And Pinochet’s regime, however bad, did create the conditions which contributed to Chile’s economic revival. You may condemn it as a plutocracy; perhaps. But the common man in Chile lived far better after Pinochet than before him. Meanwhile, those who ignored Friedman’s advice did not do so well.
Noone? I think you’re being ridiculously generous there. I’ve known, and heard of, several people personally who would make that very argument. They tend to overlook inconvenient facts like Friedman offering the same advice to (Communist) China, for one.
We don’t need a crystal ball, this isn’t a particularly difficult question to answer, in fact, you answered it yourself:
That’s right, they choose to go into the restaurant and eat. So the real question is why did they do that? Why did they trust you to cook and prepare food in a safe manner?
More likely than not there won’t be a restaurant industry in Libertaria, at least not the way we’d recognize it. The assumption would be that if you don’t know who made the food, if you don’t know where it came from, you don’t eat it.
Again, think about Halloween. Why would you let your kids wonder around getting food from strangers?
Oddly enough though, developing countries are full of un-regulated, un-inspected, food stalls. I bought french fries from a Tansanian woman at 2am on the side of the road who I doubt bothered to file any paper work and I further doubt she passed a health inspection. I know I was taking a risk, but I also know that 10min in 350F oil kills most things.
You do realize that not everyone in the US gets their water from a municipal water department right? It is possible to function without government tested water.
Is it so bad that you’d have to take responsibility for your own actions?
Seriously? What exactly did you think people did before the government got involved in the water business? What do you think people do that live in rural communities?
What do you suppose the people of Walkerton, Ontario, do before having a glass of water?
A lot of the hysteria concerning libertarian philosophy hinges around the issues of trust. In my opinion we are way too trusting of the government to protect us, regardless of how many times it fails.
In my experience from time spent in rural India, when you remove that false sense of trust you end up with a very different environment that centres around larger families and a closer net of friends. Think about how hard it can be to find a good mechanic, how in the world are you supposed to trust someone in that scenario? The answer is that you don’t, you need to go through closer channels to find a friend of a friend whose kid does a good job fixing cars. There needs to be that secondary connection that prevents him from ripping you off then watching you die in a horrible wreck. There are lots of restaurants and lots of food-carts, and they knew which ones to go to and which to avoid. Independently of government regulations. They had a certain guy in the market they went to meat, avoiding a bunch of the others, often paying more.
How many years of useful life do you feel we, as a nation, should give up so that you can live out your cowboy delusions? 300 million? That’s only a year per person. How about a billion years of happiness, love, friendship and joy. Only three years each. Will a billion years of human existence given up at the altar of Libertarian stupidity be enough for you?
How much would have to be given away before you admit that your wishes are destructive?
You place your trust in institutions that have a financial incentive to squeeze every penny they can out of you, and if that means killing you to enhance the bottom line, so be it.
I’ll place mine in a group that is far from perfect, but has no financial interest in producing infant formula with melamine.
Of course, if they all start doing it I guess you can just let babies get poisoned since there won’t be an alternative. But then the magical free market will come up with another company that will produce it! And they won’t have melamine in it! No! It will be clean and pure! Unless all the megacorporate giants just decide to smash that competition long before it can start costing them money. Because that’s just good business.
Irrational free-marketeers claim that the free market fixes all problems. Those who are looking for reasonable government regulation don’t make such claims. It’s just the best that can be done.
There are tons of free-market solutions in the restaurant industry. As some examples, food safety training is currently provided by private companies. There are consultants and contractors that will work with restaurants to provide self-audits. The food industry is currently a huge business, making people sick is bad for business. So within the industry a lot of time and a lot of money is spent not to follow the flawed government regulations, but to stay marketable.
In addition to that, there are a variety of different restaurant rating agencies like Zagots. Most local papers have a food critic or three. Having a dirty kitchen is a quick way to a crappy rating.
The sad reality is that people just don’t care enough. They will hear about confirmed cases of food poisoning and still go to a restaurant. Why would anyone still go to Jack in the Box?
And for those reading, you do realize that the government doesn’t act until AFTER the outbreak. People get sick, AND THEN the government does something. And usually it realizes it fucked up and tries to make more restrictions.
Breaking from the food issue that so few people understand, let’s talk about the TSA:
Sept 10th, 2001, the government regulated air travel and said it was okay to take box cutters on a commercial airplane. Does anyone else remember as a child getting a tour of the cockpit?
Sept 11th, 2001, something happens.
Sept 12th, 2001, government scrambles to figure out how to fix its failed regulations, and decides nail cutters and tweezers are a big deal. But also doesn’t give a shit about people’s footwear, and currently allows you to bring as much liquid as you can cram in the overhead compartment or at your feet under the seat in front of you.
Dec 23rd, 2001, government realizes they fucked up again, and now we all have to take our shoes off.
August 22nd, 2009, government realizes that once again they fucked up huge when they suddenly realized that someone could bring multiple liquids onto a plane and make a bomb. The solution of course was to limit our bomb making capabilities to that which would fit in little shampoo bottles and inside a 1qt bag.
December 29, 2009 the government suddenly realizes that it’s possible to sneak explosives onto a plane if it’s concealed in a person’s underwear. They learned of this AFTER a 23rd managed to figure it out. Oddly enough, this results in two over reactions: first is the new pat down rules that only affected international travelers, yet oddly enough the pat down stopped BEFORE the bomb carrying underwear region. the other bright idea was to make everyone sit with their hands folded on their laps for the last hour of the flight.
Those are the geniuses you trust to protect you, and that’s the really smart ones, the guys that didn’t make the cut work for the water department…
Bull fucking shit. Why the hell is someone with only a vague understanding of [anything] buying [something really expensive]? That’s your case for more regulation? That stupid people get deceived?
What, pray tell, would you like to see changed so that doesn’t happen again? I’d LOVE to see an answer to this one. Hopefully it’s along the lines of, “Cape does not enable user to fly.”
Okay, so let’s pat these simple morons on the head, give them some warm cocoa and tell them everything will be fine. Now, what would you like to see happen? Would you like a rule that requires bankers to disqualify stupid people the way bartenders have to stop serving drunks?
Should we have a “too stupid to fail” rule that let’s people avoid punishment because they dropped out of [publicly funded] high school and couldn’t be bothered to learn what ARM stood for? Or should we put an age limit and require parental supervision up until the 30?
No, not libertarians, humans. Humans thrive on the stupidity of the masses. Poker isn’t about making people feel good, were you not aware of that? You can’t legislate kindness.
Don’t have to, for most folks, since we have a rough sort of moral compass. What you have to legislate for is those folks who don’t. We don’t allow a sociopath to rob you with a gun, why should we tolerate robbery of the dumb by the smart?
Individual responsibility is all very well, no one is likely to deny such a blatant truism. But to exaggerate it beyond reasonable bounds is, well, unreasonable. Besides which, individual responsibility is the basis for collective responsibility. As citizens, we are both individually and collectively responsible for our nation, and its actions. We all bear a portion of the shame when our country behaves badly. As much as I have criticized my country and its policies, I am pleased as punch that the footprints on the Moon are American.
Individual responsibility is but one of the virtues we hope to foster in our fellow man. But its not the crown jewel, it is not the central virtue for which all the others are simply grace notes and embellishments.
How many labs are there in your neck of the woods that aren’t government regulated? Generally anyone doing water testing needs to be certified by the state to do so.
In my lifetime I’ve seen multiple labs closed down because they took payment to falsify test results. If it was not for government regulation those labs would have been able to continue to provide bad results and would make more money for doing so.
‘Hey I need you to test this water and not find any arsenic in the water so I can sell this house.’
As we can see those private airlines took all the necessary steps to keep passengers safe, oh wait they never took any action until it was government mandated. Sure you can argue the government overreacts but I think your examples make it pretty clear private corporations didn’t take any steps ahead of time to make travel safer.
So what you’re saying, is that with government regulation labs provide false results. And it’s only AFTER they provide those false results that the government closes them down. How many of the government regulators/inspectors are just as corrupt, how much do you think it costs to have them look the other way? How many cases do you think they miss?
Seriously, after knowing this why would you trust a private lab with or without government regulation?
Nice of you to ignore failure of government regulation, and then some how blame businesses for not regulating themselves. Wasn’t that point already clear? Businesses CAN’T regulate themselves, so government does it. Except clearly government can’t do it either.
Again, what this shows is that people don’t actually care enough about air safety. If you saw 5 airlines and one had a $50 surcharge for enhanced security measures and a secondary inspection, would you choose that or the discount brand? What’s interesting in this case is that the TSA fees tend to get tacked on to the ticket price instead of added to what the rich are supposed to pay. As a result ticket prices go up and now poor people can’t fly…
Since you once again jumped into the middle, perhaps you could answer my question: what should have been changed to stop stupid people from buying a house?
But more specifically, what would happen if that rule then precluded low income minorities? Would you want to see an exception that then insists banks look past the stupidity and issue equal number of loans?
Oddly enough, the private credit rating industry worked well at wedding out stupid people from buying houses. And for a time stupid people from issuing loans.
I really would like to know how you’d enact your proposal criminalize selling to stupid people.
That’s right, exaggerating beyond reasonable bounds is unreasonable.
If that’s the case, then we can collectively pitch in the same amount.
I’m glad that pleased you so much, the bill was about $25 billion, how much are you willing to contribute? How much is that footprint worth to you? Or do you think that’s something that rich people should pay for so that you can be pleased?
I’m not sure exactly what you are trying to advocate.
Yes there are many cases where both private and government regulation have failed. Because something occasionally fails is not reason to do away with it. I’d much rather have regulators that occasionally fail then no regulation at all. As the government opts to regulate things by will of the people and has a much more proven track record then private regulation. I’ll take government over private any day.
There’s no reason what so ever to trust government over private, since they are made up of the same people, equally corruptible.
Consider the Knapp Commission on NYC police corruption. Huge numbers of officers were taking cash payments to look the other way. They were supposed to enforce all those regulations people love so much, but for $20 you could continue to operate your unlicensed hotdog truck, that without a license would never be visited by an inspector.
Look at the Pennsylvania judge in the Kids-for-Cash Scheme. He was supposed to be part of the regulatory system.
The case that annoys me the most is when Canada has a single case of mad cow, so the US government closed to the borders to beef imports from Canada. Seems pretty reasonable, until you realize they had little to no interest in public safety, it was a great way to boost domestic cow sales, which oddly enough leads to more e coli. A similar situation happened with potatoes from PEI that may have had a fungus on them, meaning the government blocked imports. Again, great for domestic potato production, but meaningless in terms of safety since it seemed inconclusive the fungus was there. Perhaps the lab results were tested at a private facility…
Is there no limit to how corrupt government regulation can get?
Totally wrong again. Regulation is all we have to defend ourselves against the corrupt private companies. They have a Ferengi like mandate to make as much money as possible. They believe it. That is why they attack regulation with such ferocity. They know it inhibits their right to exploit, steal and pollute.
Whether we have actually learned a lesson from the banking collapse remains to be seen. The people are still suffering, but the bankers are making out like the bandits they are.Thy are fighting against the watered down efforts of Elizabeth Warren,. All she wants is readable contracts . That is too much to expect. If they can make the contract is small enough type and make it long and confusing, few credit card holders will understand how vulnerable they are. They will not know the many ways the banks are fleecing them.
But they will win. They have the entire Republican party working for them.
I don’t usually expect the “libertarian” to be the one advocating for TSA security theater. Yet that seems to be what you are doing.
I’m a cheap bastard, but I will literally pay you a dollar for documentary evidence of you telling a civil engineer that he’s dumber than a TSA official. YouTube video of the conversation preferred, deadline in a week. Anyone else want to chip in?