Governments role in a free society

[+OverSword]

Listen as Milton explains, over 40 years ago, how the problems that we are having today including poor race relations that we can't seem to figure out how to fix, are a product of bad/over governing.  I also got a kick out of his motorcycle helmet story.

 

 

[Autochthon1990]

Its a complicated topic, but the short version for me is "Government keeps *******s who are stronger, richer, or otherwise have more resources from ruining **** for everybody else".

[Duke Wellington]

6 minutes ago, Autochthon1990 said:

Its a complicated topic, but the short version for me is "Government keeps *******s who are stronger, richer, or otherwise have more resources from ruining **** for everybody else".

2nd post and the communism has already started.

[+OverSword]

16 minutes ago, Autochthon1990 said:

Its a complicated topic, but the short version for me is "Government keeps *******s who are stronger, richer, or otherwise have more resources from ruining **** for everybody else".

Hour long video and you posted in 10 minutes.  This man is a nobel prize holder and maybe has thought things through a little bit.  Give it a listen

[Autochthon1990]

Look that's just my opinion.

Also, the following quote "His economic ideas were also partially implemented in the United States by Ronald Reagan, in the United Kingdom by Margaret Thatcher, and in Chile by Augusto Pinochet during the 1970s and 1980s." tells me everything I need to know about this fellow. 

[spartan max2]

9 minutes ago, Autochthon1990 said:

Look that's just my opinion.

Also, the following quote "His economic ideas were also partially implemented in the United States by Ronald Reagan, in the United Kingdom by Margaret Thatcher, and in Chile by Augusto Pinochet during the 1970s and 1980s." tells me everything I need to know about this fellow. 

What parts of his economic ideas were implemented by them that you don't like?

I find economics are fun to talk about it you look into the theories deeply and discuss them.

Also, economics is similar to other sciences. Theories build on each other as things evolve.

[Autochthon1990]

laissez-faire and libertarian economics, in my experience, basically translates to "**** the little guy, we've got ours, and if you try to make sure people not fortunate enough to be born wealthy or manage to have the stars align properly to become wealthy get to eat, that's communism and will cause Stalin to rise from the dead to feast on the flesh of patriotic americans". 

[+OverSword]

2 hours ago, Autochthon1990 said:

Look that's just my opinion.

Also, the following quote "His economic ideas were also partially implemented in the United States by Ronald Reagan, in the United Kingdom by Margaret Thatcher, and in Chile by Augusto Pinochet during the 1970s and 1980s." tells me everything I need to know about this fellow. 

And Andrew Yang also cites him for the freedom dividend. Notably under Reagan and Thatcher both nations recovered from impending death spirals.

I still encourage you to give it a listen. I myself don’t agree with everything he says but he was one of the most intelligent people of our time, a Nobel laureate, a leading figure in many think tanks, tenured professor at an elite school, etc. etc.

If you really want to have an informed opinion on anything you should learn the arguments against your preferred view point. That’s why I read WaPo 

[+OverSword]

2 hours ago, Autochthon1990 said:

laissez-faire and libertarian economics, in my experience, basically translates to "**** the little guy, we've got ours, and if you try to make sure people not fortunate enough to be born wealthy or manage to have the stars align properly to become wealthy get to eat, that's communism and will cause Stalin to rise from the dead to feast on the flesh of patriotic americans". 

Very shallow.

[Imaginarynumber1]

6 hours ago, Cookie Monster said:

2nd post and the communism has already started.

Can you explain why you think their statement was communism?

Can you explain what you think communism is? 

[ChrLzs]

6 hours ago, Cookie Monster said:

2nd post and the communism has already started.

Third post and the contentless one liners and divisiveness has already started....

Oh well, at least you didn't post a video in response...

So, Cook, do tell, in your vision of an ideal world, what do *you* think the government (if you had one) should do? 

 

I started watching, then saw it was going to be an hour, and old Milt doesn't exactly rocket through his words...  I have better things to do.  Is there some particular aspect that struck you, OP?  If so, then how's about you discuss that on this  .. oh what is it.... that's right, it's a discussion forum.

[Golden Duck]

Here's the transcript without his uttered mistakes.

https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/friedman_images/Collections/2016c21/1978TheRoleofGovernment.pdf

 

[Duke Wellington]

The Governments role in a free society is minimal.

It creates essential laws and regulations to prevent one person harming the well-being or interests or others. Its role in economics is to oversee a trading environment where people or businesses buy and sell to each other. It intervenes to correct market failures that arent in the interest of the society. It intervenes with fiscal policy to manage the level of demand to ensure a appropriate level of growth. And it implements taxation to fund defence, policing, and essential publics services. While a government in charge of a free society tackles market failures not in the interest of its society, a capitalist market is largely self-regulating. That means resources in high demand and low supply escalate in price attracting new companies which seek to make a profit by making more of the said resource available to buyers. As they do, the price to consumers drop.

People are not equals, they are all unique individuals. They each have their own skills, abilities, personality types, and intelligence levels. People that are self-confident, skilled, and intelligent, are more likely to enter into business themselves and more likely to have success at it. Those who are intelligent tend to get higher value skills allowing themselves to earn a higher income.

Socialism/Communism arises when low skilled, low intelligence, low self-confidence, people dont like being stuck on low incomes. From a psychological perspective they tend not to engage in self-reflection to establish why they have a low income. If they did they would get themselves off to night college learning a trade or profession. Instead they convince themselves they live in a corrupt society and that the successful exploit them. Usually the bigger the ego, the less able to self-reflect that they are. They form socialist political parties which then do the following:

Redistribution of Wealth: A socialist government doesn`t grow the economy to get low income households more money. It shrinks the economy by levying a higher tax burden onto businesses as it takes money from them to prop up the poor. The shrinking effect occurs because it drives businesses in price sensitive markets out of business as they can no longer compete on cost. That us, unless they move elsewhere like China which causes a drift of a nations industry to that country.

Excess Laws and Regulations: A socialist government has to force its approach to running a country onto most of the population. It does this by legislation and regulating against its population. This is because people dont like their money being taken away to prop up the low skilled, low intelligence, and low self-confidence members of society. If allowed to the over-legislating and over-regulating gather pace over-time until the state has become totalitarian. At which point the government can cart of the citizens which arent socialist to labour camps or make them disappear if they voice dissent. Their things remain until the state goes bust triggering a burning of the works of Carl Marx followed by a revolution.

I suppose that in an ant nest the worker ants dont like the fact they are mere worker ants. But the nest doesnt let them hi-jack the colony or it hits the fan. The Queen is differentiated, she is specialised to be the Queen. Worker ants are not. The soldiers are differentiated, they are specialised to be soldiers. Worker ants are not. To have a society that functions properly each citizen must become what they are supposed to be, not float above their station where they create incompetence. To have a society that functions properly the basic workers need to be prevented from dragging everybody else down to their level in a race to the bottom just so they can feel special about themselves. It ruins the society. It makes it uncompetitive, unrewarding for decent citizens, and it spreads poverty by dampening down the economy for all.

[Alchopwn]

1 hour ago, Cookie Monster said:

While a government in charge of a free society tackles market failures not in the interest of its society, a capitalist market is largely self-regulating. 

I would heartily debate this point.  How many times has the free market required a massive government bailout to even stay solvent?  I make it about once every 10 years that the taxpayer has their pocket picked in order to keep the rich in power after the market collapses again due to under-regulation in some area.  Companies routinely cut as many corners as they can in order to maximise their competitive advantage, and in the less restrictive times of the 18th and 19th centuries, this led to countless workplace deaths.  How is anyone free when their under-regulated company feels it is within its rights to let you die due to lack of a safe place to work? 

1 hour ago, Cookie Monster said:

That means resources in high demand and low supply escalate in price attracting new companies which seek to make a profit by making more of the said resource available to buyers. As they do, the price to consumers drop.

Except that this model pre-supposes that there isn't a monopoly in place.  Market competition generally winds up with a single faction dominating and absorbing all other competitors, and then going on to dominate all elements of their supply chain in both horizontal and vertical integration.  Ultimately this earning capacity branches out to swallow up all industries in an entire economy if left unchecked, leading not to freedom but to a single company oligarchic dictatorship, where all economic activity is controlled by a single company headed by a single shareholder, to whom all other people are effectively economically enslaved, as that single oligarchic individual owns everything, and everyone lives at their sufferance.  A fine model for freedom, that.  Every time we get a multi-billionaire, that situation becomes just a little more likely.  I mean, I like Elon Musk and SpaceX, but I won't be moving to Mars, because it is going to be a company town, with company "scrip", and while Elon might be okay, will his grandkids be okay?  And their grandkids?  When will they throw a Caligula?  It is only ever a matter of time.

1 hour ago, Cookie Monster said:

Socialism/Communism arises when low skilled, low intelligence, low self-confidence, people dont like being stuck on low incomes. From a psychological perspective they tend not to engage in self-reflection to establish why they have a low income. If they did they would get themselves off to night college learning a trade or profession. Instead they convince themselves they live in a corrupt society and that the successful exploit them. Usually the bigger the ego, the less able to self-reflect that they are. They form socialist political parties which then do the following:

There are a lot of untrue assumptions here.  If capital has never done anything but make your life unpleasant, why would you owe it any loyalty?  Let's face facts, communism is quite akin to banditry, but why obey a system of laws that increasingly dehumanizes you?  If they are going to kill you with unfair work conditions that will kill you anyhow, why not fight back?  I mean, consider the US Civil War and the economic argument against slavery...  The argument goes that keeping slaves was actually less cost effective than free labor, as you had to pay for all a slave's amenities, while a poor irishman was used to working in squalor and going without, and actually subsisted on less wage money than it took to keep a slave.  Think on that.  Your argument Cookie Monster is founded on a tradition of gross inhumanity.  Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, and not every locality is amenable to a lot of industries.  Now I personally have made a lot of money via investments, but I also lived most of my life on the other side of that equation, and while I strongly dislike communism as it is a totalitarian nightmare that destroys freedom of speech and thought, I also dislike the excesses and abuses of capitalism, and at its worst it too becomes a similar totalitarian nightmare, such as under Pinochet, whom precious Milton Freedman regarded as such a good guy.  That tells me all I need to know about that agenda.

3 hours ago, Cookie Monster said:

Redistribution of Wealth: A socialist government doesn`t grow the economy to get low income households more money. It shrinks the economy by levying a higher tax burden onto businesses as it takes money from them to prop up the poor. The shrinking effect occurs because it drives businesses in price sensitive markets out of business as they can no longer compete on cost. That us, unless they move elsewhere like China which causes a drift of a nations industry to that country.

Tell that to the Scandinavian countries, who enjoy, on average, a far higher standard of living than the USA, and yet are Social Democrats.  They have very happy egalitarian societies that tax heavily but also allow everyone to draw heavily on the social surplus.  This seems like the best of both worlds to me.

[Autochthon1990]

3 hours ago, Cookie Monster said:

The Governments role in a free society is minimal.

It creates essential laws and regulations to prevent one person harming the well-being or interests or others. Its role in economics is to oversee a trading environment where people or businesses buy and sell to each other. It intervenes to correct market failures that arent in the interest of the society. It intervenes with fiscal policy to manage the level of demand to ensure a appropriate level of growth. And it implements taxation to fund defence, policing, and essential publics services. While a government in charge of a free society tackles market failures not in the interest of its society, a capitalist market is largely self-regulating. That means resources in high demand and low supply escalate in price attracting new companies which seek to make a profit by making more of the said resource available to buyers. As they do, the price to consumers drop.

People are not equals, they are all unique individuals. They each have their own skills, abilities, personality types, and intelligence levels. People that are self-confident, skilled, and intelligent, are more likely to enter into business themselves and more likely to have success at it. Those who are intelligent tend to get higher value skills allowing themselves to earn a higher income.

Socialism/Communism arises when low skilled, low intelligence, low self-confidence, people dont like being stuck on low incomes. From a psychological perspective they tend not to engage in self-reflection to establish why they have a low income. If they did they would get themselves off to night college learning a trade or profession. Instead they convince themselves they live in a corrupt society and that the successful exploit them. Usually the bigger the ego, the less able to self-reflect that they are. They form socialist political parties which then do the following:

Redistribution of Wealth: A socialist government doesn`t grow the economy to get low income households more money. It shrinks the economy by levying a higher tax burden onto businesses as it takes money from them to prop up the poor. The shrinking effect occurs because it drives businesses in price sensitive markets out of business as they can no longer compete on cost. That us, unless they move elsewhere like China which causes a drift of a nations industry to that country.

Excess Laws and Regulations: A socialist government has to force its approach to running a country onto most of the population. It does this by legislation and regulating against its population. This is because people dont like their money being taken away to prop up the low skilled, low intelligence, and low self-confidence members of society. If allowed to the over-legislating and over-regulating gather pace over-time until the state has become totalitarian. At which point the government can cart of the citizens which arent socialist to labour camps or make them disappear if they voice dissent. Their things remain until the state goes bust triggering a burning of the works of Carl Marx followed by a revolution.

I suppose that in an ant nest the worker ants dont like the fact they are mere worker ants. But the nest doesnt let them hi-jack the colony or it hits the fan. The Queen is differentiated, she is specialised to be the Queen. Worker ants are not. The soldiers are differentiated, they are specialised to be soldiers. Worker ants are not. To have a society that functions properly each citizen must become what they are supposed to be, not float above their station where they create incompetence. To have a society that functions properly the basic workers need to be prevented from dragging everybody else down to their level in a race to the bottom just so they can feel special about themselves. It ruins the society. It makes it uncompetitive, unrewarding for decent citizens, and it spreads poverty by dampening down the economy for all.

All unfettered capitalism does is let the guy with the least amount of scruples rocket to the top. Without regulation the most ruthless b****** will end up running the show and crushing all opposition. Anybody who actually takes care of their workers or implements safety measures will be obliterated by a man willing to do anything to squeeze as much wealth has possible from the little guy. Did capitalists learn nothing from the industrial revolution and the current wealth gap caused by Regan breaking up unions?

[Duke Wellington]

Just now, Autochthon1990 said:

All unfettered capitalism does is let the guy with the least amount of scruples rocket to the top. Without regulation the most ruthless b****** will end up running the show and crushing all opposition. Anybody who actually takes care of their workers or implements safety measures will be obliterated by a man willing to do anything to squeeze as much wealth has possible from the little guy. Did capitalists learn nothing from the industrial revolution and the current wealth gap caused by Regan breaking up unions?

You have some funny ideas about how the world works.

If you went to work for someone who was selfish, self-centred, abusive, emotionally immature, exploitative, lacked empathy and compassion towards you, and was a general all round tyrant, then would you stay there? If you decided to stay there until you got another job would you work hard for them? Would you contribute ideas? Or would you do the bare minimum possible until you got the hell out of there? The only people that stay at such businesses are those who think the behaviour is normal, those who are part of the problem, or those who are clueless about negative personality types.

There is no `I` in business, its a team effort. The success of a business is not built on one person, its a collective effort. Each employee has their own skills, experience, qualifications, ideas, and insights. Success in business is about bringing them all onboard by treating them with respect, looking after them, and getting them all involved to capitalise on the strengths they can each bring to the table. Businesses that do that experience success, businesses that dont go bust or severally underperform. They cannot utilize the strengths of their staff (because it has to all be about the tyrant), they cannot motivate their staff (because they hate the way the tyrant is towards them), and they cannot build up the expertise and productivity of their staff (because they dont stay long enough due to the tyrant). All three of which are key to running a successful business.

You sound like you have grown up on a council estate, been around a lot of losers in life getting up to no good while desperately trying to convince themselves thats how things work, and have let their negative attitudes spread to you.

[Autochthon1990]

27 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

You have some funny ideas about how the world works.

If you went to work for someone who was selfish, self-centred, abusive, emotionally immature, exploitative, lacked empathy and compassion towards you, and was a general all round tyrant, then would you stay there? If you decided to stay there until you got another job would you work hard for them? Would you contribute ideas? Or would you do the bare minimum possible until you got the hell out of there? The only people that stay at such businesses are those who think the behaviour is normal, those who are part of the problem, or those who are clueless about negative personality types.

There is no `I` in business, its a team effort. The success of a business is not built on one person, its a collective effort. Each employee has their own skills, experience, qualifications, ideas, and insights. Success in business is about bringing them all onboard by treating them with respect, looking after them, and getting them all involved to capitalise on the strengths they can each bring to the table. Businesses that do that experience success, businesses that dont go bust or severally underperform. They cannot utilize the strengths of their staff (because it has to all be about the tyrant), they cannot motivate their staff (because they hate the way the tyrant is towards them), and they cannot build up the expertise and productivity of their staff (because they dont stay long enough due to the tyrant). All three of which are key to running a successful business.

You sound like you have grown up on a council estate, been around a lot of losers in life getting up to no good while desperately trying to convince themselves thats how things work, and have let their negative attitudes spread to you.

Dude, Walmart won't let people unionize, Amazon makes people p*** in water bottles, and companies that go out of business give their executives a huge severance package while giving their employees ****all. 

 

Those first two are some of the most successful companies on earth, do you honestly think that without regulation they would do less of that? If that's what they think they can get away with NOW, imagine what they'll do to get ahead without the government to occasionally step in and MAKE them treat people properly. Well fortunately you don't have to imagine, because we've been down this road before. Before the labor movement, you had company stores, child laborers going into coal mines and dying from black lung, and health and safety regulations that where basically a wink. Appealing to the better nature of an arch-capitalist is like hoping a cougar doesn't eat you if you run into it out in the woods, if it doesn't, its not out of any kindness on its part. 

[RAyMO]

36 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

You have some funny ideas about how the world works.

If you went to work for someone who was selfish, self-centred, abusive, emotionally immature, exploitative, lacked empathy and compassion towards you, and was a general all round tyrant, then would you stay there? If you decided to stay there until you got another job would you work hard for them? Would you contribute ideas? Or would you do the bare minimum possible until you got the hell out of there? The only people that stay at such businesses are those who think the behaviour is normal, those who are part of the problem, or those who are clueless about negative personality types.

There is no `I` in business, its a team effort. The success of a business is not built on one person, its a collective effort. Each employee has their own skills, experience, qualifications, ideas, and insights. Success in business is about bringing them all onboard by treating them with respect, looking after them, and getting them all involved to capitalise on the strengths they can each bring to the table. Businesses that do that experience success, businesses that dont go bust or severally underperform. They cannot utilize the strengths of their staff (because it has to all be about the tyrant), they cannot motivate their staff (because they hate the way the tyrant is towards them), and they cannot build up the expertise and productivity of their staff (because they dont stay long enough due to the tyrant). All three of which are key to running a successful business.

You sound like you have grown up on a council estate, been around a lot of losers in life getting up to no good while desperately trying to convince themselves thats how things work, and have let their negative attitudes spread to you.

your words would be fine if a viable labour pool was not available. Where people need jobs for basics, and where jobs are in lower supply than the available workforce then the businesses have the upper hand - which they do in almost all economies. How much say, do you think the workers at amazon have over either the work procedures or their own conditions of employment?

People who need money to pay mortgages and put food on the table don't have that many options in most economies - its either stay employed or accept state handouts! Unless they have very specific skills, employees are nothing more than a raw material. Buy labour as cheap as possible as sell their output as dear as possible. 

That is not to say there are not employers who operate much better there are, nor are all employees totally without power, some very clearly have such, but for the majority of low skilled jobs the employees are treated as 'minimum wage. maximum work'. 

In such circumstances society via government most impose basic rights -too many profit  maximising employers would exploit otherwise. 

Edited July 9, 2020 by RAyMO

[+OverSword]

10 hours ago, ChrLzs said:

If so, then how's about you discuss that on this  .. oh what is it.... that's right, it's a discussion forum.

There are a few things but what really struck me was this.  We seem to have poorer race relations than at any time in my life and nobody can really pin point why that is, blaming usually systemic racism or hundreds of accumulated years of social injustice.  But at one point Milton examines some government policies pointed at addressing this in an effort to give one segment of the population a leg up.  He says something to the effect that that as these policies progress the end result will be unprecedented strife between the races.  

[Autochthon1990]

1 minute ago, OverSword said:

There are a few things but what really struck me was this.  We seem to have poorer race relations than at any time in my life and nobody can really pin point why that is, blaming usually systemic racism or hundreds of accumulated years of social injustice.  But at one point Milton examines some government policies pointed at addressing this in an effort to give one segment of the population a leg up.  He says something to the effect that that as these policies progress the end result will be unprecedented strife between the races.  

Because half the country thought it was okay to elect a race baiting authoritarian douchebag because the alternative was a woman who the internet thinks is a lizard person. If I was black I'd be pretty p***ed off at the dumbasses who put him in power and then claim the only reason they're protesting is for freebies and they'd have a better time if they just weren't so uppity. 

[spartan max2]

17 minutes ago, Autochthon1990 said:

Dude, Walmart won't let people unionize, Amazon makes people p*** in water bottles, and companies that go out of business give their executives a huge severance package while giving their employees ****all. 

Kroger is unionized. I don't see any significant difference for the employees compared to Walmart.

[+OverSword]

1 hour ago, Alchopwn said:

I would heartily debate this point.  How many times has the free market required a massive government bailout to even stay solvent?

Right there you show how misinformed you are about what a free market is.  In a free market you do not bail out any failing business or industry. You allow it to fail which then creates a vacuum allowing entrepreneurial and innovative people succeed where others mismanaged themselves or were over regulated out of business.  It's government interference like you point to which mucks things up, not fixes them.  Fannie May and Freddie Mack are perfect examples.  Do you honestly think that if the government hadn't bailed them out better run organizations would not have risen to take their place in the market?  What we have instead are the same incompetent people running things that ran them into the ground with zero consequences for their failures thanks to....Gues who?  The idiot government.

[+OverSword]

8 minutes ago, Autochthon1990 said:

Because half the country thought it was okay to elect a race baiting authoritarian douchebag because the alternative was a woman who the internet thinks is a lizard person. If I was black I'd be pretty p***ed off at the dumbasses who put him in power and then claim the only reason they're protesting is for freebies and they'd have a better time if they just weren't so uppity. 

Where were you during Obamas administration?  Do you not recall race riots and BLM demonstrations across the country? I do.  Trump didn't create this and neither did Obama.  They inherited it.  

[+OverSword]

1 hour ago, Autochthon1990 said:

All unfettered capitalism does is let the guy with the least amount of scruples rocket to the top.

Which is different where exactly?  China?  Russia?  Get a grip.  In the lecture Milt explains how a government would minimize that.  As things are now they make laws propping it up.

Edited July 9, 2020 by OverSword

[Autochthon1990]

6 minutes ago, OverSword said:

Where were you during Obamas administration?  Do you not recall race riots and BLM demonstrations across the country? I do.  Trump didn't create this and neither did Obama.  They inherited it.  

Only one of those have actively gone out of their way to make things worse, and it wasn't the guy who had a black and a white guy over for a beer to try to patch things up.