Reply to Topic
Exceptions to the rule I think. Of course there are examples where people use the free market to create something great out of nothing. I do not think that free market, innovation, entrepreneurship and whatever should be banished at all.
These things can still exist whilst the government also subsidises/gives support to to people less well off, can't they.
There's also the simple pragmatic question of what policies actually improve things for the poor, regardless of our intentions. See below for more on that.
Circumstance, determined by luck, I would say has an overwhelming influence on every decision a person will make in their life.
Don't you think that if the government was to invest more in public education, healthcare, training to help people who many would say are at a disadvantage, that overall there will be a benefit.
It's easy to see the logic of giving someone help when they need it. But really caring about people means caring about results, not what makes us feel good/generous. And that means looking at long-term effects. We've been expanding social programs long enough to see quite clear that there are all sorts of second and third-order effects having to do with incentives and reliance, which why nations like the United States can have a growing entitlement state, yet simultaneously insist things are worse than they used to be. If this isn't an indictment of the underlying philosophy, what would be?
Yes, circumstances shouldn't be an excuse to absolve people of their own responsibilities, but often they don't understand their responsibilities or have things beyond their control preventing them.
Okay then, yes. It is "freedom" in this sense that I have the problem with. When left to the free market, or to have complete freedom, people make bad choices, often they only consider themselves, short term cost/gain, and there's a whole host of problems that I think occur, which then in turn hampers their freedom in the future.
I believe people make bad choices because of lack of understanding, because of circumstances which are beyond their control. Government intervening in their lives is also taking control away from them, but it offsets the disadvantage they're already at and gives them a chance of a more fairer life, where they are now more free to do a variety of different things, which would have become unavailable to them eventually in a free market because of forces that happens against them.
And what do you mean what virtue is their in democracy? Even democracy is controlled, there are legislations and such in place in order to curb what decisions people can actually make. I'm not entirely sure what you are asking here, sorry, but I will see that people take advantage of democracy and are clever in ways so that they can cement their power and make it difficult for people to actually change things.
This can happen without libertarianism though, can't it?
Let's just eliminate the extremes here, because they're getting in the way of meaningful discussion. Let's assume nobody reasonable is advocating anarchy (or pure libertarianism), or Marxism (or pure socialism). It sounds like you basically acknowledge that markets are good/efficient. And if you do, then the burden of proof for government intervention is quite high, and two-pronged:
1. Something that will not happen outside of government coercion.I think it's very easy to shoot down the "do nothing" extreme, and I think it's very easy to simply say that some people need some help. But I think this breaks down when we start defending specific government programs by actually examining their effects.
2. Something that will be a net benefit when considering the costs of that coercion, both for the people intended to benefit from it, and from the people harmed by enacting it.
So people should be massively rewarded whilst others suffer because they happened to be born talented or come up with a good idea?
Re: "Happened to be born talented." Well, what's the alternative? Confiscating things and then distributing them to people with no regard for how much they actually help others?
And what does "talent" encompass? Talent alone is hardly sufficient for success (certainly not for anyone hoping to be "massively rewarded"). Diligence is just as important. But then, surely some individuals are more genetically hardwired to be more diligent. Do they get credit for that?
Heck, let's go even bigger: what does it even mean for a reward to be fair or unfair once you've decoupled it from merit? Is everyone entitled to an equal share of everything simply by virtue of existing?
Seems like a harsh world to me. I think if people are given are supported to a point where they can realistically attempt to work or produce something, then they should not expect to live in poverty.
If you define "poverty" in relative terms, then it's an impossible criteria to fill without total state control, because there will always be poor people if you define poor people only as those who have less than others. So it's either poorness, or forced egalitarianism.
If you define "poverty" in absolute terms, then capitalistic societies win handily, in that they have consistently and invariably raised the definition of "poor." And that ties back into the empirical question I mentioned earlier: if the first priority is helping people in need, why on earth would we stray from an economic system that has been dramatically better at lifting most people out of poverty than literally anything else in the history of the world?
It's not immediately bad, or inherently or whatever. But I do believe that yes, inequality in that luck of circumstance, who you were born as and what life you are given, has such a huge impact on what happiness/opportunities/income you will get in your life, is a bad thing.
Once power is established, rules are then created to create barriers from others removing them from power. Whether we're talking about laws, or the creation of monopolies within business.
And they are normally free from exploitation, because they have exploited their power to set up ways of protecting themselves and consolidating their position.
And they are normally free from exploitation, because they have exploited their power to set up ways of protecting themselves and consolidating their position.
Again, there are positive examples of free markets and business leading to good decisions being made, but even in your own example it sounds like they've taken into account cost/profit with a decision that seemed fairly straightforward.
I don't think this is always the case with stuff like pollution and tax avoidance even, they would rather save the money and deal with the consequences if they occur, not realising that they are hurting the economy/country in the process.
Surely this is an example of people not taking into account full cost/benefits/consequences of options. They litter because they are lazy, not realising that they are damaging the country and also possibly incurring costs for themselves in future when taxation is used to cover costs of cleaning. In their own property, they directly see, or notice, the benefit of their actions. So government regulation is needed, the government control effectively charges people to keep it clean, or they should.
There's a very insidious self-fulfilling nature to government intervention: it posits that people can't or won't do things the right way, so it intervenes and makes that true by absolving them of individual responsibility for it. Which makes people more careless, which in turn is used to justify more intervention.
But often people don't have to live with the consequences, or at least don't realise that they do. If I throw away a fag butt, what consequences are there for me, why should I care?
Same question for poverty: is the idea to reduce poverty, or to be able to point to a program and use it to feel better about ourselves?
The same with taking drugs, it's enjoyable, and I don't see any negative effects occurring to me, so why should I stop?
Trust the people who act as a collective and are elected because of their knowledge and whose job it is to protect the welfare of the citizens, and should in theory have more information than them, that's what I say.
Fear, with pretty words disguising it. No thats not an agenda our nation should follow, imo.
