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Articles like this (ignoring the insulting, historically-naive comparison) aren't news. If you have even a weak understanding of economic theory, it's clear tha

Articles like this (ignoring the insulting, historically-naive comparison) aren't news. If you have even a weak understanding of economic theory, it's clear that countries like Britain, France and the USA are all clinging to self-destructive public policies - driven by popular demand, mind you, not corporate interference. When the "developed world" becomes serious about competing economically with China (distinct from militaristic aggression), it will be plain to see. The following of the West's sacred cows will begin to fall: 1) Knowing better/attempting to overrule the free market (minimum wages, minimum labour conditions, centralised permits to sell goods such as drugs, medical services, legal services) 2) Giving "something for nothing" (subsidised/free education, subsidised/free healthcare, subsidised/free pensions/saving schemes. Currently anyone who dares to question these aspects of Western economies is immediately eviscerated by the crowd. The culture of entitlement is very strong. Soon enough, however, with the last of the props that sustained these sick economies thus far failing (militarism, centralised currency control, controls on global mobility, global cultural allure), getting rid of them will be hailed as bold new thinking.

specialist 12y ago
I've heard a lot of good things about this free market you mention. Can you please provide an example?
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  If you're really interested, pretty much any Econ 101 textbook, read closely and critically, will get you going. There are various economic schools of thoughts (Classical Liberalism, the Austrian school) with extensive literatures available for further in-depth reading.
  - asgard1024 12y ago
    I think he meant a real-world example. You gave him works of fiction. :-)
  - badsock 12y ago
    I'd really like it if you'd answer his actual question. My recurring issue with libertarians is that they make very grand claims based on untested, and frankly very simplistic, theory. Real economies have perennially made fools of those who think they operate like simple machines.
    - BugBrother 12y ago
      Without being an economist, I can tell you that the first few general books in most any education are simplified. I discussed economic models years ago with people writing code for them, it was interesting. Subjects based on complex data sets without possibility of experiments are hard to verify for people external to the subject. (Famous other cases are climate science and evolution.) From that, left wing extremists (I don't know anything about your position -- you might argue against "free market", which was the subject here or "libertarians" which you mention?) sometimes write conspiracy theories that all the academics in economy are idiots and/or in a conspiracy. So let us skip this and instead look at practical results: If you have a country with low corruption, competent state administration and a capitalist system you might get a good economic development. Otherwise, you will not.
    - jasonisalive 12y ago
      My recurring issue with whatever you call the sort of person who gets angry and criticises someone like me, is that they never bother to actually go and read with an open and serious mind the vast literature of economic debate available. The sort of literature that makes you realise that a statement like "libertarians make very grand claims based on untested and frankly very simplistic theory" is total, utter bullshit. Like I said, you can start with Econ 101, and work your way up from there. I don't know why they don't just give it a try. It's more fun to be open-minded than think you know everything already. To me it is a shame to see people so stubborn and resistant to thinking differently.
      - badsock 12y ago
        You characterize the people who disagree with you as being both uneducated in economics and closed-minded. Have you considered the possibility that there are those of us who are well versed in economic theory, including those favoured by libertarians, and have come to the conclusion that while they're certainly as plausible as any other competing theory, the proof is in the pudding? Many different economic systems have been tried all across the world and throughout history. Given all of your reading, surely you could point to an example of these theories being tried out in a real economy and succeeding?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 12y ago
The irony of holding communist China up as some sort of free-market paradise...
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  I never said that at all. The only thing about China that I specified was the widely-agreed upon fact that they are out-competing the West in low-cost manufacturing. China has many problems, not the least a culture of corruption and coercion in government, as well as the absence of intellectual property protections. They are nevertheless (or rather owing partially to this) very competitive. Anyway, the West doesn't need to respond to the threat of China and others (Korea for instance) by aping the worst aspects of these countries. True economic liberalisation will pose a far more effective and constructive counter.
jlangenauer 12y ago
These are not "something for nothing" services. They are paid for by taxes. And in doing so, these services are generally supplied on a cheaper basis with better social outcomes than the private sector is able to.
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  But from the perspective of the users of these services, they are. With a socialised medical system, you don't pay upfront for your medical treatment. It's paid for from taxes from the whole population - and if your income is low enough, you may consume more resources than you provide towards the system - in which case you are getting something for nothing! The combination of these factors - obfuscation of payment, and disconnection of amount paid/good received - create the perverse incentives causing economic decline seen in the countries pursuing these policies. And the argument about socialised services being more efficient definitely needs a citation.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    If your main concern is cost, then why is it that healthcare per capita (including the taxes being used to pay for it) is lower in these countries than in ones where the people have to foot the bill through privatised mechanisms? If your main concern is cost, empirically socialised systems cost less and generate better results.
    - jasonisalive 12y ago
      I would love to see some citations for these claims.
      - badsock 12y ago
        This is just one of many such charts: http://media.economist.com/images/20090627/CBB677.gif http://media.economist.com/images/20090627/CBB677.gif Unfortunately it's impossible to make a proper comparison since essentially all developed nations except for the USA have adopted some sort of socialized medicine or (i.e. Switzerland) an extremely regulated private system. So USA has essentially been alone in its experiment towards private healthcare. Given that the one system which is much more privatized than the rest has had such poor efficency outcomes I would say that the burden of proof is on anyone who would claim that privatizing even more wouldn't just make the problem worse.
lingoberry 12y ago
Removing social services will not make society more productive. Not having to constantly worry for your life and family works wonders for creativity, productivity and overall happiness. It's not about entitlement, it's about enabling the people to do great things.
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  By that logic we should socialise everything. Sure worked out well for the Soviet Union!
  - badsock 12y ago
    This is nothing more than a straw-man argument. You can't possibly fail to see the difference between a government providing social services on one hand and instituting a Stalinist dictatorship on the other, can you?
rtpg 12y ago
Labor markets would not magically become free markets (in the textbook-definition sense) if there were no regulations. People are forced to work in them, there aren't enough job openings per person to make the work availabilty high enough to make the market fluid, and a single employer can influence the price. I suggest you try reading Econ101 more clearly before citing it to make such dangerous propositions as removing labor regulations.
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  On the contrary, it's you who is confused here. The conditions you're describing - a surplus in supply for a range of market goods (mostly low-skilled human labour) is the result of the continued attempts of Western countries to regulate against free market dynamics. Removing the perverse regulations which caused this imbalance to arise would result in a short, hopefully not too harsh correction, after which supply and demand would again equalise across the range of various market goods in question. It's similar to the situation of a hypothetical (or not so hypothetical really) society which decided to "help out" potato farmers by limiting the price of a kg of potatoes to $10. What would you expect? Potato production would skyrocket as people try and cash in on the boom, while potato buying would plummet as people switch to unregulated alternatives. Imagine this situation continuing on, with more and more vegetables becoming price-controlled, all the while as the mass of unemployed farmers grows and grows (because the system supports people in their failure to be vegetable farmers with unemployment handouts), the conditions of the market become worse and worse, and the further distortionary actions (for example, police crackdowns on blackmarket vegetable sales) required to sustain the whole system become more and more extreme. When someone questions the need for the price restrictions, the average citizen responds: "Vegetable markets would not magically become free markets (in the textbook-definition sense) if there were no regulations. People are forced to grow vegetables, there aren't enough buyers per grower to make the demand high enough to make the market fluid, and a single buyer can influence the price." Of course, this really isn't hypothesis. Citizens of today's socialised, regulated countries are just blind to the destructive consequences which surround them.
  - rtpg 12y ago
tim333 12y ago
> the West's sacred cows will begin to fall: ...blah...minimum labor conditions...free education I think you've got that one backwards. Said cows will spread to China rather than falling. It's not sacred entitlement, just a practical choice of what regulations to pass and what to spend tax receipts on.
eli_gottlieb 12y ago
Your condescension towards everyone else here, based on nothing more than moralizing ideology, does not actually counter the basic facts: social democracy is a very productive and effective system, in ways that neoliberalism (ideological "free market" schemes that somehow always end up forgiving the collusion of businessmen) is not.
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  As I said originally, anyone who questions the prevailing ideology of "social democracy" (if that's what we're calling it) is quickly attacked and shut down these days. The difference between us is that what I propose has never been properly implemented and tested, while social democracy has, extensively. How you could make claims about the relative productivity of these two systems with the vacuum of test data is beyond me. Anyway, I've made my claim, and I stand by it. I'm confident that eventually people will see the merits of it, even if it does take some thinking. In the short term it really doesn't matter if people disagree with me. We'll see how things stand in 50 years or so.
  - badsock 12y ago
    OK, well that answers the question in my other comment. So, given that this theory has never been tested, why are you so confident in it? So confident, in fact, that you imagine everyone else in this thread to be completely ignorant of basic economics, or driven by ideological groupthink?

specialist 12y ago

I've heard a lot of good things about this free market you mention. Can you please provide an example?

jasonisalive 12y ago
If you're really interested, pretty much any Econ 101 textbook, read closely and critically, will get you going. There are various economic schools of thoughts (Classical Liberalism, the Austrian school) with extensive literatures available for further in-depth reading.
- asgard1024 12y ago
  I think he meant a real-world example. You gave him works of fiction. :-)
- badsock 12y ago
  I'd really like it if you'd answer his actual question. My recurring issue with libertarians is that they make very grand claims based on untested, and frankly very simplistic, theory. Real economies have perennially made fools of those who think they operate like simple machines.
  - BugBrother 12y ago
    Without being an economist, I can tell you that the first few general books in most any education are simplified. I discussed economic models years ago with people writing code for them, it was interesting. Subjects based on complex data sets without possibility of experiments are hard to verify for people external to the subject. (Famous other cases are climate science and evolution.) From that, left wing extremists (I don't know anything about your position -- you might argue against "free market", which was the subject here or "libertarians" which you mention?) sometimes write conspiracy theories that all the academics in economy are idiots and/or in a conspiracy. So let us skip this and instead look at practical results: If you have a country with low corruption, competent state administration and a capitalist system you might get a good economic development. Otherwise, you will not.
  - jasonisalive 12y ago
    My recurring issue with whatever you call the sort of person who gets angry and criticises someone like me, is that they never bother to actually go and read with an open and serious mind the vast literature of economic debate available. The sort of literature that makes you realise that a statement like "libertarians make very grand claims based on untested and frankly very simplistic theory" is total, utter bullshit. Like I said, you can start with Econ 101, and work your way up from there. I don't know why they don't just give it a try. It's more fun to be open-minded than think you know everything already. To me it is a shame to see people so stubborn and resistant to thinking differently.
    - badsock 12y ago
      You characterize the people who disagree with you as being both uneducated in economics and closed-minded. Have you considered the possibility that there are those of us who are well versed in economic theory, including those favoured by libertarians, and have come to the conclusion that while they're certainly as plausible as any other competing theory, the proof is in the pudding? Many different economic systems have been tried all across the world and throughout history. Given all of your reading, surely you could point to an example of these theories being tried out in a real economy and succeeding?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 12y ago

The irony of holding communist China up as some sort of free-market paradise...

jasonisalive 12y ago
I never said that at all. The only thing about China that I specified was the widely-agreed upon fact that they are out-competing the West in low-cost manufacturing. China has many problems, not the least a culture of corruption and coercion in government, as well as the absence of intellectual property protections. They are nevertheless (or rather owing partially to this) very competitive. Anyway, the West doesn't need to respond to the threat of China and others (Korea for instance) by aping the worst aspects of these countries. True economic liberalisation will pose a far more effective and constructive counter.

jlangenauer 12y ago

These are not "something for nothing" services. They are paid for by taxes. And in doing so, these services are generally supplied on a cheaper basis with better social outcomes than the private sector is able to.

jasonisalive 12y ago
But from the perspective of the users of these services, they are. With a socialised medical system, you don't pay upfront for your medical treatment. It's paid for from taxes from the whole population - and if your income is low enough, you may consume more resources than you provide towards the system - in which case you are getting something for nothing! The combination of these factors - obfuscation of payment, and disconnection of amount paid/good received - create the perverse incentives causing economic decline seen in the countries pursuing these policies. And the argument about socialised services being more efficient definitely needs a citation.
- rtpg 12y ago
  If your main concern is cost, then why is it that healthcare per capita (including the taxes being used to pay for it) is lower in these countries than in ones where the people have to foot the bill through privatised mechanisms? If your main concern is cost, empirically socialised systems cost less and generate better results.
  - jasonisalive 12y ago
    I would love to see some citations for these claims.
    - badsock 12y ago
      This is just one of many such charts: http://media.economist.com/images/20090627/CBB677.gif http://media.economist.com/images/20090627/CBB677.gif Unfortunately it's impossible to make a proper comparison since essentially all developed nations except for the USA have adopted some sort of socialized medicine or (i.e. Switzerland) an extremely regulated private system. So USA has essentially been alone in its experiment towards private healthcare. Given that the one system which is much more privatized than the rest has had such poor efficency outcomes I would say that the burden of proof is on anyone who would claim that privatizing even more wouldn't just make the problem worse.

lingoberry 12y ago

Removing social services will not make society more productive. Not having to constantly worry for your life and family works wonders for creativity, productivity and overall happiness. It's not about entitlement, it's about enabling the people to do great things.

jasonisalive 12y ago
By that logic we should socialise everything. Sure worked out well for the Soviet Union!
- badsock 12y ago
  This is nothing more than a straw-man argument. You can't possibly fail to see the difference between a government providing social services on one hand and instituting a Stalinist dictatorship on the other, can you?

rtpg 12y ago

Labor markets would not magically become free markets (in the textbook-definition sense) if there were no regulations. People are forced to work in them, there aren't enough job openings per person to make the work availabilty high enough to make the market fluid, and a single employer can influence the price. I suggest you try reading Econ101 more clearly before citing it to make such dangerous propositions as removing labor regulations.

jasonisalive 12y ago
On the contrary, it's you who is confused here. The conditions you're describing - a surplus in supply for a range of market goods (mostly low-skilled human labour) is the result of the continued attempts of Western countries to regulate against free market dynamics. Removing the perverse regulations which caused this imbalance to arise would result in a short, hopefully not too harsh correction, after which supply and demand would again equalise across the range of various market goods in question. It's similar to the situation of a hypothetical (or not so hypothetical really) society which decided to "help out" potato farmers by limiting the price of a kg of potatoes to $10. What would you expect? Potato production would skyrocket as people try and cash in on the boom, while potato buying would plummet as people switch to unregulated alternatives. Imagine this situation continuing on, with more and more vegetables becoming price-controlled, all the while as the mass of unemployed farmers grows and grows (because the system supports people in their failure to be vegetable farmers with unemployment handouts), the conditions of the market become worse and worse, and the further distortionary actions (for example, police crackdowns on blackmarket vegetable sales) required to sustain the whole system become more and more extreme. When someone questions the need for the price restrictions, the average citizen responds: "Vegetable markets would not magically become free markets (in the textbook-definition sense) if there were no regulations. People are forced to grow vegetables, there aren't enough buyers per grower to make the demand high enough to make the market fluid, and a single buyer can influence the price." Of course, this really isn't hypothesis. Citizens of today's socialised, regulated countries are just blind to the destructive consequences which surround them.
- rtpg 12y ago

tim333 12y ago

> the West's sacred cows will begin to fall: ...blah...minimum labor conditions...free education I think you've got that one backwards. Said cows will spread to China rather than falling. It's not sacred entitlement, just a practical choice of what regulations to pass and what to spend tax receipts on.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

Your condescension towards everyone else here, based on nothing more than moralizing ideology, does not actually counter the basic facts: social democracy is a very productive and effective system, in ways that neoliberalism (ideological "free market" schemes that somehow always end up forgiving the collusion of businessmen) is not.

jasonisalive 12y ago
As I said originally, anyone who questions the prevailing ideology of "social democracy" (if that's what we're calling it) is quickly attacked and shut down these days. The difference between us is that what I propose has never been properly implemented and tested, while social democracy has, extensively. How you could make claims about the relative productivity of these two systems with the vacuum of test data is beyond me. Anyway, I've made my claim, and I stand by it. I'm confident that eventually people will see the merits of it, even if it does take some thinking. In the short term it really doesn't matter if people disagree with me. We'll see how things stand in 50 years or so.
- badsock 12y ago
  OK, well that answers the question in my other comment. So, given that this theory has never been tested, why are you so confident in it? So confident, in fact, that you imagine everyone else in this thread to be completely ignorant of basic economics, or driven by ideological groupthink?