We interrupt this thread for a brief public service announcement:
Populous (adj.) having many people
Populace (noun) the citizenry
Sorry, but this one has been driving me nuts. Carry on.
thanks… but you forgot one definition
Populous… good ole PC game
I’m all in favor of smaller goevernment in principle. In fact, many of the Libertarian ideas I’ve read about on these boards are quite attractive and important to me. But I do think we are all quite dependant on Government these days for survival, and it would take quite some time to really reduce the size of Government in the U.S., though it is worth doing. The main reason I would have is that any Big Government ends up with Big Power over the people it governs. They not only tell me what I can eat, drink and smoke, they tell me how to flush my toilet these days! I’d really prefer to keep the Government out of my shit, thank you!
I know this is not a problem in Canada, because even though you have Big Government, the politicians will never take advantage of citizens 'cause everyone in Canada is so nice!
I think we confuse issues here. As Sua pointed out, I don’t think anyone is talking about the government wholesale taking over the providing of health care. We are just talking about the government taking over paying for health care, i.e., being the insurance provider, as matt_mcl describes the Canadian system as doing.
Well, in the field of health insurance, the joke is about how much bureaucratic overhead exists in our system compared to single-payer systems! And, unfortunately, the joke is on us. When I lived in Vancouver, a friend of the family was pointing out that in his practice of several doctors, they have one person who spent a part of her time on billing issues. He said that similar-sized practices in the U.S. have a few people dedicated full time to this.
Yes, indeed. Well, most of us on the “big government” side, if you want to characterize it as that, disagree with government interfering with our lives in many of these ways. (And, unfortunately, many if not most of the politicians elected on the small government side here in the U.S. actually endorse the government interfering with our lives in many of these ways.)
And, you’ve left out the most important problem of all which is government getting captured and used as a tool by the monied interests that already dominate and control in all extra-governmental arenas. Still, government is one of the only tools we have come up with to level the playing field (as well as to provide services that the market fails to provide very well). The important question isn’t so much whether government should be big or little but rather what kind of government we should have and who it should be accountable to. Of course, there are powerful people out there who much prefer the debate being framed as “big” vs. “little” government!
Well, I don’t think I disagree with this except to point out that taxing people, if the taxes are applied appropriately (e.g., a carbon tax), is one possible way to correct an externality. And, in some cases, such as global warming, it may be one of the only real practical ways. (I don’t really see how the producers of CO2 themselves can clean it up.)
I do not disagree with you jshore. If the theory propounded by us free market types is correct, we should expect to see private industry striving to gain efficiency. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years.
BTW does anyone have actual figures on the cost of bureaucracy in various systems?
No need for that nonsense.
It is not a question as to what is nice or not. What we have are two different ways of looking at government’s roll. In the US constitution you enshrine the rights to Life liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, while in Canada our constitution guarantees Peace, order and Good government.
Our political thinking comes from a slightly different philosophy, and history. And while we have many of the same issues regarding patronage, lobby groups, courruption and to a degree “benign despotism” Canadians generally still trust our government to look after our interests as a whole.
As an example during the repatriation of our Constitution in the 1980s Our Prime Minister fought to include a Charter of Rights and freedoms which had not been part of the Constitution prior to that.
I have heard a few American’s scoff at the idea that we have only recently enshrined these rights, but if you look at the flip side of this we have never had issues about this before. The government had not (except during the two world wars and October Crisis) ever taken or limited any of those “rights” we still all have today prior to the enactment of the Charter.
There are lots of reasons why government is generally much less efficient than private businesses. Among them:
[ul]
[li]The people running the show are motivated by the desire to be re-elected, NOT to provide the best, cheapest, most efficient government. The two goals are sometimes the same, but plenty of times they are not.[/li][li]Top-down resource allocation can never be as efficient as allowing the people who actually own the resources and are intimitely familiar with them are. Explain to me how a senator from New York is able to make a more intelligent decision about how much fertilizer a field in Montana makes, as compared to, say, a Montana farmer.[/li][li]Milton Friedman had a very good exposition between the difference in motivation between government and private industry. It went something like this: Who is the most motivated to make the best use of their resources? A) A person who uses his own money to purchase his own services, B) A person who uses his own money to purchase services for someone else, or C) A person who uses someone else’s money to purchase services for yet another person.[/li]
The government is case ‘c’, and they simply aren’t going to try as hard to be efficient and get value as the person who is spending his own money to provide for himself.
[li]The market exists regardless of what the government does, so therefore it can cause distortions in government actions that make it hard or impossible to operate properly. This is more commonly known as the ‘law of unintended consequences’. For example, the government can freeze the price of gasoline with the noble goal of giving the consumer a break, but this winds up leading to over-use of a scarce resource, which causes shortages and eventually even higher prices. This kind of thing happens ALL the time.[/li][li]Government puts people in charge of decision-making who have no qualifications for making those decisions. Thus, we had a bunch of people with absolutely no scientific credentials at all alternatively spending billions of dollars on the Superconducting SuperCollider, letting 3/4 of it be built, then cancelling it. Currently, they are making decisions on our behalf on issues like Cloning, Stem Cell research, and other highly technical issues.[/li][/ul]
There are lots of other reasons. The most important one for me comes out of information theory. A body of 535 people has a very small bandwidth through which to filter all the information it needs to control something anywhere near as complex as an industrial economy. They simply can’t know all that they need to know in order to operate efficiently.
But the market operates like a massively parallel computer, with the price system acting as the bus which transfers information to the nodes that need it, while bypassing the others. For example, if demand for pencils goes up, the price will increase. That increase in price is translates into increased profits for pencil manufacturers, which now have an incentive to increase production. This causes the demand for wood to increase, which drives up the price for all industries that use wood. They in turn increase their prices. This makes alternative products to wood become more competitive, which causes people to rationally seek alternatives to a scarce resource. The beauty of the price system is that it transfers all this information to the people who need to know, without any extraneous info. The maker of milled timber doesn’t need to know why the demand has increased for his product. Everything he needs is contained in the price.
This system of massive information transmission coupled with negative feedback is what makes a complex economy able to efficiently allocate its resources at all.
Government, as a replacement for this, requires foreknowledge of all possible effects and ripples through the economy in order to make the most efficient decision. And that small body simply CAN’T, no matter how smart they are.
The Soviet Union was a stark example of this. The economy was managed very poorly for this reason. The people would need shoes, so the command structure would order more shoe production. But three ripples down this would cause shortages of fleece, or rubber, or canoes on the Volga through some strange interaction. So they’d order those fixed,which would cause still more shortages and surpluses. If you talk to citizens from that era, they’ll tell all about the strange behaviour of the economy. Suddenly there would be some luxury good available for everyone, while staples of life were impossible to find. Then those staples would be available in surplus, but you had a waiting list of 2 years for a cheap television.
These distortions didn’t just happen in the Soviet Union, they happen in the U.S. and Canada whenever the government gets involved. Thus you had the U.S. Government giving farmers heavy subsidies, and then finding that they had to pay the farmers a few years later to NOT grow food.
So government is inherantly less efficient than the market. That means before we should consider a government solution to a problem, the market solution should be *seriously screwed, and the burden of proof of that should be on the people advocating government.
kingpengvin,
I was being quite genuine - based on my experience in Canada, and with Canadians in general! No sarcasm (not much anyway).
Indeed! I am not saying I want to do away with Big Government today, but I do see it as a necessary evil, even though I rely on Big Government for many things. Evil because it can have an incredible amount of control over every aspect of life, and truly makes people much less capable to care for themselves by getting them used to being controlled and “taken care of”. I do not believe any system of Big Government can truly allow Freedom because the two inevitably collide.
And what, exactly, was stopping them? I know for a fact that our rights can be violated by our Government regardless of what the Bill of Rights says.
I have to emphasize that I understand the benefits of Big G(for many people), and I enjoy many of these benefits myself, such as safe roads and airways, reliable sources of water and power (Goverment regulated), Police protection, etc. But Big G is most beneficial for the least productive among us, and those who value safety nets over freedom.
Well, it’s not like these problems just cropped up yesterday. What the hell has private industry been doing for the last umpteen years “to gain efficiency.” Oh, right, they have been setting up bureaucracies to harass doctors about seeking necessary care for their patients! [By the way, the conversation I spoke of occurred when I lived in Vancouver which dates it as being in like 1993 or 1994.]
Yes, we all know how great and wonderful private business is compared to the government, but let’s have a little reality check here, shall we? Let’s compare the problems you listed with government to what actually exists in a large corporation in Rochester NY which we will call “Company X”.
In Company X, the people running the show are motivated by the desire to move up the management ladder, which often means that you push some pet project that is rather absurb but has a long enough lifetime that it only collapses after you have moved on…and up the ladder.
[quote]
[li]Top-down resource allocation can never be as efficient as allowing the people who actually own the resources and are intimitely familiar with them are. Explain to me how a senator from New York is able to make a more intelligent decision about how much fertilizer a field in Montana makes, as compared to, say, a Montana farmer.[/li][/quote]
Of course, we all know that within a big corporation, like Company X, resources are allocated by democratic or market means. They are never allocated by top-down methods. 
[quote]
[li]Milton Friedman had a very good exposition between the difference in motivation between government and private industry. It went something like this: Who is the most motivated to make the best use of their resources? A) A person who uses his own money to purchase his own services, B) A person who uses his own money to purchase services for someone else, or C) A person who uses someone else’s money to purchase services for yet another person.[/li][/quote]
And, of course, within Company X there are no people who are basically spending other people’s money, except the managers, the researchers, the marketers, the manufacturing workers, the…Oh, never mind!
Fortunately in Company X, there are no actions taken that have unintended consequences (the idea of course being to minimize the costs in your little fifedom by throwing as much cost as you can onto other people…or better yet, coming up with an idea where your measly cost savings can be quantified but the much larger costs are hidden!)
Do I really have to say anything here?
So there you have it. Now, I admit that the one thing you will probably object to is that I am looking at the wrong level. I.e., I have to consider the market as a whole in order to see how it works so wonderfully! I can’t just look and see how one processor is fucking up all the bits! And, to be honest, I won’t entirely disagree with you on this. Yes, the market has mechanisms that encourage efficiency [and clean living and Godliness ] and, yes, it is stupid to try to have government run a whole modern economy. But, for Christ’s sake, can we have a little reality check with you market worshippers?
Sure, as soon as you realize that democracy can fail just as surely as the market and we shouldn’t just go run to them to fix our problems.
(sorry, jshore, you did have a good post, don’t get me wrong)
tradesilicon: But Big G is most beneficial for the least productive among us, and those who value safety nets over freedom.
I’m not at all sure about that, at least if you’re using “productive” more or less synonymously with “economically powerful and influential.” The tax breaks and “corporate welfare” and other kinds of legislative preferences shown to the most “productive” among us are hugely beneficial to them, far more so than the food stamps and school lunches and Medicaid that the poorest among us receive.
I find that an odd statement, as I do believe I am free.
The only freedom I believe I am being denied is the freedom to copletely fail when circumstances go against me. Mind you people do still fall through so I guess that freedom stil exists.
Yes, that’s the question. My vague impressions is that procedures for authorizing treatment have become somewhat simpler and more efficient, but I have no facts or figures. Does anyone know anything about this?
Kimstu,
Agreed, Corporations get many benefits, as do the very wealthy, by having Big G protect their interests. Another arguement against Big G! I would like to see a system that protects individuals instead, especially those individuals who have to carry the weight for others.
I am not opposed to the “food stamps and school lunches”, but rather to the size of Government we have built up, with the excuse of administering food stamp and school lunch programs, amung many others. I think it is absolutely absurd to have tax rates of up to 40% for working people (not all rich bastards, by the way). As someone pointed out in another thread, Dick Chenney can afford to pay his umpteen million in taxes, and still have umpteen left over. But what about a person who has to deal with a mortgage or rent that takes half his income, and taxes that take close to another half?
kingpengvin,
You seem to think that failure should be prevented by Government, another point where we will surely never agree. I really do not know enough about the laws in Canada to debate this point with you, but do you not agree in principal that the money you earn allows you to take certain steps toward your goals, and the more money your Government takes, the more they limit what you can do with the fruits of your own labor? (If we cannot agree here, then I’ll agree to disagree with you, and stay out of the debate). And from what I’ve heard, the tax rates in Canada are above 50%. In the U.S. you can reach 40% in higher income brackets. Outrageous. (Again, I know we have services in return, but to limit one this severely is wrong on the face of it).
Sorry I cannot devote more time for a fuller reply…
sili: Agreed, Corporations get many benefits, as do the very wealthy, by having Big G protect their interests. Another arguement against Big G!
Hmmm, you think “Little G” at the state or local level will be less vulnerable to pressure from corporations and other powerful groups wanting it to protect their interests? Considering the many successful ways that businesses lean on state and local legislators to give them tax breaks or relax regulation for them, I’m not sure I agree with you on that one.
I think it is absolutely absurd to have tax rates of up to 40% for working people (not all rich bastards, by the way).
I quite agree with you that not all people in the top tax bracket are “bastards” (not even most of them, IMHO), although they all certainly could be described as “rich”. However, I don’t quite understand how you arrive at your absurdity threshold for tax rates. After all, tax rates went all the way up to 70% and more in the '50s and '60s, and both the economy as a whole and working people as a group did quite well financially. Many countries with higher tax rates than the U.S. are doing pretty well too, and some of them have, for example, much lower rates of poverty and political corruption, and much better public health. I don’t see why that makes them “absolutely absurd”.
*But what about a person who has to deal with a mortgage or rent that takes half his income, and taxes that take close to another half? *
Hmmm. How many people who have to pay half their income just for housing are taxed in the highest bracket? Usually people who have a hard time affording shelter are not rich enough to qualify for high tax levels.
- […] do you not agree in principal that the money you earn allows you to take certain steps toward your goals, and the more money your Government takes, the more they limit what you can do with the fruits of your own labor?*
Once again, I’m a little surprised to see someone taking it for granted (a little naively, IMHO) that “the money you earn” simply equates to “the fruits of your own labor”. Surely you agree that your ability to make and keep “your” money depends not only on your own labor, but also on, for instance, the legal system that prevents others from stealing it, the labor laws that prevent your employer from exploiting you for it, the commerce regulations that prevent producers from defrauding you of it, the banking regulations that require financial institutions to give you a profit on it, the programs counteracting social or natural or economic disasters that would result in your losing it, and a host of other actions that “your Government” is responsible for and which must be paid for somehow?
*In the U.S. you can reach 40% in higher income brackets. Outrageous. (Again, I know we have services in return, but to limit one this severely is wrong on the face of it). *
Again you seem to think that just asserting that is enough. Why is it so obviously “wrong” or “outrageous” “on the face of it”? Would you be willing to provide a scale of potential maximum tax rates and indicate which number(s) you consider “reasonable” and which are “a little high” or “significantly too high” or “absurd” or “outrageous”? Can you specify which services you think government ought to provide and how it ought to fund them from what you consider “reasonable” tax revenues? Just saying “Such and such a tax rate is obviously too high and wrong and outrageous!” may seem like a self-evident proposition to you, but doesn’t really constitute much of an argument.
One thing that liberals seem to ignore is that economic freedom and political freedom are intertwined. You cannot seperate the two.
I’ve used this example before, but I’ll use it again, to show how they can be the same thing:
If the government decides to restrict your freedom to travel, and passes laws requiring you to carry a travel permit to move from city to city, I think we’d all agree that that was a pretty serious infringement of our political rights, yes?
But what if a government decides that gasoline and airlines should be taxed, and the new, higher rates make it impossible for the average person to travel? And let’s say that the government gives certain rebates to some travellers who are travelling for the ‘right’ reasons, as defined by the government?
In the end, both examples result in exactly the same thing. Yet one violates your constitutional rights, and one doesn’t (at least by the way they are defined today).
This sounds like an extreme example, but it’s not. The government routinely punishes and rewards people through the tax system, to attempt to force industries into a certain direction. I worked for a small chemistry lab that almost went out of business because a competitor got a big tax break and was able to undercut us because of it. Dairy farmers have to pay special taxes based on where they live, in order to force them to relocate to certain areas. Here in Canada, certain types of agricultural products are punished through a sliding scale of special freight taxes that make it uneconomical to ship them.
If I’m a soybean farmer and I’m put out of business because the government has decided to tax soybean transportation, then my freedom has been stomped on just as surely as if a government official came to my door with a gun and ordered me to shut down.
And the tax system has been used even more explicitly in other countries to suppress dissent and control the people. For example, Chile had a ‘free press’, but there was an import tax on raw newsprint that was so high no one could afford to print anything. However, publishers that were ‘approved’ by the government got to buy their newsprint tax-free. One of the things the CIA did when it was accused of destabilizing the regime was to provide funds to non-approved papers to allow them to buy newsprint.
Sam Stone, I think you have a good point there, but I think it is rather odd that you apply it only to the negative effects on freedom from government economic pressures. Allow me to take a leaf out of jshore’s book and edit your post (with substitutions in italics) to display another perspective, which I think is just as true:
Surely we all agree that coercive economic pressure by powerful institutions upon less powerful ones is not a good thing, and can often deprive people of the practical freedom to exercise their rights just as effectively as official coercion can. What liberals recognize is that the powerful institutions in the private sector can exert such coercive pressures just as much as (and sometimes more than) the government, and thus both individual rights and government regulation need to be powerful enough to counteract those pressures.
I don’t entirely disagree with your point, Kimstu, but I think it neglects to mention one important facet. Unless we are discussing a monopoly situation, or a situation in which the government and business collude to make market conditions advantageous for certain firms/industries/players, someone can launch an enterprise to compete with the coercing private entity. One cannot launch an enterprise to compete with government.
pld: Unless we are discussing a monopoly situation, or a situation in which the government and business collude to make market conditions advantageous for certain firms/industries/players, someone can launch an enterprise to compete with the coercing private entity. One cannot launch an enterprise to compete with government.
Well, there can also be collusion without monopoly. And even when increased competition with the coercive private entities is possible and eventually takes place, it is often too little or too late for the people and/or businesses that were hurt by the coercion. You’re right that the market is *in theory much more open to competition than the government is, but in practice there are very often significant obstacles to increasing competition, which allow private-sector economic coercion to flourish.
While you can’t exactly open up a new government to compete with the existing one, you do have the ability as citizens to change the policies of the existing government by voting in new representatives who are more in line with your views. As jshore pointed out above, that is a type of control over government (partial and difficult though it may be) that you sure don’t have with coercive entities in the private sector.