Another argument about consumerism and capitalism and stuff

[Yoda]

ADMIN EDIT: this thread was migrated from The Shoutbox (http://www.movieforums.com/community/shoutbox.php), which is why it starts so abruptly. The first post, found below, was in response to a comment about newer, smaller versions of the Nintendo Wii.



Sounds cool to me. I imagine this is probably meant to make capitalism look bad but I'm afraid it's having the opposite effect on me.

[John McClane]

Depends on how you look at it: you're looking at the immediate rewards and I'm looking at the long term perils. ;)

[Yoda]

I assure you that is not even remotely what's happening. ;) The fact that we can occasionally waste money on frivolities are the long term "perils," seeing as how we've been doing this capitalism thing for awhile now.

Start a thread if you wanna do the whole capitalist deal. You know I'm down, and it's only a matter of time.

[John McClane]

Besides, I kinda dislike the fact that companies actually sell merchandise this way. And you wonder why I say the poor are subjected? "Oh goodie, they have it in red so I need not worry. I am fulfilled now!"

[Yoda]

If your objection to capitalism rests entirely on pretending poor people are defenseless against advertising, then it'll be a pretty short discussion.

[John McClane]

We already know the problem here: you think people can instantly discard the entirety of their past and make choices in a vacuum that are contrary to their nature, while I say they can't. Seems obvious to me.

[Yoda]

I've never said that people can "discard the entirety of their past" or "make choices in a vacuum." Not once.

What I have said is that they can still make choices they are mostly responsible for. I have never taken the extreme position that does not allow for influence at all. I cannot say the same for your claims, however, which require that mere influence be akin to borderline determinism to hold together.

People can still make choices. People are still responsible for those choices. Not only do we see people resist strong influences every single day, but our entire idea of democracy, government, and the law is predicated on the idea that people are responsible for the decisions they make.

[Austruck]

And here I thought we were talking about the cute little Wii I just bought. LOL

Carry on!

[John McClane]

Oh, so it's OK to embrace a system that exploits people's carelessness and mistakes because they were free to choose to not be careless and make mistakes? Yeesh, that's even worse than what I'm saying.

[will.15]

Advertising has little influence on me.

I never click the ads on this site.

[Austruck]

I'm not sure I/we would say we're embracing the system -- that is, loving its flaws. But find me a system without flaws and then we'll talk.

Till then, I tend to like a system with the most freedom. Others controlling what I do or say or buy makes me nervous because my interests are not always theirs.

[will.15]

[quote=John McClane;743747]Oh, so it's OK to embrace a system that exploits people's carelessness and mistakes because they were free to choose to not be careless and make mistakes? /quote]
Yes.

[Austruck]

I tend to prefer capitalism because I find its flaws and excesses more tolerable than those of other systems.

[Yoda]

Oh, so it's OK to embrace a system that exploits people's carelessness and mistakes because they were free to choose to not be careless and make mistakes? Yeesh, that's even worse than what I'm saying.
That's an interesting way to frame the question. Here's another way: "should we make it our business to insulate people from their own carelessness at all times?" Or swap the "should we" for "can we," which is just as pertinent a question.

The reason the question should be framed like this is because it puts the onus on the person considering it to also consider how that would be done, and if it can be done. In other words, it forces them to examine reality and compare capitalism to that reality, not to some fictional utopia.

[Yoda]

Advertising has little influence on me.

I never click the ads on this site.
Commie!

[MovieMan8877445]

Advertising has little influence on me.

I never click the ads on this site.

Who actually does?

I find them incredibly annoying.

[John McClane]

Hey, feel free to support what you will, but the point of the matter is people enjoy capitalism because it makes them happy to know their desires will be filled, which is why it establishes order. But honestly, is such a system sustainable? I say no.

[Yoda]

Who actually does?

I find them incredibly annoying.
I understand. I'll just tell my kitten not to expect as much food this month.

[Yoda]

Hey, feel free to support what you will, but the point of the matter is people enjoy capitalism because it makes them happy to know their desires will be filled, which is why it establishes order.
Is this supposed to be a criticism of it? That it makes people happy and fulfills their desires?

[Yoda]

Alternate tack aside from the above: check out your quote.

"Oh, so it's OK to embrace a system that exploits people's carelessness and mistakes because they were free to choose to not be careless and make mistakes?"

Now imagine it refers not to buying useless products, but to voting for bad leaders. Would that be a good argument against Democracy?

[John McClane]

Is this supposed to be a criticism of it? That it makes people happy and fulfills their desires?By turning them into cattle? You bet!

[Austruck]

Hey, feel free to support what you will, but the point of the matter is people enjoy capitalism because it makes them happy to know their desires will be filled, which is why it establishes order. But honestly, is such a system sustainable? I say no.

And yet, here we are, a mere 230+ years later....

Seriously, aren't you saying we should support some other system with more controls... so that some oligarchy can control what makes people happy and how much of it does?

Honestly, it's pride of the highest order to think that there are people out there who "know what's good for ya" more than your own self does.

I like the system for the FREEDOM, not the happiness. Anyone older than 30 knows that freedom doesn't guarantee happiness. Ha! Hardly. It just makes it possible to fail and succeed on one's own.

Must you honestly assume that anyone "embracing" capitalism must therefore be selfish and anyone else is altruistic? Please.

[Austruck]

Turning them into cattle? Wait, like socialism or communism don't do that? Ha! They're very well practiced at that, far more so than capitalism.

[Austruck]

And besides, I came into this thread from the shoutbox to talk about my awesome new WII! :D

[Sexy Celebrity]

The people who are going to run out and buy a new Wii just because it's slimmer (or red - or both) are those that either:

a.) have uncontrollable impulses
b.) have the money to do it
c.) do it to feel cool, superior, popular, etc.
d.) are obsessive fanatics of whatever the object is - have to have it all, have to have it right, etc.
e.) were unsatisfied for some reason with the original product or just like something about the new product

I agree that it can be shameful that sometimes a company doesn't put out the best options the first time around, causing people to repurchase something. This happens to me a lot with DVDs/Blu-rays. I do believe that often things are intentionally withheld so that people who can't handle not having it immediately will have to buy something better (and yet the same thing) once it comes out. However, in some cases, it's probably just not the right time or something's not available/thought of in time for its original release.

I don't think the system is the problem. If anyone's doing anything wrong, it's certain people within the system that might be manipulating things to their own advantage. People need to be taught how to look out for themselves and how to control their needs better. It's nice that there's a lot of options and that things change with time. It makes the world more beautiful and ever expanding.

[will.15]

It is like over here when they tried to limit fast food restaurants in the inner cities because the food is unhealthy and there are not a lot of sit down restaurants with more healthy menus. People in inner cities like fast food because it is cheap and more upscale restaurants they can't afford on a regular basis. So you make some fat person drive an extra mile to get a greasy burger to go. So what does that do?

[Yoda]

By turning them into cattle? You bet!
This means that your argument is that you know what's good for everybody better than they do. Quite a claim, no?

It also implies that you find nothing redeeming about the fruits of capitalism, which I doubt. You may find silly little gadgets and trinkets to be a waste, and sometimes they are, but any comprehensive view of capitalism has to also consider the undeniably useful things: cell phones, computers, MRI machines, various means of cheap transportation, etc.

Are we "cattle" for desiring these things? Because they're as much a part of being a capitalist (more, I would say) than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures and pink iPod cases. You can't pretend the only things it encourages desire for are useless, because that's plainly false.

[John McClane]

Now imagine it refers not to buying useless products, but to voting for bad leaders. Would that be a good argument against Democracy?Democracy brought about the Third Reich and the death of millions of innocent civilians, so yeah. Can you say the same about socialism and communism? Of course! My point? Capitalism is just as bad as communism.

More importantly, though, why do I have to have an alternative to capitalism?

[Austruck]

FWIW, this is the first gaming console I have ever owned and I had no idea it was cuter and smaller than anyone else's on my block. :D

I tend to WAAAAAIT a long time before purchasing most tech -- for bugs to be worked out, for prices to drop, for options to get ironed out. The only time I bought a first-gen item was with the Kindle, and the price dropped and K2 came out about two months later. Ha, that'll teach me. :)

Anyway, point being.... the system doesn't cause the mistakes and sins. Do you honestly think that, under a stricter system with someone making choices for you that you wouldn't be prone to just some OTHER way of indulging yourself in whatever your petty crimes are?

I tend to think human nature will out, one way or the other. In the meantime, I'd like as much freedom to do GOOD too. And to be the best "me" I can be. And I just don't trust anyone else to know who that is better than I do.

[Yoda]

Democracy brought about the Third Reich and the death of millions of innocent civilians, so yeah.
Saying "Democracy" brought this about is confused. Democracy is the mechanism that allowed people to choose it, not the cause of the choice itself.

Regardless, is that your position, then? That freedom is bad?

Can you say the same about socialism and communism? Of course! My point? Capitalism is just as bad as communism.
So you don't care if you live in a Communist state? I, uh, don't believe you.

Also, starving and dying and being forced to do things is worse than being complacent or overly concerned with consumerism. Please, don't make me argue such obvious things. ;)

More importantly, though, why do I have to have an alternative to capitalism?
Well, technically you don't if you also acknowledge (and it should probably be done upfront) that you're not actually suggesting we stop being capitalists. But if that's the case, why are you complaining, exactly?

[John McClane]

I don't even know why you made this thread.

[will.15]

Just because a product is invented and marketed doesn't mean the public will embrace and buy it. There have been plenty of flops. The corporations don't make the consumer buy anything. They can influence the decision with marketing of a desireable product, but if the consumer doesn't want it, advertising with an unlimited budget won't make them buy it.

Democracy didn't create the Third Reich. A country with no democratic tradition and no safeguards in its system to prevent a madman from taking over caused it. Nixon seriously considered trying to seize power during the Watergate crisis but didn't because our system wouldn't allow it. It can't happen here.

[Yoda]

I don't even know why you made this thread.
Because:

a) we were talking about this in The Shoutbox and it's obviously too involved for that

and

b) we've had lots of allusions to this discussion without ever actually hashing it out. So why not now? You take lots of little shots at capitalism, I really like capitalism, so why not discuss it?

[Sexy Celebrity]

I don't even know why you made this thread.

Oh, would you look at him -- now he's trying to stop new thread production.

[John McClane]

Because:

a) we were talking about this in The Shoutbox and it's obviously too involved for that

and

b) we've had lots of allusions to this discussion without ever actually hashing it out. So why not now? You take lots of little shots at capitalism, I really like capitalism, so why not discuss it?A.) I was joking.

B.) Because we have discussed it and we always come to the same roadblock: you think people can make decisions in spite of their past and I think they can't.

Oh, would you look at him -- now he's trying to stop new thread production.No, it just doesn't make any sense to create a thread involving me when I'm not going to contribute to it.

[Yoda]

Just because a product is invented and marketed doesn't mean the public will embrace and buy it. There have been plenty of flops. The cororations don't make the cosumer buy anything. They can iflence the decision with marketing of a desireable product, but if the consumer doesn't want it, advertising with an unlimited budget won't make them buy it.
Aye. I suppose someone could argue (though not very persuasively, I don't think) that it's only because some companies find some magical way to market their product, but that stretches credulity when superior products so often win out.

In other discussions with MattJohn about this sort of thing, I've argued that the amount of money and effort put into marketing is largely a reflection of how similar or unimportant the product actually is. That is to say, while people have their favorites most are fine with Coke or Pepsi, and thus they allow silly things to influence their choice because there are no serious things on which to base that choice.

It also works with cheap things. If I buy something I don't really need, odds are good it's very cheap, and I don't much hurt myself by buying it. Like the $5 USB-based mug warmer sitting next to me right now.

When I buy something where quality can vary greatly, or something that I'll greatly regret buying a crappy version of, I put more time and thought into it.

Also, people forget just how often products fail. It's easy to look at all existing products and not see a lot of difference, but that's because almost all the terrible ones have been weeded out already. All that's left are the ones that are vary in both price and quality (in which case there's real difference between them), or ones that don't vary much in either, which means it doesn't much matter which you choose and can afford to let something like advertising influence you more.

[Harry Lime]

Advertising has little influence on me.

I never click the ads on this site.

Who actually does?

I find them incredibly annoying.

Do you guys like this place? Think it just magically appeared without any work or costs? Click on the ****ing ads. I'd say quit being a bunch of cheapskates but it doesn't even cost anything. Or are you saying you don't want to feed starving kittens?

[Sexy Celebrity]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but are you saying people cannot make smart decisions based on their OWN pasts? What specifically about people's pasts is the problem?

[will.15]

I don't even know why you made this thread.
It is on the second page in less than an hour. But I admit I didn't know what the hell it was saying with the crappy beginning, not having been in the shout box for a while.

[Yoda]

A.) I was joking.
I need emotional icons to determine these things!

B.) Because we have discussed it and we always come to the same roadblock: you think people can make decisions in spite of their past and I think they can't.
Well, then let's talk about why they "can't." Firstly, the "can't" can't be literal, because people resist their impulses all the time. You do, I do, millions of people do dozens of times a day. When I'm besieged by ads for soda, at the very least I don't buy ALL of them, and sometimes I buy none. Some people become Communists. Some people write books about how terrible capitalism is. People like you read them. ;)

So, right off the bat we've established that people can make their own choices sometimes. The question then becomes how influenced they are, and whether or not their choices are their own responsibility. What reasons do you have for thinking people's choices are nearly determined already for them, then? And what do you say to the idea that our entire legal system is based on a degree of personal responsibility for one's choices?

No, it just doesn't make any sense to create a thread involving me when I'm not going to contribute to it.
Let's flip that on it's head: why toss these things out in shouts and chats and whatnot if you don't want to discuss them?

[DexterRiley]

In the interest of the safety and well being of the cat, Yoda i hereby offer to trade 30 clicks of banner ads for Albert Pujols.

:D

[Yoda]

Do you guys like this place? Think it just magically appeared without any work or costs? Click on the ****ing ads. I'd say quit being a bunch of cheapskates but it doesn't even cost anything. Or are you saying you don't want to feed starving kittens?
Beautiful.

Though I might have overstated things when I said "kittens." By "kittens" I might have meant "cats." And by "cats" I might have meant "meth dealers."

[Harry Lime]

Support your local meth dealer by clicking on ads at movieforums.com!

[Sexy Celebrity]

I need emotional icons to determine these things!

You really need to install more smilies -- even though McClane will probably say that you actually need less. I really like all the ones Nebbit finds somewhere.

[John McClane]

I need emotional icons to determine these things!"Depends on how you look at it: you're looking at the immediate rewards and I'm looking at the long term perils. --> ;) <--"

Let's flip that on it's head: why toss these things out in shouts and chats and whatnot if you don't want to discuss them?Again, we have discussed them.

[will.15]

The difference between capitalism and communism is in the former people are free to screw up their own lives and in the latter governmnet screws it up for them.

[will.15]

Hide this thread from planet news.

[DexterRiley]

must it be one or the other?

You guys should check out Canada some time. We don't have bread lines nor are we conscripted into military duty + we can get the same lil red Wii's and everything.

The only real difference between liven there and liven here is....well i'd say the climate but Yoda is from pittsburgh

:D

[Yoda]

"Depends on how you look at it: you're looking at the immediate rewards and I'm looking at the long term perils. --> ;) <--"
I thought we were talking about the quote I was replying to, which was: "I don't even know why you made this thread." That's what I thought you were saying was a joke.

Again, we have discussed them.
Not really. We've run around in circles and then come to the same point: you thinking that people's pasts determines their future choices. But I don't think we've ever gotten past the point where I ask you why or how that's supposed to work.

[DexterRiley]

As it happens with adblock on, i can't actually see the advertisements. Can somebody run down the list for me?

maybe its not worth it for pujols..lol

[Sexy Celebrity]

Not really. We've run around in circles and then come to the same point: you thinking that people's pasts determines their future choices. But I don't think we've ever gotten past the point where I ask you why or how that's supposed to work.

I would like to know more about this because I might agree with you somewhere, MattJohn (can I call you MattJohn? - I don't think I've done that.)

[John McClane]

I thought we were talking about the quote I was replying to, which was: "I don't even know why you made this thread." That's what I thought you were saying was a joke.What?

Not really. We've run around in circles and then come to the same point: you thinking that people's pasts determines their future choices. But I don't think we've ever gotten past the point where I ask you why or how that's supposed to work.There's tons more to it than just that one thing. However, it's all dependent on that one thing. If you think people can make decisions that are contrary to their nature for no reason other than they just made the decision, then we need not have the discussion. Not in the forums, anyways.

[will.15]

As it happens with adblock on, i can't actually see the advertisements. Can somebody run down the list for me?

maybe its not worth it for pujols..lol
Hair Club for Men

Topless Rent-a-Maid

The Smell Good Plumbers

[Sleezy]

If I'm understanding the original argument correctly, I'll throw in my two cents.

I don't necessarily think the marketing machine that dominates consumerism in this country is a poor reflection on capitalism, nor even a poor reflection on the idea of marketing itself. But I do think, in some cases, companies market their products with little concern for truth or decency when it comes to the American public, and I find that pretty reprehensible.

I sometimes complain about fast food companies, candy companies, cereal companies, etc. marketing extremely unhealthy, sugar and fat-laden foods to children (a quick look at the commercials on any children's television network will show you what I mean). Obviously, we all know that fast food and candy are unhealthy, and the argument can be made that "parents should know better." But parents are often just grown-up kids themselves; the 1950s ideal of wholesome parenting is just not true, unfortunately, for many, many, many families in this country. Couple that with the millions of dollars these companies spend each year in marketing to children, completely outmarketing healthier alternatives, in addition to the extremely widespread availability of these products, and you've got a recipe for declining health and obesity in children.

I'll also use the example of pharmaceutical companies and the commercials they produce for their products, often hiring actors to play doctors in order to foster a false sense of acceptance/advocacy of their product by professionals in the medicine world. That's not always the case, but for a lot of people, simply seeing a well-groomed individual in a lab coat on an inspiring commercial, coupled with their discomfort, is enough to take a commercial drug seriously. Obviously, I'm not saying Lipitor or Ambien or anything like that is inherently bad. But when it comes to someone's health, pharmaceutical companies are choosing fiction to promote their products.

Obviously, these practices aren't illegal, and they're in the spirit of free speech and free marketing. And yes, in principle, the eponymous "American people" are free to choose and be responsible for those choices... whether they're informed or not.

I just think it's irresponsible and worth a little condemnation. Why can't companies choose to be ethically responsible in promoting their products? Is it more important to preserve the ideals of capitalistic commerce, or should we hold higher standards for ourselves when we're peddling products to people who often realistically have no viable way of refuting what their TV is telling them?

[Yoda]

What?
Here are the relevant quotes, each of us directly responding to the other:

You: "I don't even know why you made this thread."
Me: "We were talking about this in The Shoutbox and it's obviously too involved for that."
You: "I was joking."

So, I thought that you meant you were joking with your first statement above.

There's tons more to it than just that one thing. However, it's all dependent on that one thing. If you think people can make decisions that are contrary to their nature for no reason other than they just made the decision then we need not discuss it.
I don't know what "for no reason other than they just made the decision" means. Do you think people are absolutely, positively determined by their pasts, yes or no? If the answer is yes, then all your complaints about capitalism presuppose a rejection of free will, and they refute themselves in a way because everything else is determined, too. If the answer is no, then my earlier questions about how we measure influence still apply. And my second question applies in both scenarios.

Also, I think the phrase "contrary to their nature" is overly vague. It is in the nature of some people to lose their temper. That does not mean they always must or always will. We all have general natures, but that doesn't mean a) we are invariably slaves to them or b) we are not responsible for our choices.

[DexterRiley]

Hair Club for Men

Topless Rent-a-Maid

The Smell Good Plumbers


pujols is a bargoon then.

1- full head of hair

2- I'm married to a topless maid

and 3 is a gag ad. they simply don't exist.

[Sedai]

Democracy brought about the Third Reich and the death of millions of innocent civilians, so yeah. Can you say the same about socialism and communism? Of course! My point? Capitalism is just as bad as communism.

More importantly, though, why do I have to have an alternative to capitalism?

Post Hoc - more coincidental correlation.

And shouldn't you say:

"Democracy brought about the Third Reich and the death of millions of innocent civilians, so yeah. Can you say the same about socialism and communism? Of course! My point? Capitalism is just as bad as communism concerning this particular issue." (The Third Reich)

Let's get back to scientific advances, transportation and FREEDOM for a second. Why are these issues that show a clear superiority for capitalism excluded if we are trying to figure out which systems are "bad"? My issue here is really with the word bad, which is about a vague as you can get.

Dinner time - back soon.

[Sexy Celebrity]

I get the feeling that McClane feels that there's no free will with any choice that people make -- we are all subject to whatever's been put into our brains. On deep, unconscious levels, we make decisions and aren't aware of them. All of this leads to us making decisions that can harm us. Thus, why he doesn't like capitalism.

I am fascinated and open to this conversation. Frankly, I think I might even believe it. I would like to know more about his thoughts, but I suspect he might be uncomfortable talking about them, especially with people who don't believe in this. Am I right on anything or am I way off?

[will.15]

pujols is a bargoon then.

1- full head of hair

2- I'm married to a topless maid

and 3 is a gag ad. they simply don't exist.
They do exist in California. That is not the name of the company, but that is their tag line in radio and television commericals, "the smell good plumbers." I couldn't make that up.

http://mikediamondservice2.klicktocall.com/the-smell-good-plumber.html

[DexterRiley]

I get the feeling that McClane feels that there's no free will with any choice that people make -- we are all subject to whatever's been put into our brains. On deep, unconscious levels, we make decisions and aren't aware of them. All of this leads to us making decisions that can harm us. Thus, why he doesn't like capitalism.

I am fascinated and open to this conversation. Frankly, I think I might even believe it. I would like to know more about his thoughts, but I suspect he might be uncomfortable talking about them, especially with people who don't believe in this. Am I right on anything or am I way off?


Flashen back to that crappy matt damon flick with the magic fedoras..whose name is drawing a blank at the moment

[Sexy Celebrity]

Flashen back to that crappy matt damon flick with the magic fedoras..whose name is drawing a blank at the moment

The Adjustment Bureau.

Hmmm... wasn't that about lives that were already pre-planned by God or something? I think that's entirely different. But it possibly deals with similar themes.

[DexterRiley]

The Adjustment Bureau.

Hmmm... wasn't that about lives that were already pre-planned by God or something? I think that's entirely different. But it possibly deals with similar themes.

yes yes thats it.

Anyway wasn't the premise that humans don't have free will so much as the appearance of same?

on the big stuff anyway. you are on your own when deciding which cola you are gonna drink.

Is that what JC is intimaten?

[Sexy Celebrity]

I don't know... I get the feeling it's an idea like every choice you make is based upon some connection to your past. Like you would choose Coke over Pepsi on a certain day because the label or something has a powerful emotional connection with you and you can't help but pick it.

I could be dead wrong, though.

[DexterRiley]

^^

well thats just plain silly. i hope you are wrong.

[will.15]

I bet Sexy Celebrity would pick a smell good plumber to fix his stopped up toilet.

[Sexy Celebrity]

Or, it could be something like commercials are putting messages into our brains and controlling us on unconscious levels.

I'm very open to this. I don't really know how to defend it, though.

I bet Sexy Celebrity would pick a smell good plumber to fix his stopped up toilet.

I actually did notice your Smell Good Plumber thing. I would prefer one that smells like a man. Which doesn't have to be good. Too bad my toilet's not stopped up right now.

[DexterRiley]

The only commercials i ever watch are the ones that come on during the Super Bowl.

[Sedai]

I get the feeling that McClane feels that there's no free will with any choice that people make -- we are all subject to whatever's been put into our brains. On deep, unconscious levels, we make decisions and aren't aware of them. All of this leads to us making decisions that can harm us. Thus, why he doesn't like capitalism.

I am fascinated and open to this conversation. Frankly, I think I might even believe it. I would like to know more about his thoughts, but I suspect he might be uncomfortable talking about them, especially with people who don't believe in this. Am I right on anything or am I way off?

But it just isn't strictly due to capitalism. That's just how people ARE. Our past experiences will always play into our decision making, regardless of the system we live in. In those other systems, that ability to make the choices at all gets removed, because someone else makes them for you. This is why Chris asked if Matt was against freedom.

I read the same books that Matt does, but I have a very different OUTLOOK on life and our society. One can certainly choose to look at it as if we are prisoners, because an argument can me made (and has been made) that we are, but I choose not to look at it that way. People can choose to believe I am deluded, but that actually has no effect on my life unless I let it.

[Yoda]

There are also weird wrinkles to the discussion wherein if you don't believe in free will, there would be no point in saying these things to begin with. And then you point out that you have no choice but to say them, and I have no choice but to argue, and the alleged "cattle" in capitalistic societies have no choice but to be that way, yadda yadda yadda. The moment you say things are determined, you kind of destroy the discussion or any attempt at persuasion, by definition. You also undermine our entire legal and political system.

So, clearly any argument that rests solely on the idea that we have no choice is a non-starter. There's no point to having such an argument at all. Political, legal, and economic arguments have to proceed as if we have some degree of choice, if they are to exist at all. Otherwise it's like arguing against tax cuts by saying reality doesn't exist. It's a counter that does not address the argument on the rational playing field, but by denying the point of all arguments at all times. It doesn't win the game, it abolishes the entire sport.

Now, once you decide to proceed as if choice were at least possible, it becomes obvious that all the pitfalls of capitalism are really just basic human problems that exist in all times and places, and which cannot be removed or fixed by any economic system. Thus, we can only encourage people to be thoughtful and try to make sure that people have a level playing field when we can. But we cannot Nerf the world to the point at which people's carelessness or lack of decent priorities will not harm them at some point, sometimes significantly. It's just not possible. That's a problem with us, not with capitalism.

The thing about capitalism is that it's a bit like science and a bit like freedom/democracy, too. It's like science in that producers must constantly change and tweak their services and products. They must experiment to see what consumers want, and each success is the child of a thousand failures. They are scientists of demand. It's like freedom in that the whole aggregate of people are ultimately in control, and can bestow wealth on who they deem, collectively, is providing them with the most value. To buy a thing is to cast a vote with your dollars.

This is why I think capitalism is so potent: it reflects freedom and choice more than other economic systems, and it incorporates the trial and error of the scientific process to learn what people want.

Yay capitalism!

[Sleezy]

The thing about capitalism is that it's a bit like science and a bit like freedom/democracy, too. It's like science in that producers must constantly change and tweak their services and products. They must experiment to see what consumers want, and each success is the child of a thousand failures. They are scientists of demand.

That's certainly true in principle. But I think there's another half to that: many companies today are able to create demand for products through agressive, pointed marketing. They can do this because they're large and financially loaded, allowing them to endlessly saturate people's lives with product placement and brand messaging. I actually chose not to pursue graphic design in college because it's closely and unavoidably tied to advertising, which is absolutely an exercise in manipulation and trickery.

Obviously, marketing is plum necessary and is in the spirit of competition. I'm not saying companies shouldn't be allowed to market. But we're living in a country that currently spends more money on mobile phones than it does on feeding the homeless. The amount of capital that companies like T-Mobile and AT&T can throw at marketing their phone services is staggering, and I'm of the mind that such disparity between what big corporations can spend on marketing versus what, say, Habitat for Humanity can spend might be great for consumerism, but is not terribly good for the wellbeing of our country and its people. (And yes, I do think that consumerism and the wellbeing of our society can be mutually exclusive... probably more often than we realize.)

In other words, we as money-making, tax-paying individuals are spinning our wheels. Billions upon billions of dollars have bought companies like McDonald's, Sony, and Apple our undivided attention... and our pocketbooks. And while we should be saving our money or donating some of what we make to charity (and thankfully, many people still do), we're perhaps far too dialed into the consumer system now to break away.

Yes, we're ultimately the ones handing over our hard-earned cash. No one is taking it away without our consent. But many of these corporations have grown so fat and rich that we're unable to get through a day anymore without seeing and hearing the same names, the same products, the same advertisements... over and over and over again. We're conditioned now, I fear. What is that doing to our society? What kind of adverse affect, if any, is that having on what we value and how we define our quality of life?

[Yoda]

That's certainly true in principle. But I think there's another half to that: many companies today are able to create demand for products through agressive, pointed marketing. They can do this because they're large and financially loaded, allowing them to endlessly saturate people's lives with product placement and brand messaging. I actually chose not to pursue graphic design in college because it's closely and unavoidably tied to advertising, which is absolutely an exercise in manipulation and trickery.
I addressed something very similar to this a page or so ago, I believe. The basic idea was that the amount of advertising we see for a product is inversely related to the difference between it and every other product. You see the most ads for the things that either a) are most like their competitors or b) are cheap enough that buying them is not a very serious decision. It doesn't really matter if I choose Coke or Pepsi, which is why they advertise so much: they're trying to give me a reason to think of the two differently, even though they're not. Which means that picking one based on something trivial doesn't really hurt me, because they're not very different, and it's not going to cripple my finances either way.

So, I guess my response is that they're not really creating demand, they're just splitting up the demand that is there. We demand soda, and because so much soda is so very alike, they spend a lot of time trying to emphasize the slight differences. We "allow" it because it's not very important.

Obviously, marketing is plum necessary and is in the spirit of competition. I'm not saying companies shouldn't be allowed to market. But we're living in a country that currently spends more money on mobile phones than it does on feeding the homeless. The amount of capital that companies like T-Mobile and AT&T can throw at marketing their phone services is staggering, and I'm of the mind that such disparity between what big corporations can spend on marketing versus what, say, Habitat for Humanity can spend might be great for consumerism, but is not terribly good for the wellbeing of our country and its people. (And yes, I do think that consumerism and the wellbeing of our society can be mutually exclusive... probably more often than we realize.)
Another thought on advertising: even being bombarded by ads has some benefit. For example, the fact that I know about McDonald's: know that it's cheap, all over the place, and tastes the same everywhere, is actually a valuable thing for me to know. It means that if I'm in an unusual place and need quick, cheap, reliable food, and I see their logo, I know I can get it. I don't have to look up restaurant reviews or try to find some local place. I can if I want, but I now have the option. McDonald's spends billions of dollars so that we can know that fact, a fact which helps both them and us under the right circumstances. Ditto for the fact that it's everywhere. It means I'm more likely to have that option in a given place than if they did not expand as much.

In other words, though branding can feel crude and excessive, it's not just pointless slogans and glitzy nonsense. The ability to trust a brand has value, even if the downside of that is a lot of commercials.

As for our well-being and consumerism being mutually exclusive...I think it depends on where you draw the line. If you pause time and ask me whether it helps humanity more to build someone a home or air another McDonald's ad, I'd pick the home. But that's only because we're already assuming all the benefits of the former and not thinking about it all going forward. The existence of capitalism and advertising makes goods cheaper and more widely available, and that absolutely helps the poor, inevitably so. Clothes and food being cheap is incredibly important for the poor.

So, if we freeze moments in time it does look like consumerism can happen "instead of" a charitable act. But in reality, where things have cumulative effects over time, capitalism creates the kind of efficiency and production that raises what it means to be "poor" compared to other countries. It seems counterintuitive, but only because we can see the specific house being built, and the general growth of production is hazy and spread out. But it's no less real.

In other words, we as money-making, tax-paying individuals are spinning our wheels. Billions upon billions of dollars have bought companies like McDonald's, Sony, and Apple our undivided attention... and our pocketbooks. And while we should be saving our money or donating some of what we make to charity (and thankfully, many people still do), we're perhaps far too dialed into the consumer system now to break away.
Aye, many still do. And corporations do. Whether out of altruism or just a desire to have good PR, most large corporations give away tons of money every year. And all the attention we give to existing brands is part of the broad incentives that encourage other companies to strive the way they do, to become one of them. In other words, it's all part of the process that has produced such wealth, and has to be considered as an entire process to be judged properly.

Yes, we're ultimately the ones handing over our hard-earned cash. No one is taking it away without our consent. But many of these corporations have grown so fat and rich that we're unable to get through a day anymore without seeing and hearing the same names, the same products, the same advertisements... over and over and over again. We're conditioned now, I fear. What is that doing to our society? What kind of adverse affect, if any, is that having on what we value and how we define our quality of life?
All fair questions. Capitalism is not without pitfalls and downsides. I just find the benefits so overwhelming in terms of quality of life, length of life, freedom, and innovation, that the downsides seem almost trivial considering the problems of actual, life-threatening scarcity that humanity has faced through most of its history.

Doesn't mean they aren't real problems, but that they're some pretty excellent problems to have.

[Sexy Celebrity]

I don't know what else needs to be said. I agree that a belief in free will is what drives everything around here. Now, I am more likely to believe in this idea that our past experiences influences everything and that we are limited by whatever's in our skull, our brain -- for that I'm certain of. I have to say that I personally do not know just how powerful the manipulation and trickery can be -- I would guess it's pretty powerful. It's funny because all of this actually reminds me of the Shoutbox conversation I was having recently about stuff like how the golden arches of McDonalds looks like breasts (or an ass) and how this sends signals to, I think, the limbic system of a man's brain (deals with emotions, very primal, I believe) and is one of the prime reasons why man ventures to McDonalds -- it's like he's being subliminally called to it by a woman who wants sex. He doesn't realize it - it's all ancient and more in touch with our ape side, which I do believe we're still in touch with today. Women tag along because the man goes to McDonalds and likes it - it feeds the family. Also, notice how McDonalds uses lots of red - an aggressive, sexual, passionate color. I heard somewhere that red is actually the first color man could see, but I don't know how legit that is.

http://www.logodesignlove.com/images/upside-down/mcdonalds-logo-chip-shop-awards.jpg

Anyway, I think a lot of what I'm talking about here is real, but of course I don't personally have the proof right in front of me that it is. If anyone has any links to share about something that goes more into this, please drop them here for me to see.

There's always been a lot of fears about what TV and advertising and things are doing to a person's mind -- frankly, I understand these fears. I just don't know if they're major fears to be concerned about. Yoda is right that it's good for us to be programmed about knowing where places like McDonalds is so we can know it's cheap and will serve us if we're perhaps stuck somewhere and can't find food. This is a good thing because I assume in a non-capitalist society we might be forced to only buy $80 steaks or something and then go broke or starve and die. I'm pretty sure that, no matter what, nothing's ever going to be free. If we are to believe that we are animals and that we have primal selves and that there's no free will, we have to expect that people aren't just gonna give things away for free, or work for free, etc. Right? People will naturally get pissed off and refuse. Unless we all smoke marijuana and decide to be nice to each other or something. You know, use up the world's marijuana supply and we all smoke it so we can be peaceful to one another. Is that possible? It's an interesting thought. Nah, we wouldn't be able to work hard and build society that way.

[DexterRiley]

TV was invented to sell you crap.

As an adult you can skip past the commercials. The level to which children are directly marketted 2 is the troubling part.

[Sexy Celebrity]

I do believe it's worse when you're a child.

[Sedai]

Absolutely.

[will.15]

Up to a point.

I saw a commercial with Bugs Bunny promoting Bugs Bunny Carrot juice so I wanted that. My mother thought that was great and got it for me. It tasted just like... carrot juice. I made no further requests for Bugs Bunny Carrot Juice.

[Sleezy]

This past weekend, I ran across this cartoon from 1948 that is obviously warning against socialism/ and heralding capitalism as its superior alternative. Seemed pretty apropos to this thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTZmyZ8jtw0

The cartoon is pretty good and I like how the dangers of "ISM" are depicted. But I find myself somewhat disagreeing with the final message: "working together to create an ever-growing abundance of materials and spiritual values for all." Not that it's a bad sentiment; it isn't. But I don't think capitalism really works this way in practice. It's not really about working together, much less for the sake of spiritual values or anything like that. It's a dog-eat-dog world; it's about competing, absorbing, driving out of business. It's about increasing efficiency and profit. It's about constant, unblocked growth.

Like anything else, capitalism has evolved naturally with the times, with the development of new technologies and new industries, and with very intelligent and resourceful people who have come along and pushed it further to serve their own ends. Obviously, it's not an inherently manipulative model and, no doubt, anyone can benefit greatly from the capitalist system... so long as they don't fall below a certain line. A line that is always rising, I fear.

So what happens now that our resources for fueling this system are running low? What happens now that the economy is shrinking the middle class and growing the poor? Who's going to be altruistic enough, and/or community-minded enough, to bring this into balance? I don't believe it's a matter of simply balancing the budget. I believe it's a matter of reining in the American determination toward limitless growth and choosing instead to live within our means.

[Yoda]

Can't watch the video at work but I'll check it out when I get home. :)

But I don't think capitalism really works this way in practice. It's not really about working together, much less for the sake of spiritual values or anything like that. It's a dog-eat-dog world; it's about competing, absorbing, driving out of business. It's about increasing efficiency and profit. It's about constant, unblocked growth.
You make it sound like these are different things. But the increasing efficiency and constant growth you talk about has benefits across the board, for all income classes. The competition creates, it doesn't destroy. For every business "driven out," another comes in, or is stronger and hiring and producing more, and the one driven out is almost invariably an inferior business.

The "working together" part might evoke counterintuitive images, but that's ultimately what we're doing when we work and trade with one another. Money facilitates barter, basically, so that you can trade your service in one area of production for any other. The fact that we are often competing doesn't mean that we are not, ultimately, always doing work that serves another person's interests or desires both in our work and in our spending choices.

Like anything else, capitalism has evolved naturally with the times, with the development of new technologies and new industries, and with very intelligent and resourceful people who have come along and pushed it further to serve their own ends. Obviously, it's not an inherently manipulative model and, no doubt, anyone can benefit greatly from the capitalist system... so long as they don't fall below a certain line. A line that is always rising, I fear.
But it isn't. We have the richest poor people in the history of the world. That is the value of all this growth: that a person can be poor today and be wealthy by the standards of just 60-70 years ago. People "benefit greatly from the capitalist system" merely by virtue of being part of it, even if they fall below a certain line of wealth.

So what happens now that our resources for fueling this system are running low? What happens now that the economy is shrinking the middle class and growing the poor? Who's going to be altruistic enough, and/or community-minded enough, to bring this into balance? I don't believe it's a matter of simply balancing the budget. I believe it's a matter of reining in the American determination toward limitless growth and choosing instead to live within our means.
It's difficult to reply to this because there are no specific claims to address. My broad response, however, is that growth is not the problem here, it is the solution. And our economic problems are not a matter of a lack of resources or altruism, but a lack of economic freedom. The economy will improve the more we relieve both individuals and businesses of the constraints that deincentivize them to hire and produce, as always.

[will.15]

More proof private companies do such a better job than the government:


BOISE, Idaho -In the last four years, Idaho's largest privately run prison has faced federal lawsuits, widespread public scrutiny, increased state oversight, changes in upper management and even an ongoing FBI investigation.

Yet the Corrections Corp. of America-run Idaho Correctional Center remains the most violent lockup in Idaho.

Records obtained by The Associated Press show that while the assault rate improved somewhat in the four-year period examined, ICC inmates are still more than twice as likely to be assaulted as those at other Idaho prisons.

Between September 2007 and September 2008, both ICC and the state-run Idaho State Correctional Institution were medium-security prisons with roughly 1,500 inmates each. But during that 12-month span, ICC had 132 inmate-on-inmate assaults, compared to just 42 at ISCI. In 2008, ICC had more assaults than all other Idaho prisons combined.

By 2010, both prisons had grown with 2,080 inmates at ICC and 1,688 inmates at ISCI. Records collected by the AP showed that there were 118 inmate-on-inmate assaults at ICC compared to 38 at ISCI. And again last year, ICC had more assaults than all the other prisons combined.

Shannon Cluney, who was the head of the Idaho Department of Correction's virtual prison program until he was recently promoted to be the warden of the South Boise Women's Correctional Center, said the AP's numbers for assaults at the private prison were actually low: The Virtual Prisons Program investigated 141 inmate-on-inmate assaults at ICC during 2010. The discrepancy, Cluney said, could be because the AP examined specific records that are supposed to be generated with each assault, while his department also investigated assaults that were reported late and didn't have the record.

Still, Cluney said he's seen marked improvement at ICC.

"I think — when I look at the fact that more incidences are reported anonymously, and I look at the increase in the offender population, and I look at the types or severity of the incidences — that there has been an improvement," Cluney said. "Is there room for more? Absolutely."

All calls to ICC officials were referred to CCA spokesman Steve Owen, who emailed a statement saying CCA officials were proud of their work at the Idaho Correctional Center, and that CCA employees are committed to enhancing safety. He said ICC's new warden, Timothy Wengler, has increased efforts to prevent assaults at the lockup.

"Safety and security for the public, our employees, and the inmates entrusted to our care is our top priority," Owen said.

Cluney said the fact that inmates at the private prison are more likely to report assaults now shows they feel safer and are less afraid of reprisals. The severity of the assaults at the prison has also dropped, he said, with fewer attacks involving weapons, serious injuries or groups of offenders.

In 2008, state officials said, ICC had a violence rate three times higher than other prisons because of gangs, and they said action was taken to identify and separate gang members from their enemies. The following year, the rate of inmate-on-inmate assaults at ICC remained largely unchanged, despite months of concern from lawmakers and state correction officials.

Since then, in 2009 and 2010, several ICC inmates sued in federal court, with so many of the lawsuits making similar allegations about rampant violence that a judge decided to combine them all into one potential class-action case.

That case was eventually split into two: One lawsuit from inmate Marlin Riggs, who was asking for $55 million in damages after he was severely beaten in what he said was a preventable attack, and the other from inmates who were asking only for changes in the way the prison is run. CCA settled both lawsuits last month, agreeing to increase staffing and make other changes at ICC and reaching a sealed agreement with Riggs.

Also, the Idaho Department of Correction stopped housing inmates in out-of-state prisons, allowing three state contract monitors to focus full-time on whether CCA is running the prison in accordance with its Idaho contract. The monitors spend about 75 percent of their time at the prison.

And in another development, CCA transferred former warden Phillip Valdez and former deputy warden Dan Prado to other private prisons, and appointed warden Timothy Wengler to run ICC in 2010.

An investigation was launched by the Justice Department and the FBI into several inmate-on-inmate attacks at the prison, including one on Hanni Elabed, who was beaten unconscious and stomped by an attacker for several minutes while guards watched, according to records. Elabed was left with permanent brain damage from the attack. The investigation is ongoing.

During this period, Idaho renewed CCA's contract to run the prison, approving 628 more beds and substantially boosting the number of inmates kept there.

Cluney said the state's new contract with CCA, which went into effect in 2009, really helped the Idaho Department of Correction by requiring that CCA follow more IDOC policies. That gave IDOC authority to more closely monitor events at the lockup.

"We are looking at every single incident in the last year and a half," Cluney said. The department is looking to see "whether the response to the each incident was appropriate, whether the medical follow-up to the incident was appropriate and complete, and if any corrective action was needed, that CCA workers identify and take the appropriate action."

But IDOC officials say ultimately, there's only so much the department can do. That's where the new settlement between CCA and the inmates will help, said IDOC Director Brent Reinke.

"We need to see what's happening behind the fence when we're there and when we're not there," Reinke said. "We have three monitors now. We could have six there and not see everything."

Because of the settlement, "I think we should see the level of violence plateau and even reduce a little bit" in the coming year, Reinke said.

[Yoda]

I think you have the wrong thread.

I also think you don't know what the word "proof" means.

[will.15]

It is not unrelated to the previous two posts.

You said somewhere where the private sector competes directly with the public sector the private sector always does the better job. Clearly not the case in Idaho.

[earlsmoviepicks]

Apple was accused by a reporter of making expensive products for the elite because they did not have a line of stripped down models with stratified pricing. Jobs replied that he will not sell junk. His products were high quality, and did what you need them to do do without having to buy extras/add-ons. I think this type of thinking is good for economy. (Of course that leaves a hole for lower-price/lower-quality products, which someone is always quick to fill.)

These days, you've really got to be knowledgeable about the sellers, and thoughtful about what you're buying.

[Yoda]

You said somewhere where the private sector competes directly with the public sector the private sector always does the better job. Clearly not the case in Idaho.
I wonder if I said "always." Though whether or not it's literally "always" or "99% of the time" is kind of beside the point.

Nevertheless, you still don't seem to know what the word "proof" means, for two reasons:

1) You often call evidence "proof," just as you've often contradicted things it was quickly revealed you had no way of actually contradicting. You seem to routinely employ stronger language in your conclusions than the individual pieces of evidence actually support.

2) I'm not even sure what you posted is evidence. Did you read it? It says the assault rate has gone down, but it still high. What's that supposed to disprove, exactly?

I hope I don't even need to explain why this new "post any article I find that sounds like it might agree with a position I already hold" thing you've been doing for the last few months is just a really, really blatant recurring example of confirmation bias.

[will.15]

It contrasts the statistics of the private company with the same state's government facility. Both are medium security. The point is the statistics for the privately run one was extremely high for years and they are getting the assault rate down and it is still much higher than the government one. You were the one who made a statement without evidence, that privately owned units are less effective than private counterparts. Here is an example where that clearly isn't so. I didn't look for it. I came across it. Where I live the electric power company is owned by the city and their rates are lower than privately run Cal Edison so it would seem they don't fit your belief public sector is always inferior to private sector either. You were the one making a sweeping statement without any attempt to support it with evidence, not me.







I certainly did read it. Did you? Here is the relevant part, it comes at the beginning:

BOISE, Idaho -In the last four years, Idaho's largest privately run prison has faced federal lawsuits, widespread public scrutiny, increased state oversight, changes in upper management and even an ongoing FBI investigation.

Yet the Corrections Corp. of America-run Idaho Correctional Center remains the most violent lockup in Idaho.

Records obtained by The Associated Press show that while the assault rate improved somewhat in the four-year period examined, ICC inmates are still more than twice as likely to be assaulted as those at other Idaho prisons.

Between September 2007 and September 2008, both ICC and the state-run Idaho State Correctional Institution were medium-security prisons with roughly 1,500 inmates each. But during that 12-month span, ICC had 132 inmate-on-inmate assaults, compared to just 42 at ISCI. In 2008, ICC had more assaults than all other Idaho prisons combined.

By 2010, both prisons had grown with 2,080 inmates at ICC and 1,688 inmates at ISCI. Records collected by the AP showed that there were 118 inmate-on-inmate assaults at ICC compared to 38 at ISCI. And again last year, ICC had more assaults than all the other prisons combined.

[Yoda]

It contrasts the statistics of the private company with the same state's government facility. Both are medium security. The point is the statistics for the privately run one was extremely high for years and they are getting the assault rate down and it is still much higher than the government one. You were the one who made a statement without evidence, that privately owned units are less effective than private counterparts. Here is an example where that clearly isn't so. I didn't look for it. I came across it. Where I live the electric power company is owned by the city and their rates are lower than privately run Cal Edison so it would seem they don't fit your belief public sector is always inferior to private sector either. You were the one making a sweeping statement without any attempt to support it with evidence, not me.
What sweeping statement are you referring to, specifically? Show me. Be specific if you want a response.

Regardless, I already addressed this: if your idea of a retort is "no, it isn't LITERALLY always better," then whoop-de-do. If you'd ever asked me "wait, are you saying there is literally never an instance in which government outperforms the private sector?" I would have immediately said "no, of course not. It's just usually better." Most individual businesses are mediocre, because most of them don't even stay in business. So you're laying waste to a straw man to begin with, and really grasping at straws if your idea of defending government projects is to find the occasional (very) odd example of an instance in which a private company is worse.

That said, we still have very little context. Why was this particular business awarded the contract? It was awarded the contract by government, right? That's not private sector competition, it's a competition to see which business has the most political influence. There's no reason favoritism should produce better results than government-run institutions, because it perverts the incentives in similar ways.

Also, at no point did I say you looked for it, I said you came upon it. Because presumably you come across articles about, say, the Solyndra debacle. You never choose to post those. That's what I was getting at: the articles that fit your preconceived notions are the ones that get posted (and boy, do they ever get posted...).

[will.15]

What sweeping statement are you referring to, specifically? Show me. Be specific if you want a response.

Regardless, I already addressed this: if your idea of a retort is "no, it isn't LITERALLY always better," then whoop-de-do. If you'd ever asked me "wait, are you saying there is literally never an instance in which government outperforms the private sector?" I would have immediately said "no, of course not. It's just usually better." Most individual businesses are mediocre, because most of them don't even stay in business. So you're laying waste to a straw man to begin with, and really grasping at straws if your idea of defending government projects is to find the occasional (very) odd example of an instance in which a private company is worse.

That said, we still have very little context. Why was this particular business awarded the contract? It was awarded the contract by government, right? That's not private sector competition, it's a competition to see which business has the most political influence. There's no reason favoritism should produce better results than government-run institutions, because it perverts the incentives in similar ways.

Also, at no point did I say you looked for it, I said you came upon it. Because presumably you come across articles about, say, the Solyndra debacle. You never choose to post those. That's what I was getting at: the articles that fit your preconceived notions are the ones that get posted (and boy, do they ever get posted...). That article doesn't say why that firm does such bad job, but I am going to make a reasonable inference. It does it cheaper than the government, why else would it exist? and that is why they are still there, but that cheaper price comes at a cost, and that is it is not as well run, and in fact is so badly run makes the savings negligible in terms of lawsuits, public relations, etc. How did it gets the contract since the article makes no mention of cronyism (prevalent by the way in the rewarding of contracts in Rick Perry's Texas?) I assume it came from competitive bidding, and if so it is as close as you are going to get to a competitive model when government contracts out what they do to the private sector. Private business actually rarely competes directly with the public sector doing the same functions. We don't buy groceries at a government supermarket and we don't have privately run police departments, so if what you are actually saying is businesses are overall better run than government functions, what you are saying is meaningless because it is apples and oranges. Only by directly comparing government services contracted out to private companies and measuring the results with the same services run by government can we really see if what you are saying is accurate. And as for not posting Solyndra, we weren't talking about that, were we? And talking about Perry and Texas, there was another example of him delegating a government service (and again there was a charge the chosen company had the inside track because of political contributions) to the private sector and the results were so bad they stopped farming it out. I am not saying government is always better at performing government services than private business. I am saying it is much more complex than you seem to think.

[Yoda]

That article doesn't say why that firm does such bad job, but I am going to make a reasonable inference. It does it cheaper than the government, why else would it exist? and that is why they are still there, but that cheaper price comes at a cost, and that is it is not as well run, and in fact is so badly run makes the savings negligible in terms of lawsuits, public relations, etc.
A reasonable inference, but this is simply not an indictment of private business. At most, it is an indictment of one specific business. Though as you say, the whole point of such a thing is to either do a better job, or to do a serviceable job for less. This might merely be the latter, and it might simply involve a learning curve given that it's been worse but has been improving. We don't really know. And I'm guessing you didn't ask yourself before not only posting it, but actually claiming it was "proof" that private business had done a worse job, right?

That's confirmation bias, in a nutshell: why keep digging when you've already found what you want?

How did it gets the contract since the article makes no mention of cronyism (prevalent by the way in the rewarding of contracts in Rick Perry's Texas?) I assume it came from competitive bidding, and if so it is as close as you are going to get to a competitive model when government contracts out what they do to the private sector.
This doesn't work as a retort for two reasons:

1) Competitive bidding is about price and promises, not necessarily about effectiveness, let alone effectiveness per dollar. There's absolutely nothing stopping government from mindlessly picking the cheapest option, picking a firm that can't deliver on its promise, or picking a firm with a similar bid to others simply because it is more politically connected. The mere fact that competitive bidding was involved (which is still an assumption, even if a reasonable one) doesn't change any of this.

2) The fact that this might be "as close as you are going to get to a competitive model" doesn't make it a good stand-in for the competitive model. A local softball league is the closest I'm going to come to the majors, but that doesn't make it a good example of how to play baseball. It's entirely possible that the best comparison is still really crappy.

Private business actually rarely competes directly with the public sector doing the same functions. We don't buy groceries at a government supermarket and we don't have privately run police departments, so if what you are actually saying is businesses are overall better run than government functions, what you are saying is meaningless because it is apples and oranges.
I think this is half-true. They rarely compete with each other, true. But we don't need to compare the same functions to know, for example, that government unions consistently command more, that being directly beholden to politicians must inevitably hamper certain types of progress and slow things down, and that funding something with public money opens it up to levels of criticisms and interference that simply won't exist in the private market. We can also infer that government institutions are less directly connected to the standard feedback loops and incentives of private competition. All of these things will inevitably hamper efficiency. Sometimes necessarily so, sometimes not.

Besides, the implication of what you're saying is that we should just leave the question alone, but we can't, because how much government should do is an important question with broad ramifications. If anything, what you're saying seems to be a very good argument for putting the two of them head-to-head in more industries, so we can learn more about which is more efficient. I know where I'm putting my money.

And, by the by, though they don't usually compete directly, sometimes they do, like in mail delivery, where the government is thoroughly trounced.

Only by directly comparing government services contracted out to private companies and measuring the results with the same services run by government can we really see if what you are saying is accurate.
This is not an entirely unreasonable premise, but it has problems. The whole point of distrusting government in these matters is that their incentives and feedback loops pass through layers of abstraction and delay that private businesses don't have. This principle applies just as much to a government body trying to select the right private entity for a job as it does to government doing the job itself.

And as for not posting Solyndra, we weren't talking about that, were we?
We weren't talking about privatization, either, I don't think. But regardless, you can't possibly make the argument that prison privatization was somehow relevant, and Solyndra isn't. Both involve the government choosing a private company and being wrong about it's ability to deliver. In fact, when looked at in that light, I'm not sure if your example even helps your conclusion more than it hurts it. If you're trying to convince me that government isn't able to effectively choose which businesses are better than others to do a job, stop your laboring, because I'm already there.

I am not saying government is always better at performing government services than private business. I am saying it is much more complex than you seem to think.
Well, let me tell you exactly how complex I think it is: I think private business is almost always more efficient than government. I do not think this is always the case, in a literal sense, but I think it almost always is, and I think most of the seeming exceptions are just a reflection of government not being any better at picking winners and losers than it is at playing the game by providing something itself.

If your point is "hey, it's not LITERALLY always better, and here's an instance which MIGHT be an exception," hey, fine, point taken. But the possible exception lacks context, still involves government, and wouldn't change the general claim, anyway, since it was never meant to be entirely literal.

Which brings me right back to my first reply: I don't think you know what the word "proof" means.

[will.15]

A reasonable inference, but this is simply not an indictment of private business. At most, it is an indictment of one specific business. Though as you say, the whole point of such a thing is to either do a better job, or to do a serviceable job for less. This might merely be the latter, and it might simply involve a learning curve given that it's been worse but has been improving. We don't really know. And I'm guessing you didn't ask yourself before not only posting it, but actually claiming it was "proof" that private business had done a worse job, right?

That's confirmation bias, in a nutshell: why keep digging when you've already found what you want?

You are hilarious. You wouldn't be making these allowances and applying this kind of learning curve if the examples were reversed. The reality is their numbers with regard to reducing violence has improved but are still horrible when compared with their government counterpart and I am going to make another assumption. If this wasn't Idaho, a staunchly Republican state with strong libertarian tendencies, this company would no longer be running a private prison with that record.


This doesn't work as a retort for two reasons:

1) Competitive bidding is about price and promises, not necessarily about effectiveness, let alone effectiveness per dollar. There's absolutely nothing stopping government from mindlessly picking the cheapest option, picking a firm that can't deliver on its promise, or picking a firm with a similar bid to others simply because it is more politically connected. The mere fact that competitive bidding was involved (which is still an assumption, even if a reasonable one) doesn't change any of this.

But there is no other way to compare government with private business directly otherwise. We only have private prisons when the government lets a private company run it for them. Private companies can't arrest people and sentence them.

2) The fact that this might be "as close as you are going to get to a competitive model" doesn't make it a good stand-in for the competitive model. A local softball league is the closest I'm going to come to the majors, but that doesn't make it a good example of how to play baseball. It's entirely possible that the best comparison is still really crappy.

That is a real bad analogy because your local softball team exists separately from professional baseball, but there is no such thing in the world as a private prison separate from government.


I think this is half-true. They rarely compete with each other, true. But we don't need to compare the same functions to know, for example, that government unions consistently command more, that being directly beholden to politicians must inevitably hamper certain types of progress and slow things down, and that funding something with public money opens it up to levels of criticisms and interference that simply won't exist in the private market. We can also infer that government institutions are less directly connected to the standard feedback loops and incentives of private competition. All of these things will inevitably hamper efficiency. Sometimes necessarily so, sometimes not.

Most of this is true, but so what, because the government model for business is different than that for private business, and what they do is different. You can't use the model for running a pool cleaning business with the police department.

Besides, the implication of what you're saying is that we should just leave the question alone, but we can't, because how much government should do is an important question with broad ramifications. If anything, what you're saying seems to be a very good argument for putting the two of them head-to-head in more industries, so we can learn more about which is more efficient. I know where I'm putting my money.

And, by the by, though they don't usually compete directly, sometimes they do, like in mail delivery, where the government is thoroughly trounced.

Where is the proof of that?

I checked on the web and just as I suspected, when you get away from the conservative pundits and look at comments people make about the services offered by UPS versus USPS the latter has a lot of supporters. I personally found UPS to be terrible in the past compared to the post office. I recently got a shipment from them and they seemed on that occasion to be a lot better, fast delivery, and actually waiting for the door to be answered instead of immediately leaving with a sticker stuck on your door telling you they will try delivery the next day and never coming back, which was typical when I frequently was getting deliveries from them a decade ago. They are not better on price overall.

Yes, the post office is having financial problems, but that is because of the area where the don't compete with UPS, mail delivery, and their real competitor is the internet.

This is not an entirely unreasonable premise, but it has problems. The whole point of distrusting government in these matters is that their incentives and feedback loops pass through layers of abstraction and delay that private businesses don't have. This principle applies just as much to a government body trying to select the right private entity for a job as it does to government doing the job itself.


We weren't talking about privatization, either, I don't think. But regardless, you can't possibly make the argument that prison privatization was somehow relevant, and Solyndra isn't. Both involve the government choosing a private company and being wrong about it's ability to deliver. In fact, when looked at in that light, I'm not sure if your example even helps your conclusion more than it hurts it. If you're trying to convince me that government isn't able to effectively choose which businesses are better than others to do a job, stop your laboring, because I'm already there.

If you are arguing government always or usually does a poor job of selecting a private company obviously you are wrong and are using a reverse model. By necessity government must select private companies and we only hear about the debacles, which happen, and we must try to learn from them to see where what went wrong Soyandra was botched, and there are other examples of private contractors being poorly monitored by the Bush administration during the Iraq War. The purely capitalist model does not work when private companies are essentially working for the government. The reason? The government, not the consumer, is the customer and so again we have apples and oranges if you are talking about the marketing of a motion picture VS., say, the running of a war.

Government by its very nature is different than a profit making enterprise. You can't use a strictly private business model for practically all government functions. Do you want to abolish police departments and have the ability to contract competing security companies for that service? Do we do that also for the judicial system? You have gotten this discussion into a pretty silly sphere.


Well, let me tell you exactly how complex I think it is: I think private business is almost always more efficient than government. I do not think this is always the case, in a literal sense, but I think it almost always is, and I think most of the seeming exceptions are just a reflection of government not being any better at picking winners and losers than it is at playing the game by providing something itself.

What are your specific examples? The post office didn't work.

But again what you say is not very relevant because again what government does and what business does is usually very different and operate under different criteria. I'll say it again, apples and oranges.

If your point is "hey, it's not LITERALLY always better, and here's an instance which MIGHT be an exception," hey, fine, point taken. But the possible exception lacks context, still involves government, and wouldn't change the general claim, anyway, since it was never meant to be entirely literal.

Which brings me right back to my first reply: I don't think you know what the word "proof" means.
Is General Motors better run than the LAPD, which has reduced crime drastically in the last decade? Probably not, but the comparison doesn't mean anything. But that is apparently what you are doing. You are broadening the discussion by making sweeping general statements that are not relevant to private versus public. My example was narrow focused and I am quite capable of citing many more examples of government contracted services failing to be as effective when government was doing it directly and you can counter it is because government picked the company and where does that get us? You can't use the purely capitalist market model with regard to most government functions and services. It is impossible. Private companies can't run the government. The leader of the country is elected by the citizens of the United states, he isn't a CEO selected by a board of directors.

[Yoda]

You are hilarious. You wouldn't be making these allowances and applying this kind of learning curve if the examples were reversed.
I'm not "applying" anything, I'm saying that you don't know, and I'm implying that you didn't even ask yourself the question. That's true, right?

And if you think I wouldn't be sympathetic to a "we don't really know" argument in the right context, then clearly most of what I've been saying to you every single week in other threads is not sinking in.

The reality is their numbers with regard to reducing violence has improved but are still horrible when compared with their government counterpart and I am going to make another assumption. If this wasn't Idaho, a staunchly Republican state with strong libertarian tendencies, this company would no longer be running a private prison with that record.
Maybe so. Doesn't change my point at all. I'd go as far as saying that the majority of words in your replies don't change or address the things they're replying to, in fact.

But there is no other way to compare government with private business directly otherwise. We only have private prisons when the government lets a private company run it for them. Private companies can't arrest people and sentence them.
The fact that we can't compare things directly and in a perfectly analagous way doesn't preclude us from making any comparison. That's crazy talk, and rather convenient, too, in that it allows someone defending larger government to dismiss all such criticisms out of hand.

You're throwing out a lot of confused ideas here, so I'll try to keep this simple: when a government engages in cronyism, or is simply incompetent, or picks a bad firm for a public job for whatever reason, that in no way contradicts the generally superior efficiency of private business. What it does do is reflect badly on the government selection process. When this was pointed out to you, you seem to have made the simple logical error of assuming this means that ANY government selection is going to be a bad one, and therefore any privatization will be subject to this, but that isn't true, either, and I certainly didn't say anything to that effect. As far as I can tell, your entire argument rests on this leap of logic.

So, to recap: nobody's pretending privatization will magically work in all scenarios, or that it's exempt from any kind of favoritism or general government incompetence. I'm not even arguing for any specific instance of privatization (though I can). The claim is that private business is almost always more efficient than government. If you want to dispute this on the grounds that government can't even be trusted to identify the right private businesses to make privatization worthwhile, then go ahead. But that won't actually dispute the original premise, and would really just be an argument for contracting reform, anyway.

That is a real bad analogy because your local softball team exists separately from professional baseball, but there is no such thing in the world as a private prison separate from government.
This doesn't apply to the analogy at all. The point of the analogy is that just because something is the best thing available, that doesn't make it adequate. Please explain why the disparity between local softball leagues and Major League baseball invalidates this idea.

Most of this is true, but so what, because the government model for business is different than that for private business, and what they do is different. You can't use the model for running a pool cleaning business with the police department.
No one's saying you can, and you're basically glossing over the fact that I just gave you several ways we can evaluate government efficiency even without a direct comparison.

Where is the proof of that?
Well, FedEx and UPS exist, for one, and have stolen a huge chunk of the USPS market share.

I checked on the web and just as I suspected, when you get away from the conservative pundits and look at comments people make about the services offered by UPS versus USPS the latter has a lot of supporters. I personally found UPS to be terrible in the past compared to the post office. I recently got a shipment from them and they seemed on that occasion to be a lot better, fast delivery, and actually waiting for the door to be answered instead of immediately leaving with a sticker stuck on your door telling you they will try delivery the next day and never coming back, which was typical when I frequently was getting deliveries from them a decade ago. They are not better on price overall.
1) Price is only one component of value.

2) A personal anecdote about a bad experience with UPS is not an argument. They are a very popular private alternative.

3) The fact that the USPS still has "a lot of supporters" (as vague as that is; based off some haphazard web search, right?) is irrelevant and does not contradict anything being said here.

By necessity government must select private companies and we only hear about the debacles
This isn't true at all. Government officials have every reason in the world to crow about successful projects. They do this absolutely all the time.

The purely capitalist model does not work when private companies are essentially working for the government.
Who is arguing for a "purely capitalist model"? Look around and point this man out to me. Is it that man in the corner made of straw? I'll bet it is. You really seem to have it out for him.

You can't use a strictly private business model for practically all government functions. Do you want to abolish police departments and have the ability to contract competing security companies for that service? Do we do that also for the judicial system? You have gotten this discussion into a pretty silly sphere.
Wow. The discussion sure is silly, but not because of me. You just argued with three things I never suggested, and then somehow concluded that I'd made the discussion silly by...er...not saying them?

Is General Motors better run than the LAPD, which has reduced crime drastically in the last decade? Probably not, but the comparison doesn't mean anything. But that is apparently what you are doing. You are broadening the discussion by making sweeping general statements that are not relevant to private versus public. My example was narrow focused and I am quite capable of citing many more examples of government contracted services failing to be as effective when government was doing it directly and you can counter it is because government picked the company and where does that get us? You can't use the purely capitalist market model with regard to most government functions and services. It is impossible. Private companies can't run the government. The leader of the country is elected by the citizens of the United states, he isn't a CEO selected by a board of directors.
Who on earth are you arguing with?

[will.15]

Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
You are hilarious. You wouldn't be making these allowances and applying this kind of learning curve if the examples were reversed.

I'm not "applying" anything, I'm saying that you don't know, and I'm implying that you didn't even ask yourself the question. That's true, right?

What you are bringing up is irrelevant to the contrasting statistics. Those questions I wouldn't ask myself because it doesn't matter to the actuality of a private company having a much higher assault rate than the government one, has been for years, and even under pressure to lower it, still is awful. If the situation was reversed you wouldn't be raising these issues and I wouldn't either because it would not have occurred to me and if somehow it did I wouldn't think it would be worth bringing up.

And if you think I wouldn't be sympathetic to a "we don't really know" argument in the right context, then clearly most of what I've been saying to you every single week in other threads is not sinking in.

It isn't sinking in because i have no idea what your point is.


Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
The reality is their numbers with regard to reducing violence has improved but are still horrible when compared with their government counterpart and I am going to make another assumption. If this wasn't Idaho, a staunchly Republican state with strong libertarian tendencies, this company would no longer be running a private prison with that record.

Maybe so. Doesn't change my point at all. I'd go as far as saying that the majority of words in your replies don't change or address the things they're replying to, in fact.


Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
But there is no other way to compare government with private business directly otherwise. We only have private prisons when the government lets a private company run it for them. Private companies can't arrest people and sentence them.

The fact that we can't compare things directly and in a perfectly analogous way doesn't preclude us from making any comparison. That's crazy talk, and rather convenient, too, in that it allows someone defending larger government to dismiss all such criticisms out of hand.

It isn't crazy talk beause you want to blame the government for the private contractor's failure to administer a safe prison (it is governmnet's fault because their selection of the contractor). You are the one who is making a comparison impossible by applying unreasonable standards of measurement.

You're throwing out a lot of confused ideas here, so I'll try to keep this simple: when a government engages in cronyism, or is simply incompetent, or picks a bad firm for a public job for whatever reason, that in no way contradicts the generally superior efficiency of private business. What it does do is reflect badly on the government selection process. When this was pointed out to you, you seem to have made the simple logical error of assuming this means that ANY government selection is going to be a bad one, and therefore any privatization will be subject to this, but that isn't true, either, and I certainly didn't say anything to that effect. As far as I can tell, your entire argument rests on this leap of logic.

What YOU are doing is assuming everytime a government contractor does a bad job it is the government's fault because of their selection process. It ignores the reality that when it is a service that is not normally done by the private sector like running a prison or managing government medical claims (Rick Perry's Texas) the private one actually has less experience and has a much greater learning curve. I am not saying some government functions could not be done cheaper by the private sector and arguably better. Obviously there are when it is something private businesses have experience with. But I am going to leave it to you to name them. WHAT exactly do you want to privatize? And even in those situations the cost savings is narrow because of political pressure that the bidder pay prevailing wages because there will be a big stink if government employees lost their jobs to a company paying minimum wage.

So, to recap: nobody's pretending privatization will magically work in all scenarios, or that it's exempt from any kind of favoritism or general government incompetence. I'm not even arguing for any specific instance of privatization (though I can). The claim is that private business is almost always more efficient than government. If you want to dispute this on the grounds that government can't even be trusted to identify the right private businesses to make privatization worthwhile, then go ahead. But that won't actually dispute the original premise, and would really just be an argument for contracting reform, anyway.

I'll say it again. Private business is more efficient perhaps in businesses they already do, not necessarily when it is something government has more expertise at. Your one hat fits all heads does not work.


Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
That is a real bad analogy because your local softball team exists separately from professional baseball, but there is no such thing in the world as a private prison separate from government.

This doesn't apply to the analogy at all. The point of the analogy is that just because something is the best thing available, that doesn't make it adequate. Please explain why the disparity between local softball leagues and Major League baseball invalidates this idea.

I don't know what you are saying. It is not an analogy that makes any sense to me so I don't know what point you are making.

Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
Most of this is true, but so what, because the government model for business is different than that for private business, and what they do is different. You can't use the model for running a pool cleaning business with the police department.

No one's saying you can, and you're basically glossing over the fact that I just gave you several ways we can evaluate government efficiency even without a direct comparison.

I glossed over it because I don't know what they were.


Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
Where is the proof of that?

Well, FedEx and UPS exist, for one, and have stolen a huge chunk of the USPS market share.

That doesn't make the post office a failure. Not at all, any more you could claim McDonalds is a failure because Burger King moved across the street and took some business from them The fact of the matter is both FedEX and UPS primarily exist by providing niches the USPS does not do. FedEX guarantees overnight delivery which the post office does not do and charges a premium for it. UPS handles large shipments the post office does not do. The USPS is profitable in the delivery of small and medium size packages and is very competitive with their two rivals. They are having serious financial problems because of the area where they have no direct competition with a mandate dictated by Congress, the hand delivery of letters to every residence in the United States six days a week. They are getting killed by the internet which has drastically reduced letter delivery. That evidence I was pointing to were people who use the mail a lot for package delivery and were comparing the various companies and recommending which to use under what circumstances. The overwhelming preferred way to send small and medium packages at affordable rates (not if you want it in 24 hours) is USPS. I have lots of links that will show people who use all the services will say this. Their flat box and package rates are very popular. They make money with that. So what are you talking about?

And Fed EX is available at some post offices. Some competitor USPS is afraid of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
I checked on the web and just as I suspected, when you get away from the conservative pundits and look at comments people make about the services offered by UPS versus USPS the latter has a lot of supporters. I personally found UPS to be terrible in the past compared to the post office. I recently got a shipment from them and they seemed on that occasion to be a lot better, fast delivery, and actually waiting for the door to be answered instead of immediately leaving with a sticker stuck on your door telling you they will try delivery the next day and never coming back, which was typical when I frequently was getting deliveries from them a decade ago. They are not better on price overall.

1) Price is only one component of value.

2) A personal anecdote about a bad experience with UPS is not an argument. They are a very popular private alternative.

3) The fact that the USPS still has "a lot of supporters" (as vague as that is; based off some haphazard web search, right?) is irrelevant and does not contradict anything being said here.

I got all this in the last paragraph. UPS is popular with some customers, but so is USPS. It really is. Both services also have their detractors. But I certainly have had more bad experience with UPS than USPS, but I've only been on the receiving end of their service. I never sent anything out. through them.

And one more thing, the government requires USPS to subsidize magazine and newspaper subscription rates. It is not amazing under these circumstances they are having problems hampered as they are by government restrictions to make a profit and creating mandates that make it impossible. And what are some conservatives' remedy? Privatize, but provide direct government subsidies for the legislative mandated parts! So they want to give a private entity a better deal than they are willing to give a government one. Is that the real agenda, a governmnt firesale to pay off a political contributor? Rick Perry then is the Presdient for that job.


Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
By necessity government must select private companies and we only hear about the debacles

This isn't true at all. Government officials have every reason in the world to crow about successful projects. They do this absolutely all the time.

Really? I am not talking about some politician's rump speech. I am talking about media reports. They don't cover happy news.


Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
The purely capitalist model does not work when private companies are essentially working for the government.

Who is arguing for a "purely capitalist model"? Look around and point this man out to me. Is it that man in the corner made of straw? I'll bet it is. You really seem to have it out for him.

That is what you have been doing. You criticize government when a private company does a worse job than a governmnet entity performing the same service. Private companies thrive when they are in competition with each other. When government is their customer you have an entirely different model. Even the post office improved their service when they had to compete with two rivals, but the post office situation is unique. Governmnet services rarely compete directly with the private sector.

Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
You can't use a strictly private business model for practically all government functions. Do you want to abolish police departments and have the ability to contract competing security companies for that service? Do we do that also for the judicial system? You have gotten this discussion into a pretty silly sphere.

Wow. The discussion sure is silly, but not because of me. You just argued with three things I never suggested, and then somehow concluded that I'd made the discussion silly by...er...not saying them?

You never get very specific so it is hard to be sure what you are exactly saying, but it certainly seems to me my comments were consistent with where you were taking the discussion. You said business does a better job in almost all instances compared to government. So wouldn't that include finding ways to privatize the police department and judicial system (which is something some Libertarians actually advocate)?

Quote:
Originally Posted by will.15 http://www.movieforums.com/community/images/buttons/lastpost.gif (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771720#post771720)
Is General Motors better run than the LAPD, which has reduced crime drastically in the last decade? Probably not, but the comparison doesn't mean anything. But that is apparently what you are doing. You are broadening the discussion by making sweeping general statements that are not relevant to private versus public. My example was narrow focused and I am quite capable of citing many more examples of government contracted services failing to be as effective when government was doing it directly and you can counter it is because government picked the company and where does that get us? You can't use the purely capitalist market model with regard to most government functions and services. It is impossible. Private companies can't run the government. The leader of the country is elected by the citizens of the United states, he isn't a CEO selected by a board of directors.

Who on earth are you arguing with?



You, and again it stems directly from your broad attack on government services saying private business is almost always superior.

[DexterRiley]

Will may be Scizophrenic people.

[Yoda]

Take a look at these quotes:

You never get very specific so it is hard to be sure what you are exactly saying, but it certainly seems to me my comments were consistent with where you were taking the discussion.
it stems directly from your broad attack on government services saying private business is almost always superior.
Neither of these explains the incredible leap in logic from me saying private business is more efficient, to you suddenly trying to task me to task for wanting to privatize everything.

No wonder you kept trotting out confusing non-sequiturs. You made me chase you 'round and 'round arguing about things I never even said. Ugh. What a tremendous waste of time.

Some other loose ends:

1) You criticized my suggestion that there might be a learning curve that explains some of the problems with the prison, yet a few paragraphs later you concede that there may be. Wha?

2) My analogy could not be simpler: just because something is the best thing available, that doesn't make it adequate. I don't know how anyone could possibly be confused by this.

3) I offered a number of ways we can know government is less efficient without a perfectly direct comparison here (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771694).

And if you don't understand something, why would you ignore it and move on? Why not ask for clarification? It would probably cut down on these little figure 8s where you're arguing with political ghosts and I keep having to remind you about ignored arguments, only to have you tell me "I glossed over it because I didn't know what you meant by it."

[will.15]

[

You said business is more efficient in the context of denigrating the ability of government so the logical inference is to contract out as much of what they do as possible. And what I may think is absurd and apparently you do about to what extent we do it many Libertarians do indeed advocate privatizing police services and I have seen a nutty proposal from them about how to do it with the judicial department as well. The logical inference when it is a sweeping comment, business is more efficient, is let business do it. My point is they are not more efficient all the time or even almost all of the time as you said, when we are talking about managing things that they don't normally do. As for the learning curve, my point of bringing it up is it is evidence private business is not more superior to government when government is more familiar wit the task than business. It is an explanation for why business does a poorer job, but it is also a reason they shouldn't be doing it unless the learning curve can be corrected in a brief period of time, otherwise the taxpayer is suffering a much worse quality of service. What is the point of privatizing if they do an inferior job? The learning curve, if it exist in that prison, has been going on for nearly a decade, and in Texas the experiment which I think was just for two years was such a disaster they abandoned it and went back to the government doing it.

I really think you have been doing the dance because you don't focus your comments on where it would be more logical to contract out. It is just government bad, business good. It is more like government actually does some things better than business and business does some things better than government and some things government does could be effectively contracted out and other areas are more problematic and others are practically impossible, But did you ever make that distinction? No. If you want to make a more subtle argument than you ARE MAKING YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT, IT IS POINTLESS TO BE UPSET AT ME WHEN I MAKE A LOGICAL INFERENCE FROM WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. IF I USED THAT KIND OF GENERAL SWEEPING LANGUAGE YOU DID TO ARGUE SOMETHING YOU WOULD HAVE HAD ME FOR DINNER. (Didn't mean to go bold at the end, hit the Caps Lock button by mistake, I went back and took the small letters out to make it more readable instead of redoing all of it).

As for your analogy, we were talking about a private prison. Your softball team is inadequate compared to a professional team. If a government run prison is inadequate, how and what criteria do you measure to show an alternative is better? If the private run prison in Idaho is the equivalent of a professional baseball because it is from superior business, then it would seem they do a worse job, not better. Yes, I know you will say that is not your point. But don't you see why your analogy does not work in the discussion we were having. I can't criticize the actual point if it is if something is adequate doesn't mean it is good , but what did that have to do with private versus public with regard to a badly run private prison?



3) I offered a number of ways we can know government is less efficient without a perfectly direct comparison here (http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?p=771694).

And if you don't understand something, why would you ignore it and move on? Why not ask for clarification? It would probably cut down on these little figure 8s where you're arguing with political ghosts and I keep having to remind you about ignored arguments, only to have you tell me "I glossed over it because I didn't know what you meant by it."[/quote]
Is this is what you think is the way we know government is less efficient?

"I think this is half-true. They rarely compete with each other, true. But we don't need to compare the same functions to know, for example, that government unions consistently command more, that being directly beholden to politicians must inevitably hamper certain types of progress and slow things down, and that funding something with public money opens it up to levels of criticisms and interference that simply won't exist in the private market. We can also infer that government institutions are less directly connected to the standard feedback loops and incentives of private competition. All of these things will inevitably hamper efficiency. Sometimes necessarily so, sometimes not.

Besides, the implication of what you're saying is that we should just leave the question alone, but we can't, because how much government should do is an important question with broad ramifications. If anything, what you're saying seems to be a very good argument for putting the two of them head-to-head in more industries, so we can learn more about which is more efficient. I know where I'm putting my money.

And, by the by, though they don't usually compete directly, sometimes they do, like in mail delivery, where the government is thoroughly trounced"

And your analysis all led to a false example of what you are talking about with regard to the post office, which I discussed in length in my previous post and actually shows a government enterprise does effectively compete with private companies.

All of your comments can be challenged how to evaluate the efficiency of the two. Strong unions also exist in the private sector. Feedback also exists in the public sector that can result in improvement of service, it just happens differently, through citizens complaining to their representative or an election change. Los Angeles now has a much better police force thanks to bringing in a police chief from out of town and introducing new policing innovations involving computer technology. Innovation can happen in government just as it does in business.

And as for me not commenting on every comment you make, I would be here forever if I did that, and why is that something I should do when you certainly don't apply those standards to every comment or argument I make nor do I assume you should. I just figure if you don't rebut it I won that round (like my post office analysis).

[will.15]

Will may be Scizophrenic people.
I'm a troll.

[Yoda]

Please, man, just put your individual replies in individual quote tags. Otherwise I have to break them all up to reply. It took awhile for me to figure out which thing was replying to which in this last reply.

You said business is more efficient in the context of denigrating the ability of government so the logical inference is to contract out as much of what they do as possible.
The key qualifier being "as possible." Obviously cost is one of many considerations when deciding what government should and should not do. The arguments you're making are acting as if the "as possible" part were removed.

The logical inference when it is a sweeping comment, business is more efficient, is let business do it.
The only logical inference from my position is that we should let business do things unless we have a compelling reason for it not to. And possibly not even that, because denigrating government's lack of efficiency could very well simply be part of a larger argument about why government shouldn't do even more than it currently does. So you're really extrapolating far, far beyond anything I've said.

As for the learning curve, my point of bringing it up is it is evidence private business is not more superior to government when government is more familiar wit the task than business. It is an explanation for why business does a poorer job, but it is also a reason they shouldn't be doing it unless the learning curve can be corrected in a brief period of time, otherwise the taxpayer is suffering a much worse quality of service. What is the point of privatizing if they do an inferior job? The learning curve, if it exist in that prison, has been going on for nearly a decade, and in Texas the experiment which I think was just for two years was such a disaster they abandoned it and went back to the government doing it.
Look how far the argument has come. If you'd started things off by saying "hey, it looks like there might be a learning curve when privatizing some things. I'm not sure if it's short enough to make the idea worthwhile," I wouldn't have taken much issue with it.

At the very least, we'd be having a semi-productive discussion about how long is too long, and why, rather than the pointlessness that actually took place where I spent several posts trying to figure out what beliefs you were ascribing to me and why.

I really think you have been doing the dance because you don't focus your comments on where it would be more logical to contract out.
It's a "dance" for me to try to unravel what you're saying, or to insist that you don't ask me to defend statements I haven't made? These distractions are entirely your own doing, man.

It is just government bad, business good. It is more like government actually does some things better than business and business does some things better than government and some things government does could be effectively contracted out and other areas are more problematic and others are practically impossible, But did you ever make that distinction? No.
Well, first off, I don't know what distinction I didn't make, because you haven't produced the claim that this is all apparently based on, though I've asked more than once. If you want to argue with a general principle, that's fine with me, but you can't then parse it down as if it were a literal quote.

And what does it matter if I didn't make a nuanced distinction? Without knowing exactly what I'm supposed to have said, I could simply have been making a general statement. I make lots of general statements, and people are free to ask me to clarify, or ask me to be more specific. But it doesn't make sense to assume that, because I've made a general statement, I am also implying that it is all-encompassing. My statement is: government is inefficient by its very nature, in ways that do not apply to private business. Private business is more efficient. Nothing about these statements at all implies that there are not some things government must do, or that government may enjoy a more flattering comparison if it, by virture of ignoring this principle, has become entrenched or passed some learning curve. That simply doesn't follow from what I said.

IT IS POINTLESS TO BE UPSET AT ME WHEN I MAKE A LOGICAL INFERENCE FROM WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.
Why? You can infer too much from too vague a statement. Or you can take a statement in an entirely literal fashion when there's no reason to. There are perfectly good reasons to take issue with your inference.

As for your analogy, we were talking about a private prison. Your softball team is inadequate compared to a professional team. If a government run prison is inadequate, how and what criteria do you measure to show an alternative is better? If the private run prison in Idaho is the equivalent of a professional baseball because it is from superior business, then it would seem they do a worse job, not better. Yes, I know you will say that is not your point. But don't you see why your analogy does not work in the discussion we were having. I can't criticize the actual point if it is if something is adequate doesn't mean it is good , but what did that have to do with private versus public with regard to a badly run private prison?
Man, we're just not on the same page at all here. The reference to inadequacy was about the quality of the comparison, not the quality of the institutions. The baseball teams represent comparisons, not public or private prisons. Thus, when I say the comparison between public and private lacks context or has too many interferences or filters, and you say it's the best comparison we have, my response is: that doesn't make it good.

Is this is what you think is the way we know government is less efficient?
The only reasons? No. But they're some of them, written off the top of my head. Here's another one, and it's a biggie: when a private business runs out of money, it's usually gone. When a public institution runs out of money, it just operates at a deficit and can ask for more. It's almost never just shuts down or discontinued. At best, an attempt is made to reform it.

That's something I think you're missing: the virtue of competition is not just inherent in a single business, but in the turnover of businesses. For every successful business there are literally hundreds of failures. Government institutions do not go quietly in the night with the same ease as businesses, and thus cannot possibly hope to filter out the bad from the good with anything even approaching the same speed or ruthless efficiency.

Let's try it another way. True or false: the more feedback loops, and the faster the feedback, the more efficient and accountable to its funders or customers and organization must be? True or false: private businesses are subject to more (and faster) feedback loops than government? If the answer to both questions is "yes," then the inevitable conclusion is that private business is inherently more efficient than government.

That doesn't mean you can't construct a slanted scenario where government gets a two-decade headstart, or can compensate for certain mistakes by running deficits and simply asking for more money, or that it can't win out in various situations where it might have its thumb on the scale. It just means that it's inherently more efficient. And since you seem to care about what's sufficiently mainstream so much, I'm not sure even most progressives really deny this, they just argue that it's necessary, anyway.

And your analysis all led to a false example of what you are talking about with regard to the post office, which I discussed in length in my previous post and actually shows a government enterprise does effectively compete with private companies.
Well, actually, you just stated it did. You didn't source or cite anything specific. My understanding is that one of the problems with the Post Office's budget is its upfront health care costs. But that's not much of an excuse, because they have to pay those up front for political reasons, which easily falls under the heading of "Problems with Government-Run Institutions."

Regardless, if you think USPS is a bad example, that's perfectly fine. I think you dramatically overstate its viability and usefulness, but it is an example in service of an argument, not the argument itself, and we do not lack for other examples. Look at Amtrak, if you rather. Hell, look at the original railroads: I was listening to a fascinating podcast just the other day wherein it was claimed that the only one of the original railroads not to go under was the one that had very little (and the least) government backing.

All of your comments can be challenged how to evaluate the efficiency of the two. Strong unions also exist in the private sector. Feedback also exists in the public sector that can result in improvement of service, it just happens differently, through citizens complaining to their representative or an election change. Los Angeles now has a much better police force thanks to bringing in a police chief from out of town and introducing new policing innovations involving computer technology. Innovation can happen in government just as it does in business.
But I think it happens less. I already acknowledged that there's some feedback in public institutions. It's just filtered and far less frequent.

And as for me not commenting on every comment you make, I would be here forever if I did that, and why is that something I should do when you certainly don't apply those standards to every comment or argument I make nor do I assume you should. I just figure if you don't rebut it I won that round (like my post office analysis).
Eek. You figure incorrectly. I ignored your latest post office argument (though I've replied to it here, instead) because your post revealed that you'd effectively been arguing with something you thought I might believe, and nothing I'd actually said, and I was loathe to engage every little side-trail that sprung up based on that erroneous assumption.

I don't expect you to comment on every little thing, but in this instance the things you ignored were probably among the more relevant comments I made. As for whether or not I reply to everything you say...obviously not, in a strictly literal sense. But I think I come shockingly close, and respond to the overwhelming majority of them. Frankly, I probably reply to far too many of the things you say, given that a fair number of them aren't always directly applicable.

You're free to keep whatever kind of ideological scorecard you want, but I wouldn't advise that you use that scoring system. If your notion is that someone is conceding a point when they don't reply to it, hey, fine, but I can put together a pretty hefty list of things you've apparently conceded, then.

[will.15]

"Please, man, just put your individual replies in individual quote tags. Otherwise I have to break them all up to reply. It took awhile for me to figure out which thing was replying to which in this last reply"

I can't because I don't know how


I'm going to let you have the last word in this discussion because I am in a happy mood for getting a movie title right in Movie Questions that was a total stab in the dark.

[Yoda]

Okay.

Quote tags: there's a button to the left of the YouTube button that lets you create new quote tags. Though you can just copy and paste the opening quote tag (and the closing one) that's there by default when you reply to something.