Why Is Youth So Left-Wing?

[Akka]

The day some people understand that society is not purely made of economy, but of people too, then they will perhaps understand one of the reason youth is left-wing...

 

[Mise]

Many reputable economists, including some Noble Prize winners(on top of my head, Hayek and Friedman. But there are many, many others), do argue against social-democracies on purely economics grounds.
Personally I try to focus my debate on economic grounds too.

Many reputable economists, including some Noble Prize winners(on top of my head, Hayek and Friedman. But there are many, many others), do argue against social-democracies on purely economics grounds.
Personally I try to focus my debate on economic grounds too.

Your argument about stability does not hold much ground.
I could make a decent case that most crisis are created by government intervention, most notably by a expansionist monetary policy.

Liberals/Libertarians, OTOH, have always argued for limited government spending, rational monetary policies as well as fiscal austherity. I don't see how you can equate that to instability.

I think my arguement holds, based on the reality of the situation. Critics of Scandinavian/German style Social Democracy often argue that their high taxation, large government and tight economic regulation cannot compete with American style free market capitalism, which (since Regan at least) has systematically disestablished most post-WWII legislation, interventionist/demand-side policies and government spending. The fact that the former run consistent trade surpluses and the latter run consistent trade deficits is a problem seldom addressed by liberal economists.

As an aside, it is interesting that you mention Hayek. IIRC, he (and the rest of the Austrian school) believed that economics was more to do with logical thinking and less to do with scientific observation. It therefore doesn't surprise me that liberals ignore the reality of the situation described above.

 

[Mise]

The day some people understand that society is not purely made of economy, but of people too, then they will perhaps understand one of the reason youth is left-wing...

Indeed, capitalism cannot be exonerated from its social consequences by claiming that market outcomes were unintended: people who are guilty of manslaughter do not intend to kill, but they are held in some way to blame.

 

[fazzoletti]

Fazzoletti
About the books. Well, if I read the same thing in several books, all given to me in a western high school, and afterwards see the same thing in a documentory, why shouldn't I belive it? Why should I think they all lied about this particular subject?
Could you as an intelligent and all-knowing person tell me this?

A western high school? Really..how many of us were brought up believing that the communists in Russia came to power as the result of a revolution? I was thought that at school, just to name something. And I live in a western society as well. As you grow older, you are more likely to understand that most people in any society are trying to inluence each other. These people include (western) goverments.

Abot your second point, I consider myself an intelligent person, but certainly NOT an all-knowing person. As a matter of fact, I try to be as modest as I can about my knowledge. You'll never hear me say "everybody knows that Denmark is ****"or stuff like that, even though I believe there are severe limts to the the Danish system. In case you don't notice, the all-knowing part was directed at all those who claim to "know" all sorts of things which are really not-knowable or subjective (I figured you were one of those people).

 

[Evertonian]

I disagree with this. Sometimes the Government can be more efficient. Britain's railways were privatised in the 1990s, and under the privatised system it cost much much more in real terms to build 1 kilometre of new track, or maintenance work on 1 kilometre of old track. And there was an example where the government got a private company to run operations in one area for a national employment training scheme, and there costs per trainee were much much higher than the public sector providers.

.Maybe there was corruption in the private company?(I don't actually know).
It just makes no sense that the government could make anything cheaper then private enterprise, unless they used coercion(what of course is not the case in the UK).

@Evertonian - Can you give me a link or some background information on that British railways point? I have a difficult time seeing where a government entity could do maintenance or new construction at a cheaper overall cost than a private entity and I'd love to see the mechanism where that would not be the case.

Well I can see that my allegations about the British railway system challenged an article of faith for some of you libertarians.
I'd better make sure what I say on this subject is watertight otherwise I've no chance of convincing the sceptics

What happened was this: in the mid 1990s the British railways were in public ownership, and a single public body called 'British Rail' ran the whole show. Anyway in the mid 1990s a decision was taken to privatise the company. In order to introduce competition the single body was broken up into several bodies. One single body, called 'Railtrack' was responsible for track, station, signals, and other railway infrastructure, and there were also a number of Train Operating Companies ('TOCs') set up that would run trains on the tracks maintained by railtrack. The idea of a separate company to run the track AFAIK was designed to avoid some of the problems that happened when the phone system was privatised, and a phone service provider had to use the infrastructure actually owned by a rival in order to provide services.

After privatisation, as was the fad in the mid-late 90s with senior managements (and still is to some extent) Railtrack began to contract out its core work, the maintenance of track and infrastructure as well as the building of new track. Costs soared, much higher than when this was done in house by British Rail. After lurching from one financial disaster to the next Railtrack was finally wound up and replaced by a public sector body a couple of years ago (although the TOCs remain in private hands). One of the first things the new public sector body 'Network Rail' did was to bring maintenance or track back in house to avoid the spiralling costs and other problems associated with contracting it out. Thus the public sector is now able to achieve the requisite maintenance more cheaply and efficiently than the private sector was.

I don't have a link to a narrative that explains this as I've laid it out, but here's links for each individual step of the argument:

On the initial fragmentation of the rail industry at privatisation
this link from an all party parliamentary select committee The relevant section (that provides a bit of background on the privatisation) is the one titled 'Fragmentation of the Rail industry'

On the decision to bring maintenance back in house because of spiralling costs (shortly after railtrack had been wound up and network rail set up to replace it click here and here

And as a post script here's some of the problems that passengers are still facing thanks to the still fragmented nature of the industry
train companies lie to passengers

Also this website has some more background articles on these subjects

So far I only talked about maintenance in this post but its true of new projects too.

A big project of the post privatisation was to be the West Coast mainline, designed to shorten journey times up the West coast from London to the major cities in Scotland. Under privatisation the projected cost of this project (projected by the private company railtrack) was £13 billion, the public sector Network Rail has been able to identify efficiencies in the projected plans and cut the costs substantially link here

Whew! That post took a long time to write and research. I sure hope my boss didn't realise what I was doing

 

[bigfatron]

@Evertonian - Can you give me a link or some background information on that British railways point? I have a difficult time seeing where a government entity could do maintenance or new construction at a cheaper overall cost than a private entity and I'd love to see the mechanism where that would not be the case.

I don't have any great links, but I can give you the background - warning, it's a long post!

When the UK Rail industry was privatised it was done in a way that was theoretically geared around maximising the effect of market forces and competition with a view that this would drive down costs.

An additional political driver was to maximise sale revenues to allow tax cuts prior to the 97 election that it was hoped would shore up the Tory vote.

The national rail network, when in private hands before WW2, had comprised four regional operating companies, each of which owned and managed the stations, permanent way, and stock, and ran the trains into and out of the main terminii which were their headquarters. There were a limited number of services that ran across company boundaries.

The nationalised railway was run on similar, regionalised lines, with separate 'virtual' regions for the Express and Freight operations.

The new arrangement was for around 25 Train Operating Companies to bid for contracts to run services on sub-regions of track. Consequently many different TOCs operate out of a single terminus.

Because none of the UK railways operated at a profit, the bids for these franchises were in terms of the annual operating subsidy the bidder would accept to run the railways for a term of seven years.

The rolling stock was transferred into the ownership of four train leasing companies.

The physical assets were transferred into the hands of a company called Railtrack - this comprised all the stations, track, and a great deal of spare land from old marshalling yards, etc.

However, Railtrack was forbidden to carry out its own maintenance and obliged to use contractors - these contractors (there were four or five main players, all engineering firms) received contracts to maintain portions of the track for specific periods.

Around all this was a highly complex structure of regulation, service level agreements and compensation payments. Clearly, if operating each franchise loses money, you need rules to force the operator to run trains in return for his subsidy. Equally, you need to set perfomance standards, and have a mechanism (fines) for incenting the firms to meet those standards.

But then, if a train fails to run, you have to decide who's fault it was - presumably it was the train company's? But if the stock was faulty, maybe it was the train leasing company? Or if it was a signalling problem maybe it was Railtrack? But if the signalling failed due to poor maintenance maybe it was the maintenance contractor?

So, accountability was lost and the whole system became a complete mess.

This wouldn't have been so bad if the promised efficiency improvements had come through....

However, there were some flaws in the model that were pretty blindingly obvios from the outset. Obviously Railtrack, with all these property assets, went for a bumper price (paid to the Government of the day), and for a while the shareholders did very well.

The City of London saw Railtrack as a property play, and the directors soon realised they could generate damn fine returns on shareholder funds by concentrating on leasing retail space in the terminii and flogging of every bit of spare land available. In the mean time, the upgrading of the network, which this entrepreneurial approach was supposed to fund, was an inconvenience that REDUCED shareholder return, so the company sought to avoid all but the most essential work.

All this was made worse because the government, prior to privatising the railways, had taken the opportunity to slash investment in the railway infrastructure (the idea being that they both saved cash and could point to the awful state of the state-run railways to justify privatisation).

As regards the maintenance contracts, costs spiralled massively. The engineering firms incurred substantial set-up costs under the new agreements, and were also anxious to make a good profit margin on the business; however, they did not want to hire gangs of railwaymen, so individual work contracts were sub-contracted to smaller outfits.

As a result, there were three levels of corporation all needing to support company infrastructures, cover the costs of establishing and monitoring the contract terms, and generate shareholder returns, etc all feeding from the track maintenance process - Railtrack, the principle contractors and the sub-contractors.

In total, the net effect of all the profit and admin margins approximately doubled the cost against an integrated not-for-profit operator. The reality of this has been proven since Network Rail was established (essentially the failing Railtrack was brought back under public control) which has established cost savings of up to 50% simply by bringing contracts back in house.

So despite the levels of invetment in the railways going up in cash terms the amount of work being done was actually falling under the privatised, free market scenario.

Bottom line is, state control may not be so bad a thing when any 'free' market that can be created would be heavily distorted and/or non-competitive. The architects of this hare-brained scheme either forgot or wilfully ignored this.

 

[IglooDame]

Well I can see that my allegations about the British railway system challenged an article of faith for some of you libertarians.
I'd better make sure what I say on this subject is watertight otherwise I've no chance of convincing the sceptics

Evertonian,
Thanks for the information, I'll read through the links a bit later when I'm not supposed to be working.
Part of my surprise in hearing what you've said about British Rail comes from my own understanding of Amtrak's demise here in the US, which provides almost an opposite example ('almost' because it was already fading as a collection of private railway companies before merging into its government monopoly form which has only been steadily going deeper into the red).

 

[luiz]

The day some people understand that society is not purely made of economy, but of people too, then they will perhaps understand one of the reason youth is left-wing...

The people are the economy.

 

[luiz]

I think my arguement holds, based on the reality of the situation. Critics of Scandinavian/German style Social Democracy often argue that their high taxation, large government and tight economic regulation cannot compete with American style free market capitalism, which (since Regan at least) has systematically disestablished most post-WWII legislation, interventionist/demand-side policies and government spending. The fact that the former run consistent trade surpluses and the latter run consistent trade deficits is a problem seldom addressed by liberal economists.

As an aside, it is interesting that you mention Hayek. IIRC, he (and the rest of the Austrian school) believed that economics was more to do with logical thinking and less to do with scientific observation. It therefore doesn't surprise me that liberals ignore the reality of the situation described above.

Trade surplus and trade deficits are not at all related to right/left.
And if you mean budget deficits, traditionally the social-democrats spend much more then the proper capitalists. This situation only got inverted with Reagan and Bush, and that's why so many conservatives dislike them(and libertarians hate them both, usually).

As for Hayek, while he believed that rational thought was the most powerful human tool, he also believed in scientifical observation. After all, he was a Statistics Professor at the London School of Economics. The thing is Hayek was such a genious that he made incredible works in the most diverse fields(Mathematics/Statistics, Economics, and even Phsycology. In fact, to expain his market theory he created a phsycological theory that was later proven to be correct)

 

[luiz]

@Evertonian and bigfatron

....
Bottom line is, state control may not be so bad a thing when any 'free' market that can be created would be heavily distorted and/or non-competitive. The architects of this hare-brained scheme either forgot or wilfully ignored this.

This appears to be the problem here.
The railroad market was apparently severilly distorted due to complicated regalutions, and was not proffitable.

Certainly there's nothing inherantly wrong in privatasing a railroad system. In Brazil the onle railroad system that works is privately-owned, the public ones are falling appart.

The Privatisation was apparently(from what I read in the links and in bigfatron's post) badly conducted. As they say "The only thing worse then not privatising is a privatisation ill-done."

 

[Evertonian]

Keep on the good debate

The size of the margin is variable, depending on the size of the taxation. In Denmark I'm sure the margin is rather high.
There is indeed a trade-off between income and leisure. I agree with you that work makes some people happy(not all though). But still people won't go to work for free, even if they like that work. Also the only way to get most employees to work extra hours is by giving extra pay, which shows the power of the money incentive.

Yoou are dead right, people don't go to work for free (well people doing voluntary work do but presumably they have enough to live on). However I disagree with the second half of your paragraph. Lots of people do unpaid overtime, work longer hours than their contract says, its really a common phenomenon. Now there's sometimes an element of the employer making threats they'd better, sometimes its a matter of professional pride etc but it does happen and is quite widespread.

Maybe more money does not equate to more happiness after a certain point, but it certainly equates to more incentive. Rich people won't become more productive for no money, even if they don't need any. The ammount of people that works for free, even among billionaires, is extremely small.
What's really important for society as whole is not so much the happiness of millionaires, but rather to give them incentives to stay in the market(this is true for all social classes). The way this incentives work is by providing a chance to decent profit.

What you've said in this paragraph seems true, but I would've thought it was extremely troubling for the assumptions of neo-classical economics and libertarian ideology: namely that people are not correctly identifying the courses of action that maximise their happiness given the constraints they face.

Denmar is definately a very rich nation, but we must judge their economic system for the ammount of wealth beign created now(GDP growth rate) and not by the ammount of wealth existant(GDP)

Well it grew very strongly in the 1990s under a comparable tax regime. While its growth has slowed in the new decade, what's changed a exogenous factors, the global downturn in investor sentiment, world markets not growing so quickly.

But progressive taxation fill much of the gap between classes, and as such comparatively each worker does not see himself much better off then his coleagues even if he works more. This certainly goes against incentive.

I didn't explain my point here very well. Apologies for the misunderstanding. I'll try and clarify. The effect on happiness is determined by the relative position in the rankings of who earns what, not the relative position in the sense of what he/she earns as a percentage of what I earn. Thus the impact is the same whether I get $20,000 more than my neighbour or $20 more. And he feels the same either way as well.

It will affect his Economic Welfare.
I certainly agree that richness is not the biggest responsible for happiness, but happiness is such a subjective subject that the goal of an economic policy should be solely focused on maximising Economic Welfare.

Well, I disagree with this. Economic welfare is only not subjective when it is arbitary. And given the improvements in our understanding of psychology and sources of happiness and well-being I'd say there's great potential to bring traditional economic analyses more into line with real world experiences.

Trust me on the luxury tax, it has been tried before.

OK, I'll accept this as your earlier post pretty much persuaded me the luxury tax was wrong to be honest

As for healthcare. I think that at most the government should inform about the dangers of smoking or drinking. But if people of legal age want to make a decision of ruining their health, then I see no reason why the government should step in. If a smoker decides that the pleasure of a cigarette is more important then living a long and healthy life, I say it's his choice.

To be honest I agree that if people of legal age want to smoke, drink alcohol, eat junk food,take drugs etc. then it shouldn't be illegal. OTOH if you think (as I do) that the government should be able to intervene in the economy and society to improve pubic health, then artificially raising their prices is a reasonable thing to do. I think something like this is basically unresolvable because its an ideological difference about what the role of the govt should be.

Usually market speculation is quite effective in those matters.
The Pentagon even wanted to create a "market lotery" on where and when the next terror attack would happen, because the market could predict it better then Pentagon offcials (actually this makes perfect sense, since the market benefits from almost infinite sources of information, and rewards the right ones).

I don't think the market is effective in matters when the returns are going to happen far in the future, so I'm not as optimistic as you that the required change to renewable energy will happen in time without a major crunch. The returns will be very long term
The trouble is discount rates.
Say a company has a 10% discount rate, if the return from the project is only going to happen in 60 years, the required amount they'd have to get back for every dollar invested is $276-00. That's a big return for $1 of investment, yet it would only imply break even with a discount rate of 10%.

 

[Akka]

The people are the economy.

Thank but no thanks.
I'm not some kind of statistical consumption machine. I'm a HUMAN BEING, with FEELINGS and EMOTIONS and MEMORIES and a LIFE.
I know it's shocking. I'm not just a clog in the machine, I'm an actual PERSON. I don't plan to be treated as a number. I don't plan to see others being treated as numbers, or as simple equations. I plan to see others being treated as full human beings, taking in account their feelings, desires, dreams, fulfillement.

Perhaps that my consuming habits make me PART of the economic system. But I'm defintely not just a kind of "economical unit".

Saying that the people are the economy is definitely wishfull thinking at best, deception at worst.
Economy is a system. It fluctuate according to what people do, but it's in no way "the people" themselves.

A society is made to make the life of the PEOPLE the best possible. It includes having a healthy economy, because a healthy economy does bring well-being to people. It contradicts having economy taking precedence over the well-being of the people, because economy is not the end of all, it's only a tool. When it's in the hands of a selected few, then it's only them who benefit of it, and not the people at large.

 

[luiz]

Yoou are dead right, people don't go to work for free (well people doing voluntary work do but presumably they have enough to live on). However I disagree with the second half of your paragraph. Lots of people do unpaid overtime, work longer hours than their contract says, its really a common phenomenon. Now there's sometimes an element of the employer making threats they'd better, sometimes its a matter of professional pride etc but it does happen and is quite widespread.

I would guess that there is mostly some motive for working overtime other then doing it for itself. People who do it for free are most likely looking forward to a promotion, or trying to look better then the colleagues to keep the job, or are simply perfectionists.

What you've said in this paragraph seems true, but I would've thought it was extremely troubling for the assumptions of neo-classical economics and libertarian ideology: namely that people are not correctly identifying the courses of action that maximise their happiness given the constraints they face.

The libertarian ideology basically states that government shouldn't determine what makes the people happy and what doesn't. If that billionaire thinks that an extra billion is good for him, it's not up to the state to tell him that he's wrong(even if he is).

Well it grew very strongly in the 1990s under a comparable tax regime. While its growth has slowed in the new decade, what's changed a exogenous factors, the global downturn in investor sentiment, world markets not growing so quickly.

But Denmark is taking a loger time to recover from the 2001 crisis then the more dynamic economies. As I pointed out in another thread, currently the US is growing at 4% and most economists agree that next year the result will be similar or better. This can only be caused by an dynamic economy, what Denmark(and many others) lack.

Well, I disagree with this. Economic welfare is only not subjective when it is arbitary. And given the improvements in our understanding of psychology and sources of happiness and well-being I'd say there's great potential to bring traditional economic analyses more into line with real world experiences.

Economic welfare is a measure of wealth in absolute terms, it's hardly subjective.
My point about the subjectivy of happiness was that it is not the same thing for everyone. A tibetan monk and a Wall Street shark certainly have different conception of what is happiness.

OK, I'll accept this as your earlier post pretty much persuaded me the luxury tax was wrong to be honest

I don't think the market is effective in matters when the returns are going to happen far in the future, so I'm not as optimistic as you that the required change to renewable energy will happen in time without a major crunch. The returns will be very long term
The trouble is discount rates.
Say a company has a 10% discount rate, if the return from the project is only going to happen in 60 years, the required amount they'd have to get back for every dollar invested is $276-00. That's a big return for $1 of investment, yet it would only imply break even with a discount rate of 10%.

The market will reward those with foresight when Oil prices rise.
It has already done so, here in Brazil, by making the people who invested in alcohol fuel rich.

 

[luiz]

Thank but no thanks.
I'm not some kind of statistical consumption machine. I'm a HUMAN BEING, with FEELINGS and EMOTIONS and MEMORIES and a LIFE.
I know it's shocking. I'm not just a clog in the machine, I'm an actual PERSON. I don't plan to be treated as a number. I don't plan to see others being treated as numbers, or as simple equations. I plan to see others being treated as full human beings, taking in account their feelings, desires, dreams, fulfillement.

Perhaps that my consuming habits make me PART of the economic system. But I'm defintely not just a kind of "economical unit".

Saying that the people are the economy is definitely wishfull thinking at best, deception at worst.
Economy is a system. It fluctuate according to what people do, but it's in no way "the people" themselves.

A society is made to make the life of the PEOPLE the best possible. It includes having a healthy economy, because a healthy economy does bring well-being to people. It contradicts having economy taking precedence over the well-being of the people, because economy is not the end of all, it's only a tool. When it's in the hands of a selected few, then it's only them who benefit of it, and not the people at large.

I must say that I basically agree with your post, except when you say that the people are not the economy.

Of course in a literal sense the people are not the economy, but since the economy is nothing more then the sum of the financial actions of everyone I don't see that as wishful thinking.

As for people beign people and not numbers, I couldn't agree more. You should check the works of the Austrian School, particularly Hayek. He clearly states that the reason why government plans are inherently weak is this: we are people, not numbers. Only we know our individual ends.

The Austrians are strongly opposed to technocrats that believe in magical equations to make everyone happy.

Your lats point is also excellet. The Economy should NEVER be in the hands of a selective few, because as you said only them and their protegees would benefit. That's why the Market should do the overwhelming majority of the decisions, simply because the market respond to the sum of individuals and rewards information instead of political connections.

Government planning bodies ARE a selective few running the economy, and they have to go.

 

[Evertonian]

I would guess that there is mostly some motive for working overtime other then doing it for itself. People who do it for free are most likely looking forward to a promotion, or trying to look better then the colleagues to keep the job, or are simply perfectionists.

Exactly. Now things like promotion you might twist to say its for financial reasons, but not being a perfectionist, that's independent of income tax rates!

The libertarian ideology basically states that government shouldn't determine what makes the people happy and what doesn't. If that billionaire thinks that an extra billion is good for him, it's not up to the state to tell him that he's wrong(even if he is).

This is really the problem I have with libertarianism. People can and do make irrational decisions, and when vunerable people make bad decisions the effects can be catastrophic for them. But under this ideology they are left to always suffer because of it.

But Denmark is taking a loger time to recover from the 2001 crisis then the more dynamic economies. As I pointed out in another thread, currently the US is growing at 4% and most economists agree that next year the result will be similar or better. This can only be caused by an dynamic economy, what Denmark(and many others) lack.

Denmark is a very nice place to live. It has a high standard of living. This study quality of life survey suggests that Copenhagen the capital is one of the top 5 cities in the world to live in. As it takes into account a more holistic picture of quality of life, maybe you can argue that the Danish system does trade off a little bit of economic growth, but for what? For a better quality of life overall
Which leads on to the next point

Economic welfare is a measure of wealth in absolute terms, it's hardly subjective.
My point about the subjectivy of happiness was that it is not the same thing for everyone. A tibetan monk and a Wall Street shark certainly have different conception of what is happiness.

Its an absolute measure only if it is arbitary, as in the case of using a measure such as GDP or GNP per capita. If I sell my car to my friend, then buy it back the next day before he's used it at the same price, then sure the GDP has gone up, but have our quality of life really gone up? I say no.

And there's actually a greater variety between what people believe will make them happy, and what actually makes them happy. But sadly there's no happiness lobby (like there's a health lobby) to tell the government to educate them on what makes them happy

The market will reward those with foresight when Oil prices rise.
It has already done so, here in Brazil, by making the people who invested in alcohol fuel rich.

The following scenario is not likely but not impossible within the next 3 years: The overheating Chinese economy has a sharp slow down, the second quarter slowdown in growth in the US develops into a full blown recession. Meanwhile more pro-western governments assume power in Venezuala, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and relations improve between Algeria and the West. Iraq becomes stable and oil supplies get ratcheted up more quickly than expected, and greater capacity comes on stream in Russia. Its now 2007 and the oil price is $12 a barrel. Then they wouldn't be rewarded. even though the investment (in the alcohol fuel) is still as good from the point of view of the welfare of the human race, suddenly they are worse off in the short term.

 

[luiz]

Exactly. Now things like promotion you might twist to say its for financial reasons, but not being a perfectionist, that's independent of income tax rates!

Indeed I can't. Money is not all that drives us, but it certainly is a big part.

This is really the problem I have with libertarianism. People can and do make irrational decisions, and when vunerable people make bad decisions the effects can be catastrophic for them. But under this ideology they are left to always suffer because of it.

But do you expect the government to know better what makes people happier? I don't. The can make decisions that will end up making them miserable, but at least it's their decision. If the government's decision makes someone miserable, that's another story.

Denmark is a very nice place to live. It has a high standard of living. This study quality of life survey suggests that Copenhagen the capital is one of the top 5 cities in the world to live in. As it takes into account a more holistic picture of quality of life, maybe you can argue that the Danish system does trade off a little bit of economic growth, but for what? For a better quality of life overall
Which leads on to the next point

I know Denmark is ver nice. But if nothing is done how nice will it be in 30 years?

Its an absolute measure only if it is arbitary, as in the case of using a measure such as GDP or GNP per capita. If I sell my car to my friend, then buy it back the next day before he's used it at the same price, then sure the GDP has gone up, but have our quality of life really gone up? I say no.

And there's actually a greater variety between what people believe will make them happy, and what actually makes them happy. But sadly there's no happiness lobby (like there's a health lobby) to tell the government to educate them on what makes them happy

If you became happy by selling the car and by buying it back, ie if both parts believe that this odd deal was proffitablke for them(for exemple, your freind might have used the car to impress a girl), then according to comparative value indeed there was wealth, in a borad sense, beign created.

Maybe the variety is sooo big that a lobby would be innefficient?

The following scenario is not likely but not impossible within the next 3 years: The overheating Chinese economy has a sharp slow down, the second quarter slowdown in growth in the US develops into a full blown recession. Meanwhile more pro-western governments assume power in Venezuala, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and relations improve between Algeria and the West. Iraq becomes stable and oil supplies get ratcheted up more quickly than expected, and greater capacity comes on stream in Russia. Its now 2007 and the oil price is $12 a barrel. Then they wouldn't be rewarded. even though the investment (in the alcohol fuel) is still as good from the point of view of the welfare of the human race, suddenly they are worse off in the short term.

Nothing is impossible, but I must say this very very not likely. Recession is clearly not threatning the US, especially now that the Fed finally rase those Interest Rates(if the Fed took more time to rase them then there could perhaps be room for a recession). Secondly, the US is only experiencing now moderate growth, that is highly unlikely to lead to a major slowdown.
China might face a slowdown soon, but not a massive one. The CCP is taking decent measures to prevent this, like limiting credit quickly.
If there is a regime change in Saudi Arabia, it will defeinately be for an Anti-Western governmet, in opposition to the pro-West al-Sauds.
Venezuela is the only one when a more pro-Western govt. might well come to play, but then again Venezuela under Chavez is already exporting lots of oil, and so is Russia under Putin.

If this scenario indeed takes place, then the market will reward those who believe that Oil prices will go down in the future. However there will still be a loger term, where everything might change and as such those who invested in alcohol might gain. The point is the market rewards those who made the right bets.

 

[insurgent]

This is really the problem I have with libertarianism. People can and do make irrational decisions...

So can government, and so does government.

Denmark is a very nice place to live. It has a high standard of living. This study quality of life survey suggests that Copenhagen the capital is one of the top 5 cities in the world to live in. As it takes into account a more holistic picture of quality of life, maybe you can argue that the Danish system does trade off a little bit of economic growth, but for what? For a better quality of life overall
Which leads on to the next point

What about free choice? The free will and free enterprise? Freedom is essential, you can't read living quality into statistics.
Denmark trades off economic growth, it trades off its economic future, but even more seriously, Denmark trades off the independence and economic freedom of her citizens, something I believe we will live to regret.

And there's actually a greater variety between what people believe will make them happy, and what actually makes them happy.

Right, so we can't let such decisions be up to the people themselves - we need planning and organisation! Only the government knows what the people really needs/wants/makes them happy!

Seriously, whether people really get happy as the result of their free choice is irrelevant. The fact that they have free choice is what matters, and they have to be willing to take the consequences of their choices.

BTW, this has got to be one of the longest non-babe threads I've seen...

 

[Evertonian]

Seriously, whether people really get happy as the result of their free choice is irrelevant. The fact that they have free choice is what matters, and they have to be willing to take the consequences of their choices.

I guess when it boils down to this point, ultimately this is an ideological difference that can't really be resolved by discussion. If you think the freedom to make choices (even bad ones) in all fields of life is the ultimate end, then no argument about how things might be otherwise better for human well being can affect that.

In Britain (where I live) the state healthcare system is available free at the point of use for everybody. Paying for it is compulsory through the tax system. If the situation were that it was not compulosry and people didn't have to get health insurance, then I've NO DOUBT whatsoever that some people, because of high personal discount rates involved in personal decision making would NOT get insurance. A proportion of these people would become ill or have accidents that required treatments that were beyond their reach without insurance company help. That's the consequences of their choices.

In this trade off, it seems to me the freedom not to contribute/receive benefit from the system is being taken away. In return what is being given is the promise of healthcare in the event of illness/accident. Now, IMHO, that's a fair trade-off, and I'm glad the country I live in makes it.

However if you regard the freedom over these things as the best end in itself, then I guess you don't think its a fair trade off, and the freedom to 'opt out' should be given.

The problem, it seems to me with this libertarian ideology, is that it doesn't recognise some of the flaws inherent in human decision making (inappropriate assignment of probabilities, high discount rates etc). However my guess is that as libertarians see freedom as the end in itself it won't matter.

BTW, this has got to be one of the longest non-babe threads I've seen...

You're dead right, (although we have gone a bit )
Still, I hope we can carry on because I've found the development of this debate quite fascinating

 

[insurgent]

I guess when it boils down to this point, ultimately this is an ideological difference that can't really be resolved by discussion. If you think the freedom to make choices (even bad ones) in all fields of life is the ultimate end, then no argument about how things might be otherwise better for human well being can affect that.

Right, but there's also the ideological difference that a libertarian believes that happiness can only be found for the individual by the individual through individual decisions. Not only should people be allowed to make good as well as bad decisions, in the end, the individual knows best what's good for him. And so, happiness cannot be derived from a government practise of preventing the individual's own pursuit of happiness.

In this trade off, it seems to me the freedom not to contribute/receive benefit from the system is being taken away. In return what is being given is the promise of healthcare in the event of illness/accident. Now, IMHO, that's a fair trade-off, and I'm glad the country I live in makes it.

That's a fair trade-off, and I'd make it too. That's why we have insurance companies. Now my problem with this is, that sure, you like the trade-off, but you could make it anyway, and this without forcing everybody else to do the same thing.

Have a look at the Swiss health care system, by the way - I think it's a healthy compromise. I'd rather have completely free choice, but this ought to be acceptable to collectivists as well.

However if you regard the freedom over these things as the best end in itself, then I guess you don't think its a fair trade off, and the freedom to 'opt out' should be given.

Perhaps what we need here is Herbert Spencer's "right to ignore the state" ( http://www.constitution.org/hs/ignore_state.htm )...

The problem, it seems to me with this libertarian ideology, is that it doesn't recognise some of the flaws inherent in human decision making (inappropriate assignment of probabilities, high discount rates etc). However my guess is that as libertarians see freedom as the end in itself it won't matter.

What I find to be the problem with collectivism is that it states that a body built on coercion should be any better than the individual at making his decisions. I don't think anybody knows better than you about things that matter to you.

 

[storealex]

A western high school? Really..how many of us were brought up believing that the communists in Russia came to power as the result of a revolution? I was thought that at school, just to name something. And I live in a western society as well. As you grow older, you are more likely to understand that most people in any society are trying to inluence each other. These people include (western) goverments.

Abot your second point, I consider myself an intelligent person, but certainly NOT an all-knowing person. As a matter of fact, I try to be as modest as I can about my knowledge. You'll never hear me say "everybody knows that Denmark is ****"or stuff like that, even though I believe there are severe limts to the the Danish system. In case you don't notice, the all-knowing part was directed at all those who claim to "know" all sorts of things which are really not-knowable or subjective (I figured you were one of those people).

First of all I think you should reply to my whole post, not just the last bit. I asked you to answer some questions, please do.
Secondly, the word all-knowing was something you came up with. I never pretended to be all knowing. Actually there is a big difference between claiming that everybody knows something, and to claim that you know everything your self.
Theirdly, you insists that I should not claim to "know" things that are subjective. Still, you refuse to talk about the only thing I actually claimed to "know" - That being that the working poor's conditions became much worse with Thatcher in charge. I guess because you know Im right, you just don't want me to claim that I am.
Finally, stop saying stuff like "When you grow older" I regard it as being insulting, besides Im 20 which I should mean is enough to participate in equal discussions on this forum.


Oh yes, the thing about the western highschool. Sure they can be wrong, sure there's flaws, but I still regard them as being very reliable sources, especially about this subject. And you still haven't told me why I should not belive them.
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PLYMOUTH VOYAGER