patrick.net

"free market fundamentalist" Justme, thank you for adding to my vocabulary. I've needed a descriptive label for that ideology.

I was thinking the same thing Bob, about richer and poorer countries. I suspect if we take the 50 poorest countries we would easily identify areas where if their governments had the means to invest in infrastructure and allowed a free market they could build real wealth for their societies. If we look at the world's 50 richest countries, one would clearly see that the aforementioned types of investment yield far more social benefits than they cost. Many of them are no brainers no matter what business or economic measure you use. Las Vegas and Los Angeles wouldn't exist in any recognizable form without public water projects, which were called socialist at the time.

Very true Malcolm. Look at Zaire (Belgian Congo). It could be so wealthy. Unbelievable natural resources combined with some of the richest land on earth. When the Belgians left there were roads, railroads, electricity, running water, telephones, inland shipping on the Congo river, real development. Now it is pretty much all destroyed. They are living in the 1600's at best. But president Mobutu Sese Seko is probably one of the richest men in the world. Was it socialism that destroyed it? Not hardly, just exploitation. This is so common all over the world.

But you also have to accept the government infrastructure and research spending is a crapshoot. No one knows what the future is so some ideas will work out, some won't. Failing to invest will always leave you falling behind however. The spending in the US for basic sciences has dropped to levels that are a disgrace and will come back to bite us in the posterior region as talented people move to where they are best funded and we lose them forever.

Social programs are much much harder to quantify. Most are just payoffs to politicians to reward campaign contributors. Even the ones that have good merit are always set up to expand without end. Why wasn't social security indexed to life span for example. Properly set up social programs can have a net benefit to society. Universal health care, if it brought the cost of health care in line with the other industrialized nation (about half the cost therefore freeing up capital for other uses) could be a good investment. However America's unique political system means that corporate money will always rule the day. Corporations have learned that money spent lobbying politicians for tax breaks and political programs has the best return on investment that they can possibly get. Politicians are amazingly cheap to buy. Most large corporations have become extremely aggressive about this in the last 40 years. I believe it is now impossible to push through any social program that is not a major boondoggle to corporate profits at the expense of stated societal goals. Look at medicare part D. It's first and foremost a huge windfall for pharma companies. Any other reason you can think of that bargaining for better prices was explicitly forbidden for example? Think how much Wall Street would make if Social Security was privatized and converted to investments. Social security should be privatized but I just don't see any way it can be done without without our political whores putting corporate profits first and benefits for the people last.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of capitalism. True socialism (not elvis's sound bite anti Obama kind) never worked very well in real life. I also believe there are places the government is the best way to accomplish certain goals. These are not conflicting believes. But capitalism in America in the 21st century means privatized profits and socialized losses. The emperor truly has no clothes at this point. Or in the immortal words of George Bush "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.". Huh? Government bailouts and huge bonuses to executives who run their companies into the bankruptcy. This isn't capitalism by a long shot.

Very large, painful, wrenching societal spending decisions are coming really soon no matter what. On an actuarial basis the current levels of spending increases cannot continue for much longer. Politicians have known this for 50 years but nothing has been done. Almost everyone has willingly drank the cool aid of ideas like trickle down economics, tax decreases will increase revenues, the free market will grow us out of the problem. No pain and magic solutions have become the American way. Hard work and self sacrifice are so last generation ideas. It's really a pity.

The main problem with this discussion in general is that the terms capitalism and socialism are far too general to describe anything specific.

In Murray Rothbard's "Capitalism vs Statism" he points out that the term capitalism itself was coined by Karl Marx, and is generally used as catch all term that "Marxists apply to virtually every society on the face of the globe." A good example of this is the reocurring claim of liberal pundits that Haiti is an example of a pure capitalistic society. That is enormous BS.

In most modern discussions about capitalism, we are discussing a state controlled, fascist version (US, europe, most of latin america) where money equals legislative power. Misdirecting our criticisms at the "free market" brand of capitalism is akin to killing the golden goose that gave the entire world its freedoms and wealth.

Unfortunately people have been misled to believe that the "free market" is the enemy whereas government is the solution. This is nothing new. The intellectual "elite" have been the handmaidens of the ruling class since the creation of government. Rothbard describes how the nature of these intellectuals has changed over the years from the priestcraft declaring a king's god given right to rule, to the "free market" neocon movement, to the current neo-keynesian movement. Regardless of the philosophy being spewed, the results are always the same. The "intellectuals" are allowed their positions of influence as long as their theories coincide with the agenda of the ruling class. The rulers in turn ALWAYS use the government to extract tribute from the productive masses, typically in the form of taxation. The rulers then use the resulting power of these tributes to stay in power...wash, rinse, and repeat.

Anyone that supports either major political party is basically cheering on their own their own suppression. Very sad indeed.

Interesting point CBOE. So you are saying capitalism can't exist in without a government aka zimbabwe, somolia, BUT with a government it's a state controlled fascist version that exists to perpetuate the elite. So what would the structure of a pure capitalist state look like in an ideal world?

So elvis how do you prevent a free market from turning into zimbabwe, somolia, mafia controlled russia etc.?? In an ideal world everyone would transact business in a totally honest manner, but it hasn't happened yet in human history. You preach a lot about what government shouldn't be, but never have any suggestions what it should be.

I'm not disagreeing with anyone, just curious how the ideologically pure would make it work. I think the US government has run totally out of control and it really might not survive the coming financial cataclysm. Best case scenario we will emulate England or Argentina who managed to go from being the wealthiest most powerful country in the world at the time to being at best an economic footnote in one generation. Don't think it can't happen.

Great questions Bob.

Facist capitalism is a state controlled brand that sets prices, limits competition, legislates some industries into non competition driven monopoliesor oligopolies, rewards lobbying over efficiency, etcetera. Our "capitalistic" government sets or manipulates pricing of wages, health care, agriculture, education, interest rates, energy, utilities... Milton Freidman was very clear in his distaste for this type of government intervention in the market pricing system. I suggest you youtube milton friedman on the donnahue show in 1979 and 1980. He made multiple appearances and discussed this exact topic.

The constritution gives a pretty darn good outline of how a government system should work. The federal government should be strictly limited to a few important tasks like enforcing contracts and defending private property rights (this includes police as well as an army to defend the boarders). Since "the power to tax is the power to destroy" the federal government should be restricted from taxing labor or capital gains, at the very least. The states and local govenment are free to tax whatever they like. These states are held in check by a population that is free to relocate to a state with lower or no income taxes. Money should be based off some commodity. Gold and silver worked out alright in the past.

The US in the 1800's is probably the best example of the free market capitalism ideal. The US went from a country of agricultural peasants to the richest nation on earth over the course of 100 years. Of course we are blessed with natural resources, but so is latin america, russia, and africa. The difference of course is the fact that the US free market freed the productive and creative powers of our forefathers. Furthermore, the greatest examples of "mass abject poverty is found in societies that depart from that ideal." --paraphrasing Milton Friedman

In 1890 government spending accounted for 3% of GDP. 100 years later it was 35% and now we are closing in on 50%. Goverment is a cancer that has spread into every facet of our economy. Removing the government from our economy could in itself be dangerous and cause widespread economic turmoil. Think about how many people are completely dependant on the federal government for their welfare. There US government has something like $2 million employees. Then there are millions more who have jobs in companies that get the vast maority of their funding from the government, millions more on welfare, etc. We can't just expect 30 million people to find new productive roles in society overnight.

It would take massive political will and public pressure over many decades to accomplish a libertarian free market ideal. It ain't gonna happen. At the very least the dollar would have to collapse first, hopefully bankrupting the federal government in the process.

"The US in the 1800’s is probably the best example of the free market capitalism ideal."

Not to split hairs, but the best example of the free market was when slavery was legal?

Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm - surely you can't be serious. Why not retract that comment so you can save face. Abe

CBOEtrader,

I think it is overly simplistic to think that it was "free market capitalism" that should get the credit for US economic development in 1800-1900.

I think size, natural resources and the fresh start using old-world technology on new-world resources had more to do with it. As well as people getting out from underneath the yoke of Britain's own free market capitalism. The irony is that we ended up with a capitalist elite much like what Britain had (and still has).

"As well as people getting out from underneath the yoke of Britain’s own free market capitalism." I disagree. My research shows the founders of USA were escaping undue taxes and weath transfers from public welfare systems that entrenched the elites who were forcing the weath transfers to take place.

Welfare systems? In Britain in the 1800s. Surely you jest.

1800's? well .... maybe, I'll have to check.
1700's absolutly ... unless one want to quibble as to what a gov mandated wealth transfer is.

if you want the link to the whole history book, just ask.

"In many country areas, the changes in agriculture brought hardship. To deal with rural poverty in Berkshire, the local justices of the peace met in 1795 at Speenhamland (now part of Newbury) and decided that a farmworker whose wages fell below a set level should receive an extra payment from the authorities. This raised the tax rates of farmers and landowners, who reacted by paying their workers low wages. The Speenhamland system was imitated throughout Britain, but it kept many farm laborers became poor."

That be welfare my friend. The earlier stuff (1600 or so) was more church basd forced donations to the state church.

"An undeveloped and sparsely populated area originally, America did not begin as the leading capitalist country. But after a century of independence it achieved this eminence, and why? Not, as the common myth has it, because of superior natural resources. The resources of Brazil, of Africa, of Asia, are at least as great. The difference came because of the relative freedom in the United States, because it was here that the free-market economy more than in any other country was allowed its head. We began free of a feudal or monopolizing landlord class, and we began with a strongly individualist ideology that permeated much of the population. Obviously, the market in the United States was never completely free or unhampered; but its relatively greater freedom (relative to other countries or centuries) resulted in the enormous release of productive energies, the massive capital equipment, and the unprecedentedly high standard of living that the mass of Americans not only enjoy but take blithely for granted. Living in the lap of a luxury that could not have been dreamed of by the wealthiest emperor of the past, we are all increasingly acting like the man who murdered the goose that laid the golden egg.

And so we have a mass of intellectuals who habitually sneer at "materialism" and "material values," who proclaim absurdly that we are living in a "post-scarcity age" that permits an unlimited cornucopia of production without requiring anyone to work or produce, who attack our undue affluence as somehow sinful in a perverse recreation of a new form of Puritanism. The idea that our capital machine is automatic and self-perpetuating, that whatever is done to it or not done for it does not matter because it will go on perpetually — this is the farmer blindly destroying the golden goose. Already we are beginning to suffer from the decay of capital equipment, from the restrictions and taxes and special privileges that have increasingly been imposed on the industrial machine in recent decades."

Murray Rothbard

justme says

CBOEtrader,
I think it is overly simplistic to think that it was “free market capitalism” that should get the credit for US economic development in 1800-1900.
I think size, natural resources and the fresh start using old-world technology on new-world resources had more to do with it. As well as people getting out from underneath the yoke of Britain’s own free market capitalism. The irony is that we ended up with a capitalist elite much like what Britain had (and still has).

"Free market capitalism" in merry old england? Surely, you jest!

Furthermore, are you really trying to equate the economic system we have now to "free market" capitalism? My whole point before was that calling our system a free market is at best misinformed, and at worst Orwellian double-speak. 50% of our economy is govt. spending. The government sets prices, or interferes with the pricing mechanisms of almost every major economic sector.

Most modern critics of our economic system have successfully seen the negative impacts of drinking the poisononed economic waters. However, in an interesting twist, most liberals confuse the poisonous government control part of our system as the solution to our problems and thus insist that we drink a more potent poison. This can not end well.

"An undeveloped and sparsely populated area originally, America did not begin as the leading capitalist country. But after a century of independence it achieved this eminence, and why? Not, as the common myth has it, because of superior natural resources. The resources of Brazil, of Africa, of Asia, are at least as great."

Bs. The resources in America are several orders of magnitude easier to access than almost anywhere else on the planet, not to mention some of the most varied. That combined with the natural protection of 2 oceans (very low military spending until WW II), a huge almost unpopulated continent with almost limitless opportunity for expansion, along with a political system that allowed capitalism to flourish. Slavery didn't hurt either. The south was much wealthier than the north at the outbreak of the civil war. Without all these factors the current wealth of America wouldn't have happened. Saying the political system alone made it happen just isn't so.

chicken and egg I guess. Without the correct political system in place there would be no desire/need/force in place for anyone to strive to be better or have more than the next guy.

CBO's points about Africa, Brazil, and I'll add Austrailia, are very good points that were not countered.

"The resources in America are several orders of magnitude easier to access than almost anywhere else on the planet, not to mention some of the most varied."

We have been blessed, but no less than Brazil, or Africa, or Asia. I guess we'll just agree to disagee here.

"That combined with the natural protection of 2 oceans (very low military spending until WW II),"

Hmmm...what history books have you been reading? Low military spending compared to whom exactly? Perhaps you are confusing what the US became as opposed to what it was. If however you mean we spent vastly less on our military in the free market 1800's as compared to the keynesian facist capitalism era of WWII till now than I completely agree with you. Here is short list of some of the many battles and wars we engaged in throughout the 1800's:

1801-1815 - Barbary Wars, 1811-1814 Creek War | All Indian Wars, 1831 - Nat Turner Rebellion, 1836 - Battle of Alamo and Texas Independence, 1846 - Mexican War | U.S. Territories and Acquisitions, 1859 - John Brown's Rebellion, 1861 - 1865 Civil War, 1877 - Indian Wars - Custer's Last Stand, 1898 - The Spanish American War.

"...a huge almost unpopulated continent with almost limitless opportunity for expansion..."

If you want to make this claim for the US then the same must be said for Africa and Brazil at the very least. A modern (for the time) army vs. tribe after tribe of natives is exactly what the white populations faced in all three examples. Perhaps we were more willing to mass murder and steal native lands here than in the other examples. Is this your point?

"...along with a political system that allowed capitalism to flourish."

And therein lies the difference. So you agree with me?

"Slavery didn't hurt either."

Slavery only helped the slave owning rich, not US society as a whole. The US would have been far better off economically to allow the slaves the freedom to pursue happiness on their own terms. This would have released their collective human resource talents in a way that forced labor could never emulate.

"The south was much wealthier than the north at the outbreak of the civil war."

Now I know you are talking out of your ass, rather than using anything even remotely based in fact. The north had more of everything (especially lines of credit), with the possible exception of some agricultural resources, but this really has nothing to do with the discussion.

"Saying the political system alone made it happen just isn’t so."

This isn't what Rothbard was claiming at all, nor is it what I presented. Rothbard is claiming that the enormous difference the improvement of the average citizen's living standards in the US vs Brazil/Africa/Asia was due to the free market, as many of the other factors were similar. He is not saying that the free market made us the richest country in the world in a vaccuum. Holding other factors constant, the relative success story of the US in the 1800's is directly correlated to the free market economy. I do not believe that this point can be denied.

Bap33 says

chicken and egg I guess. Without the correct political system in place there would be no desire/need/force in place for anyone to strive to be better or have more than the next guy.
CBO’s points about Africa, Brazil, and I’ll add Austrailia, are very good points that were not countered.

I was also wondering why Rothbard didn't mention Australia in his examples.

Bap33,

>>My research shows the founders of USA were escaping undue taxes and weath transfers from public welfare systems that entrenched the elites who were forcing the weath transfers to take place.

>>To deal with rural poverty in Berkshire, the local justices of the peace met in 1795 at Speenhamland (now part of Newbury) and decided that a farmworker whose wages fell below a set level should receive an extra payment from the authorities.

You can't be serious. The wealth of the US in 1800-1900 was built on suffering English noblemen or farmers escaping a horrible welfare burden in Berkshire anno 1795 ?? And this somehow held Britain back from staying the wealthiest nation on earth (per capita). Does this really pass a sniff-test as being a reasonable theory?

>>Not to split hairs, but the best example of the free market was when slavery was legal?

ROFLMAO.

justme,

I do not have the ability to follow your arguement or reasoning as presented. You took the position that American migration away from UK was to "escape the yoke of free market capitolism." I have read in many text and am pretty sure (now, due to double checking what I learned in 8th grade) that what I shared with you is correct, America was set up and designed by men against forced tax-based welfare. Please go back to your last challenge posted to me and then re-read my response. If that does not shed some light on my point, please help me to understand where you are trying to take this series of posts. As of now, you questioned the existence of welfare in 1700 UK and I shared with you the facts that prove welfare, and the political curroption it breeds, was in place and FAILED (some say liberal ideas like welfare always fail). In order to move into the next area that you are taking this discussion, we need to settle that point. Do you conceed that welfare (forced wealth transfers between citizens by gov) was introduced to UK circ 1700 and was a failure? Thank you.

Bap33,

>>America was set up and designed by men against forced tax-based welfare.

I have never until this week seen anyone make this claim. And certainly I have never seen a serious historian do so. This interpretation of the American Revolution is completely without merit, i dare say.

That being said, many of the typically quoted reasons stated as being the driving forces behind the American Revolution have historically been half-truths at best.

What people *say* was the reason for forming the US: To escape religious persecution, tyranny in their home countries,escape taxation without representation, etc etc etc (the usual reasons).

The *real* reason for forming the US: Basically it was an opportunistic land-grab and a chance for the lower nobility and the working classes to become independent land owners and to form a new social hierarchy with a better starting position for themselves than what they had in their home countries.

Again, I am trying to follow along, but you have left incomplete issues behind us. Unless you are conceeding that I was 100% correct and you were incorrect in your presentation of there being no welfare issue in 1700 UK. Was I correct?

"To escape religious persecution..."

The ruling class always performs a systematic mulcting of a country's producers if they are allowed to do so. They then spin intellectual philosophies and ideal to justify the means by which they rule, to increase their powers, as well as to justify the rule itself. In the old world the rulers partially used the religious leaders to justify their existence. The religious institutions, just like any inflated government program, became incredibly suppressive and corrupt. Thus they were not fleeing religious persecution as much as they were fleeing the natural persecution of natural bloated government suppression. The religious leaders of the enlightenment period, have been replaced by "intellectuals" and Keynesian economists, that the ruling class now uses to support their systematic mulcting of the productive masses. The government/economic system required for all these liberal social programs to work, is the same system that allows for ongoing war resulting in 15 million deaths at the hands of US armies in the last 75 years. They go hand in hand. A pure free market system would limit both greatly.

"...tyranny in their home countries, escape taxation without representation."

Kinda, but you missed something here. Of course they were escaping tyranny. This is exactly what Bap is saying when he brings up the welfare programs. The part of his valid logic that you are missing is due to your deeply entrenched liberal thought process. I can't blame you for repeating what you hear I suppose. The ruling class will always justify their tyranny through social programs. They use these justifications to tax everyone, and further entrench themselves into power. This is exactly what Bap was presenting and is very valid. It is an ancient method of control that goes back to ancient Egypt (probably farther back) as described in the story of Joseph in the bible.

Thus another way to put what Bap is saying is that they were escaping unfair taxation, which is the necessary first step of any welfare program. However, taxation without representation was our colonies' leaderships' way of justifying the American revolution. That happened here, but you do have the right idea.

Justme, everyone wants the same thing: freedom to live our lives to the fullest extent of happiness and fulfillment that we can for ourselves, families, and fellow Americans. We simply have an opposite philosophy of how to get there. I buy into the philosophy of Milton Friedman. If I may paraphrase to save myself the time: Greed is simply self interest. No one looks at themselves as greedy. It is always someone else that is greedy. Furthermore, there is no economic or political system that can overcome the natural human desire to satisfy your own self interest. China, Russia, socialist countries, anarchist countries...they all run on self interest. Socialism requires a small group of people to make enormous judgment calls on behalf of all of us. Whereas a free market allows us the freedom to make these choices ourselves. There are no angels out there to which can be trusted the job of being the socialist planners, without somehow allowing his/her own self interest to get in the way. The paternal state always works very well for those being paternalistic, and always works to the detriment of those having their decisions chosen for them. A free-market system has thus proven itself to be the best possible method we have come up with as a society to gain happiness for the lower and middle classes.

By choosing free market capitalism over socialism or fascist capitalism, I am simply choosing to allow individuals to choose their economic self interest rather than allowing some demagogue to choose for all of us based on his political self interest. Therein lies the only difference.

Bap33,

I would not say you were correct. Some minimum substinence for *some* farm laborers in a limited area (Berkshire) in 1795 hardly constitutes a welfare system by any stretch of the imagination. And I very much doubt any Berkshire landowners fled to America for that specific reason. Come on.

CBOE,

The problem you are missing (among all the many facts you are missing) is that there is no truly free market capitalism and never has been ANYWHERE. Free market capitalism is just as impossible as communism. Once you can understand that, we may have something to talk about. I'm done.

OK, this revisionism is getting irritating.

First, let me make it clear that I recognize all of the virtues of free market capitalism, I am an entrepreneur myself.

That being said, it is generally my POV that free markets and commercialization work just fine when there is a commercial opportunity. I believe in free movement of prices and I don't believe government should compete with the free market. (Health care is not a free market for many reasons, but I'm elaborating on another point so not covering health care right now.) I do believe the free market needs to be regulated for health and safey, and environmental reasons. I also believe in zoning and city planning.

History also shows that free markets thrive on the heals of government investment, unfortuanately especially wars. I have very little support for entitlements (consistently stated), protected classes, but of course I do support public aid to the mentally insane, addicts, disaster victims etc.

Guys, the farm programs you're talking about are seen as experiments in socialism/communism which are generally considered miserable failures. Those experiments continued in the early colonies and failed as well. That being said, it is a gross distortion to say anyone on this thread has espoused the extreme view of directly taxing a farmer to give to a non profitable farmer. This clearly is scoialism, it is a bad thing, but it is not even challenged, the point was never disputed. Again, I have to take issue with using small examples to make huge gneralizations. Now all of a sudden small failed experiments led to mass migration to the New World? I hardly think so.

Here is my history lesson based on the lessons I learned from my thesis in entrepreneurship.

All the way from the beginning, 1492, the voyage that discovered the New World was government funded. The country was found through a public private partnership.

FFWD to the Revolutionary war, which was fought not because of the minimal amount of taxes, but on the representation issue. Ironically the argument is distored because in reality England was providing governement services mainly in defense and had the gall to send a bill.

As stated, all the way to 1865 shouldn't be considered a legitimate free market given that it was built on the backs of slaves. Not disputing anything, just saying you can't make a free market claim when you have slavery and factories full of one-armed and maimed childre

The expansion of the economy and real free markets come with the technologies developed in the Civil War.

The first post war significant catalyst for the free market is 1869 with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Even then the United States was still a relatively small world player. (The evil socialist Great Britain was the main player all the way to WWI)

The United States became a player with the Great White Fleet in the early 1900s.

WWI of course led to huge government expenditures and more technologies. This led to great expansions and increases in standards of living during the 20s. Then of course, the Depression happened many blame on lack of regulation and certainly depositors would have been happy to have an FDIC. People become Christians in fox holes, they also become liberal when they hit tough times.

The New Deal and WWII are credited with ending the depression. Depending on which revisionist you believe more, the degree of each is disputed, but there is general consensus that the government expenditures are what got things moving again.

Like the 1800s, in the 1950s the freeway system created all kinds of new opportunities for rapid mass transportation especially with huge commercial implications.

The 1960s changed our society to where prior years seem prehistoric. The space program, a result of the cold war, kept the US as the leader in innovation all the way through to the 90s when China of all places realized privatizing sectors of their economy would lead to huge jumps in productivity.

Sorry, that is the condensed version. I've left out a lot of examples purely for brevity.

justme says

CBOE,
The problem you are missing (among all the many facts you are missing) is that there is no truly free market capitalism and never has been ANYWHERE. Free market capitalism is just as impossible as communism. Once you can understand that, we may have something to talk about. I’m done.

I completely agree with you, and have implied as much if I haven't ouright stated it. So what exactly do you have to add? Or are you throwing in the towel?...not that I would blame you.

well .. the justme / nomograph "one-two-punch" is how I shall be attacked personally I see.... no suprize. Welp, I trust Patrick to observe your behavior and act accordingly if needed.

Your wild guess is wrong. And the information stands.

I find your attack to be both personal and impolite. I think you simply get your feelings hurt when you see truth in print. I'm gonna take a wild guess that you heard AM talk radio was a bad thing from some pink-o lib anti-American.

justme says

Bap33,
I would not say you were correct. Some minimum substinence for *some* farm laborers in a limited area (Berkshire) in 1795 hardly constitutes a welfare system by any stretch of the imagination. And I very much doubt any Berkshire landowners fled to America for that specific reason. Come on.

justme,

If you feel the forced removal of wealth in the form of taxation of an individual, and then the delivery of that wealth to another tax-paying individual, done so by the ruler, and done so with threat of penalty,,,,, all of this done in an openly stated effort to transfer wealth from one tax-payer to another tax-payer in an amount seen fit by the ruler,,,, if you feel this is NOT a "welfare system" .... then please explain what you do call it? And then, please explain what a "welfare system" is in your eyes, making obvious to an observer what the differences are between the two. That will help us move through this communication better. Thank you.

ps The fact that the system I shared did fail should not be forgotten as we move along.

Nomograph says

Bap33 says

I have read in many text and am pretty sure (now, due to double checking what I learned in 8th grade) that what I shared with you is correct, America was set up and designed by men against forced tax-based welfare.

I think you simply discovered that an eighth-grade level of knowledge about American history is insufficient. I’m gonna take a wild guess that you heard that the American Revolution was about welfare on AM talk radio.

With all your PHD's, I would expect you to come up with a more creative criticism than the AM talk radio thing. You have used that how many times now? Obviously, you are simply repeating exactly what you hear from whatever your liberal version of the AM talk radio nuts jobs, whatever that may be.

Bap has a self depreciating way of communicating. It's a form of casual humor, not to be taken seriously. I suppose somewhere in between all that grad school you missed the normal socialization lessons that the rest of us idiots have learned in life. Do yourself a favor and take this as constructive criticism, rather than as an attack. Genuinely smart people don't need to constantly tell everyone how much smarter they are than everyone else.

Malcolm,

I appreciate your thoughtful response. You seem quite educated. That being said I disagree with you on multiple points.

1)"History also shows..." The very word history or HIS STORY is a term inferring a subjective observation. The German language uses the same word for story (die Geschichte) as it does for history. Logically, it makes sense. There are as many versions of the story of history as there were people to observe and record the events. Thus what you are actually saying is the version of history that YOU buy into shows... In general I choose to buy into a different interpretation of history.

Specifically...

2)"WWI of course led to huge government expenditures and more technologies. This led to great expansions and increases in standards of living during the 20s." This is ruling class propaganda designed to get the average citizen to agree to destructive warfare. Building machines of war and then destroying stuff, though it may add to the GDP, does not help anyone accept the stockholders of the companies building those machines, those servicing the massive resulting debt, and to a very small degree the employees of those companies. When you factor in the waste of capital inputs and the resulting debt, wars are always a net detractor of societal wealth. We would get about as much economic impact if we produced 10 million cars, only to dump all of them into the ocean. Interestingly enough, many of the modern Keynesian programs sound about as productive as this.

3)"Then of course, the Depression happened many blame on lack of regulation and certainly depositors would have been happy to have an FDIC." The Federal reserve should not have been controlling our money supply in the first place. It was improper regulation, rather than not enough regulation that resulted in the great depression.

4)"The New Deal and WWII are credited with ending the depression." Conversely, the New Deal is also blamed for prolonging the depression. I have read many books on both versions, and I feel the New Deal was a fabulous disaster. I realize this is not the version of history that our Keynes worshipping government "intellectuals" choose to allow our history classes to tell us. I could recommend a few books for you if you want to see exactly where and why I have developed my opinion here.

5)"As stated, all the way to 1865 shouldn’t be considered a legitimate free market given that it was built on the backs of slaves." This is an excellent point. However, I still can not find a better free market capitalistic example in history than the US in the 1800's, which was obviously far from a perfectly free market. I have already stated that slavery ONLY worked for the slave owners, not for the general population of the US. We would have been collectively far better off economically to allow the slaves the freedom to pursue productive activities on their own terms (a MORE free market)--not to mention the obvious moral issues.

Malcolm.

Agree with you on the revisionism. It seems pretty extreme that the US was founded in 1776 by oppressed 1795 Berkshire landowners trying to escape the tyranny of paying minimum wage to some poor sod farm workers. Not only do we have revisionism, but we also have time-travellng!

Hmm, maybe that is the secret of our relative success. Time travel!

CBOEtrader, I too appreciate that you are learned and have obviously put a lot of research and experience into the formation of your position. I thank you for your courteousness.

Agreed on the history points, but please understand that even if everyone is on the same page historically, that history is still as dynamic as it was when it was current. It is not like a math problem, it can generate two true different answers like you say depending on the perspective of the reference.

You'll note that I do say unfortunately when I refer to wartime innovations. In your comment though you do say something I have always agreed with, which is like the free market, it is actually quite difficult for government to waste money because it doesn't actually go anywhere. Like you say, you could spend all that money on assets and throw them in the ocean and the economic activity still happened. But yes, I'd rather see the government investing in fantastic infrastructure projects than waging wars, because of the undisputable fact that the resulting commercialization leads to greater social benefits.

I also think it is important to distinguish between redistribution and collective investment. There are some nasty exchanges here where it is unclear to me what the disagreement is. I don't believe redistribution works, or is moral, but I support the use of government to foster commerce through social policy; be it infrastructure, technology transfers, and other partnerships. I'm not a 'rob Peter to pay Paul' liberal, but like in a home owner association, I don't mind pooling a small amount of my income to get a much larger benefit. The individual cost of a community swimming pool for example is a lot less than building and maintaining your own pool.

The pure free market ideology fails in a couple of ways for me. For one, those who say it is superior have a point when it comes to commercialism. However, in my research I identify areas where the free market doesn't come into play because high socially beneficial activities don't generate any sort of income stream, or if they do they are simply too large.

I also can't just let the 1800s golden age point slip by. That golden age compared to any modern measure was a miserable time because specifically there was no government involvement. Factories were death traps. The population was constantly being addicted to Heroin because there was no government requiring labeling, or even studying ingredients in patent medicines. There was no public sanitation so disease spread, and without health and human services there was no epidemic management other than quarantine after symptoms. Businesses polluted as they saw fit causing even more misery.

Yes, I am also fond of the Victorian/Progressive periods from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Social values were higher to where people did have a respect for nature, and yes, it was a great time for novel low capital costing inventions. There is a timing variable to my point of view, where I respect the culture nurturing garage innovations in the late 1800s and modern times where individual inventors simply can't fund fundamental research needed to further advance humanity. A specific example to illustrate this point is that in 1903 some bicycle shop owners could build a primitive airplane. Who will build a space plane now? Will it be a small business owner, or will it involve public resources in one form or another?

Nomograph says

CBOEtrader says

Bap has a self depreciating way of communicating.

It’s ’self deprecating’.

LOL, ok, I suppose I would've pointed that out too under the same circumstances, so can't really blame you there.

Malcolm,

I agree with...well...everything you have to say here. The point of government is to accomplish something together that we can't do as well individually. I am not on those no government libertarians. There are some very legit purposes to which the government should focus our collective resources.

Justme,

Save yourself the trouble of reinventing other's words and go find yourself a strawman to punch.

elvis says

“The course of history shows that as government grows liberty decreases.” Thomas Jefferson.

This quote was probably after he raped a slave and before he used public funds to triple the size of the country.

I'm definitely not bitter, I just point out the hypocrisy of a slave owner talking about liberty. Also, it is pretty well documented and accepted. Her name was Sally Hemmings. I said probably in the sense that I don't know the year of the quote or the rapes. Nothing was inferred.

The reason it relates is because on one hand you have someone with the ideology you and a couple of others were presenting, that government only exists for defense, using the power of government for another purpose. It is also inconsistent that Mr. State's rights/antifederalist bought the Louisisana Territory. Like I've said before, this purest rhetoric like religion doesn't even hold true to the people who espouse it. Do as I say, not as I do.

And no, I'm not knocking his political theory. Clearly he had an incredible mind, just some conflicted values.

Malcom,

It may not have seemed like it at the time but in retrospect the Louisiana purchase was not only a bargain but also served to provide for the national defense. Much cheaper and more peaceful in the long run.

Well, once again, this country was founded with the concept of LIMITED GOVERNMANT. And yes, we need national defense, and fire fighters, and police and teachers, etc. BUT gov't has mutated into a wasteful, corrupt, parasitic blob thats sucking the life out of the economy and the country itself. The HOST (taxpayers) is being killed by the PARASITE (GOV'T).

Too much gov't, too many laws, too little freedom leads to tyranny from the political class perpetrated upon all others. Abe