From: Suresh Naidu (snaidu@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca)
Date: Wed Nov 06 1996 - 06:28:28 MST
On Tue, 5 Nov 1996, Ian Goddard wrote:
>
> IAN: Govt regulations and taxes raise the price of consumer goods,
> while laissez-faire competition lowers it. Yet, while you support
> the former you condemn the latter for the effects of the former.
> Illogical.
Okay. Government regulation is "trying" to keep the businesses from
hurting the public. I think things like environmental regulations and
health safety standards try, at least, to help the consumer. If there
weren't any such regulations, companies could easily get away with doing
dumping and selling hazardous products. Which they would. Companies are
adept enough at manipulating media that they can paint a benevolent image
of themselves with one hand and hurt people with the other. Nestle, for
example.
Businesses are subsidized more than taxed. During Reagan's "regime", they
had a large tax cut for businesses, but the poor were still worse off than
before.
>
> > Look at a company like Shell. They give us nice products like oil, right?
> > They get it at the expense of people who can't afford to buy any of it.
> > THe Ogoni in Nigeria. Yet, because they have our economic support, they
> > don't need anybody else's.
>
> IAN: Africa has followed socialism far far more than laissez
> faire, yet you condemn laissez faire for the problems there.
I can't thik of a single socialist government in Africa, especially not
Nigeria. Nigeria is a fine capitalism, regardless of the military regime.
>
> IAN: Your claim that decentralization leads to centralization
> (therefore we need centralization to prevent decentralization)
> has no basis in fact. It is regulations and taxation that reduce
> the number of business, not the opposite. Learn about Hong Kong.
You cannot decentralize the government aspect of things without giving
free reign to the business side of things. If you're going to have a free
market, you're going to need a government to keep the private interests in
check. Unless you reduce both drastically, they are both neccessary.
Giving one preference is invitation to totalitarianism. Power is
centralized both on the market side and on the government side. GIving one
control over the other doesn't help much.
>
> > Socialism does not imply totalitarianism. It's completely different.
>
> IAN: Socialism = universal social debt = totalitarianism.
>
That's an excellent blanket statement, but not much logic behind it. I
don't see many socialist democracies having a much oppression.
> > Batista, Duvalier, Suharto, and Duarte all ran with capitalism, and yet
> > they were, (still are in the case of Suharto), completely totalitarian.
> > This is because the government was run for and by the private interests.
> > Which is what I think happens with laissez faire.
>
> IAN: Laissez faire means "leave alone."
> A totalitarian govt is by definition not laissez faire.
They left the economy alone, which I think means laissez-faire in the
traditional sense. In fact, most of these geographic areas that are
considered "good investing", have a history of human rights violations.
A bank teller tried to convince me to put my money in Latin America or
South East Asia, two areas that haven't had the best track records for
freedom.
Funny, huh.
>
> > I live in Canada, which is a fairly good liberal socialism. I agree with
> > Banjo that capitalism needs a bit of government in order to keep it from
> > running amuck. ... i think we need to get a strong populist government.
>
> IAN: Well at least you've dropped the anarchist pretense.
>
If you're going to have capitalism, you're going to have government. I
still say we drop both of them.
>
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