WatchI was just listening to an NPR show discussing Ron Paul supporters who cheered at the idea of letting people without health insurance die.
One of the points that came up on the NPR show is that the Democrats do not have a coherent message on the proper role of government.
Republicans do have a coherent message. They want the law of karma to function: you should reap what you sow. You should not reap what other people sow. They love Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant works hard, the grasshopper does not. Then winter comes and the grasshopper starves to death. Republicans want the grasshopper to starve, and that's why Ron Paul supporters cheered at the idea of letting someone die. They do not want the ant to be forced to share with the grasshopper, ever.
So government's role, in the Republican view, should be pretty much limited to protection of individual property -- but there is a very important and always unspoken addendum: no matter how that property was acquired.
The very rich absolutely love this idea of never having to share no matter how they got their money, and so rich Republicans generously fund campaigns which appeal to poor and racist Republicans who fear having to share with minorities.
Democrats, in contrast, want to "promote the general welfare" of the country, as is explicitly written into the constitution. Their assumption is that we are all in the same boat, and we have responsibilities to each other. But then it gets very hazy. Exactly what are these responsibilities to each other, and who is going to pay for them?
Democrats, just like Republicans, always and everywhere fail to distinguish between productive work and non-productive extraction of economic rents.
Rent does not just mean rent paid to a landlord. Interest is also the rent paid on borrowed money. The point is that "rent" here means money you get merely by being the owner of something, not from doing productive work. It means money that you could "earn" even if you were in a coma, taking it by law from people who actually did the work.
The difference is not always obvious. When you literally pay rent to a landlord, which is it? Is it reward for the landlord's productive work, or is the landlord just leeching off the tenant?
The answer is both. The construction and maintenance of the building is productive work, and should be rewarded with a certain amount of rent. But the payment of the rest of the rent for the use of the land is completely non-productive. No one created the land. The landlord merely uses his ownership title, without work, to extract money from productive people.
So back to the proper role of government. Should the ant have to feed the grasshopper in the winter?
To answer that, you need to ask one more question: Did the ant get his money from his own work, or from rents?
Money from his own work should belong to the ant. But money from rents should be heavily taxed and used to benefit the society the rent was extracted from. This is the idea behind Georgism.
Finally, back to health insurance. Should the person who refuses to buy health insurance be allowed to die? The answer is that non-productive rent income should be heavily taxed and used to fund universal critical care coverage for every citizen, like other countries already have. So there would be no people without critical-care coverage and the issue would not arise.
The ants would have no basis for complaint, because the health insurance money would not come from any productive work which they did themselves, and they themselves would be entitled to the same coverage.
So the role of government should be the protection of individual property acquired through productive work, and the promotion of the general welfare via revenue from taxes on non-productive rent-seeking.
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Bellingham Bill says
See the thing is, guys like Romney & Blankfein, think they are great capitalists. They would NEVER admit that they are middlemen and parasites on real productivity.
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What does one have to do with the other? There are kids starving all over the world too, maybe we should all get off our computers and go feed the homeless.
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Patrick says
Perfect. No wonder we have it totally bass-ackwards.
Government protects non-productive rent seeking and takes taxes on the productive work. If Govt. was really protecting general welfare, we wouldn't have the massive wealth inequality we have today. So essentially, the Govt. we have today is doing a piss-poor job.
iwog says
Iwog is correct. Republicans will completely destroy the society by giving tax cuts to the 1%.
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Patrick says
actually it was a bit more complex than that. The Progressive movement began fracturing under Wilson and the country became more conservative after the great Republican split of 1912 and the parties began realignment.
After the war we went through a laissez-faire boom, thanks to being minimally damaged by the war and having profited massively by supplying the belligerents. Plus technology was really advancing like gangbusters -- automobiles, radio, telephone, media, medicine, agriculture etc etc -- all this new wealth was increasing productivity in all areas.
Then the system flew apart in 1928-30 and third-way georgism got submerged beneath the battle between state capitalism and state socialism of the 1930s and 1940s.
Georgism did inform a lot of mid-century land reform movements, like Taiwan, Japan, HK, etc. Vietnam, too, in the early 1970s.
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Bellingham Bill says
Good point. If you create wealth, you should also not have wealth you create stolen by the Federal Reserve's money-printing.
Inflation punishes savers and rewards debtors. Exactly ass-backwards again.
I'm totally in favor of a currency based on silver or gold. In fact, I think the currency should BE silver or gold by weight. Forget "dollars". Think "ounces". And I think silver is better for everyday use, like it was used for centuries.
Of course this takes away power from certain groups that really like power:
1. The gov't likes the power to slowly default on its debt through inflation.
2. Banks like the ability of the Federal Reserve to bail them out via money-printing, which is going on right now, big-time.
Not that all credit problems would go away with silver money. You could still have governments and banks promising to pay silver they don't really have. That's a credit problem. But at least it would put a lid on exactly how bad they could be if they didn't have the Fed just creating arbitary amounts of credit.
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Another word for "rent seeking" is "investment." You spend a large amount of capital right now in the hope of getting "free" income in the future. It's the time value of money.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't tax enormous fortunes, especially those that are inhereted. I'm not a fan of "trust fund babies." And there's definitely the danger of big money buying political power via bribery, campaign contributions, etc.
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As your doctor if Gold is right for you. If you experience a recession longer than 4 months consult your Fed Chairman.
As Gold may cause totalitarian regimes and rare instances Feudalism have been reported. Gold may not be taken with Social welfare, if peasant rabbles persist Marshal law may be required.
Use Gold with extreme caution, early demises have been reported.
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Bellingham Bill says
$20 would shut down the ability to ship food from rural areas into the city too. It takes ALOT of energy/gas to run a city like new york city. I'd assume that $20 gas would see a mass exodus from the city and into the small town were food/shelter and clothing can all be created locally. I'd think that prohibitively expense gas would create a shift back towards an agrarian society no?
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Vicente says
The point is that gold is a barometer that can indicate clearly if the government is taking part in chicanery. They are doing it now, distorting all kinds of data. Do you really perceive the chicanery directly today?
Governments Lie, Bankers Lie, Auditors Lie, Gold Tells the Truth - Rees Morg.
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Dan8267 says
I think some very fine textbooks could come out of the Wikipedia. Seriously. It already competes pretty well with the Encyclopedia Britannica.
I myself have often wanted to correct textbooks when I found errors in them.
So no need to even pay $1M for each textbook.
I totally agree about standardized course curriculums. The undergrad material could and should be standard. Then you just study, take tests, and get your degree.
Of course the highly paid university administrators are not going to like this one bit.
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Racist inflammatory comment about Obama personally crashing the economy has been deleted.
I'm pissed at Obama for signing the NDAA and generally acting like a Republican, but the economy was clearly crashing during the Bush presidency.
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SiO2 says
? I do the latter but not the former.
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I love the idea of direct democracy. We would then have no one to blame but ourselves, directly.
I'm sure the idea of rule by the 100% is horrifying to the 1%.
But also, when I float the idea, I often get the reaction "OMG, you mean let just anyone vote directly on laws? Like the people I'm in line with at the DMV? No way!"
So there is also a general mistrust that the 100% is smart enough to do the right thing.
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wthrfrk80 says
Bring ~$500,000 with you, or if you're under ~40 have a job offer. Or go on holiday and romance some sweetie there.
(what's odd is that all 3 dollars are pretty much at parity now -- we should do currency union when we got the chance)
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What is the proper role of government?
To prevent the formation of a hereditary aristocracy. And all the usual stuff about controlling crime and providing infrastructure.
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Honest Abe says
The most effective way to squash and eliminate freedom and liberty is to allow a few people all the wealth and all the power. This is what you're desperately fighting for.
Honest Abe says
The founders would have disapproved of democracy? State sponsored racism and discrimination? Fiat currency?
You're not a big fan of actual American history, are you.
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iwog says
Well said. "Freedom" is often a code-word for the aristocracy ruling in its own interest at the expense of everyone else.
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thomas.wong1986 says
Thomas,
I never implied that anyone is entitled to a good job (or any job) as a basic human right. I actually do not believe that. Nor do I have a problem with people pursuing their own interest.
What I do fear is extreme wealth concentration. Politicians are bought and sold on the open market like any other commodity. Do you really want our politicians controlled by a few extremely wealthy individuals? Ever play monopoly? What happens when the winner gets so rich they can buy politicians to rewrite the rule book to further cement their power and your enslavement? Unregulated, untaxed capitalism necessarily leads to extreme wealth concentration. Which leads to aristocracy. Don't believe me? Look at history. 100 years ago the US was a de facto aristocracy. We are rapidly moving in that direction again. That should terrify you. You really don't have much freedom when you're working 100 hours a week at Moneyworth Enterprises for $1/hour.
The world runs on money money money. And power. And weapons. It's all about who has the power...and who doesn't. Be careful what you wish for when you talk about "freedom." Freedom for whom? You? Or your future masters?
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It's sad how this simple philosophy of Georgism is so obscure.
I try to pound on it online in other places.
I call myself a left-libertarian and would like to think minarchy would work in the real world if the rent-seeking was kept in check via LVT etc.
The rents being extracted from labor -- health care, real estate, consumer finance -- is several trillion, maybe $20,000 per household.
On top of that is the $600B/yr trade deficit and the $900B/yr defense waste, money that could be actively invested in social goods like transportation or decent alternatives to iwogian rental empires.
To put things in proper perspective, a mere $100B/yr spent on reasonable "public" housing -- $150,000 per unit of construction costs -- would fund 600,000 units a year. Alameda County's share of that would be 3000 new units, every year.
I believe Finland and Sweden have this quality of public housing. We tried it of course, and fucked it up forever I guess.