View Full Version : What would you do to fix capitalism?
Belmont31R
01-25-12, 19:08
I believe capitalism is a mix of SMALL government and laissez faire economics.
While I do not believe in child labor or crap like that there are some things Id like to see changed.
Mine would be requiring retailers to clearly state the country of origin of products they sell either on a tag on the item in a physical retail store or in the description online.
ETA: Mine was just something simple and not a BIG issue just wanted to get the discussion going.
Oh, there are SO many things. Real capitalism--in which businesses are privately owned and neither funded nor controlled by the government--is in trouble these days. Perhaps the key danger is that of Crony Capitalism which is sort of "socialistic capitalism," where the state tries to pick winners and losers and rewards whom it wants. Heritage Foundation has a great article on this:
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/08/cronyism-undermining-economic-freedom-and-prosperity-around-the-world
Anyway, one of the key things I'd do immediately to fix capitalism in our country, is get government out of the business of business. This has several implications:
* No more bail-outs. Nobody is too big to fail. Not Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, not GM, not Bank of America.
* No more picking "winners". This means no Solyndra fiasco, no politically motivated hand-outs, no pork, no "industrial investment," etc.
Every company needs to sink or swim on its own merits. A true understanding of freedom means not only freedom to succeed, but freedom to fail. And it's immoral to keep forcing taxpayers to bail out these giant companies that are so uncompetitive and poorly run.
Yep one of the big things is to get rid of the crony part. Stop with the tax breaks, stop with the incentives. OUr congressional representatives and senators need to grow a pair of balls and stop being whores.
* allow any and all companies to fail if they screw up.
* outlaw specific tax breaks for specific companies. Every company should work under the same rules.
Suwannee Tim
01-25-12, 20:41
I'd get rid of it. The word capitalism was used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to describe a system where the rich exploit the poor and middle class with government participation. The difference between then and now is that the rich have paid off the poor with the middle class' money. The United States is great in spite of capitalism not because of it. We are great and rich because of individual liberty, private property, Constitutionally limited government and the rule of law. The only thing that can save this country is to aggressively make the case for freedom.
Allow actual capitalism to occur in all but three industries, and even then absolutely limit federal interference.
Those three being that a certain amount of defense procurement (materials and work) be domestic; tax breaks (not subsidies) for staple food farmers (again security oriented), and finally fundamental research (in hard sciences - physics, chemistry, materials science) through NASA, NIST and similar organizations that produce long term gain (and support legitimate commerce functions).
The closer any nation gets to actual unimpeded capitalism the more explosive the growth is - yet always the cycle returns to more cronyism as power re-consolidates through the usual suspect means.
Fire everybody in the government that isn't in the armed forces, fund the armed forces and the remaining debt with a flat import tax. I don't care if they have to staff the customs houses and post offices with servicemen, they're already the lowest paid employees in the government with the worst benefits. Individual states can then fund whatever level of nanny state they want to. I can guarantee the ones that go about replicating a scale model of the federal government will be in the business of going out of business.
There is no recession in Washington DC, it's a boom town.
I don't think we need to fix capitalism so much as we need to return to capitalism.
The one change I would make would be to eliminate income tax or at least only apply it to earned interest. Wages are NOT income but money exchanged for labor, only interest on savings is true income.
I'd implement a national sales tax and all government would derive their tax base from this national sales tax. In good economies we have large government and in bad economies we have small government. Also with a national sales tax everyone pays their fair share according to how much they have to spend on goods.
call in an airstrike on the Eccles Building.
End governments involvement in commerce minus regulations that prevent corporations from dumping waste in the natural environment, or commit any other crime illegal for private persons.
Prevent members of congress from owning stocks or any financial interest in any business.
Have you guys checked out http://mises.org? Good economic articles on there.
Mauser KAR98K
01-25-12, 23:32
Most of the suggestions I like, but will add:
Send K-street lobbyist packing. They are also part of the root problem of Crony Capitalism. If they want to lobby, lobby with their products to the consumer, and in turn, the consumers will shout at their representives, or vote them out.
Limit government involvement in the free-market to a bare minimum. This means enforcing laws that are already on the books that protect civil liberties and worker's rights that were drafted at the turn of the 20th Century (many of them are good laws).
Cut the bureaucracy bull shit out of many of the "regulated" industries. Right now would be a good time to damn the torpedoes and get things moving and up to speed.
EDUCATE THE MASSES. In our public schools, we don't teach enough on how to work with capitalism, but how to go against it and be lazy. Instead, we teach how it is evil and unfair. The only unfair fight is the one you loose. As such, we need to train our future generation from day about wants and damn needs, and keep teaching it right to their senior year in high school. Yes, you might need a cell phone to function in a job you are currently employed to; no, the newest generation Motorola Razor Droid is not what you need, it is what you want.
We need smart buyers, not tacticool glamor junkies. This means learning to research products; maybe wait after the first release; or better yet, understanding that saving and buying that expensive tool you know you are going to use over and over again throughout your life will benefit you in the long run, rather than buying the cheap knock-off and replacing it several times because it is there, and can satisfy you impulse.
Last: teach America not to be a throw-away society. Buy quality, not repetitive junk that is pissing our money away to the Chinese. If the company brings out a new model that is better to use, more efficient, or does more things, buy it with the money you had saved from not buying junk.
EDUCATE THE MASSES. In our public schools, we don't teach enough on how to work with capitalism, but how to go against it and be lazy. Instead, we teach how it is evil and unfair.
This is a very important point.
The worst type of behavior that schools are great in reenforcing is the externalization of all failure. IE you didn't succeed because of "racism" or "wealth concentrated in the hands of a few". The deck is just "stacked against you".
I found public schools to be a very morose environment replete with stories of people who were repressed by "racism" or "capitalism". You learn from your teachers that you'd have better stuff if only the "powers that be" or "stingy rich people" just "gave" them more funding. If people had a choice, they would hire different teachers. Later in life I learned even the poorest state in the union will spend roughly 150k per 30 kid classroom every year, many spend double this. The best funded schools are in the inner cities and look what garbage they turn out. People could get a LOT more for the level of funding if things were more market driven.
An Undocumented Worker
01-25-12, 23:55
I don't want to try and fix capitolism. I want to fix the government.
ThirdWatcher
01-26-12, 01:28
* allow any and all companies to fail if they screw up.
* outlaw specific tax breaks for specific companies. Every company should work under the same rules.
+1 ... and get rid of all welfare.
thopkins22
01-26-12, 02:00
It's sad that we could emulate China and be more capitalist.
Get out of "free trade" agreements that in actuality mean fair trade. Free trade doesn't need agreements, it needs low tariffs. Stop punishing the American consumers and businesses because another government decides to play by different rules. There's nothing implicitly American about buying American. Socialist countries think that they can protect their own labor like this...it doesn't work and is silly.
Sound fiscal policies. The government must stop spending more than it collects. We must stop printing money at these rates. I like asset based currency, but it's not even required. A mandate to the Fed(along with oversight)to protect purchasing power instead of price stability would be an acceptable start. In the course of three decades, we've gone from the largest creditor nation in the world, to the largest debtor nation in the world...this game will end and it won't be pretty.
Get rid of the minimum wage. It kills jobs.
Get rid of welfare/unemployment. There are jobs available here...otherwise Mexicans would be flooding in. We must stop paying Americans to not take jobs they find beneath them. There are many places where jobs simply will never come back to...I don't care if it's your home, your ancestors moved for a job.
Kill the IRS and create a flat tax. The current code basically pulls the ladder up behind those who already have wealth and makes it much harder to develop real wealth. No 999 bullshit either...the current code is better than that monstrosity would have been.
Push more states to be right to work.
None of these things will happen without EDUCATION. Organizations like Students First are a good thing that both moderate democrats and republicans can support. Hopefully they will accomplish big things.
Side note...lobbying isn't the problem. Lobbying has directly benefitted every single person here. Shame on you if you don't support at least one lobby and want to retain your gun rights.... Government having too much power in the first place is the problem. As long as there is influence to peddle, people will find a way to get it.
variablebinary
01-26-12, 02:03
Eliminate safety nets on the tax payers dime.
That would be the single best thing we can do to restore something that resembles capitalism.
Moose-Knuckle
01-26-12, 02:17
What would you do to fix capitalism?
The French once had a novel idea. . . http://www.websmileys.com/sm/violent/sterb251.gif
Belmont31R
01-26-12, 02:19
The French once had a novel idea. . . http://www.websmileys.com/sm/violent/sterb251.gif
Those french were inspired by Marx.
Moose-Knuckle
01-26-12, 02:54
Those french were inspired by Marx.
Who was embraced by the Rothschilds that destablized the royal finances and made them insolvent. The same folks who latter bank rolled the Bolsheviks.
RancidSumo
01-26-12, 14:23
Capitalism doesn't need fixed. We do not have true capitalism in this country.
Most of the suggestions I like, but will add:
Send K-street lobbyist packing. They are also part of the root problem of Crony Capitalism. If they want to lobby, lobby with their products to the consumer, and in turn, the consumers will shout at their representives, or vote them out.
Limit government involvement in the free-market to a bare minimum. This means enforcing laws that are already on the books that protect civil liberties and worker's rights that were drafted at the turn of the 20th Century (many of them are good laws).
Cut the bureaucracy bull shit out of many of the "regulated" industries. Right now would be a good time to damn the torpedoes and get things moving and up to speed.
EDUCATE THE MASSES. In our public schools, we don't teach enough on how to work with capitalism, but how to go against it and be lazy. Instead, we teach how it is evil and unfair. The only unfair fight is the one you loose. As such, we need to train our future generation from day about wants and damn needs, and keep teaching it right to their senior year in high school. Yes, you might need a cell phone to function in a job you are currently employed to; no, the newest generation Motorola Razor Droid is not what you need, it is what you want.
We need smart buyers, not tacticool glamor junkies. This means learning to research products; maybe wait after the first release; or better yet, understanding that saving and buying that expensive tool you know you are going to use over and over again throughout your life will benefit you in the long run, rather than buying the cheap knock-off and replacing it several times because it is there, and can satisfy you impulse.
Last: teach America not to be a throw-away society. Buy quality, not repetitive junk that is pissing our money away to the Chinese. If the company brings out a new model that is better to use, more efficient, or does more things, buy it with the money you had saved from not buying junk.
Dead on. I'd add to it to educate people on the benefits of doing two things.
1. When multiple companies make something you want buy from the one that doesn't treat employees or customers like dirt.
2. If only one company makes something OR none of the companies that make it treat humans like humans then do with out doohicky X.
Buying things from people that rape you only encourage them to keep the status quo or push it farther.
I believe capitalism is a mix of SMALL government and laissez faire economics.
While I do not believe in child labor or crap like that there are some things Id like to see changed.
Mine would be requiring retailers to clearly state the country of origin of products they sell either on a tag on the item in a physical retail store or in the description online.
ETA: Mine was just something simple and not a BIG issue just wanted to get the discussion going.
Isnt requiring something the definition of big government?
Along with a requirement comes enforcement. And thats suh a petty requirement... You just skipped the slippery slope and made the avalanche.
Yep one of the big things is to get rid of the crony part. Stop with the tax breaks, stop with the incentives. OUr congressional representatives and senators need to grow a pair of balls and stop being whores.
What abou subsidies? What does everyone think about those? Subsidies are an indirect way of "promoting" winners. Big industries like oil, energy, food all function heavily on subsidies.
Allow actual capitalism to occur in all but three industries, and even then absolutely limit federal interference.
Those three being that a certain amount of defense procurement (materials and work) be domestic; tax breaks (not subsidies) for staple food farmers (again security oriented), and finally fundamental research (in hard sciences - physics, chemistry, materials science) through NASA, NIST and similar organizations that produce long term gain (and support legitimate commerce functions).
The closer any nation gets to actual unimpeded capitalism the more explosive the growth is - yet always the cycle returns to more cronyism as power re-consolidates through the usual suspect means.
You list food but not fuel and energy which are equally requisite for survival and thriving... Would hou revise to include or did you leave them out on purpose?
Fire everybody in the government that isn't in the armed forces, fund the armed forces and the remaining debt with a flat import tax. I don't care if they have to staff the customs houses and post offices with servicemen, they're already the lowest paid employees in the government with the worst benefits. Individual states can then fund whatever level of nanny state they want to. I can guarantee the ones that go about replicating a scale model of the federal government will be in the business of going out of business.
There is no recession in Washington DC, it's a boom town.
I dont understand the race to the bottom for government work that would produce revenue... If there were actually a flat importaion tax enforcable this country probably wouldnt have to pay any fed taxes. A few problems, its not enforceable 100% and it starts trade wars. America likes to sell soy beans and chickens... China likes to sell denim... Who wins? The system is quite complex, im just wondering if you have an answer for all these peripheral factors.
Well since we are not engaged in a true capitalist economy, I would first try to return us to capitalism. First step would to completely repeal the income tax and implement the Fair Tax (not to be confused with a flat tax)
This is a very important point.
The worst type of behavior that schools are great in reenforcing is the externalization of all failure. IE you didn't succeed because of "racism" or "wealth concentrated in the hands of a few". The deck is just "stacked against you".
I found public schools to be a very morose environment replete with stories of people who were repressed by "racism" or "capitalism". You learn from your teachers that you'd have better stuff if only the "powers that be" or "stingy rich people" just "gave" them more funding. If people had a choice, they would hire different teachers. Later in life I learned even the poorest state in the union will spend roughly 150k per 30 kid classroom every year, many spend double this. The best funded schools are in the inner cities and look what garbage they turn out. People could get a LOT more for the level of funding if things were more market driven.
I want to hear how you would fix education. I think about this topic often and its a difficult one for me. Many of the innercity type schools suffer from both an environment and local culture that doesnt promote learning and education, but then doubly worse, suffer from the sheer number of people in urban centers.
I just dont know how to do it without scattering them all to low density areas or some other similar strategy.
It's sad that we could emulate China and be more capitalist.
Get out of "free trade" agreements that in actuality mean fair trade. Free trade doesn't need agreements, it needs low tariffs. Stop punishing the American consumers and businesses because another government decides to play by different rules. There's nothing implicitly American about buying American. Socialist countries think that they can protect their own labor like this...it doesn't work and is silly.
What happens with low tarrifs? If a foreign country is enforcing tarrifs while yours isnt the decision theory would dictate that you do something about it. Even in a free market, the natural evolutionary outcome would be a consortium of corporations would form a cartel to protect their pricing in a natural effort to find market equilibrium. As it stands now the consortium is represented by a third party that deals with official foreign affairs, the gov. Low tarriffs wouldnt fix anything or change anything. But i guess your point is to cut the government out. I have to wonder, in an interconnected world, how does a disunified privately run country would represent itself and if such a thing is realistic in a nonfrontier environment.
thopkins22
01-26-12, 20:43
What happens with low tarrifs? If a foreign country is enforcing tarrifs while yours isnt the decision theory would dictate that you do something about it. Even in a free market, the natural evolutionary outcome would be a consortium of corporations would form a cartel to protect their pricing in a natural effort to find market equilibrium. As it stands now the consortium is represented by a third party that deals with official foreign affairs, the gov. Low tarriffs wouldnt fix anything or change anything. But i guess your point is to cut the government out. I have to wonder, in an interconnected world, how does a disunified privately run country would represent itself and if such a thing is realistic in a nonfrontier environment.
There's nothing frontier about it. They want to punish their consumers? So what. Why does that mean we have to punish ours? It's not going to "fix" trade...but certainly would help to restore capitalism and competition.
I have absolutely zero desire to protect American companies. If free market capitalism is what we're after(and this thread certainly implies that,) and if they can't compete with foreign companies they should fail.
Privately run? Disunified? Do you think that the "publicly" run and "unified" model has yielded amazing results? No it hasn't. We need to return to what made us great in the first place.
Faith in the individual. It should have been the extent of my answer in the first place.
Gutshot John
01-26-12, 20:48
Those french were inspired by Marx.
Aaaarrrooo?
The French Revolution predated Marx by more than 50 years.
I want to hear how you would fix education. I think about this topic often and its a difficult one for me. Many of the innercity type schools suffer from both an environment and local culture that doesnt promote learning and education, but then doubly worse, suffer from the sheer number of people in urban centers.
I just dont know how to do it without scattering them all to low density areas or some other similar strategy.
Easy to fix.
Block grant money in the form of a voucher to parents for whatever school/teacher/etc they wanted. Get rid of state standards, sell the state schools, and fire the dead weight on top. The free market will "certify" who is a good teacher and what is a good school. Parents would much rather send their kids to smaller, closer schools staffed with highly competent people, rather than shipping them off to the concentration camp every day. Inner cities spend 300k a year per classroom. You can get real talent for that money.
It's no secret that smaller one room grade schools (with no age segregation) produced a better product before WWII than what the misery factories currently turn out. In the same way that some people are smart enough to complete college while their peers are still in high school, a great many kids are just barely able to mentally handle grade school work when we throw them into middle school. The same kids that would have eventually done well in a one room schoolhouse are now perpetually left behind.
About schools: I've long thought you need to get rid of govt run schools. If you want to subsidize education, do it with a voucher, as was already mentioned. Govt run education (along with the NEA) has been one of the biggest disasters in this country in the last 30 or more years.
First, I'd kill the Fed, deader than a stone. Next, I'd burn the IRS to the ground, literally (imagine the fanatical cheering of the entire country, you'd be a folk hero written about for centuries!). Replace them with a small flat tax and a use tax that would encourage saving money. After that, bulldoze the Dept. of Education. They've got NO business telling anyone how to educate a community. In some really shitty cities, they can't even produce a high school graduate that can wait tables. I'd also roll the EPA back to year one. We don't want to look like a Calcutta cesspool, but after the 1st year, they just started making shit up to justify puffing themselves up like a toad.
Once we have our sleeves rolled up, it's time to wean everyone off the teat, and I mean everyone. Zero tax breaks, zero tax incentives and zero subsidies. Make the tax rate reasonable, which should be easy once we kill off all these ridiculous .gov fiefdoms. We might be paying $3.50 for a loaf of bread, but gas would be back to $1.25 a gallon.
And for the crown jewel, Congress wouldn't be allowed to enact a single new law until they repealed a full 25% of all federal laws on the books. We've literally strangled business and innovation nearly to death in this country. It's way past time to roll back the damage we've allowed these Washington DC pinheads to perpetrate on a once great nation.
That ought to be a good start! :)
There's nothing frontier about it. They want to punish their consumers? So what. Why does that mean we have to punish ours? It's not going to "fix" trade...but certainly would help to restore capitalism and competition.
I have absolutely zero desire to protect American companies. If free market capitalism is what we're after(and this thread certainly implies that,) and if they can't compete with foreign companies they should fail.
Privately run? Disunified? Do you think that the "publicly" run and "unified" model has yielded amazing results? No it hasn't. We need to return to what made us great in the first place.
Faith in the individual. It should have been the extent of my answer in the first place.
The initial point can be dropped i suppose, i still contend that lowering tariffs just effectively cuts out the government, which you are a proponent for, but it is not anything a free market would not naturally do. It just happens to be brokered by the government since the government at the moment has collective foreign policy authority and muscle to back it.
I think the publicly run unified foreign policy has worked out decently considering we are where we are and have been since... A long time ago. I say that from the perspective that i dont see the alternative, the disunified privatized foreign policy, working at all. Cite some example or nation that does successfully do this in the modern world. I am willing to learn and change my mind.
The disunified privatized public policy is absolutely frontier. How can you even allege its not? You said yourself, get back to what made us great in the first place and you are harking back to the time of frontier politics/government and economics.
The issue really isnt that such a form of government is bad, what i asked was is it realistic? We no longer live in a frontier world or nation. We sustain a population of 350 million in this country alone. The frontier never had to deal with such numbers. It never had to feed that many or keep order for that many. So the question, is laisez faire politics/economics realistic in the modern world?
Easy to fix.
Block grant money in the form of a voucher to parents for whatever school/teacher/etc they wanted. Get rid of state standards, sell the state schools, and fire the dead weight on top. The free market will "certify" who is a good teacher and what is a good school. Parents would much rather send their kids to smaller, closer schools staffed with highly competent people, rather than shipping them off to the concentration camp every day. Inner cities spend 300k a year per classroom. You can get real talent for that money.
It's no secret that smaller one room grade schools (with no age segregation) produced a better product before WWII than what the misery factories currently turn out. In the same way that some people are smart enough to complete college while their peers are still in high school, a great many kids are just barely able to mentally handle grade school work when we throw them into middle school. The same kids that would have eventually done well in a one room schoolhouse are now perpetually left behind.
I dont understand how everyone would go to school in small classrooms if they are in a crowded urban environment. Im for people voting for what is a good school, but dont you think thered be the problem like we see in kydex holster manufacturers. Too much demand, not enough labor or infrastructure. Long lead times for education is not acceptable. Once again the elite will get theirs. The rest?
I also wonder what would happen to all the gangbangers who dont like school, id say a big part of education is discouraging such lifestyle via empowerment at the intellectual level. How would a vouher system impact that factor?
If people dont use their vouhers, where would their vouchers go? Who would steal them and how would the system get gamed. Not sayin this is bad or unacceptable, its natural that a system will have compromises. It might very well be something better than what we have.
I would say at a fundamental level it doesnt matter what system we have if the culture of learning isnt fostered. Look at china or japan or korea, they all have public school systems of various sorts and on the surface it appears they have none of the issues we have...
thopkins22
01-26-12, 22:51
So the question, is laisez faire politics/economics realistic in the modern world?
Absolutely...and it's far more important now because of the things you listed.
The market has done an admirable job of feeding the planet...even overcoming artificial barriers placed on it to do so. Remove the harness and we'd see far less starvation.
Must we keep order? Sure. Keep the courts and law enforcement...just reduce the number of laws they're responsible for.
On classroom size. It's been proven that while small classes are great, they are by far not the biggest factor in education. Too often in search of the "Blue Ribbon" awards, schools across America have added crappy teachers to correct their ratio. It's wrong and doesn't work.
I would much rather my children be in a class of 40 with a GREAT teacher, than in a class of 15 with a mediocre teacher. Michelle Rhee really changed my opinion on this subject.
CarlosDJackal
01-27-12, 08:52
Get rid of socialism.
The crony bs needs to end. Also, my oldest son (15) is currently getting raped by child labor laws, he can only work so many hours, he can only work the crappiest of jobs when he'd do better behind a gun counter or working under a car than most of the morons I see doing those jobs these days, and the liability fears are ridiculous. Back when I was a kid, none of those laws were in existence. I worked 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, all summer, and no one said a peep. Now, they just want him in school to be indoctrinated. I mean, no way no how will he be working a coal mine on my watch, but what the ****? He can't wait tables as good as a 16 year old, or 18 year old, or 21 year old? Bull-shit, he can't!
You know, I learned my work ethic in a farm field at 13 years old, catching hay. I didn't learn it in school, though I did alright in school. I learned it waiting tables at night, shooting crows for money from the local farmers, and splitting wood by hand. School doesn't teach you a hard day's work, and as much as our youth needs education, they also need real-life experience. My kid's resume boasts of his participation in the school FIRST robotics team, technical theatre, ham radio, marksmanship, outdoor skills, metalworking skills...real-life experience, and while he strives to be an honors student, these are the things, in my mind, more important than the grades. These skills will always be in demand, and he understands them. Frankly, I'd rather hire a solid C student with four years of hard work in a garage, or field, or commercial kitchen and a good record at those places, than an A student who's never gotten a paycheck before.
Child labor law rant over.
Lower Tax rates, deregulation. Get the government out of the private sector.
Moose-Knuckle
01-27-12, 15:53
Aaaarrrooo?
The French Revolution predated Marx by more than 50 years.
LOL, nice catch. I had a mere cranium flagellation when I read his post as I was thinking of the Napoléon years.
The_War_Wagon
01-27-12, 16:25
FIRE THE GUMMINT!
EN masse. :mad:
Belmont31R
01-27-12, 16:53
Isnt requiring something the definition of big government?
Along with a requirement comes enforcement. And thats suh a petty requirement... You just skipped the slippery slope and made the avalanche.
No its not big government. Like it or not our system is setup as a balance between free trade and capitalism along with government. I think capitalism is the best of the major economic theories yet can be abused as well. Things like child labor, paying people in company credits and thus requiring them to buy everything from the company store, bait and switch practices, false advertising, and a host of other such practices.
Belmont31R
01-27-12, 16:57
Aaaarrrooo?
The French Revolution predated Marx by more than 50 years.
Sorry yeah I meant the Paris Commune in 1871.
Must we keep order? Sure. Keep the courts and law enforcement...just reduce the number of laws they're responsible for.
the problem with order, or perhaps i should have included fairness also, is that the system gets complex. 350 million people means 350 million opinions, 350 different heights, 350 million different skin tones, 350 million different stories that this system has to deal with and deal with "fairly." as each day passes, new caveats and grey areas to rules crop up, each case by case situation has to get ruled on and then in the interest of fairness that has to be perpetuated to all. give humans any system for long enough and they'll cheat it, then you try to patch the cheat and you get this legislative creep that no one likes. how do we ever deal with that?
one big reason that theoretical laissez faire capitalism "works" is because it's predicated on inequality. capitalism is based on inequality. laissez faire capitalism says let's let the inequality ride. the problem is eventually people will feel wronged and they will seek restitution. eventually even the staunchest supporters will feel wronged because in a "let it be" world, some day they'll be the ones that don't want to let it be. they're the ones that're getting done. in a system based on individuality with a large diverse population, such an eventuality is assured. so there's an equilibrium for laiessez faire also, it may side more towards less regulation, but it's not regulationless.
so with that said, in a laissez faire world, how big (small) is that government? what can we actually do without? i'm surprised there haven't been more blanket "fire the whole government" remarks as there usually are. it seems most of the discussion here actually concedes some level of regulation, but how much?
i would say most of the ATF can go away. i say keep customs and what it takes to enforce and generate revenue. what about keeping foreign nationals out? is that a waste of resources? what about making sure that nuclear plants are up to a certain specification? is that a waste? what about making sure people's drinking water is safe or that there is enough drinking water. if everything were privatized, how would a private company do with essential resources? how might a profit driven megacompany protect it's stock values? who would enforce against malicious corruption that kills people?
many times in a capitalistic world we see deceit and corruption that is heavily debilitating to countless people. bernie madoff is a perfect example. he ruined so many because he wanted to protect his earning reputation. how does laissez faire deal with that after the fact or how does laissez faire prevent that?
so much of free market ideology is predicated on reasonable people who have long term survivability in mind, otherwise they "fail." how many people or companies make it their lifelong career to cheat? fail and cheat again, fail and cheat again. in such a big world where community isn't just local and reputation need not follow you, how do you stop this from being the status quo? if left to be, where would the cheats vs. honest ratio equilibrate?
On classroom size. It's been proven that while small classes are great, they are by far not the biggest factor in education. Too often in search of the "Blue Ribbon" awards, schools across America have added crappy teachers to correct their ratio. It's wrong and doesn't work.
I would much rather my children be in a class of 40 with a GREAT teacher, than in a class of 15 with a mediocre teacher. Michelle Rhee really changed my opinion on this subject.
perhaps it would work better in the united states if we had our primary schooling more like college. one professor type instructor and many assistants. i don't know. i still refer back to countries like china, japan, korea, singapore, etc. they all have public schooling, they have less education woes than we do.
i do agree that good instructors need to be rewarded. this is something that is blanket across all instructors in asian countries. instructors are revered. in america instructors are glorified babysitters. america doesn't value education.
perhaps it would work better in the united states if we had our primary schooling more like college. one professor type instructor and many assistants. i don't know. i still refer back to countries like china, japan, korea, singapore, etc. they all have public schooling, they have less education woes than we do.
Are you sure? I don't have counter info but I am guessing that we just don't hear about their woes as much as our own.
My wife is from Japan and she reads online Japanese newspapers. They have pretty much the same societal woes we do if her stories are anything to be considered. They have really crappy schools and really good ones. Super over protective parents who complain about their childrens' bad grades to the teacher like here, etc.
(And note that most of those places you mentioned are pretty homogenous societies, not a melting pot)
Are you sure? I don't have counter info but I am guessing that we just don't hear about their woes as much as our own.
My wife is from Japan and she reads online Japanese newspapers. They have pretty much the same societal woes we do if her stories are anything to be considered. They have really crappy schools and really good ones. Super over protective parents who complain about their childrens' bad grades to the teacher like here, etc.
(And note that most of those places you mentioned are pretty homogenous societies, not a melting pot)
Its interesting you mention melting pot. I feel it isnt impossible to have a diverse population where everyone has the same educational values, but its probably unlikely.
That said such a statement conspicuously directs attention to how some cultures seriously do not value education. Makes you wonder if they are necessary to maintain healthy human diversity or if theyre something that gets weeded out over time. The default is lack of education though, so perhaps looking at it from a natural selection standpoint is not applicable.
I dont have stats for the countries i mentioned, what i do know is that those countries value education. I suppose they are all succeptible to the pop culture westernization retardation.... like all humans. This is evidenced by korea somewhat.
We will no longer be big brother. We will no longer have one foot in and one foot out of socialism. Back to the Constitution and free markets.
Eliminate all taxes for businesses. Businesses don't pay taxes. Consumers do, in the form of higher prices. 10% national sales tax ONLY. Eliminate all other federal taxes. No death tax. No write offs. Zip, zilch, nada. The market will correct itself in time to the true prices of goods and services. Those IRS workers can get a job in my expanded patent office, border patrol (activate all national guard and reserve troops that are unemployed to guard the border until the border patrol are up and running, to start)
Get rid of a ton of regulations and the agencies that regulate them. We don't need to roll back the EPA entirely but we have a long waaay to go. YOU the consumer are responsible for what YOU purchase. Do YOUR due diligence before YOU use YOUR hard earned money. Be it depositing it in a bank/credit union, or buying goods or services. Nobody is too big or too little to fail. You get ripped off once, shame on them. You get ripped off twice shame on you.
Phase out SS and Medicare for anyone under 45, GONE. Presidents, Senators and Reps that spent it will taken to court to repay out of their own pocket. Maybe even get daily workouts with Bernie Madoff.
Welfare, Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment. Gone. YOU are responsible for YOUR rainy day fund. That means you have to put money in savings instead of buying a big screen tv, PS3, ACOG etc. With no safety net, the market will correct itself. I mean, most people learn to be responsible for themselves. With lower taxes there will be more donations to your local food bank etc.
All funding for higher education, GONE. The market for will correct itself and the cost of higher education will come down. EVERYBODY doesn't NEED to go to college. It's babbled about by TPTB b/c all of our manufacturing has been priced out of the market at this point in time. The market will correct itself and manufacturing will come back with no more taxes.
Department of Education, gone. With that gone there won't be a national standard of what needs to be taught, err, I mean brainwashing against capitalism. Let the states, counties, boroughs/townships, cities compete, try new things and see what works. The market will correct itself when parents see what is working and what isn't. Some high schools need to become trade schools for plumbers, mechanics, etc. moreso than the programs already in place or an exemption from high school after 10th grade to leave, if you want to go to a trade school. Thats only an opinion, to be clear.
With Medicare and Medicaid gone, the market for health care will correct itself (private insurance subsidizes those programs because they underpay providers for services, I know because I look at claims everyday at work in the private sector looking at secondary claims). Some of those hippies do have SOME of it right. Go see a naturpath for your ailments first and see if it's your diet, weight, or something else before swallowing the pill prescribed to you.
Military industrial complex as we know it, Gone. You submit your product for testing. The Jeep and the Higgins landing craft proves this works.
Fannie and Freddie etc., gone.
Reverse our currency crisis back onto the Gold standard. Audit the Fed. End the Fed. Bring about charges as necessary. Eventually regulation, if not an all out outlaw of fractional reserve banking. Fractional reserve banking has allowed our current lifestyle to be bankrolled by our ever expanding credit and debt. Debt is the only reason for our massive exponential growth over the last hundred years. Sure we've made great strides in medical and science but at what price?
thopkins22
01-28-12, 17:48
the problem with order, or perhaps i should have included fairness also, is that the system gets complex. 350 million people means 350 million opinions, 350 different heights, 350 million different skin tones, 350 million different stories that this system has to deal with and deal with "fairly." as each day passes, new caveats and grey areas to rules crop up, each case by case situation has to get ruled on and then in the interest of fairness that has to be perpetuated to all. give humans any system for long enough and they'll cheat it, then you try to patch the cheat and you get this legislative creep that no one likes. how do we ever deal with that?
one big reason that theoretical laissez faire capitalism "works" is because it's predicated on inequality. capitalism is based on inequality. laissez faire capitalism says let's let the inequality ride. the problem is eventually people will feel wronged and they will seek restitution. eventually even the staunchest supporters will feel wronged because in a "let it be" world, some day they'll be the ones that don't want to let it be. they're the ones that're getting done. in a system based on individuality with a large diverse population, such an eventuality is assured. so there's an equilibrium for laiessez faire also, it may side more towards less regulation, but it's not regulationless.
I don't want fairness. I don't want government to make people equal by treating them unequally. The law however should treat people equally...it's easier to enforce and doesn't create resentment. It does take balls though. Also, we need to return to our republican roots. Not the party, the notion of being a republic. Mobs shouldn't rule.
so with that said, in a laissez faire world, how big (small) is that government? what can we actually do without? i'm surprised there haven't been more blanket "fire the whole government" remarks as there usually are. it seems most of the discussion here actually concedes some level of regulation, but how much?
i would say most of the ATF can go away. i say keep customs and what it takes to enforce and generate revenue. what about keeping foreign nationals out? is that a waste of resources? what about making sure that nuclear plants are up to a certain specification? is that a waste? what about making sure people's drinking water is safe or that there is enough drinking water. if everything were privatized, how would a private company do with essential resources? how might a profit driven megacompany protect it's stock values? who would enforce against malicious corruption that kills people?
many times in a capitalistic world we see deceit and corruption that is heavily debilitating to countless people. bernie madoff is a perfect example. he ruined so many because he wanted to protect his earning reputation. how does laissez faire deal with that after the fact or how does laissez faire prevent that?
so much of free market ideology is predicated on reasonable people who have long term survivability in mind, otherwise they "fail." how many people or companies make it their lifelong career to cheat? fail and cheat again, fail and cheat again. in such a big world where community isn't just local and reputation need not follow you, how do you stop this from being the status quo? if left to be, where would the cheats vs. honest ratio equilibrate?
You have courts. Companies can't say your drinking water is potable when it's not...that's fraud. The government can and does lie without repercussion though.
If we didn't pay to keep Americans from working, either fewer foreigners would come, or we'd be more productive and need their labor. By the way, has the government done an admirable job of keeping them out?
The industries with less government interference also tend to be the most honest. Without government protection companies tend to succeed or fail based on their merits. You're big company A who screws consumers? Sounds like there's room for company B who doesn't to take business away from you doesn't it? But in so many industries it's unbelievably difficult for small companies to pay their way through silly regulation to even have a fighting chance.
So yes, the things you listed are a waste. Some worse than others. The government should enforce contracts and provide basic law enforcement. In damn near every other instance they either provide feel-good services that don't actually work as good as they should but don't truly hurt things, or they make things worse.
Nothing good happens with a nation as woefully uneducated as we are though...and higher learning isn't what I mean. I'm actually optimistic on many fronts, but I do believe that we'll all suffer first. Education is the prime example of the government screwing us all. What about poor neighborhoods that can't afford a good school system or private schools? Certainly we need some national regulation and standards right? And it's really worked wonders....
I don't want fairness. I don't want government to make people equal by treating them unequally. The law however should treat people equally...it's easier to enforce and doesn't create resentment. It does take balls though. Also, we need to return to our republican roots. Not the party, the notion of being a republic. Mobs shouldn't rule.
the law is a product of legislation and legislation is the product of issues that come up in the public sphere that at least have the perception of needing a fix.
the law should treat people equally, but i'm certain you can't possibly believe that's a simple task. if the law treats an individual equally, then what about a corporation? how do you treat them when they do wrong? oops just bloated the united states code a bit. new scenarios will keep cropping up and the government (or whoever has the authority) will need to address it. even if everything were privatized, there would still be some party that would be dealing with this, whether centralized or decentralized, surely this reality can't ignored. how do you deal with it? the problem with so much diversity, so much quantity and everything being an uninterrupted history is that all these problems and "solutions" are cumulative.
even if you started over from a revolution reset today, i would contend that what would be reformed would be convergent, because all the same issues exist. the biggest evidence of this is that the system as it stands now is iteratively evolutionary. what makes you think that the evolution wouldn't take the same path?
let me pose a scenario. let's deregulate drugs for a moment. once you deregulate drugs any person can buy the best, purest forms of opiates, cocoa derivatives, cannibinoids or any other pharmaceutical. now let's say there's a shady person that wants to sell some snake oil (REAL hard to imagine, sarcasm). this person wants to sell people cocaine to alleviate their headaches. some people die because of this because they combined cocaine with something else in their body that shouldn't be combined and they had no idea because they're not a doctor and they were sold on some snake oil by someone who is also not a medical doctor or not one with any scruples.
what happens?
too bad, survival of the fittest? that person should have "known better" and "done their research." medicine has become an incredibly sophisticated and specialized trade with years and years of schooling and intense knowledge required. not everyone is a doctor or can be a doctor. so that person should have consulted a doctor. not every doctor is a specialist on mixing drugs, not every doctor cares, not every doctor is a great doctor for even what they practice let alone some field they don't practice. malpractice? what if that person were sixteen years old, or eighteen years old, or twelve years old? do we allow cocaine to be sold to children? should there be repercussions to someone giving cocaine to a child? did the united states code just get bloated?
the above scenario is just one example of real life situations that any system has to be able to address. ignoring them doesn't make them go away. ignoring them is unrealistic.
You have courts. Companies can't say your drinking water is potable when it's not...that's fraud. The government can and does lie without repercussion though.
the government gets sued for lying everyday, or even the perception of lying. that's how the 9th circuit gets all its libtard interpretations of the law and case law that gives criminals more rights than law abiding citizens.
i'm not saying that a company can lie about drinking water, what if the company ruins the drinking water? what if it's just theirs to ruin? it's on their property. or perhaps it's an accident and they don't actually have the resources to clean it up. then the place is just ****ed? everyone move out because xyzcom just fracked the drinking water for a thousand years. you can't even sue them, there's no money, you liquidate their entire corporation, but that's not enough to clean it up or relocate everyone.
i'm not saying that the government does a phenomenal job of preventing these types of things (it doesn't), but the government (maybe unfortunately) usually gets stuck with the bill as a way to amortize risk for the common person.
If we didn't pay to keep Americans from working, either fewer foreigners would come, or we'd be more productive and need their labor. By the way, has the government done an admirable job of keeping them out?
people will always come and go into other countries either for business/pleasure or for immigration purposes, the individual motivation is inconsequential because the reasons for going in and out of any country are innumerable.
like you said earlier, people need to be treated equally in the eyes of the law, that means a system has to be in place, even for the simple entry and exit of a country. should you need a passport to travel between countries? should you need to apply for a visa? should your country to wary of those who don't have such documents? a large percent of the port of entry work isn't even about keeping people out, it's about facilitating equal treatment of all travelers. is this a worthy cause or is it not? if you want to visit another country, how disorganized are you willing to have the process be? or shall we just all not travel? or shall we all just travel with no inhibitions?
i want to note right now! i am not trying to defend government, i am trying to point out issues that i have seen in my life experience that i want to be assured are addressed if there is some alternative. i don't want to go from a car to a bicycle if i'm going to throw my support behind a different political system. i also don't want to go from a car to a bicycle back to the same car. that's a waste of time and resources.
The industries with less government interference also tend to be the most honest. Without government protection companies tend to succeed or fail based on their merits. You're big company A who screws consumers? Sounds like there's room for company B who doesn't to take business away from you doesn't it? But in so many industries it's unbelievably difficult for small companies to pay their way through silly regulation to even have a fighting chance.
what if you're in an area that only has companies who screw customers? what if one big shady company buys up all the companies in your town or your industry, suppresses wages and treats workers poorly? do we _need_ antitrust laws? what if they buy up all the companies in your whole state? what if several states in the area get the same idea and they all form an umbrella corporation, all with the same business model? do we then play musical chairs with people's lives, forcing people to shuffle their homes around state to state based on who has the least messed up working conditions? no doubt that exists right now with the current government, but there is a baseline. what would that baseline be without regulation? would the baseline be better or would it be worse?
is there a tipping point after which the people would demand some sort of counteracting organization? unionization isn't un-capitalistic. it's actually expected. a consortium of free agent workers vying for their own benefit is not unnatural or unfair to corporations. i think the level to which unionization has gotten in some industries is shameful to be sure, but i still contend that collective bargaining is something that would be a natural outcome of capitalism, especially for more skilled work.
just look at the nba. their skill set is so specialized and so rare, their market is so large, and look... even they collectively bargain. ain't capitalism grand (no jest), no one is claiming socialism when the nba bargains with the players union... simply because it's not, it's good capitalism at work?
isn't there also a tipping point after which a certain amount of control becomes a positive feedback cycle that can't be broken without some sort of extreme measure? a company can become very big to the point that it can abuse its workforce or its neighbors with impunity. one of the premier concepts underlying government is that the people can use it to leverage against the leverage of some-other-force that is either conceptually or actually too large to tackle. should the government not exist simply because this can be abused or turned into frivolous pursuit?
So yes, the things you listed are a waste. Some worse than others. The government should enforce contracts and provide basic law enforcement. In damn near every other instance they either provide feel-good services that don't actually work as good as they should but don't truly hurt things, or they make things worse.
i actually can't believe you said that the government should enforce contracts. lots of times contracts are the inception of waste and corruption.
on a related note, i think something like the post office should become privatized. that means a lot of people in rural areas will lose service either from the companies not servicing those areas or those areas being serviced at too great of a cost, causing the loss of subscription to service... or... the companies would amortize the cost of servicing remote areas across all areas serviced. the latter sounds a lot like the post office as it exists now, except right now, the post office is probably subsidized by some people who receive no mail.
Nothing good happens with a nation as woefully uneducated as we are though...and higher learning isn't what I mean. I'm actually optimistic on many fronts, but I do believe that we'll all suffer first. Education is the prime example of the government screwing us all. What about poor neighborhoods that can't afford a good school system or private schools? Certainly we need some national regulation and standards right? And it's really worked wonders....
actually part of me wants to say, forget the lost causes. some people aren't meant for learning. focus on those who will use education. bolster education on all levels, graduate on down to trade skills.
but alas, not everyone is built for understanding, not everyone is made for labor, not everyone is made for wealth, fame, work, knowledge, intelligence, improvement or ambition... but some are made for each. that's why this is too difficult of a problem.
thopkins22
01-29-12, 22:34
the law should treat people equally, but i'm certain you can't possibly believe that's a simple task. if the law treats an individual equally, then what about a corporation? how do you treat them when they do wrong?
Treat them just like a person who did wrong...because a corporation is nothing more than people who decided to incorporate.
The rest of your post raised good points. But most of those functions would be far better addressed at the state/local levels. Let's see what works best without subjecting the whole nation to it. Sure there will be mistakes, but mistakes are much easier to fix at the city/state level than they are in DC.
There's nothing inherently wrong with unions(not sure I feel that way about public servants unionizing though) but the key is that they should be voluntary. The government shouldn't be involved in keeping me from associating with anyone, nor should they be involved in forcing me to.
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