From: Stathis Papaioannou (stathisp@gmail.com)
Date: Fri Apr 18 2008 - 19:25:30 MDT
On 19/04/2008, Byrne Hobart <bhobart@gmail.com> wrote:
> Those European countries have extremely slow growth and high unemployment
If that were so, then over decades they would become a lot poorer than
countries with freer economic systems. That obviously hasn't happened.
> despite lots of human capital -- well-educated workforces that have, in the
> past, been able to accomplish a hell of a lot.
Well, this is the point. Unfettered capitalism does not necessarily
build human capital. If it did what would be the point in taxing
people to provide free education and so on?
> I really don't think that the
> people who created the Great Exhibition dreamed that, many years later, the
> highest accomplishment their ancestors could boast of was that they paid
> for healthcare through taxes rather than insurance or private transactions.
The point of a public health system is not that it is paid for by
taxes but that it efficiently provides excellent health care for all
the country's citizens, and there would only be a handful of
achievements that are as important as that.
-- Stathis Papaioannou
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