# Can we have a polite discussion about poverty, government, and free markets? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 10, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339 "2012-09-10T22:02:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/61 "2012-09-12T15:14:41Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > You really have a poor opinion of the intelligence level of the middle class and poor. You don’t think that they are able to absorb information from all sides and then make a decision? That they are apt to fall for “finger waggling”? > > Nice. That doesn’t even resemble the comment you quoted. Talk about a straw man, holy shit. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/62 "2012-09-12T15:22:13Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > First of all, according to the Wikipedia page that you linked to, the United States is tied for third in the Human Development Index worldwide, trailing only Australia and Norway. You may have been looking at the numbers for the inequality adjusted HDI, in which the USA is number 23–still vastly above the world average. You’ll see that my link does indeed point to the inequality adjust HDI. > [@](#): > > As for the notion that “Canadians, French, English, Norweigians, Danes, Dutch, [and] Icelanders” live better lives than us because of “strong government regulation”, much of the data points the other way. For instance, on the Index of Economic Freedom, we see that Denmark gets scores of 99.1, 92.1, and 80.7 on business, labor, and monetary freedom. The United States gets scores of 91.1, 95.8, and 77.2. All told, Denmark has more freedom than the United States in seven out of ten categories. Likewise for Australia, the UK, Canada, and many others that rank high on the HDI and IHDI: they all beat the USA is many categories. Even Norway is ahead of or only slightly behind the USA in most of the categories of economic freedom. I think I’m missing the point of the Economic Freedom Index, then. Earlier, you seemed to be arguing that government economic regulations lowered a country’s Economic Freedom Index, yet now you’re giving examples of places with higher taxes, socialized medicine, and more government regulation of the economy ending up higher on the Index. If your argument is indeed that higher taxes, socialized medicine, and strict regulation of the economy lead to a better society, then I withdraw all of my objections and humbly apologize for the misunderstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/63 "2012-09-12T15:28:42Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > That doesn’t even resemble the comment you quoted. Talk about a straw man, holy shit. Isn’t that the implication there? The claim that the wealthy people control media to brainwash people by fear to vote against their best interest directly implies that those being brainwashed are unable to find any other media to study, cannot recognize when they’re being fooled/controlled, and can be tricked into thinking that things are not in their best interest. If nothing else, Evil Captor has a very low opinion of the critical thinking skills of the poor and middle class. I worry a lot about statements like his - there is a propensity in modern American political discourse that the other side doesn’t just disagree, but it’s that they’ve been fooled/are idiots. It happens on both sides, and it’s troubling because it shuts down any kind of debate on ideas - ideas often become solutions, and shutting that down leaves us just running in place. Just something I’d thought I’d point out in a debate where the OP asked for “polite discussion”. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/64 "2012-09-12T15:52:27Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Holy crap, arguing semantics is so friggin’ pointless. It’s got a point. The point is to wear down your opponent - ideally by undermining his argument, but if nothing else, to exhaust him mentally and emotionally. If you can’t win on your merits, you can always “win” by forfeit. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/65 "2012-09-12T16:56:54Z")
**ITR** , what led you to believe there is hardly any poverty in Hong Kong? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/66 "2012-09-12T17:33:15Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > **ITR** , what led you to believe there is hardly any poverty in Hong Kong? They bulldozed Kowloon Walled City, obviously there can’t be any destitutes left, QED ! 🙂 Oh, [wait](http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/07/25/hongkong.coffin.homes/index.html). ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/67 "2012-09-12T18:17:58Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > The claim that the wealthy people control media to brainwash people by fear to vote against their best interest directly implies that those being brainwashed are unable to find any other media to study, cannot recognize when they’re being fooled/controlled, and can be tricked into thinking that things are not in their best interest. > > If nothing else, Evil Captor has a very low opinion of the critical thinking skills of the poor and middle class. In addition, **Evil Captor’s** explanation of why Republicans choose to vote Republican is just plain wrong. Republicans are much more likely to rank the economy as an important issue than abortion or gay marriage, and also more likely than Democrats to rank the economy as important. ([Cite](http://www.people-press.org/2012/04/17/section-2-issues-of-the-2012-campaign/)) Further, if there’s any evidence that the poor and middle class are more likely to vote based on abortion and gay marriage, he certainly hasn’t shown it to us. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/68 "2012-09-12T18:20:19Z")
The [Gini coefficient](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient) also seems to correlate with national prosperity, the poorest countries having the most income inequality. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/69 "2012-09-12T19:47:53Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > You’ll see that my link does indeed point to the inequality adjust HDI. In post #54, you said, “When you take a look at the Human Development Index, though, you find places with much more reasonable economic policy in the top.” I looked at the Human Development Index and found the United States to be third from the top. > [@](#): > > I think I’m missing the point of the Economic Freedom Index, then. Earlier, you seemed to be arguing that government economic regulations lowered a country’s Economic Freedom Index, yet now you’re giving examples of places with higher taxes, socialized medicine, and more government regulation of the economy ending up higher on the Index. > > If your argument is indeed that higher taxes, socialized medicine, and strict regulation of the economy lead to a better society, then I withdraw all of my objections and humbly apologize for the misunderstanding. Let me explain. You seem to assume that the United States is a land of uniquely low taxes, unsocialized medicine, and lack of regulation, while all of the countries with Europe as well as Canada and others ranked high on the HCI and IHCI have, by comparison, high taxes, socialized medicine, and strong regulation of the economy. I don’t blame you for believing this. That’s the narrative that you generally hear from the media. But it’s not true. Let’s look at taxes first. There are many taxes in the US and many in other countries, and many ways to measure tax burden. In corporate taxes, for instance, the USA has [one of the world’s _highest_ rates](http://businessroundtable.org/uploads/studies-reports/downloads/Effective_Tax_Rate_Study.pdf), not one of the world’s lowest. In personal income taxes, American taxpayers may pay less than those in many European countries, but when averaged out it’s hardly a huge advantage for Americans. Socialized medicine? As we all know, the United States has long had a socialized health care system for the poor (called Medicaid), and for the old (Medicare), and in certain states (one is commonly called Romneycare), and for government employees and pensioners, and so forth. Even before PPACA, the government covered [about half](http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/is-the-administration-cooking-the-books-on-govts-share-of-health-spending/) of all health care expenses. There is no country in Europe or anywhere in the free world where the government covers all health care expenses. Wherever people are free, they demand some ability to make their own health care choices and spend money on them. In many European countries the percentage of health care spending controlled by government is well below 60%, barely higher than the USA’s. Government regulation? A wide field, but the Heritage Foundation listings make the best attempt to objectively measure the amount of regulation. The numbers show that Europe is not vastly more regulated than America. Many European countries equal or slightly lead the United States when it comes to freedom from regulation. As I showed in my opening post, government regulation has soared in the US over the past few years by several measures. If strong government regulation helps the poor, then the poor in the USA should be doing excellently right now. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/70 "2012-09-12T20:51:48Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > If nothing else, Evil Captor has a very low opinion of the critical thinking skills of the poor and middle class. Forget about class distinctions. AFAICT, critical thinking skills are seriously lacking in something like 90% of the population. My cite is a few years of teaching critical thinking at the college level. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/71 "2012-09-12T21:25:52Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > In post #54, you said, “When you take a look at the Human Development Index, though, you find places with much more reasonable economic policy in the top.” I looked at the Human Development Index and found the United States to be third from the top. > Let me explain. You seem to assume that the United States is a land of uniquely low taxes, unsocialized medicine, and lack of regulation, while all of the countries with Europe as well as Canada and others ranked high on the HCI and IHCI have, by comparison, high taxes, socialized medicine, and strong regulation of the economy. I don’t blame you for believing this. That’s the narrative that you generally hear from the media. But it’s not true. The narrative you are proposing is that the United States is about as socialist as Europe and Canada, which is absurd. > [@](#): > > Let’s look at taxes first. There are many taxes in the US and many in other countries, and many ways to measure tax burden. In corporate taxes, for instance, the USA has [one of the world’s _highest_ rates](http://businessroundtable.org/uploads/studies-reports/downloads/Effective_Tax_Rate_Study.pdf), not one of the world’s lowest. On paper. In reality, corporations don’t pay [anywhere near](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/corporate-tax-rates-mitt-romney_n_1875086.html?utm_hp_ref=business#slide=1504904) the paper rate. American corporations pay less actual tax than most of their European counterparts, despite the high rate advertised by the tax code. Nobody _actually_ pays that. America protects its corporations quite nicely. > [@](#): > > In personal income taxes, American taxpayers may pay less than those in many European countries, but when averaged out it’s hardly a huge advantage for Americans. Correct. We pay a lower personal tax rate, and in exchange we pay more for health care, get worse health services for it, have lower wages, higher productivity, longer hours, and fewer vacations. > [@](#): > > Socialized medicine? As we all know, the United States has long had a socialized health care system for the poor (called Medicaid), and for the old (Medicare), and in certain states (one is commonly called Romneycare), and for government employees and pensioners, and so forth. Even before PPACA, the government covered [about half](http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/is-the-administration-cooking-the-books-on-govts-share-of-health-spending/) of all health care expenses. There is no country in Europe or anywhere in the free world where the government covers all health care expenses. Wherever people are free, they demand some ability to make their own health care choices and spend money on them. In many European countries the percentage of health care spending controlled by government is well below 60%, barely higher than the USA’s. You are arguing that America’s health care system is as socialized as Europe’s. You are wrong. There are 91 million people covered by government health insurance like medicare, or state initiatives like Romneycare, which turns out to be [about 30% of the population](http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/27/politics/btn-health-care/index.html). In virtually all of the places with a higher inequality adjusted Human Development Index, the government ensures universal health coverage. In America, 16% of the population has no insurance at all. 60% of the personal bankruptcies in America are [caused by medical bills](http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/health/bankruptcy.medical.bills_1_medical-bills-bankruptcies-health-insurance?_s=PM:HEALTH), and most of those people HAD INSURANCE when they got sick! You’re absolutely out of your mind to suggest the USA has a health care distribution system anywhere nearly as progressive and socialized as our peers. You are misleading in the extreme when you say “There is no country in Europe or anywhere in the free world where the government covers all health care expenses.” You are trying to imply with this statement that there is no government in the world which guarantees a reasonable standard of health care at no personal cost, to all of its citizens. You used weasel words to argue that socialized medicine isn’t _really_ socialized medicine, but it doesn’t fool anyone. A more honest way to phrase that information would have been to say, “There is no country in the world in which a particularly rich person is not permitted to spend his own money for medical treatment beyond what the government guarantees.” Yes, we know that even in Canada, a very rich person can hire a private doctor to live in his guest house and be available for private medical consultation at any time. That doesn’t mean Canada’s health care distribution system isn’t _actually_ socialized, as you dishonestly implied. Also, \*which \*European countries have a percentage of all health care costs which are controlled by the government similar to the figures for the USA? Europe’s a diverse place, and it would be important to know whether you’re talking about Belarus or Norway when you make that claim. > [@](#): > > Government regulation? A wide field, but the Heritage Foundation listings make the best attempt to objectively measure the amount of regulation. The numbers show that Europe is not vastly more regulated than America. Many European countries equal or slightly lead the United States when it comes to freedom from regulation. As I showed in my opening post, government regulation has soared in the US over the past few years by several measures. If strong government regulation helps the poor, then the poor in the USA should be doing excellently right now. I’m willing to concede this point. I don’t actually know whether American economic regulations are out of line when compared to nations with a higher inequality adjusted HDI. What I do know is that in places where people have better lives than Americans do, wealth disparity tends to be much smaller. ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/72 "2012-09-12T21:51:14Z")
The United States was already the economic leader in 1900 and 1913. Before the world wars. Liberals lie but the facts don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/73 "2012-09-12T21:53:47Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > This thread is intended as a response to comments like [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=660803), in which a poster simply knows that some conservatives hate and fear poor people and are determined to oppress them. Of course that comment is far from unique. It’s quite predictable on this board and elsewhere that when anyone posts a defense of free markets and capitalism, certain posters will pile on and insist that it’s merely a defense of the rich–see the first few responses in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=663231), for instance. One of the names that comes up most frequently in articles attacking conservative economic freedom is Milton Friedman, who supposedly provided the intellectual basis for the rich to become entirely selfish and greedy while ignoring any concerns of the poor. > > In reality, anyone who’s read Milton Friedman’s books knows that he was passionately concerned about the poor, and most of his time was dedicated to activism for the poor. There is a common belief–and it was much more common a few decades ago–that more government redistribution and regulation of economic activity will help the poor, while unfettered free markets would hurt them. Friedman believed the exact opposite; he thought that government redistribution and regulation hurt the poor as well as the middle class, and benefited primarily the upper tiers of society. > > Friedman wrote _[Free to Choose](http://books.google.com/books?id=F5z1B5SwGUEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Free+to+Choose&source=bl&ots=SK9SxnyrkK&sig=UolUBw8GY1isHPuvlE5b04Hg-6c&hl=en&sa=X&ei=oU9OUJPoC-Ha0QGPwIGIBA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Free%20to%20Choose&f=false)_ in 1979, when a few hard-core folks still insisted that communism was the path to help to poor escape the horrors of capitalism. Friedman pointed out the obvious: compare the plight of the poor in the Soviet Union vs. western Europe, or in China vs. Hong Kong, or in North Korea vs. South Korea, or in any communist country vs. any capitalist country. It was plain which system was better for the poor and for everyone else. OF course some will reply by acknowledging that command economies have failed but that a free market economy governed by a high level of regulation is the key to helping the poor. In response, Friedman offered the test case of India, which had an enormous government bureaucracy, heavy regulation of every imaginable industry and business, and a sky-high corporate tax rate. Needless to say, India was synonymous with grinding, third-world poverty. By contrast Japan, which had been burned to the ground in WWII, gave its citizens more economic freedom than almost any other country and became quite wealthy, with no one living in extreme poverty. > > The reason why so many Indians lived in grinding poverty then was not hard to find, nor is the reason why, despite some economic progress, most of them still do. (Over half live on less than $2 per day.) As explained [in this article](http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/17/the) by Shikha Dalmia, doing anything in India means overcoming an army of bureaucrats. Starting a business, creating a new product, or even leaving and re-entering the country can mean getting permits from dozens of agencies and offices and boards. In practice this means that starting a business requires paying dozens of bribes, which poor people can’t afford to do. Hence poor people can’t start businesses and they remain poor. On the other hand, the system is quite good for the bureaucrats, who are much richer than the average Indian. It’s also good for any wealthy corporation that wants to exploit the poor for cheap labor. India’s government is a giant machine that transfers wealth upwards to those who are already wealthy while ensuring that the poor remain poor. > > And today, more than three decades after Friedman wrote that book, how are the heavily regulated countries doing against the free ones? The Heritage Foundation’s [Index of Economic Freedom](http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking) ranks nations by the freedom from regulation, corruption, and government spending that their people enjoy. [This page provides data on poverty levels worldwide.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentage_of_population_living_in_poverty) Even a cursory analysis shows that the nations ranked highest for economic freedom all have very low poverty rates, while those with the lowest economic freedom rankings tend to have high poverty rates. (For some there’s no data available.) Comparisons within regions point the same way. Chile and Uruguay have the most economic freedom of any countries in South America, and the smallest percentage of the population living beneath $1 or $2 per day. I doubt it’s a coincidence that the countries in Europe with the best economies, such as Germany, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, have high rankings on economic freedom, while Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy are further down the chart. > > Everywhere we look these days we see an article about rising economic inequality in the United States, and often the author simply assumes that deregulation and shrinking government must be at fault. In fact, government regulation has increased quite a bit over the past few decades ([cite](http://mercatus.org/publication/phenomenon-midnight-regulations), [cite](http://mercatus.org/publication/regulators-budget-report)). Given [the steady, upward march](http://galens.typepad.com/galens-log/2009/04/social-insecurity.html) of federal and state spending over the past few decades, it hardly seems reasonable to blame the small size of government either. There is simply is not any evidence to back up the assumption that more regulation and bigger government will benefit the poor, either at home or abroad. The evidence points the other way. Sure, civility is just wonderful. But if you want a substantive discussion, you should avoid including Friedman and other hacks in the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![moonshot925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f0a364/32.png) [@moonshot925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonshot925)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/74 "2012-09-12T22:21:12Z")
The liberals in this thread are missing a very important point. From 2000 to 2010 American manufacturing output per hour worked grew by 66%. For the United Kingdom it only grew by 35%, Japan 38%, Germany 20%, France 29% and Canada only 9%. American worker productivity is increasing much faster than Europe, Japan and Canada. Capitalism \>\>\> Socialism > **[R42135.pdf](https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R42135.pdf)** > > 1083.77 KB ---
**Author:** ![Docta\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Docta\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Docta_G)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/75 "2012-09-12T22:45:55Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > The liberals in this thread are missing a very important point. > > From 2000 to 2010 American manufacturing output per hour worked grew by 66%. > > For the United Kingdom it only grew by 35%, Japan 38%, Germany 20%, France 29% and Canada only 9%. > > American worker productivity is increasing much faster than Europe, Japan and Canada. > > Capitalism \>\>\> Socialism > > [http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf](http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf) Hooray for labor power! ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/76 "2012-09-12T23:06:25Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > The liberals in this thread are missing a very important point. > > From 2000 to 2010 American manufacturing output per hour worked grew by 66%. > > For the United Kingdom it only grew by 35%, Japan 38%, Germany 20%, France 29% and Canada only 9%. > > American worker productivity is increasing much faster than Europe, Japan and Canada. > > Capitalism \>\>\> Socialism > > [http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf](http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf) I have mentioned that Americans are more productive than their more socialist counterparts. The problem is how the fruit of that labor is being distributed. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/77 "2012-09-12T23:18:30Z")
> [@Docta\_G](#): > > Sure, civility is just wonderful. But if you want a substantive discussion, you should avoid including Friedman and other hacks in the discussion. Can you offer any reasoned arguments against Friedman’s ideas, or is calling him a “hack” the best you can do? As you no doubt know, Friedman had just about the strongest credentials of any economist who ever lived. He had a sterling academic record including a Ph.D. from Columbia University and many years of teaching at top universities. He won the Nobel Prize, the National Medal of Science, and countless other prizes. He wrote scores of scholarly papers, some of which have been cited an hundreds of times. His influence on countless prominent people is indisputable, and his ideas are in use in countless places. To give just one example, many governments auction treasury bills according to a new form of auction which he first proposed. If Milton Friedman is a hack then who isn’t a hack? ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/78 "2012-09-13T01:11:20Z")
> [@moonshot925](#): > > The liberals in this thread are missing a very important point. > From 2000 to 2010 American manufacturing output per hour worked grew by 66%. > For the United Kingdom it only grew by 35%, Japan 38%, Germany 20%, France 29% and Canada only 9%. > American worker productivity is increasing much faster than Europe, Japan and Canada. > Capitalism \>\>\> Socialism > [http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf](http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf) So what? Your point is what? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/79 "2012-09-13T01:12:04Z")
Economic inequality is associated with shorter lifespans, worse mental health, more alcohol and drug abuse, greater homicide rates, higher infant mortality, more teenage pregnancy, obesity, poorer educational performance, lower “trust” (the percentage of the population that say that most people can be trusted) and lower social mobility. My citations: Richard G Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of the book "[The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equal_Societies_Almost_Always_Do_Better). [Here](http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html) is a 17 minute video by Wilkinson explaining his research. Much of the [evidence](http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/why/evidence) is available for free online. What’s interesting is that GDP per capita is basically irrelevant when it comes to the social indicators listed above (except for the very poorest countries). It’s the _relative_ degree of inequality within the societies that make the difference. The implications here are pretty straightforward. It seems we’re at a point now where we need to share the economic pie instead of just expand it. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339/80 "2012-09-13T01:14:50Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Can you offer any reasoned arguments against Friedman’s ideas, or is calling him a “hack” the best you can do? As you no doubt know, Friedman had just about the strongest credentials of any economist who ever lived. He had a sterling academic record including a Ph.D. from Columbia University and many years of teaching at top universities. He won the Nobel Prize, the National Medal of Science, and countless other prizes. He wrote scores of scholarly papers, some of which have been cited an hundreds of times. His influence on countless prominent people is indisputable, and his ideas are in use in countless places. To give just one example, many governments auction treasury bills according to a new form of auction which he first proposed. If Milton Friedman is a hack then who isn’t a hack? I don’t think he is a hack but I do think that his views have become almost a religious text for true believers. He has many valid points about keeping capital free but what is missing is how this effects the lowest in our society and also how we do stop concentration of wealth in a few people. Perfect markets work perfectly but we do not live in a perfect world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-have-a-polite-discussion-about-poverty-government-and-free-markets/634339.md?page=5)