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[Citation needed]

Hypocrite to the max! Not to mention flat out wrong.

The only company anyone can point to as being a free market monopoly (created during the period that was the closest to a truly free market in human history, the US between the end of Reconstruction and the 1913 founding of the Federal Reserve) is Standard Oil. You know, the company that delivered to consumers ultra-high purity kerosene at a tenth of the price from before they were formed, while simultaneously creating the corporate research and development model that drove the US to become a technological superpower: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/john-d-rockefeller-and-the-oil-industry/

Parroting back what you were told in high school will only get you slightly further than parroting back the fairy tales you wer taught in elementary school. Try reading something on your own: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/john-d-rockefeller-and-the-oil-industry/

Stop assuming the question. The government doesn't have to prevent the abuses because they DON'T HAPPEN. Read this article on JD Rockefeller and realize that your whole worldview is both totally wrong and more destructive than a hoard of Mongolian horsemen with titanium bones, laser eyes, and nuclear warhead tipped penises: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/john-d-rockefeller-and-the-oil-industry/

again, wtf does the FCC have to do with the internet?

Is this a joke? They're the Federal Communications Commission. Are you contending that the Internet isn't a form of interstate communication?

Where does the word "Communications" make it's appearance in the Constitution of the USA?

In a letter to Albert Gallatin Thomas Jeffersonwrote “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” James Madison, the father of the Constitution, once wrote “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents” when congress undertook to appropriate $15,000 "for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo (now Haiti) to Baltimore and Philadelphia". In the Marbury v Madison case in 1803 Justice Marshall wrote:

The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act.

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.

Falcon

This will immediately reduce food demand and, for double bonus, the saved money can be donated to charity.

I only take issue with this one statement.

Hopefully that charity is not in the form of free food. That way leads to more poverty, suffering and starvation [1].

(There's also a whole argument on how population will always rise to a limiting cap and how education and Women's rights is creating a cap lower than breeding-until-we-starve or war-ourselves-out. I'd rather focus on the free food fallacy.)

How? Once farmers can afford a better future for themselves and their children then can afford some labor saving devices, those huge populations to till the soil disappear. They can't when their livelihood is undermined by 'charity.'

Let's use the out of date first/second/third world country model, since it fits closest to the breakdown in your argument [2].

It is not the relatively wealthy people living in cities who are staving, but the poor farmers who cannot farm competitively with free food given in terms of 'charity.'

Compared to every other labor-intensive industry, farming sucks:

• needs a lot of land
• needs lots of water (often of drinking quality)
• high future risk
• mandatory large labor pool with neither the free time to improve themselves when in demand or income at all when not in demand.
• the product (food) ships poorly and spoils readily when stored

Even in the "first world" the farmers are heavily subsidized to protect their non-competitive industry [3].

The only real reason to farm (or ranch) is that you cannot get food any other way. (Queue meme about "Star Trek replicators and the post-farming society.")

The only African countries with first-world type wages have barred these 'charity' food dumps and have protectionism for their farmers. Food is expensive there, but then people are not starving due to collapsed local farming industry. (This excludes countries like the Republic of Congo which has incredible wage disparity and a Petroleum based economy.) The old story of an American farmer's child going to the big city to make their fortune seems to work in Africa as well.

The key to bringing a "third world" country out of the third world is to first not destroy its indigenous markets [4]. Then the population curve works out like other industrialized nations as farming efficiency improves and farming becomes a marginalized industry. (Unless you somehow think Africans are different from all other people.)

Dumping McDonald's leftovers onto people never solved anyone's problems yesterday and it won't start solving them tomorrow either [5].

How about scholarships to improve the education of ex-farmers and get them out of what is a dead-end career so they can feed their families?

1. 1. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba547
2. 2. http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm
3. 3. http://www.cfact.org/a/2134/Commonsense-wisdom-from-African-farmers
4. 4. http://econlib.org/library/Enc/AgriculturalSubsidyPrograms.html
5. 5. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/it-just-aint-so/ending-farm-subsidies-wouldnt-help-the-third-world-it-just-aint-so/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-green-tech-program-that-backed-solyndra-struggles-to-create-jobs/2011/09/07/gIQA9Zs3SK_story.html

http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/12/07/cost-benefit-analysis-of-jobs-stimulus/

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/jeffreeves/2011/09/03/cbo_cost_per_job_between_$196,750_and_$562,000

http://investinginkids.net/2011/08/24/cost-effective-short-term-job-creation-policies/

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/why-government-cant-create-jobs/

In other words, there is plenty of information out there that clearly shows how inefficient government is at creating jobs. Governments can't help people get jobs, it only gets in the way of people getting jobs. Want to create jobs, let businesses hire people without regulatory red tape and high costs (taxes).

Friendly Societies: Voluntary Social Security and More:

Working class families had a "safety net" long before Uncle Sam became involved. Our grandparents and even great-grand-parents had benefit plans that protected them when they were sick, injured, out of work, or too old to work. Millions of workers belonged to "friendly societies."

Various forms of friendly societies have existed since ancient China, Greece, and Rome. In Britain, they arose out of the guild system. Daniel Defoe wrote in 1697 that friendly societies were "very extensive" in England. In the mid-18th century, as the Industrial Revolution hastened the growth of British towns, the friendly society system became well established. Sometimes they were called fraternal societies, mutual aid societies, or benefit clubs. Similar organizations developed in the United States in the 19th century.

The Shortcomings of Government Charity:

For large charities such as the Salvation Army and smaller local charities run by churches and other private organizations, the fight against poverty has been going on for the past 150 years. Tragically, standing in their way has been the federal government. Besides an effort to wage "war" on poverty beginning in the 1960s, the federal government has attempted to intercede and dole out aid since the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. These interventions have proven costly and yielded disastrous results. By continually siphoning funds away from the private sector, lawmakers and bureaucrats further diminish the ability of civil society to deal with the problem of poverty. (As Charles Murray shows in Losing Ground, poverty was declining steadily through the 1950s and 1960s up until the Great Society programs kicked in during the early 1970s.)

If the plight of the poor is to be truly addressed, Americans should study the lessons of the past. Earlier in the twentieth century, private charities offered a more effective cure for chronic indigence, and it was through mutually beneficial activities and voluntary funding that the spirit of American compassion was unleashed. In the best interests of the poor, the government should withdraw itself completely from all activities designed to help them and allow civil society its full range of motion.

And here's a side-by-side comparison of what happens to groups who end up on the government dole vs. groups allowed to take care of themselves. Government Creates Poverty:

The government has made most Indian tribes wards of the state. Government manages their land, provides their health care, and pays for housing and child care. Twenty different departments and agencies have special "native American" programs. The result? Indians have the highest poverty rate, nearly 25 percent, and the lowest life expectancy of any group in America. Sixty-six percent are born to single mothers. ...

Consider the Lumbees of Robeson County, N.C. -- a tribe not recognized as sovereign by the government and therefore ineligible for most of the "help" given other tribes. The Lumbees do much better than those recognized tribes.

Lumbees own their homes and succeed in business. They include real estate developer Jim Thomas, who used to own the Sacramento Kings, and Jack Lowery, who helped start the Cracker Barrel Restaurants. Lumbees started the first Indian-owned bank, which now has 12 branches.

Friendly Societies: Voluntary Social Security and More:

Working class families had a "safety net" long before Uncle Sam became involved. Our grandparents and even great-grand-parents had benefit plans that protected them when they were sick, injured, out of work, or too old to work. Millions of workers belonged to "friendly societies."

Various forms of friendly societies have existed since ancient China, Greece, and Rome. In Britain, they arose out of the guild system. Daniel Defoe wrote in 1697 that friendly societies were "very extensive" in England. In the mid-18th century, as the Industrial Revolution hastened the growth of British towns, the friendly society system became well established. Sometimes they were called fraternal societies, mutual aid societies, or benefit clubs. Similar organizations developed in the United States in the 19th century.

The Shortcomings of Government Charity:

For large charities such as the Salvation Army and smaller local charities run by churches and other private organizations, the fight against poverty has been going on for the past 150 years. Tragically, standing in their way has been the federal government. Besides an effort to wage "war" on poverty beginning in the 1960s, the federal government has attempted to intercede and dole out aid since the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. These interventions have proven costly and yielded disastrous results. By continually siphoning funds away from the private sector, lawmakers and bureaucrats further diminish the ability of civil society to deal with the problem of poverty. (As Charles Murray shows in Losing Ground, poverty was declining steadily through the 1950s and 1960s up until the Great Society programs kicked in during the early 1970s.)

If the plight of the poor is to be truly addressed, Americans should study the lessons of the past. Earlier in the twentieth century, private charities offered a more effective cure for chronic indigence, and it was through mutually beneficial activities and voluntary funding that the spirit of American compassion was unleashed. In the best interests of the poor, the government should withdraw itself completely from all activities designed to help them and allow civil society its full range of motion.

And here's a side-by-side comparison of what happens to groups who end up on the government dole vs. groups allowed to take care of themselves. Government Creates Poverty:

The government has made most Indian tribes wards of the state. Government manages their land, provides their health care, and pays for housing and child care. Twenty different departments and agencies have special "native American" programs. The result? Indians have the highest poverty rate, nearly 25 percent, and the lowest life expectancy of any group in America. Sixty-six percent are born to single mothers. ...

Consider the Lumbees of Robeson County, N.C. -- a tribe not recognized as sovereign by the government and therefore ineligible for most of the "help" given other tribes. The Lumbees do much better than those recognized tribes.

Lumbees own their homes and succeed in business. They include real estate developer Jim Thomas, who used to own the Sacramento Kings, and Jack Lowery, who helped start the Cracker Barrel Restaurants. Lumbees started the first Indian-owned bank, which now has 12 branches.

Yea, that was always a glaring plot hole for me as well. Here is a good article that I think you would like on the subject.

The Economic Fantasy of “Star Trek” http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-economic-fantasy-of-quotstar-trekquot/

“He believed that by the 23rd century, mankind would have evolved past the need for money.”

The problem with Roddenberry is that he never understood what money is, a unit of measure and a medium of exchange. Humans can't get rid of money any more than they can get rid of rulers or numbers. Well, technically they can, but only if you enjoy the hunter/gatherer lifestyle.

The Federation could never work in real life, and would quickly collapse for the same reason the Soviet Union during War Communism, 1918–1921, did. That reason is the problem of economic calculation, as pointed out by Ludwig von Mises in 1920. Without profit and loss it is physically impossible to make rational economic decisions. The only way to figure out what to produce and how to produce it is by the profit and loss mechanism. Without market prices entrepreneurs have no way of knowing what or how to most efficiently meet the desires of consumers.

Should car chassis be built of Steel, Aluminum, or Titanium? From a technical point of view, the answer is Titanium as it gives the lightest and strongest chassis. The entrepreneur though can look at the market prices for those metals along with the costs of fabricating with those metals and see that the most economical choice is steel. A central planner would not have market prices and would have no idea which choice would use the fewest resources. Thus you ended up with the Trabant in East Germany, built with cotton reenforced resin because steel was artificially scarce in the Eastern Block and an inefficient, labor-intensive production process because there was no competition in the automobile industry to force innovation.

One way that the Federation could have kludged along is with the help of the Ferengi. The Soviet Union was able to kludge along economically because it could borrow the market prices from the capitalist West and use that to crudely calculate, but the calculations made were never close to optimal and choices were frequently made for political reasons, like the retention of the Trabant's labor-intensive production process.

This is of course the same reason why all the government's/central bank's efforts into the economy over the last 12+ years have failed, no profit/loss and decisions are politically motivated. It's not that they are stupid or don't care, it's because it is impossible for them to know the information that would be necessary for them to make the correct decision. The distortions they put into market signals cause the rest of the market to go haywire as entrepreneurs act upon false economic signals.

> I have a problem with mandatory seatbelt laws.

If you are in the US there are ways out of them. There are legal exemptions. e.g. Occupants of a motor home, Certified phobia of seat belts, Religious Divine Providence, etc.

My brother doesn't wear one and was recently ticketed for not wearing one. He did his homework filing the necessary paperwork before his court date came up. The judge admitted this was "Certainly an interesting case" and ruled against them. He appealed to the Superior Court and had the case dismissed because the Judge realized he _couldn't_ provide a ruling as that would set a very dangerous precedent for the courts. i.e. "Public Safety" is NOT the issue as there not one case showing where not wearing a seat belt has presented a danger to others. This is not just a one-off as his Father-In-Law has used the exact tactics for the past 20+ years in New York and in Carolina -- the root issue is: The seat belt law is inconsistent with Constitutionally protected exemptions. i.e. Exemptions for Public Schooling (home school) and Inoculations.

If you are going to go down this route you had better well have all your ducks in a row! It all comes down to you need to pick and chose your battles. You can win the battle yet still lose the war.

Notice that non-religious people oppose the practice too.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-fraud-of-seat-belt-laws/

Absolutely the best commentary on "intellectual property" that I've seen yet. I highly recommend it.

You think the licensing to be a medical doctor is some arbitrary thing?

Wow, you sure picked the worst possible example.

Read and learn.

The AMA colludes with the government to limit the number of people licensed to practice medicine. It's not just setting a barrier to entry, it's active limitation of the supply.

I beat your unfounded and ill-educated claim

I'm obviously far better informed on this subject than you are.

-jcr

... the horse drawn carriage wasn't "broken" when the automobile was invented. ...

Horse poo. Literally tons of in on NY city streets. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/

In the late 19th century we believed we'd soon reach the upper limit of how large our cities could be built, since we would soon not be able to remove all the manure from the streets.

Then we replaced horses with cars.

(Point left as an exercise to the reader. If you really want to cheat, click the link)

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/

Funny how you bring up Buggy whips

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/

"In 1898 the first international urban-planning conference convened in New York. It was abandoned after three days, instead of the scheduled ten, because none of the delegates could see any solution to the growing crisis posed by urban horses and their output.

The problem did indeed seem intractable. The larger and richer that cities became, the more horses they needed to function. The more horses, the more manure. Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one writer estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure. Moreover, all these horses had to be stabled, which used up ever-larger areas of increasingly valuable land. And as the number of horses grew, ever-more land had to be devoted to producing hay to feed them (rather than producing food for people), and this had to be brought into cities and distributed—by horse-drawn vehicles. It seemed that urban civilization was doomed."

Why? It's a fact, patents hinder innovation -- history shows that.

Funny you should bring up the industrial revolution considering what happened to the steam engine once James Watt's patent on it expired.

Yes, the automobile was environmentally beneficial over horses in cities. The sheer amount of manure generated by all the horses was a public health problem. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/

Here are some statements with supporting compiled statistics.
The purpose of these statements is to demonstrate that the WWU CSci department is a very good department with needs within WA state. It's existence is still well within the stated purpose goals of WWU (something like "high qualtiy education","serve the needs of WA residents").

The WWU CSci department has a quality curriculum and excellent graduates.
+ accredited CSci Bachelors program from Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) . http://www.abet.org/AccredProgramSearch/AccreditationSearch.aspx (do a search by State)
+ Among 177 graduates from scores of the ETS® Major Field Test for Computer Science between Winter 2007 and Winter 2011 (inclusive), results were:
++ Mean (average): 166.2
++ Median (middle score): 167
++ Mode (most common score): 170
++ According to http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/MFT/pdf/MFT%20PDFs%202007/ComputerScience4CMF.pdf
+++ The 90th percentile for individuals starts at 173.
56 of 177 students scored 173 or better.
+++ The 95th percentile for individuals starts at 179.
31 of 177 students scored 179 or better.
+++ The 95th percentile for institutions (based on mean score) starts at 164.
+ WWU Collegiate Cyber Defense team took second (a very close second) to UW (who went on to win nationals) at the Pacific Rim Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition
https://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/1538/1053947/WWU-Team-Places-Second-at-4th-Annual-Pacific-Rim-Collegiate-Cyber-Defense-Competition

The WWU CSci department cost is slightly below average for an engineering department at WWU.
+ Among departments within the WWU College of Sciences and Technology, the Computer Science department uses
++ the average amount of State funds (roughly)
++ has the 2nd highest student contributions to it's cost (10%).
From page 93 of WWU OPERATING BUDGET FISCAL YEAR 2011

There is a demonstrable need for Computer Science.
+ Computer science has the highest field related employment and average salary of any degree WWU offers (after lumping education departments together).
From http://www.careers.wwu.edu/surveyapplicationX/statusdefaultXX.asp (concluded by J Anderson)

Thanks to C Reedy, J Bucher, N Fitzgerald, B Costa, JT Moon, J Anderson for statistics,

-J_Tom_Moon_79 '00-'-05

off-topic political point: I am partial to the view that the state should not be involved in education. However, state planning is the reality and I'm not debating that with this post. The fact remains, the WWU CSci department provides a very high quality education for a needed discipline (albeit, paid by WA state residents and businesses that may or may not have any interest in such a program).

Okay, patents aren't copyrights and this thread is off-topic. but this link is thought provoking, "Do Patents Encourage or Hinder Innovation? The Case of the Steam Engine." http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/do-patents-encourage-or-hinder-innovation-the-case-of-the-steam-engine/

Currency: "An economic convenience". Exactly. Of course people have always been able to use foreign GOVERNMENTS currency, or to barter goods, including weights of precious metals. But that makes economic activity into a series of one off, unique trades. To have the volume to create a thriving economy. One where you have the opportunity to become wealthy, needs a stanardised system of vlue. A currency. And that's what the government does.

That's what the government does now, but we know it isn't what has always been in place. For instance, the East India Tea company issued it's own currency in English territories for it's own convenience. In the US, pre-revolutionary war, the corporate providences issued currency. And yes, most of the original colonies started out as corporate adventures. So while a government issuing a standard currency is the preferred way and modern way, it by no means is the only way.

Roads: Private enterprise creates STREETS. They build a groups of houses or commercial properties, and they connect the frontages to the nearest road or existing street with a new street. But roads link cities, towns and villages together. Roads are nearly all created by government. Toll roads are a rare exception, and there's precious few other reasons why a private enterprise would build a road (rather than a street). And not to be parochial, it's the same in the rest of the world. In England for example, the first real roads were built by the Roman GOVERNMENT. Once they left, and the kind of low/no government state you prefer existed, no more roads were built for 1000 years, until once again strong national government existed.

Dude, lets not ignore history. Just because something looks a certain way today, does not mean it is that way in fact or truth. Like I said before, the majority of roads in the US was built by private enterprise who had the goal of linking cities, manufacturing and distributing hubs and so on. This was often undertaken by rail and the last mile route was created by the businesses using the rail road. This didn't change a lot until the interstate highway system became common and the idea of a fuel tax so that they could be paid for outside of the general fund. And to that end, it's still functionally the same as private roads as in those that use it primarily pay for it through fees associated with their use. Again, the US interstate highway system was built and developed for national security (IE military) purposes, not commerce. That was a added side effect that was welcomed but not considered.

You make an idiotic comment about laws not abslutely preventing crime in reaction to my comment: "They created the laws that mean that transactions are PRETTY RELIABLE". I didn't say completely reliable or anything like it. Transactions need to be safe enough for people to have reasonable confidence, and that's what government laws and justice systems provide.

It's obvious with your blond confusion over history concerning currency and roads that I would expect you to take my comment completely out of the context while failing to understand it. The problem is with you, not me. The problem is your selective results conforming your predetermined views, in other words, you are suffering from selective bias and aren't capable of reasonably analyzing the truth of the matter.

I say "There's not a country in the world where the people thrive without a strong government who provide services and welfare through taxation." And despite some blather, you fail to name a single counter-example. Case proved.

As I said before, you are suffering from selective bias. You might be perpetually confused, but I think it's agenda ridden based on several fallacies. BTW, That blather you noted is where I said that wa

The steam engine is the worst example for patents.

Do Patents Encourage or Hinder Innovation? The Case of the Steam Engine

By patenting the separate condenser Boulton and Watt, from 1769 to 1800, had almost absolute control on the development of the steam engine. They were able to use the power of their patent and the legal system to frustrate the efforts of engineers such as Jonathan Hornblower to further improve the fuel efficiency of the steam engine. By way of contrast, and fortunately, Trevithick did not patent his equally innovative high-pressure design.

Just go to the pharmacy industry, the bio-genetic industry (like Monsato), the software industry and tell me how the patents are promoting anything there.

As for copyright, how is a copyright for 100 years (or something) is going to promote art in a industry where the artists are signing every right they have on their work away to the big publishers? Art is not born in the vacuum, art is always build upon art, if you take away the public domain (like we have it now, works from 1920 are still under copyright and nobody can use them) you take away the pool of ideas the artists of today can draw. Like if Einstein's equation E=MC2 would be under 100 years copyright and 20 years patent protection. Last, if copyright is so important for art and ideas, how is the fashion industry exists that don't have any copyright at all?

Looking at history. you might find out that the so called intellectual property rarely stimulated innovation, it might even hinder it. See, for instance, the case of the steam engine, or the comparison how many books where published in the 19th century with copyright (England) or without it (Germany).

(The implications on industrial development laid out in the latter article may not be correct, but at least it can be said that the absence of a strong copyright did not hinder industrial development and it also seems that this absence was actually better for the authors.)

Going back to an agrarian society with our current population would be worse on the environment..

Millions of people fleeing the cities, cutting down trees to burn to stay warm at night, more farm animals needed to pull plows etc..

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/thank-you-internal-combustion-engine-for-cleaning-up-the-environment/

No, patents are broken. They're intended to work for limited times, but a number of strategies for extending them have arisen that make them indefinitely persistent. They're broken. Even in the best case they prevent progress. Look at the early example of the steam engine. The late movement to change them from first invention to first to patent promises to bring innovation to a grinding halt.

Even Tesla's invention of radio was for a long time blocked by Marconi's patents and only recognized after his death. Patents not only are broken, they have always been. Patents prevent progress, and the prevention of progress is the opposite of the purpose and justification for patents.

Patents are patently bad. The US Constitution grants to Congress the power to grant patents and copyrights - but it does not require Congress to do so. We can fix this.

Oh cheap energy solves a lot of the problems you bring up, like how to create easily accessible energy for transportation and desalination of sea water.

When it comes to coastal regions, guess why I chose the Netherlands ;)

I'm the GP that said "hundreds of billions" and I stand by that statement. What you fail to do is to realise how much change our everyday tech development brings the world. The best way to realise the fallacy of thinking of today's problems tomorrow is to go back in history.

After all, London wasn't drowned in manure.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/

That's funny. Even Galbraith later admitted that he was wrong on this point.

link

Galbraith’s magnum opus was The New Industrial State, in which he argued that large firms dominate the American economy. “The mature corporation,” he wrote, “had readily at hand the means for controlling the prices at which it sells as well as those at which it buys. . . . Since General Motors produces some half of all the automobiles, its designs do not reflect the current mode, but are the current mode. The proper shape of an automobile, for most people, will be what the automobile makers decree the current shape to be.”

Well, not quite. Although GM would have loved to “decree” the shape of automobiles in the 1980s, it seems consumers had different ideas. That is one reason why GM, which did produce about half of all U.S.-bought autos in the 1960s, sells only a quarter of all U.S.-bought autos today.

Interestingly, in his autobiography Galbraith presented the very evidence that should have talked him out of his conclusion in The New Industrial State. In 1954 Galbraith was on a consulting team hired by Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), Canada ’s dominant railway at the time. He saw quickly that CPR’s most promising assets were its forests and land, not its railway. Yet CPR basically ignored the team’s advice. He wrote, “The railway men did not look with favor on such passing fads as airplanes.” This should have clued him in to the idea that large firms like CPR could “decree” virtually nothing.

To his credit, Galbraith ultimately admitted, with a 15-year lag, the major problem with his thesis. In July 1982 the steel and auto companies he had claimed were immune from competition and recessions were laying off workers in response to both foreign competition and recession. Asked on “Meet the Press” whether he had underestimated the extent of risk that even large corporations face, Galbraith paused and replied, “Yeah, I think I did.”

Which sort of proves that most of the assumptions by those in love with Capitalism are at best incredibly dishonest. If people were guaranteed a relative level of stability (guaranteed housing, health care, food, and education) while being allowed to concentrate on what they love, you'd see humanity advancing by leaps and bounds.

I find your enthusiasm charming, but I consider it rather naive.

Who will provide the housing? If I don't like the housing, do I have the "right" to turn my nose up at it and demand better? Who will decide whether I deserve better housing?

Who will provide the health care? Everyone wants an infinite amount of health care; how do you ration it? If you pay the doctors well, where will you get the money for it? If you don't pay the doctors well, how do you get good ones?

Who will provide the food? Sometimes I like a fancy steak dinner; how often will I get one, and who decides?

But never mind these questions; let's get down to the important ones. Where on Earth, and when, has this been tried and shown to work?

The USSR was structured something like what you are describing. In theory, Communism gave to each as they needed. In reality, the economy was so bad that the USSR had a negative GDP: they were subtracting value. They took valuable iron ore and turned it into lousy Soviet steel. Then they took the lousy Soviet steel and turned it into lousy Soviet automobiles. The people were hungry, the health care was abysmal, and pollution was horrible.

The Pligrims tried something like what you described when they first arrived in America. It didn't work out.

In this country, in Chicago, there were massive "projects" built to provide housing for the poor. It didn't work out.

It turns out that people work both harder and smarter when they benefit from their work. And top-down-planning economies cannot possibly keep up with a a chaotic free market (and the creative destruction associated with it).

It is often argued that pure capitalism is heartless and cruel. But pure communism and socialism have even worse horrible disadvantages. If I'm going to live under pure anything, I'm going to choose the capitalism.

So, I'm happy that you have this faith in the innate goodness of humankind. But sorry dude, I don't think it's going to work.

steveha

Interesting. I've just come across this, which says you can't be forced to join (be a member of) a union, but you can still be forced to pay for some union services: "in the 1988 case Communication Workers of America v. Beck, the Court said that a worker could be compelled to pay only that portion of union dues and initiation fees used for collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance procedures. No worker can be compelled to pay dues for such things as politics, lobbying, and union organizing".

But it sounds like most people don't know of these rights, unions are taking advantage of this, and I doubt many people are willing to take the union to court to enforce them.

A few days ago I read this interesting account of another way that people can and do sometimes react:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/man-at-his-best/#

Haiti doesn't have the sort of resources that Northern California does or then did -- and I suspect that there was plenty of looting / similar in the wake of the 1906 quake, too. Just saying, it doesn't take Pollyanna to believe that people sometimes treat others like they'd prefer to be treated.

timothy

This article says that the US ranked 37th in a WHO effort to rank health care systems, whereas socialist France was ranked #1, Italy #2.

I don't know about their methodology, but if the country, where thousands have died from a heatwave, that happened to coincide with a holiday season, is ranked #1, something is seriously wrong with it...

At any rate, such benchmarks are nearly meaningless, because, as Joseph Stalin put it, "People who vote don't matter. People, who count the votes matter." As with benchmarking computers, there are too many dimensions to consider, so certain "judgment calls" have to be made in order to be able to produce a single-dimension rating from best to worse. Even identifying the dimensions is hard enough. Measuring each one is even harder, and objectively assigning proper weight to each measurement is nearly impossible. The opinions and agenda of the people doing the measuring and weighting come into play and affect the results far more than the actual underlying facts.

The WHO-study of 2000, for example, was overseen by Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former prime minister of Norway and a socialist. According to her, it is the equality of distribution of the health-care, that matter most, rather than the actual amounts spent (perhaps unequally!) — simply because "there is no consensus on what spending is appropriate".

Other "studies" have similar problems — they fault the US (and take off points from its score) simply because it does not have "universal" health coverage. In other words, ours could be the most amazing hospitals in the universe, but if they ask to be paid for their services, they'll be rated below Costa-Rican and Maroccan, where the care is paid for via taxes rather than fees, and is therefor "free".

The lesson for you here is, whenever given an opinion (especially of bombastic kind), check out, if the opponents of opinion-holder have already made a rebuttal...

Here, read more about how the anti-US, pro-Socialism studies were rigged...

You're not really trying, are you?

I am trying really hard to prevent the America's health-care from becoming the spectacular boondoggle like our public (!) schools, for example... Even if our hospitals really did all suck as badly as New York Times would make you think, handing them over to the government can only make things worse. Not better...

Gee, when did I ever say anything remotely like "patents stifle innovation?" You've gone from arguing minutae to making shiat up again.

I think this is an honest error on his part. I made this claim above, and I guess he thought it was you.

Your road analogy is good, but as I made the claim, I will back it up with some links. I cite an historical case study, and a simulation.

I also cite pretty much every software patent lawsuit in history.

Of course pointing out that as far as policy comparisons go, it's Obama's policies that resemble those of the ("early") Hitler : govt. healthcare, govt. takeover of car companies, stimulus money on creating his own civilians corps, ... all those policies were implemented by both. Now pointing that out, no matter how true (and how irrelevant), is racist.

Who's declaring it racist? Most people would call it wrong, or at least irrelevant.

So Hitler had kids singing songs and marching in lockstep at camps. You know who else did? British Lieutenant General Baden-Powell, that's who! And he did it first!
So Hitler had nationalized healthcare. You know who else did? Germany, in 1880, before Hitler was even born, that's who! http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/national-health-care-medicine-in-germany-1918-1945/
So Hitler breathed air. You know who else did?

You've got me on the nationalized manufacturing, though. General Motors et al should have been liquidated to make room for companies that were willing to produce the vehicles their consumers actually wanted, not kept on Schiavo-style life support to produce the Volt the consumers wanted 4 years ago but has no point in existing without $4/gal gas..

You have H1-B visas so the rich can hire Indians, who don't have the high prices we do.

Actually, free trade means you can ship the work off to be done, so you don't even have to hire anyone, just contract.

They use Mexicans here illegally to do jobs that Americans would do if they were paid appropriately.

That's not really free trade either, it's slavery-plus. You underpay the workers, it's actually cheaper than housing them and trying to keep them healthy, and make a return on your investment. At the end of their period of employment you can just deport them and even skip a payment. You don't even have to whip anybody.

In a world you describe it would be a lot easier for the rich to hold their power and privelege. Why do you think the rich lobby for things like NAFTA?

NAFTA is not a free trade agreement, name to the contrary.

The importance of NAFTA clauses that keep out foreign goods came to light as U.S. clothing manufacturers railed against the import of wool suits from our NAFTA partner Canada. The suits in question were made from third-country wool not covered by NAFTA rules of origin. Since Canadian tariffs on foreign wool were lower than U.S. tariffs (10 percent vs. 34 percent), Canadian suits sold for less and soon claimed a large share of the U.S. market. The fact that the entire discussion of this issue centered on closing this loophole in NAFTA rather than on lowering the injurious U.S. tariff on wool should prove how devoted NAFTA's supporters are to free trade.

If you can come up with some actual examples of large-volume free trade in the USA, I'll be interested. I don't think you can.

- and he should, government is the culprit of these problems in the first place.

O RLY?

- exactly. Only it is the regulation that is supposed to be applied to the government officials in the first place that is too relaxed... If a government official is found accepting bribes, pushing any corporate propaganda ahead of the society who have elected him, this official must be dismissed and criminal charges must be applied (I personally would prefer capital punishment for more serious offenses at this level, like allowing private interests to manipulate the society by setting up private systems like the federal reserve, that undermines the currency and economy of the country to benefit the large monopolies.)

Ahh. Chinese style democracy, eh? I'm not sure too many people will get on board with that.

- if government officials were shot for getting in bed with private money and destroying economy of the country and their work was undone (for example federal reserve shut down) then this entire economic fiasco could have been avoided.

Real estate bubbles happened before fiat money was introduced in the United States. Like the Panic of 1837. A gold standard has not always helped, in fact, the nation's first panic was exacerbated when precious metal shipments were halted from central and south America to Europe, causing them to hoard the monetary supply.

if banks were not regulated by corrupt government for their own profit/insured against moral hazard/money wasn't lent to them at costs much less than the market costs, they would always be requiring real collateral before loaning any money to anyone.

This assumes that the bank itself doesn't become corrupt. Let me take a wild swing and say without regulation, banks become corrupt or victims of booms and busts. This guy claims (in 1993) that you don't need a regulated banking system. But I got to his second point and figured that he was full of shit, because he stated that

How was stability possible in banking systems with neither deposit guarantees (nothing like FDIC insurance) nor a government lender of last resort (nothing like the Federal Reserve)? Depositors were more careful in choosing banks, and banks correspondingly... had to be more careful in choosing their asset portfolios than banks are today in the presence of deposit guarantees and a lender of last resort. Banks did sometimes fail. But bank failures were almost never contagious, or prone to spread to sound banks...

(Emphasis mine.) Which causes me to ask why there were constant bank panics in the 19th century, and relatively few after the FDIC was created.

If banks weren't supported in such a way by government, banking wouldn't exist as it does today. Modern economies require massive state sectors to balance out the problems inherent with the market. I can't think of a single bank that has existed without state support in the post industrial world, and I don't think that's just a coincidence.

The problem is greed of-course, but the reason for economic disaster is lack of government accountability first.

The problem is greed of-course, but the reason for economic disaster is lack of government enforcement of corporate accountability first.

Fixed that for ya.

Forest around the world are being cut down

There is more forest acreage today in the U.S. than there was in 1920. Our acreage is coming back! There's a reason for that, and you need to understand it before you start punishing the US for destroying the planet.

http://www.postal2020.com/?p=29
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/who-is-destroying-the-worlds-forests/