What social programs should a government provide?

Lew Rockwell has been writing a lot lately, and he is one of my favorite authors along with Jeffrey Tucker and Mark Thornton, as men who can discuss complex economic and philosophical arguments simply, clearly, and most importantly, succinctly.

Take a quick read of this (What If Public Schools Were Abolished?). Mind you, he's not predicting the future, no one can do that, but he is drawing on the past, and extrapolating what is possible when education is handled privately.

Now that said, and I really do not like taxes, a major improvement would be returning education to the states and municipalities. Federalizing education is destroying our education system as there is more bureaucracy, and since 1980 diminishing returns. Government's answer to everything is more control, more money. Sometimes, simple answers are right in front of us.

 

I think every service that is required for the welfare of every member of the society should be handled by a non profit organization such as government since we should not compromise the quality of service in pursue of profit.
We can talk about inefficiency of government but it does not change the principal that people health and welfare is far too important to be trusted to corporations and instead we should discuss how to have an effective government.

My idea is based on 2 facts:

1- We have enough resources that there is no need for anyone to be hungry, homeless or lack medical care.

2- Providing these services is much better and economically efficient solution than dealing with consequences of not providing it.

 

But government is not, and never has been truly non-profit.

Charities have been consistently non-profit, like the YMCA or Red Cross.

I would much rather see independent organizations like this, functioning on charity, than a government monopoly on welfare that wipes out charities and forces citizens to participate in every scheme, whether they support it or not.

 

But providing these services is not a charity, in my opinion it is the OBLIGATION of the governing body of the society to insure the welfare of it's members.

Tax is just an obligation that you have to live in a common society. If you really want to address the issue of tax system, then you should address the issue of immigration and the national boundaries because without any hinders to immigration those who are not satisfied with their country tax system can move to other jurisdictions that suits them better.

I can give you a similar example, I still have an apartment in Vancouver and I am not satisfied with strata council and how they are raising the strata fees. I have tried to discuss it with them previously and they are not trying to be more effective. Due to the fact that there is no limitation to me selling my place and buying somewhere else I am planning to sell and move. Obviously if I decide to stay and use the services in my complex then I can not turn around and claim that they are robbing me.

 

Nonsense. The role of government is to protect the rights of it's citizens, not to nanny them from cradle to grave.

That is a positive right, and it is impossible to fulfill. Government is not God. It can't make the fields full of food and the sun shine every day. All it can do is take from one citizen and give to another. And in our current 2 or 3 hundred year experiment in democracy, we've learned that government will inevitably try to spend more than it can take, and destroy the economic system by taxing everyone with inflation, including the very poor people it claims to support and defend.

People need an opportunity to be creative and self-responsible. Not to be made dependent on government for subsidy, health, food etc. That is the making of a tyranny.

I agree with the latter part of your argument, but vehemently oppose the beginning part of your argument. How can a body of which I am a member, which seeks to protect my rights, place obligations on me against my will? Do I not have the right to self-determination? The right to own the fruit I grow on my trees, or the milk I get from my cows?

You know what sucks? When you fall asleep on the Skytrain from Broadway to Burnaby after a night down on Commercial and wake up in Surrey.

I'm not sure what strata council is, but I doubt they will put you in jail if you don't pay your fees unless they are part of the government.

Government has a couple things going for it.

1. It writes the law.
2. It controls enforcement.
3. It confiscates resources, so it has a lot of people and guns to run you down.

In the wake of this overwhelming power to extort (legally, if immorally) the common citizen, the little guy, whose rights we are supposed to protect at all costs, becomes a victim, because he chooses to work rather than collect welfare, and he happens to be a pretty good worker.

In the socialist utopia, smart people stay home, have babies and live off the workers. To force them to work would be slavery, and yet the compassionate liberals and conservatives would argue that not nannying them would be cruelty.

Oh the paradox.

 

To take from one citizen and give it to another, is not a new idea, it is called insurance. We all buy insurance, so the day that we have a car accident or home burglary, the collective fond to kick in and pay for the damages. The social insurance that guarantees the basic welfare is no different. You are not against such a free market enterprise such as insurance, are you?

The other point is the discussion that you mentioned is that the government role is to protect it's citizen rights. The citizens have the right to free movement and their safety, how do you suggest that government should protect those rights, more police and more prison? Why not instead of confrontation policy, try to remove the social causes of criminal activity? It is better and more cost effective economically too. For example are you aware that in Johannesburg, south Africa, the citizens spend more than 3 times the amount of money that government spends on social housing on the private security to protect themselves in their homes (prison)?
Even the government manages the social programs badly, it doesn't mean that social programs are bad or economically ineffective, it only means that there should be a better government.
We have come to the point of development in our race that there is no need for anyone to lack food, shelter or medicine and providing the basic necessities is the most effective method for going forward. I like to say that I am selfish, so I like to help everyone for my own good.

 

When did insurance become mandatory? I am all for insurance, and a free market for insurance, with the ability to choose between carriers, choose no insurance or EGAD! start your own insurance company! The government is not insurance. It is a protection racket with no competitors.

I don't believe free movement and safety are rights. The notion that safety is a right, is the justification the neocons use to bomb people in 3rd world countries and war profiteer billions of dollars.

The government cannot protect your safety without locking you in a rubber room and removing your shoelaces. The government can't stop you from falling down the stairs, or choking on a chicken bone, or developing cancer.

The government can't stop determined thieves from breaking into every home, anymore than it can stop automobile accidents.

As far as free movement, you do not have a right to travel through my property, through my house, over my car, and stepping on my kid to get where you want to go. Likewise, freedom of movement does not mean you can enter my business after hours when it is locked in order to access the alley behind it.

Freedom of movement and the right to safety are positive rights. They cannot be provided without exception, under every circumstance. They are manufactured notions, as manufactured as the right to health care or education.

Without a doubt you can remove the societal causes of criminal activity. But what is criminal activity? In order to have a crime, you must have a victim. But governments do not function in this manner. They criminalize behavior like smoking, drinking, drugs, sex etc. Now THAT is a waste of resources that takes away from genuine law enforcement!

That's one perspective. But economically, government is overhead. It raises the cost of any given service. Most civil servants make a better wage, have better health care and better pensions than the average working joe who is paying their salary. All for the pleasure of their bureaucratic slothfullness, and lack of customer service or accountability.

The best way to make a program work, is to make it directly responsive to competition and the people using the service.

Imagine there was no welfare, just two churches with charity soup kitchens. Even the person in need of a free meal would have choices, and could choose the place with the best atmosphere, best cooking and largest quantities.

Likewise, as a donor, I can choose the charity I believe is most effective, and deny the donations to the charities I feel are wasteful, unresponsive or ineffective. This is a free market.

Socialism is antithetical to freedom. If the state controls basic necessities like it did in the USSR, then whoever controls the state, rules. Shortages and bad quality will rule the day.

You are right. We have generated enough prosperity over the last 160 years to feed, clothe and educate everyone. However, government waste and mismanagement, as well as it's collusion with business, and the sickening wealth destruction of 2 world wars and innumerable other conflicts have set us back.

There is one path to peace and prosperity, and that is freedom. The sooner we defang the state, and either abolish or strictly limit it, the sooner we can self-organize for efficiency, satisfaction and compassion.

 

I don't think so. Precisely what I have been saying for some time, and it would have been nice if it were simply acknowledged some time ago.

And from this market-anarchy, so much else follows.

 

Why is socialism antithetical to freedom? I will argue that real freedom is dependent on socialism. You are making the common mistake of confusing USSR system which was a form of capitalism (state capitalism) with socialism.
You can read more about state capitalism in a book by Fredric Engels which is called Anti-duhring. State capitalism is the harshest form of capitalism and it is predicated that many societies can go through it as the last stage of capitalism development.

What is the difference between your self-organize and a government? It has already happened twice before, it is a form of democratic government. You can read about it in Karl Marx book, Paris Commune. Also the soviets in Russia were such a form of government before Lenin destroyed it to establish party hegemony.

 

Socialism and fascism (your state capitalism) are right and left paradigms of statism. Von Mises proved that socialism cannot calculate market prices and thus cannot effectively provide goods and services.

I've already addressed capitalism here before, but I will address it again for your benefit. Capital is savings, productive gain or deferred consumption. Capitalism is the private ownership of those productive gains (learning how to turn a crop of 50 apples into 100 with a new tool or more efficient harvesting), or deferred consumption (saving 50 apples of the 100 you are now growing for future use).

Socialism says you grow 50 apples and you get 5. You grow 100 apples and you get 10 (or 5 if your governing body gives foreign aid to Israel or has to feed Iraqi politicians lol). The profit incentive is dampened or removed. Without a profit incentive, man does not organize efficiently.

You're a smart cat. You should read Von Mises "Socialism" for another perspective.

Please don't confuse my love for capitalism with state capitalism or fascism.

States only get bigger, not smaller, and not voluntarily.

The difference is the right to own property, and secede. If one cannot emigrate, and is born into a democracy that he does not agree with, then he is in essence a slave to the system by birth. His only alternative of exiting such a system in light of an absence of opportunities to emigrate, would be suicide.

The one question that consistently gets dodged in these socialistic arguments with others is this.

Who owns me and who owns you?

If we have self-ownership, then how can anyone lay any claim to the fruits of our labor for survival and happiness?​

 

A main issue with providing all the basics is that being on welfare becomes a way of life.

 

The first thing that we don't agree on is the definition of capitalism. Your idea of Capitalism in a some fancier words is a typical slogan of I own SUV, I own LCD TV therefore I am Capitalist while I define Capitalism as a mode of production as Marx defines it. It is about private ownership of production tools and not about how much money you have in the bank or you can make a deal to double it.
Socialism got nothing to do with number apples you get either. I do not believe that you have read the Karl Marx books. Start with Something as simple as manifest the communist and you see how close the predictions in that book is to today's idea of globalization that is advocated by industrial countries.
Von Mises is a pipe dreamer and Utopian, his ideas only exist in a vacuum of social/political reality.

Any proof that your self organized group doesn't get bigger like today's state? Nobody is absolutely free, we are all born to the families and countries which have brought us some advantages and some obligations. That is reality and part of our social culture. It is not about who owns me or who owns you, it is about a network of social interactions and social responsibility.
The only way your idea and Von Mises idea works is if you to move a deserted island and as it's only inhabitant would not need to interact with anyone.

You assume that human motivation is only limited to having the basics to survive, I do not believe that. I think most people have the motivation to do better or even engage in productivity through motivation which got nothing to do with providing the basic needs.
Have you seen the Star Trek movies and their replicator and how they order food or other things and it makes it. If your idea was true, the humanity and it is activities will cease to exist as soon as we succeed to invent such machine.
I believe the modern state has made the welfare a way of life because the capitalism needs a certain percentage of unemployment in order to keep down the cost of labour. The welfare system and making people dependent on it, is a way for state to avoid social unrest.

 

Not at all. Capital is savings composed of productive gains and deferred consumption. Capital is SAVINGS that can be reinvested. You're further down the road, where Marx is talking about Capital goods. But in order to make capital goods, you must have capital savings from consumption.

You're really cheapening the definition by saying it is just about wealth. That's why it's hard to take Marx seriously once you get out into the world and start working and making money, without the shelter of your parents and state while you are getting an education. His notions of the entrepreneurial class being bourgeoisie, when as a small business owner, I was far from that.

Marx's vision couldn't handle a paradigm like the internet, where people self organize, set market prices, negotiate, get creative, assemble, collaborate, battle, compete etc.

I reject global governance. The problem with Marx was his notion that a "socialist man" would emerge in the working class, a man who strives for productive gains but subverts his own consumption to make the socialist system work. A sort of working class super hero. But there is no socialist man. All men are driven by time preference.

Marx was also into the labor theory of value. Which says that the price of a good is how much labor was put into it. But that logic fails when someone in isolation, circa 2008 builds his own bicycle. While he may have 5 years of labor into it, handcrafted the frame, wheels and gears, it is readily available on the mass market, and that person could never recover 5 years of their labor investment in the market place.

This is why socialist/communist regimes fail and generally the people end up in abject poverty. Without a profit motive an economy cannot prosper over the long term.

Well, that's not entirely true. Mises has refuted some of Marx's work, and he's also formed very valuable theory such as ABC (Austrian Business Cycle) which is now starting to gain a lot of mainstream traction. He also produced two excellent students in FA Hayek (Nobel Prize Winner who elaborated on Mises work) and Murray Rothbard, arguably the greatest American economic historian of the 20th century.

To say Mises ideas only exist in a vacuum is to deny the work when he was in the service of the Austrian government. You should click the link in my signature to learn more about a man who believed you could have freedom, peace and prosperity because they are all interconnected.

It can get big, but it has to get big with the consent of the governed. There is a difference between a government that is empowered, and a government that is self-empowering.

One of the most honest answers yet. Thank you.

So basically, you're saying that from the moment we come into the world, there are already established claims against our labor and productivity. That's interesting. I can't see a very big distinction then between that paradigm and being born into slavery. You're saying we're communally owned, through our social network, and do not have unfettered self-determination or freedom.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that people can have social networks and social responsibilities. But I believe participation is voluntary, not birthright.

You're making the argument for positive rights. Something which is obligated, but cannot withstand the test of being fulfilled naturally. You think you have a right to health care, but if there are no doctors, nurses, hospital around, then you can't exercise that "right".

In simple terms, a positive right is something granted. The power to grant, is the power to take away.

Negative rights are things which cannot be granted. They exist without permission, and thus fall under the notion of being unalienable.

It would radically change things. Right now, food has production costs. Clothing has production costs. Anything which is scarce, and labor is always scarce due to time preference, has a cost. I use the example of air. There is more (sic) clean air than we can breathe. Thus it is not scarce, it is free. As soon as there is a cost to clean it, collect it and distribute it, it will no longer be free. It will become scarce because the resources needed to clean air will have to compete with the resources to provide public transport, cook dinner or to watch a movie.

Capitalism is more likely to provide full employment than socialism. Minimum wage is a price control, and creates job shortages.

Only until the shortages start happening, and the state can't keep it's ponzi labor scheme rolling. Then the wheels come off quickly as we saw when the Berlin wall fell.

 

Obviously you don't know much about Marx theories and you haven't studied it. This becomes quite clear when you started to mention the labor theory of value and giving your example. Not only Marx has dealt with similar situation in Capital but he has dealt with it in national level among countries.
If you also studied the Marx and Engels books, you would have noticed that they rejected socialism/communism in one country and believed in a global system as the natural result of capitalism growth.
Socialism in one country was Lenin idea and in fact it was nothing but state capitalism. As I mentioned previously, read the manifest communist and you will be surprised how it is predicting the exact trend of globalization that is advocated by governments in industrial countries. The fact that we can already see the signs of Marx predictions while we see no indication of Mises "free market economy" is pretty good sign of who was right.

 

Actually, it was Bukharin's idea, and of the three, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, I would say it was Stalin who embraced the notion of socialism in one country - in distinction to both Trotsky and Lenin, though Stalin liked to quote that he was following Lenin's true thoughts on this.

From my read, Lenin believed that while a revolution could take place in one country, its final success - the socialist destruction of capitalism, the realization of socialism - could not be realized until socialist revolution was also achieved in countries better suited to Marx's idea of "late-stage," fully industrialized countries (read: Western Europe).

I think you know this, but to any others interested: in this, both Lenin and Trotsky were taking a lead from Engels, who quite early on dealt with the interdependence of nations - that what happened in one nation would, because of modern infrastructure and communications, happen virtually simultaneously in others.

 

So what was Marx's conclusion on labor theory then?

I think it's unfair you reject my understanding of Marx, and yet you know next to nothing about Mises. If you're truly interested in the truth, then surely you should have some familiarity with Marx's greatest critics?

Communism is a farce. It's predicated on a stateless state (there is an oxymoron for you), lack of freedom, infinite resources and zero private property ownership, not to mention the manipulation of credit by fraudulent means.

Communism works great on paper. It's counter to human nature, the human spirit and human values. It might be an ideal way of organizing automatons, but certainly not living, breathing, unique, rational beings.

It's predicting the rise of fascism. You're participating in a free market economy (and arguably the future of communication, interaction and commerce) by reading this post. The internet is largely unregulated, and yet people from around the world achieve common footing, regardless of race, color, creed or wealth status. This is because once you are on, there are few, if any barriers to human expression.

 

I think that despite all the talks about how bad Stalin was, he followed the Lenin train of thought and brought it it's logical conclusion.
I never see people as black or white and I don't think you can judge the actions and ideas of a person without really understanding the person.
Lenin was fundamentally changed during his exile and he was not the same person as before. The book one step forward, two step backward which is a response to German social democrats including Rosa Luxemburg, is a reactionary piece of writing which formulated the rejection of democracy and the totalitarian governing by the party which was the cause for all future failures.

I am glad that you mentioned Engels since he was a great thinker that never tried to take the center stage and therefore never was appreciated as Marx. While Marx Capital is an excellent scientific book, I prefer much more Engels writing on social issues which shows his passion and great nature as a human being.

 

Can't agree with you on Stalin. I know his granddaughter, actually, and it's an odd thing - since he was responsible for the death of about 60% of my wife's family. He was an evil, human abomination, no better than Hitler or any other totalitarian thug.

 

I don't believe in Evil or human abomination. There are so many people in the society who have the same tendency but never get the opportunity. Just read about the prison camps in Yugoslavia and the kind of torture that former friends and neighbors were inflicting on each other.
I often wonder if one day, the government decides to open concentration camps in USA, how long will be the line up of all the people who will try to apply for a job.

 

I understand what you're saying; I suspect you probably know of the Milgram/Yale longitudinal/cross-cultural studies, establishing we all of us have "sheeple" built into our genes, and there isn't a particular nation or people more predisposed to the kind of evil exhibited by Hitler's Germany or Stalin's USSR than other nations of people. Anyone else, if you don't know about it, fascinating study.

That said, I subscribe to Hannah Arendt's view on this. If most of us are subject, as in the Yale study, to the banality of evil, there are the few that are, genetically, categorically, however it comes about - predisposed to great evil. I would classify Stalin under this.