bullus_hit said:
Again, you fail to see that the lines between government & big business have been severly compromised. If anything, the power has switched inexorably to the corporate sector, most in the American Congress are multi-national head kickers who are being bankrolled by the uber wealthy. What we see now is a snapshot of the exact model that you are advocating, usually with the richest determining policy outcomes. Is it a healthy state of affairs? No way Jose, what we need is a more bi-partisan approach without the vested interests.
Perhaps we can agree that government, big business and the banking sector are all in it together, and that everyone else is worse off because of their collusion. I would include the trade unions within that unholy alliance; however I’m guessing you would disagree. In no way, shape, or form is the system we currently have what I advocate. For instance, the system I advocate would not have “policy outcomes” outside of a mechanism to resolve disputes between people, and for a defence force.
Your suggestion for a bipartisan approach without vested interests sounds wonderful, and personally I don’t see how it is possible in a system that centralises power in the hands of a privileged few. You would no doubt advocate more government is required to fix current issues. Given that government is the problem in the first place, perhaps you might want to look in the mirror with statements such as “What we see now is a snapshot of the exact model that you are advocating”.
bullus_hit said:
Too many generalisations here, there have been many instances where government intervention has allowed business to ride the peaks and troughs. You don't go and abandon critical industries if your domestic market relies upon them. If a farmer suffers through a period of drought and is teetering on the edge, are you suggesting it is better to just cut them loose?
Yeah ride the peaks and troughs at the expense of tax payers, consumers, and businesses that don’t have the political clout to gain governmental privilege. If business (and that means ALL business, including farmers), can not operate as a going concern, than that is because said business is not satisfying customer demand. Why should Joe Citizen have to foot the bill for their mistakes? If someone wants to take the risk of operating a farm, then they should wear all the risk, and receive all the reward. The Australian government does not own the domestic market, and it is not there’s to interfere with.
bullus_hit said:
As for your contention that governments cause monopolies, I can only scratch my head in bewilderment. Companies by their very nature facilitate growth through acquisition, this would still occur even if governments were wiped off the map. The end result is inevitably a landscape dominated by monopolies & oligopolies. It's the very reason we have anti-competitive legislation, and it's actually good policy for those who want to keep the spirit of competition alive.
The strongest ally of big business is government when it comes to anti-competitive advantages. Perhaps you should read up a bit on this if you wish to cure your bewilderment. On the one hand you like subsidies, protectionism, and I’m guessing unionism, and on the other you complain about monopolies and big corporations dominating politics. How can you fail to see the link between the establishment of big business and the advantages bestowed upon them from the government?
bullus_hit said:
Your showing your fundamentalist colours right here.
I’m sorry, are you making an argument here, or just simply resorting to ad hominem?
bullus_hit said:
Comparatively it's the most deregulated in the Western world, it's also the most expensive by quite some margin. Obamacare is a step in the right direction but one might argue that the horse has already bolted. Again, the presence of lobby groups will continue their campaign of smear & sabotage. As for second guessing your stance on healthcare, what are you actually advocating?
The US is also where you will find the best medical care anywhere on the planet. It's true that the US health care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure. We could go on for ages on this topic, but what’s the point?
bullus_hit said:
Whilst I agree with this in principle, private ownership cannot be applied as a blanket policy. Usually land and resources needs to be shared amongst various competing interests. The Murray-Darling Basin is a perfect case in point. There's also the issue of pollution and other externalities being accounted for. This is where legislation is critical, you can't have one business flushing their dirty water down stream to the detriment of everyone else.
Why not? When you say shared, what you really mean is that property owners should have their resources stolen from them and re-distributed to other groups. You don’t provide a reason why this is the best way. The Murray-darling basin suffers from the tragedy of the comms you mentioned earlier. If legislation was the best way to manage environmental risk, then the Soviet Union wouldn’t have experienced such extensive environmental damage. It had an extensive list of environmental regulation that didn’t make any difference, whatsoever.
In recognition of the problem associated with the tragedy of the commons, the best way to ensure environmental protection is to enshrine private property rights. If one business flushes their dirty water downstream to the detriment of another, then that person, through their private property rights, would have legal discourse to seek recompense.
bullus_hit said:
This still doesn't explain how 'productive capacity' can be measured. On one hand it states "Money prices do not measure anything. Prices only have a meaning as relative prices as they reflect the exchange ratios on the market", yet on the other hand it states "the only viable way to growth is through increased saving and investment".
To me this is contradictory, 'saving' implies some sort of valuation, so what exactly is being valued?
Perhaps I should elaborate on what money is, and the difference between subjective and objective value.
Economic value is not an objective property of commodities. Rather, value is attributed to commodities according to their perceived utility in serving human wants. You compare your preferences by ranking them, not by measuring them. It makes sense, for example, to say that I like apples more than oranges, and oranges more than pears, and therefore that I like apples more than pears. But it makes no sense to say that I like apples twice as much as I like oranges, and oranges three times more than pears, and therefore that I like apples six times more than I like pears. Since economic value derives from estimates of personal satisfaction, and since there is no invariant unit of satisfaction that can serve as a standard of measurement, it is impossible to measure, compute, or add up the marginal utility of various commodities.
Subjective estimates of value may prove sufficient when dealing with simple situations, as when Crusoe, alone on his island, is calculating how to provide for his wants in the immediate future. But the problem of calculation becomes insurmountable in more complex situations, especially when a sophisticated division of labor is in place. When lengthy and complicated processes of production are involved, estimates of subjective use value will fail to provide the information you need for long-range economic planning.
That which subjective value cannot accomplish in a free market is accomplished instead by objective exchange value i.e. the money-price of a commodity, which serves as the required unit of economic calculation. Money does not measure value, nor are prices somehow measured by money. Rather, prices are simply amounts of money. The objective exchange value arises from the interplay of the subjective valuations of those engaged in buying and selling and can serve as a practical means of economic calculation.
This also applies to savings, as savings refers to the accumulation of capital goods, which all have a subjective value to them. Money can play the role of providing an objective exchange value, but as explained above, it does not actually measure anything.
