Should Government be more or less?

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And who is to define slack-jawed yokels? Who is to define education? Having a college or university degree does not make one educated. Especially in this day and age of specialization. And no matter how smart you are or how 'well educated' you think you are there is some one out there smarter and better educated.

Lawyers? If we didn't have them we would invent them but that doesn't mean I want them to have the final say as to what is best for me.

Also, please remember that we who live in the Federal Union of the United States of America live in a very large country with multi-layers of government. I am reasonably happy with my local government; semi-happy with my state government and not at all happy with my Federal government.

Government is necessary but must be limited or we cease to be a democratic republic. A dictatorship by any other name is still a dictatorship.

 

I have a couple of major problem with the minimized government ideal.

Firstly and most importantly. Born poor. Die poor. No chance of rising from poverty. No bank is going to loan to you since you have nothing to back it up, you have no education and will be forced to work on the abysmal market-prized minimum wage that will be lower than the current one. When you get sick you'll be even worse, no free healthcare and I think all of us know how much healthcare costs if you're paying it from your own pocket. The result would be a whole new class of poverty which I don't want to see in my country, not now not ever.

Secondly, an unregulated market requires everyone to have perfect information about everything. If I buy a can of beer I have not the slightest idea what kind of enviormental damage the production of that can caused and that's why there are government institutions such as that research the sort of things, and then the elected officials on basis of that research set the standards.

Thirdly, I can't help but think that a minimized government means a weak government and a weak government may have significant trouble in keeping other entities from taking its place, or enforcing the rules of the society.

I think the purpose of the government is to enable a good life for the majority its citizen. A large intrusive government will make the citizen fearful and limits their freedom and can't provide them a good life. A minimized government lacks all stabilizers between social classes and fails to provide them with proper security.

So in the end it's all about finding the golden middle road. The closer to the center the better in my opinion. Therefore I vote for "medium-sized government".

To put it into perspective I think Finland is doing quite well, we're perhaps a bit too far in the "big-government" direction but we are moving away from it right now. Hopefully the transition won't take us too far from the middle though.

 

Okay, first off - sorry but I can't fight the compulsion: ...more or less what?

Secondly, I agree with a lot of what Morogoth has said - the 'golden mean' of government; just enough to accomplish what it should, but not so much that it starts think up less benevolent things to occupy its idle time with...

Seriously, if one objects to 'big government', where does one draw the line - how much smaller does the government have to get to be okay? I'm guessing that line differs for every citizen of the government in question.

Hey, I'm the jaded one, here - quit muscling in on my turf!

But I'd take issue with the UNIVERSAL nature of your statements; altruists do exist (they're way too rare, but not extinct). I'd be a lot more accepting (and in agreement) if there were a few 'almost's or 'nearly always's in there...
(wow, it feels so WEIRD to argue against cynicism!)

 

What the 'minimize government' types forget is that

So in point of fact what they're advocating is transfering as much power as possible from those who are theoretically (though, to be sure, not even close to always--in practice) and legally accountable to the general public to those whose sole legal responsibility is to maximize their own power, in the form of profits.

Which strikes me as a rather poor idea. Everything from dumping pollutants into rivers to sweatshops to the industrial revolution should illustrate why it is a poor idea.

Before anyone starts bringing up the USSR, let me make it clear that I'm closer to Morg's view than Lenin's view.

 

Yes. But that's not all it is. Your statement is in no way incompatible with the notion that money is power.

False dichotomy. The choice is not between sweatshops and no products.

Frankly, if you can't run a profitable business without using sweatshops, you're not a very good businessman, and your business must be massively inefficient.

Period.

Strawman. I don't think industrialization is a bad idea. I think the way it was accomplished (and in many cases is being accomplished) was.

 

What exactly is an industrialist? A person who builds a car? or the internet? Or someone at the top of the corporate ladder, who controls the assets of a company? Corporate fat cats are probably the most useless people in society. But I would not consider them to be "industrialists." I'm not sure what is meant by that particular term. Most jobs, goods and services are not created by "industrialists" anyway, but by the free market. Individuals have very little to do with the process by themselves.

 

The praise for the 'industrialist' sounds very much like Ayn Rand to me. I don't find her industrialist model all that persuasive, in fact, it seems to me somewhat myopic.

I find it amusing that Rand's terminology is inspired by socialist terminology, she seems to see the 'industrialist' as a class. The 'industrialists' couldn't rain all these blessings on the benighted masses wouldn't it be for taxpayer provided infrastructure, taxpayer provided education for their work-force-to-be, the state's system or laws and courts that guarantees property rights and effective legal protection and so forth.
For all that industrialists pay taxes, or ought to. If they don't they are parasites, freeloaders, taking advantage of all these blessings, without paying their part of the bill. The presumed 'blessings for society' alone don't suffice.

Besides, Japan's MITI doesn't fit this explanatory model. They have it the other way around. Without their guidance Japans industrialists wouldn't have so successfully developed high technology. It also overlooks the extent to which US taxpayer funded technology research for instance, benefits the industry and enables later profit. We wouldn't have the internet today without DARPA defense research, that is, massive hidden subsidies for the US industry channeled through the defense budged. The industrialist class doesn't exist free floating and on its own. To assume that anyway, leads to a warped perception and distorted conclusions on the issue.

In my reading Ayn Rand's vision of this 'class', so villified in the revolutionary Russia of her young adulthood, resulted in her her to go to the opposite extreme, praising the industrialist to the heavens, and missing the point as well. She's in that sense, quite literally an anti-communist.

 

She also had an odd view of history, as illustrated by her speech to a West Point graduating class in which she claimed that America had never engaged in a war of conquest. And that America hadn't profited from WWII.

Evidently, the thirteen colonies became fifty states because the injuns (and Mexico) A) gave the USA land and B) courteously vanished into the ether. And apparently that America became a global hegemon in the immediate aftermath of WWII was entirely unrelated to the war. I suppose God chose to uplift us, or something.

 

AMaster,
reminds me of something I read retired head of the DIA, Col. Patrick Lang, say about Zalmay Khalilzad - in the Bush Sr. administration assistant deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, working for Paul Wolfowitz, ex special envoy to Afghanistan, ex ambassador to Iraq and now US ambassador to the US.

Khalilzad had then drafted a policy statement that essentially said that the United States should use its power to benevolently dominate the world, and not hang back from use of force if necessary. Lang disagreed, and at some point Khalilzad got more and more angry with Lang and finally yelled, "The problem with you native Americans, is that you don't understand your responsibility in the use of power."

Maybe it is a pattern that immigrants to the US tend to out-patriot and out-idealise even the staunchest flagwaver? That would well explain Rand's enthusiastic view of America.

 

That money can be inherited suggests that it doesn't have to be earned.

As for the 'evil' and 'suppress others' bits, well, no, of course it isn't; power isn't intrinsically good or evil. But then, I've never claimed it was. Nor have I mentioned 'evil indsutrialists', or anything of the sort. If I give the impression I am railing against such things, it is not through intent.

At any rate, may I request a yes/no answer to the following: is money power?

If the answer is 'no', may I further request that you explain your reasoning?

Even if one were to accept the notion that the sweatshop went away because more profitable methods were found, that still leaves entire generations of laborers screwed over by the abuses associated with the IR.

I simply will not accept any ideology which claims that, for the lot of the human race to be improved, entire generations must not only not benefit from the improvement, but be worse off than they would have been without 'progress'.

I simply will not be persuaded that such things were--or are--necessary. Or desirable.

A variation on 'those who can, do, those who can't, teach'. Like the phrase it is derived from, it is nonsense--though, it must be admitted, amusing.

 

Monty, that's all quite theoretic and abstract. There is generally a big difference in leverage between workers and employers, and employers exercise that to their benefit. Of course, employees can also use their leverage when they want to see their special skill reflected in their salary. But that is an idealised picture.

From my own experience I can say that many workers to choose between reliably guarantees a very poor working environment, lower wages, exploitation and low job security. And that isn't a result of government regulation but of the general job situation. People who need to pay their bills can't afford being too picky; likely they are not inclined to take risks. Now you can say that the disgruntled employees should quit and seek a better paid, decent job. That's what I did. But in times of prevalent unemployment that is still a very pious thing to say.

My former employer made a point of paying his employees two weeks late or so. As a veteran I had to reassure my complaining colleagues that everything was going the regular way, which in a sense was the case. Month by month. Participating in stonewalling my colleagues underlined to me that there is no equal weight or equal chances in the relation between employer and employee, starting at the core with access to information. Among my former colleagues the movie 'Glenngary Glenn Ross' had cult status. I suggest you go watch it.

I am familiar with the intricancies of offloading the entrepreneurial risk on the employees under the rubric of 'performance related pay'. I had some limited insight into the reports of the project I worked at. Whenever our pay schemes for the sellers were changed 'to better reward the successful sellers' our company was able to cut costs, profits went up, and the sellers earned a little less. The pay schemes were designed to be intransparent. I learned a lot about new-speak when I went there.

My ex-bosses attitude was 'It's my company, my money, and I handle things the way I like'. Nothing wrong with that, basically.
Except that compliance with the law isn't voluntary. On every memo sent downwards I made a habit to circle in red those items that were invalid because they were in conflict with work law. The funniest thing I encountered was a memo that amounted to a one sided change of the contract for all employees. I have it as a memento at the wall of my study. And I always thought a change in basics like payment requires a new contract between employer and employee. Speak about essentialia negotii. My ex-boss apparently felt that there is nothing wrong with that. It took a frenzied effort by a near hysterical company lawyer to talk him out of it. It was hilarious.

What I want to say with my lengthy rant is that when you have worked in such a Versalife-like place you start to appreciate the value of government regulation.

The market settles everything? So does death. That doesn't mean the eventual resolution is a desirable one. I concede that those who keep the economy running are indispensable. That is no justification to give them a blanc cheque. How did Errol Flynn say as iirc Sindbad? 'Trust in Allah, but tether your mare!'

The faith in the market deserves as much scepticism.

[ June 11, 2007, 18:25: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Monty, again: please explain your reasoning.

I'm genuinely interested in it.

Structural coercion. They couldn't farm, because most/all suitable land was privatized, and the land owners had no interest in enabling people to engage in subsistence farming on their land. They could try squatting, but then they're tresspassing and get thrown in prison.

They can't not work, because then they starve. So they work.

So, yes, the government aided and abetted capital, in that the government privatized land and enforced property laws.

The government also aided capital vs. strikes, but that wouldn't have been relevant had the prior condition of 'can't subsistence farm' not been met.

Can't, eh? Interesting assumption.

At any rate, I disagree.

 

Any business which operates and is maintained in a given society is bound by the principles and laws of that society and government. If "business" wishes to profit from the workers and customers within society, then it too must also be a part of, and accept the principles, which also in a good many instances, allowed it to be "successful" in the first place. Every business is told "how to run," by both the Rule of Law, and obviously, the customers and workers within the economic market. No one "owns" the economy, just as no one "owns" the internet (except Al Gore of course). Yet everyone is a vital part of it, without whom the process could not function.

 

Ok, there are a number of elephants in the room that are being ignored here. First off, a governmental structure that works in a nation the size of your average European country will not suffice in a nation the size of the US or Russia. This would be the equivalently of wiping out the national governments of all the nations of the EU and having local gov't report directly to the EU. There is a reason that the Founding Fathers of this country set up a weak Federal Gov't and strong State gov't. The problem isn't that gov't has been growing, it is that FEDERAL gov't has been growing. Again, beating the dead horse, but once the States lost representation in the Federal gov't (17th Amendment) we lost a major check that kept the Federal Gov't from usurping power.

Second, in regards to the labor issue, Gov't is not (IMO) as effective or as efficient as organized labor (unions) at protecting workers rights. Gov't should have no more oversight than to make sure that workers are not recklessly endangered (OSHA type thing, though this has gotten insane as well). Issues such as compensation and benefits should be negotiated between employers and employees.

Finally, universal health care (UHC). Honestly, it won't work, and if it is passed people will be complaining about how it sucks and longing for the days before it happened with 5 years of its implementation. UHC is, from a political view, nothing more than a way to make people more dependent upon gov't. Sure people are in favor of it, the current system is breaking down, and it sounds great...I mean how can you not support every one getting great health care. Problem is that the current levels of service simply cannot be maintained if they are extended to everyone, and quality will erode. The sad thing is that most politicians are in favor of this as it empowers them, and other valid ideas that could fix the problem aren't even examined, and are actually squashed, as they have no benefit to politicians.

That is all I have time for now, and probably most of you have stopped reading by now anyway.

 

I pretty much agree with you on about the two first issues but disagree about the universal healthcare. It really does not has to be accomplished purely through government means, it can also be done with large participation by the private sector which is partially subsidized by the government. Universal Healthcare means just that the government provides for those who can't afford an insurance. This is not in my opinion something that is impossible to accomplish, it's all about political will.