From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Wed Nov 06 1996 - 16:13:50 MST
Suresh Naidu wrote:
>
> 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.
And government is the master at media manipulation. THey don't promise
they'll clean it up, they just want to LOOK like they are advocating
regulation that have the apparent purpose of makeing someone else clean
things up, when the reason things were dumped before was because
government gave them tax breaks to invest in certain industries, then
refused to build the waste disposal facilities that the businesses
needed to get rid of the waste. Sotring it was an OSHA health hazard, so
they had to get rid of it somewhere. Where they put is was not the
governments responsibility, so long as they didn't dump any where IN MY
BACKYARD.
>
> 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.
Excuse me, but income taxes have gone down, and anyone in the US who
makes less than 20,000 dollars a year pays no net taxes at all, on
average. Business taxes have gone up, especially on small businesses,
typically owned by a husband and wife, employing less than 50 people.
Big monopolistic, non-laissez faire corporations get all the tax breaks.
>
> >
> > > 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.
You are obviously blind. Try Ethiopia, Botswana, Angola just to name a
few off the top of my head. Due to the long history of tribal tradition,
paternalistic, socialist regiemes experience high popularity.
>
> >
> > 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.
Thats exactly right. Giving one exclusive power in ANY case is bad. I
would say that one of the very few things government might be good for
is enforcing anti trust regulations. Read Vinge's "Conquest by Default"
to understand my meaning.
>
> >
> > > 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.
Officially, no. Instead, dissidents are branded as lunatics. If you
conception of reality does not concord with the official majority
concept of reality, them you must be insane (that is the accepted
definition of insanity). So consequently, you get "socialized", or
"helped", or "reeducated" or simply drugged and electroshocked "for your
own good". See our way is so fine and good that you must agree that we
are helping you get along. You do want to get along don't you..... Here
in the US, one is not "politically correct", or is a sexist, racist,
homophobe, "capitalist" (as if thats a bad thing), or baby seal killer,
even though one is not any of those things.
>
> > > 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.
Capitalism promoted and developed with government support and
enforcement is 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.
yeah funny like: Cuba, Sandinista Nicaragua, Totalitarian El Salvador,
Guatamala, and Chile. None of which are ( or were in the case of
Nicaragua), laissez faire economies
>
> >
> > > 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.
> >
Canada has probably had the best opportunity to offer its citizens the
promise of bread and circuses of any nation in history. Since the US
basically paid for the majority of its defense for the last 50 years,
and benefits from the same maquiladoro type border economy as Mexico's
border states, they have been basically able to write a blank check so
long as their trade balance with the US has been positive. However, now
that trade protections are down, and the baby boom is starting to
retire, it has had to enforce a bit of fiscal sanity in order to keep
from bankrupting itself. I think this is good, in s pite of the short
term suffering. Dont' get me wrong, a girlfriend of mine who lives in
Ontario is not very happy with a Masters in Environmental Science and
unable to get a job, so I'm not an insensitive slob, but over the long
run, its a good thing.
>
> If you're going to have capitalism, you're going to have government. I
> still say we drop both of them.
>
> >
What then? How are people going to live? Is everyone going to have their
own farm, their own factory that makes everything, and their own power
plant? Granted, if (and thats still a big IF) nanotechnology fufills
its sci-fi promise, then we can each have all those things, and the only
two bases for trade will be information and relationships/entertainment,
but that still requires free trade )i.e. laissez faire capitalism to
work for maximum benefit for all, but that is still at a very minimum
20-50 years down the road. Don't hold your breath.
Mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:35:49 MST