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RE: Progressives Are Socialists. The Left is not "Liberal" at all. (Part 1)
The reason the people you refer to as the middle class are suffering is because of the FED destroying the value of their money. Having your currency lose 95% of its value can do that to people.
Unless they earned their wealth by getting in bed with government, and getting special treatment - they earned it honestly, by producing products and services that people demand. Nothing wrong with that.
The only fair tax is a flat tax, and the only fair flat tax is ZERO.
Nailed it.
Thanks
Not all countries in the world are the US and you can look around the world to see what has worked and what hasn't too, not just theorize like you do. Of course, I would by no means claim that the data is cold cut and clear, that is absolutely not the case, but the idea that the free market is a cure-all panacea doesn't seem to hold up by any means.
If there are zero taxes, how do you ensure the well-being of everybody? How do you provide infrastructure, justice and so on?
The evidence IS cold cut and clear: government management of Health Care (disguised as the phrase single-payer) results in higher costs for procedures and medicines, shortages of even the most basic of supplies like antiseptic and bandages, dirty facilities, and patients dying in the hallways as they await service.
There are no taxes levied in order to prove food and shelter, but yet the market provides you food to eat and an apartment to live in. Taxes are not needed, not even for “infrastructure”. By that I assume you mean roads, since most other infrastructure in varying degrees is already built by the private sector (cell towers, power lines, shipping service, security service, arbitration service, etc.). Even public road construction is sometimes contracted out to private companies. In some places, many roads and streets are already entirely privately constructed and maintained, even some utility services; in residential subdivisions, for example.
I don’t have to prove ‘who will do X without the government’, because the market already shows that it can. And it would do more, if allowed to.
What?! You can't be serious. France, Germany, Finland, Iceland, Israel and the like have better health care than the US and they get it cheaper. And I assure you they all have access to cleaning supplies in the hospitals there and they know how to use them ;) And are well stocked on bandages...
It doesn't. There are many cases in history where you find that left to the market, things are not taken care of and the government needs to step in with regulation and often to take the project upon itself. Look at the history of the London sewage system for instance and tell me how well the market handled the problem and how the problem was solved. Could it have been solved in any other way and what would the incentive be for the hypothetical private investor who could have solved it? So yeah, you have to show that this type of counter-examples to your thesis are somehow invalid.
Again, you didn't explain how the market could create a world wide web. If things were left to the market, different companies would have the incentive to create their own local networks which they would control and charge for all the content. We see this even not as large telecommunications companies pushing against net neutrality. The market has not way to preserve net neutrality and thus the free market without government regulation is very likely to destroy the internet that we know, love and almost take for granted. And yes, you have to show that this is not a valid counter-example.
And the most important thing that the market itself can't do - enforce contracts, protect intellectual property and provide justice. I keep asking you how the market would provide them and you keep dodging the question and move on to talk about food and shelter. If you look at the market you will see that business are happy to steal intellectual property if they can, so you need a way to stop them so developing new technologies would still be a worthwhile investment. If you want a thriving economy you need a level of stability and security and if contracts mean nothing, you are not going to have that. Same goes with crime. High rates of robbery and theft don't go well with a booming economy.
If the market was in fact a panacea, it would have already fixed all the problems, wouldn't it?
What is stopping the market from fixing health care right now? Private clinics and private insurance are not illegal, right? If there was a winning market driven formula there, why isn't the market jumping on it? What are the regulations that are stopping it from working?
The London sewer system existed before that time, and it was privately owned by several different companies but they were hampered by rules from local government.
And yes, competition in health care is Highly limited in the US. In every case, when a third party pays the bill (a single payer system/medicare or one with required coverage by private insurers) the cost skyrocket, while the prices for less regulated procedures go down. Consider lasik surgery, not normally covered by insurance but the cost has come down dramatically in just a few years. The American Medical Association also is a huge barrier to entry in the medical field and basically acts as an occupational cartel. Have you heard of a Certificate of Need? It's what you have to get signed off on by local existing medical providers, before you can open you own practice. Spoiler alert, they dont. This is some of what is stopping the market from serving consumers in the health care industry that desperately need more choice and less government.
And why are single-payer systems doing so much better outside the US?
https://mises.org/library/socialized-healthcare-vs-laws-economics
It can all be provided better by the same people who provide food to eat and clothes to wear - the market.
I wonder how you substantiate that claim for yourself as I personally see the idea that the market is a panacea as just another utopia and simply an instance of wishful thinking.
Don't get me wrong, the market is certainly a great system to incentivize productivity, competition, progress and wealth creation. I don't object to that notion at all. But I certainly don't agree that it can provide a positive and an efficient solution to all problems out there.
To me it sounds like it should be absolutely obvious that the market in and of itself has no mechanism to provide justice and rule of law. What market mechanism do you think can lead to those things that are quite important to a prosperous society? Because if you don't have a rule of law that is somehow enforcible, you loose an extremely important component of the market - contracts as there will be no way to hold people and businesses to the agreements you have had with them. Oh, and patents and intellectual property too...
Additionally, how do you propose the market will lead to infrastructural development in any dependable and all-encompassing way. Keep in mind that it's not like you are proposing something that has never been tried. You can look to the history of the British railway system for instance. When it was maintained by private investors, it was fragmented, inefficient and plagued by incompatibility. The same goes with their electricity grid. Things got better only after the government stepped in.
Another network that would have had a very hard time arising and existing under normal market conditions would be the internet. We currently take it for granted, but many of us forget or never realized that it is in fact a government-sponsored project and it couldn't have remained free and open without government regulation. You see the market pushing for removal of net neutrality quite hard, so it's clear the market is not really incentivizing the providers to keep it open.
Also, how would the market provide disaster relief and emergency services?
And the last thing to mention again is health care. The US where the market has played a major role in it, has the one of the worst and least efficient systems in the developed world. A total market solution to that problem would lead to price gouging of the worst of sorts. Sure, you could say that the medical industry will be thriving, but you wouldn't be able to say that society would have access to proper health care and I don't see that as progress but as failure.
To me there is a long list of things that the market by itself is simply not equipped to deal with and to me it's completely unreasonable for us to expect it to be able to do so. There are projects that are simply best tackled on a larger scale and there is no way to take care of them without getting them financed somehow. To me a reasonable way to get those financed is taxation and I actually don't see any other alternative as to me the fact that they are needed is unquestionable.
In the recent hurricane disasters to strike Texas and Florida, most of the relief came from the private sector, not the government. (individuals donations, private charities, donations by businesses, and local churches that helped demo damaged home finishes)
There has certainly been a lot of support from private individuals, volunteers, businesses and so on, true. Still, the importance of fire departments and so on especially as first responders in disaster situations is quite important.
So you admit the market provides disaster relief?
Not exactly but close. I admit that private efforts have played a role in disaster relief. Calling people acting on their own volition outside government the market is incorrect as this is not a market driven reaction, it's people want to help. They are not doing it to get a reward or as a reaction to a market incentive, so this has nothing to do with the market. But sure, that happens.
Is it enough and would it be enough without the organized initial response from agencies whose job is to do that right away is another issue, but there are certainly people that get off their assess and volunteer to help and there are even more people that stay home but donate which is also help.
So, the best thing about government is that they keep regulations to a minimum? They are the source of all stifling regulations. The market is the thing you are saying they do a good job of allowing to work freely.
I did not remotely say anything like that.
Not all regulation is stifling. You need regulation to have something like the internet, you need regulation to have a justice system, you need regulation to make sure that employers are providing safe working conditions for their workers, you need regulations to make sure factories are not polluting the drinking water and so on.
There may be need for 'regulation' but it does not have to come from government. Ie. The people who know nothing about industry that they are regulting and are elected by people who also know nothing about the industry they ask to be regulated. lol what could go wrong?