes. Let's talk about private successes, which DO exist. Let's talk about public-funded failures, which DO exist. Yes, large-scale government spending not pure evil incarnate, but it sure isn't the benevolent deity which many are increasingly making it out as.
- rayiner 13y ago
  > The Internet. Government served only to set some basic standards and fund initial military & research networking. The internet was highly developed and had been for decades by the time commercial industry got their hands on it. Government-funded research did all the "hard parts" (reliable communications over lossy protocols, etc). The private sector figured out how to make money off it with advertising and entertainment. > Factory farming. Food costs have been driven down tremendously, and productivity increased hugely, by private farming. Agriculture is the single industry in which the government has most and for the longest time intervened with subsidies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_policy_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_policy_of_the_Unit.... See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution.
  - meric 13y ago
    Might want to correct that to something like "Large-scale agriculture". It sounded a bit off to me when I recalled agriculture has ten thousand years of history, and for most of that time government did not exist beyond the level of family/clan/tribe, and said government is unlikely to have intervened in agriculture with subsidies...
JackFr 13y ago
The industrial revolution in the Great Britain. All technological development in the The US and UK prior to WWI. One other thing I might add, is that your last statement would be better phrased "It was the military that built the Roman road network, the military that split the atom, and the military that sent man to the moon."
- rayiner 13y ago
  > All technological development in the The US and UK prior to WWI. Like the transcontinental railroad? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Railroad_Acts.
  - nickff 13y ago
    Building a railroad is different from developing steam engines, designing locomotives, and devising railroad-related technologies.
  - glenra 13y ago
    America had a privately built and privately funded transcontinental railroad. Without the option of government land grants there presumably would have been others, though their timing would have been different (they would have been built more slowly with more economically sustainable routes). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.)
- Retric 13y ago
  Hardy, for a specific counter example: Longitude Act 1714 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_Act Ed: "In total, Harrison received £23,065 for his work on chronometers. He received £4,315 in increments from the Board of Longitude for his work, £10,000 as an interim payment for H4 in 1765 and £8,750 from Parliament in 1773." which works out to around 4 million USD inflation adjusted. Also, NASA is not part of the military, the air-force has it's own space program that was sending a lot of unmaned missions during that time period. But, the moon shot had no military applications.

Retric 13y ago

On average, governments spend a higher percentage of their income on innovation and investments for the future than individuals or corporations do. Infrastructure, Education, Innovation, and Civil Order are critical to society's long term success. Eating out does not.

nickff 13y ago
>"[G]overnments spend a higher percentage of their income on innovation and investments for the future than individuals or corporations do" I would like to see a citation for this, as it seems unlikely (due to the vast sums of money which governments spend on redistribution); but even if I assume arguendo that you are correct, the spending is not at issue, the results of the expenditure are what is important.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]