the cato institute explains why young people should be pissed off

[GePap]

The canard that the government is highly inefficient is just that, a canard.

It is taken as a matter of faith by enemies of government but they don't show much proof beyond the colloquial-do private police forces work more efficiently? I am told public education is highly inefficeint-somehow the other industrilaized states pull it of.

IN terms of efficiency of health, for example, it would be far more efficient to force people to have one or two comprehensive checkups a year so thjat disease is caught early on and treasted preventively, thus cutting the cost of overall healthcare dramatically. Only the public sector could do this.

As for Social Security-perhaps we should get rid of SS and force people to save-certainly this would mean the end of the profligate consumer society of today in which people can spend their way towards US prosperity by having to remember you can't create huge credit card debts: no more huge consumer spending. Cause we all want fiscal responsibility, right?

Bull.

[GePap]

We really should return to the glory days before all this big government..do you guys remember those glory days of wealth and safety and......

Oh wait, it was nothing like that.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
But isn't Hobbes merely a theorist

I don't know what this is supposed to imply. Milton Friedman is just a theorist if that's true.

Hobbes says, roughly, that if we allow a bunch of self interested people to act completely voluntarily, poverty, anarchy and death will be the result.

This isn't so much an empirical claim as a logical claim. It's what accounts for the famous "Prisoner's dilemma" thought experiment. In short if one acts in one's self interest then it's always rational not to contribute to any collective scheme that promises a general benefit. This isn't because people are innately evil, but because of lack of trust.

This is because if you don't contribute and others do, you are better off than if you all contribute. And if you don't contribute and no one else does you are better off than if you do and no one else does. Of course everyone does this and no one contributes. But it is entirely rational, from the individual perspective, to do this.

So if everyone acts voluntarily in their own self interest, everyone ends up worse off. This is the case in a wide variety of situations like funding the police, the military, honouring contracts, and countless other situations.

That's in a nutshell, why we need the state, an institution that forces people to contribute - because a situation where everyone contributes is better than one in which no one does. The state enforces trust.

It's also why we have compulsory auto insurance schemes and part of the reason why we have social security and welfare. Rich people think they don't gain anything from welfare. They do, they are buying their own security by preventing their being a mass of people who have little or no stake in obeying the social system.

[Q Classic]

If it's something that people really need and can be done cheaper, then it would be completely stupid for the government to sit on its backside.

as i believe in the free market, if it's something people really need, that's a demand, and something will rise--not necessarily with the government's intervention--to meet that demand.

as for high rates of savings: it helped some other countries with explosive capitalist growth. like japan and skorea, for instance. i know the cases are very different in a lot of respects, but more savings can be a good thing, believe it or not.

as for the glory days before big government: i never knew the, so i don't know. i do know that the government is now so sclerotic, so inefficient, and corrupt enough that probably nothing short of a revolution from within will change the state of things as they are now.

[Q Classic]

and hobbes? he's got a lot of good ideas, but he's also got a lot of wierd ones.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by GePap


As for Social Security-perhaps we should get rid of SS and force people to save

But that's basically what SS does. The only difference is that the government administers the scheme as a monopoly to prevent problems of adverse selection and inflation of overheads.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
and hobbes? he's got a lot of good ideas, but he's also got a lot of wierd ones.

That's true. But his point about collective action problems has never been refuted and it stands as a comprehensive refutation of a completely free market.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

If it's something that people really need and can be done cheaper, then it would be completely stupid for the government to sit on its backside.

as i believe in the free market, if it's something people really need, that's a demand, and something will rise--not necessarily with the government's intervention--to meet that demand.

Something did rise to meet that demand. It's called social security. Before social security, we had massive senior poverty. Knowing some history might disabuse you of your libertarian BS. Libertarianism always collapses in the face of real history.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
And you both miss the point.

I don't really care because I fail to see how it is at all relevent.

I also dislike the robbing Peter to pay Paul mentality that seems to be SOP for the trust fund as well. The people currently on SS are recieving the money they put into the system, they are recieving the money I put into the system today. That is both morally offensive to me and ill-advised as a long term solution to its continued solvency.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Increasing the population is not necessaryto maintain the vialbity of SS. All that needs to increase is productivity.

Agreed.

Which is why socialist nations cannot afford SS.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Agreed.

Which is why socialist nations cannot afford SS.

They did better than what has followed them. Socialist countries, for all their faults. Didn't have old people picking through garbage dumps like they have in Russia.

edit: typo

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
and hobbes? he's got a lot of good ideas, but he's also got a lot of wierd ones.

I'll add to this. Capitalists must agree that Hobbes is right about collective action problems, because the same principle is what makes competitive markets work.

For example, a bunch of hat store owners have product they wish to sell, but none of them want to discount their wares. But none of them want to be left with any unsold stock. So it is entirely rational for me as a hat seller to discount my hats so that I sell all my stock and better for me if no one else does since then I will sell all my hats. If I don't discount I am more likely to be left with unsold hats.

But if I don't discount and everyone else does, then I will end up with a load of unsold hats when everyone has sold theirs.

So, by the very same logic that operates in the Prisoner's Dilemma, I have to discount, and so does everyone else. That's how a competitive market fixes prices.

And it doesn't matter even if I know what the other hat sellers are going to do, it is still rational for me to discount.

See - the very thing that makes markets work (voluntarism) also shows that they can't be the solution to all our ills.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by Agathon


No it is not. It is an alternative insurance scheme that exists for the same reason that other insurance schemes exist. But it has a major advantage in that its compulsory nature allows it to avoid adverse selection (a big problem for insurance companies). There is simply no better method of assuring that the elderly do not end up in poverty and die early. Market schemes are prone to leaving out significant portions of the population, and unlike you, most people don't like the idea of elderly people dying in shacks. That is something that people are prepared to pay for as long as everyone else pays for it too.

Yeah, I like the idea of elderly people dying in shacks.

You show me some other scheme that will have such widespread benefits for the elderly.

I can't say I have all the answers, but I know what doesn't work.

What about those whose investments go bad through no fault of their own? What about people who are too poor to be able to afford insurance?

If your investments are diversified, and you transfer your money into low-risk areas well before you retire, this won't be a problem.

How can someone be too poor to put money aside for retirement, yet they can afford to pay into SS? It's one or the other.

This is risible. And you say you come from New Zealand.

So I'm not a real New Zealander unless I support socialist government programs?

Frankly, when I was growing up there we had the most generous welfare state in the world, and almost everybody worked. The only reason people don't work is that there are no good jobs.

Yeah, that's why NZ has historically had significantly higher unemployment than the US.

And in the case of the elderly this is even sillier. They are too old to work, so they will be dependent on something, be it public or private insurance. There really isn't any difference here except that the government is organizing the insurance scheme rather than a private company.

Exactly, and as with all things government, there is no competition and therefore no motivation to provide value for money.

People complain that the government may suffer from inefficiency in providing SS, but that ignores the fact that even if it is not as good as it could be, it is still providing a service that the market will not provide.

Yes, the market would no doubt provide a better sevice.

[MrFun]

Let's keep a tally folks -- Cali has used three rolleyes so far.

[chequita guevara]

There once was a country that built a great wall to keep out barbarians. It was very costly, and very expensive, but it worked, no barbarians came. But generations passed, and no one remembered that there were barbarians, and they began to complain about the cost of the wall, and why should they have to pay. We've never seen a barbarian, they don't exist.

And so they stopped maintaining and manning the wall. And the barbarians came and killed them, stole their women and children, and took their land.