Why Is Youth So Left-Wing?

[newfangle]

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.

Hey said people are the economy, not "people are only the economy." There is a big logical difference there, as you know.

If the economy is not determined by people, what is it determined by? Its sole reason for existence is the fact that people need to trade to survive. To say its anything other than people is absurd.

 

[Akka]

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.

It's like saying that mob rules is a just trial by society, as it reflect the sum of the judging action of everyone.
Economy is much more than the "people". It's a system of its own, with its own rules, that completely escape the grasp of the common man, and where the decisions of a selected few can outweight entire countries.

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.

But at the same time, they believe in a magical Market that would make itself perfect and fair, and make people happy with a just reward for everyone for their efforts.

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.

No. Government, nowadays, are less important for economies than big corporations and speculators. These are the selective few who can redirect massive amount of the economy, litterally holding the lives of millions in their hands. It's like a government, except they aren't accountable to anyone, and their only objective is to make money without regard for the lives they affect. We could as well be cogs in a machine or numbers, our sole utility is how much money they can extract from us.

At least, a (democratic) government is accountable to his people. Its very purpose is to improve the life of his people. It can't destroy the economy of a whole country to get money without answering for his action, at least before his people.


The Market isn't some kind of benevolent God that will magically make the lifes of everyone fair and good. It's simply a force, that can be influenced in a tiny manner by the ones at the bottom, and in a tremendous manner by the few ones at the top. Something that is based on the law of the strongest, is NOT something that will automatically improve the lifes of everyone. It can be efficient, create wealth and be productive, but it doesn't care about justice, fairness or any moral problem that a government have to face to be reelected and make his people happy.

 

[luiz]

It's like saying that mob rules is a just trial by society, as it reflect the sum of the judging action of everyone.
Economy is much more than the "people". It's a system of its own, with its own rules, that completely escape the grasp of the common man, and where the decisions of a selected few can outweight entire countries.

The market rewards information, the people who have information have more power. Call it mob rule if you will, but fact is it will make the best decisions because it has more information.
And if all society is part of the mob making the rule, then certainly it's a trial by society, even if an unfair one. But individual rights exist exactly for that case.

Economy is no more then the people who compose it, how can it be?
The rules of Economy are basically the rules that drive mankind, and the reason why nobody can fully understand all forces behind it is because nobody can know all individuals and the individual ends of everyone.

If you want the names of the selective few that actually have more power over humanity, you should think of Bush, Putin, Blair, Chirac, Sharon and Zemin. They can wipe us all and destroy our planet, not Bill Gates.

But at the same time, they believe in a magical Market that would make itself perfect and fair, and make people happy with a just reward for everyone for their efforts.

There's nothing magical about the Market, it's just that, a market where you can buy and sell stuff and speculate about the future price of stuff.
The market WILL rewar accordingly to information AND according to the ability of each worker to satisfy the consumers. Unltimately it gives power to the consumers, ie all individuals.

No. Government, nowadays, are less important for economies than big corporations and speculators. These are the selective few who can redirect massive amount of the economy, litterally holding the lives of millions in their hands. It's like a government, except they aren't accountable to anyone, and their only objective is to make money without regard for the lives they affect. We could as well be cogs in a machine or numbers, our sole utility is how much money they can extract from us.

At least, a (democratic) government is accountable to his people. Its very purpose is to improve the life of his people. It can't destroy the economy of a whole country to get money without answering for his action, at least before his people.

Government have a tremendous power of the economy, even if they shouldn't have. The richest man of Russia, the owner of the largest corporation of the country, is in jail. This is proof of the power of state over business.

The CEOs of big corporations are accountable to 3 groups of people, and each one of those 3 can punish them hardly. They are the shareholders, the consumers of their products, and the government.
If the shareholders are unhappy about the way business is beign conducted, they get fired.
If consumers are unhappy with the products/service, they get fired/the corporation goes bankrupt.
If the government feels that they are breaking a law, they go to jail.
So they are accountable to a lot of people.

The former president of Enron was arrested this week, IIRC, and he certianly qualifies as one of the "selective few" you talked about. So no, the market doesn't make anyone above the Law.

The Market isn't some kind of benevolent God that will magically make the lifes of everyone fair and good. It's simply a force, that can be influenced in a tiny manner by the ones at the bottom, and in a tremendous manner by the few ones at the top. Something that is based on the law of the strongest, is NOT something that will automatically improve the lifes of everyone. It can be efficient, create wealth and be productive, but it doesn't care about justice, fairness or any moral problem that a government have to face to be reelected and make his people happy.

It's not based on "the law of the strongest", it simply rewards the ability to please consumers. We all consumers, and WE reward those who please us the most.

The Market is not a god, nor an organic entity. Simple Laws of Supply and Demand make it place resources in the most efficient manner, what no government can. It maximises the overall Economic Welfare, when free.

 

[Evertonian]

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.

(added emphasis was mine)
Well, this surprises me a little bit that a libertarian would say this. Have I understood correctly?
I'd thought the libertarian point of view was 'individual autonomy is the best end in itself,' rather than 'individual autonomy is the best(only?) way people can achieve happiness, which is the best end in itself .' What do other libertarians think?

If the second, it leaves open the door that psychologists and social scientists find ways of increasing people's reported happiness, without them having autonomous decision making powers in all areas of their life, and the logic of the 2nd libertarian position would have to accept it.
Happiness is something that is subject to academic study. People can and do study happiness, and what things contribute to 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.

Yeah, I agree with forcing people to make this trade off (requiring them to insure against bad health, either through a tax system or some other insurance that guarantees they'll get health care when they are ill).
If you don't, people with innaccurate probability assignments etc may make bad decisions.

Take this as an example insurance (against one particular ailment) costs (say) $50. An operation to cure this particular ailment costs (say) $50,000. A (risk-neurtral) person thinks their odds of getting the ailment are 0.01%. Now 0.01%*$50,000=$5, that's the persons expected cost, so they decide the insurance is bad value for money and don't buy it. In fact their true chance of getting the ailment is 1%. That means the true expected cost is $500 making the insurance excellent value for money.But they haven't bought it because they didn't have an accurate probability distribution of the chances of getting the ailment.

Do you think every person has knows accurately the probability they might get any particular disease? I doubt more than a few hundred people in the world (if that!) really know their own chances of anything from getting cancer, to falling in a vat of hot oil, to getting there arm trapped in a car door, to having an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Yet to make a decision about health insurance when it was optional this is the information you need.

Now, somebody might inacurately assess which brand of potato chips (say) is likely to give them most eating satisfaction. I don't believe the state should say ,'you should only buy brand X because more people say its tasty.' I don't care if people don't maximise their happiness from potato chips, because the consequences aren't serious. But for something as important as healthcare, the alternative isn't that somebody is slightly less happy, its that people are dying unneccessarily.

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.

I think some things lend themselves more naturally to collective solutions. And I see the government as peoples attempts to come up with collective solutions. And I think in some cases (see above) people because of things like innaccurate or incomplete information, or high personal discount rates, make bad decisions, that can have catastrophic consequence, but with the help of sensible governmnet policies don't need to have catastrophic consequences.

 

[fazzoletti]

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.

I found a nice article on the Thatcher, here's the link:

http://www.bized.ac.uk/current/mind/2003_4/170504.htm

If you don't mind, I quote a text from the article:

At the heart of Thatcherite economics were the following:

A belief in freeing up markets
De-regulation to encourage enterprise and efficiency
Reducing the influence of government
Reducing the strength of the trade unions
Cutting personal taxation and shifting the burden to indirect taxation
Increasing incentives to enterprise and improvement
Increasing public involvement in business - shareholding for example
Increasing public property ownership - through the sales of council housing
A focus on monetary policy to control inflation and economic growth


So you say that the working classes living condition decreased during the Thatcher era right? I presume that you say that because some (or many) lost their jobs? Well I can do nothing else than agree! There is one remark I have to make though: the working classes has been losing their jobs ever since, roughly speaking, the 70s, in every western nation. Some people say that this is caused by capital moving abroad, to low-wage-countries, but empirical research shows that it has more to do with technological progress. The working class (by definition) fullfill jobs that involve physical activities rather than intellectual effort. Technolical progress has made it ever easier and cheaper to have machines take over the physical part. Thus, people like miners are losing there jobs then, today and in the future, and relative wages will continue to go down.

Naturally, it is possible for a society to simply forbid companies to fire people (1), or to pay them certain amounts as wage(2).

1. Imagine the following scenario. You a looking for a cook in your household, and you are thinking about hiring me! However, new goverment legislation says that once you hire me, you can't fire me afterwards. What do you do? You don't hire me, because you're afraid you cant get rid of me in the future. Maybe you will want to, if your financial circumstances change, say you better not take the risk.

2. Goverment or labour union says "we want so and so much to be paid to workers". What do you (plant manager) do? You try to purchase some extra machines so you need less workers for the job to be done. Your collegue managers reason the same way, so aggregate demand for labour decreases. Unemployment goes up.

There is a dutch expression which (in my opinion) perfectly applies to Thatcher and the situation she was in:
"You have to rows with the oars you've got"

That's only my opinion though, and I don't think it is an absolute truth and, most importantly, I cannot prove it. I do not "know you're right", I dont even know whether I right myself. Maybe I've got it all wrong about managerial decisions and maybe they are based on completely different things. Th one thing I did learn about economics during my study is that it is really similar to religion. Everybody's got his own believes, and you usually can't convince the other. Neither can you prove things. Who knows what would have happend if not Margaret but Tony was PM in 1979? We dont know and we'll never find out.

Now, about education and neutrality. Suppose you're a Manchester United supporter and I support Arsenal. The two of us watch and old video of Dennis Bergkamp and we discuss his skills. Do you think it likely that I will make more positive remarks about his skills than you? I do think so.

Denmark is left wing (or socialist or social-democratic or whatever you want to call it) and Thatcher was right wing. Is it likely that you find positive statements about Thatcher in Danish school books? That's about as likely as finding an honest description of Dutch war crimes in Indonesia in a Dutch school book. This is not due to a general conspiracy to keep you uninformed (at least not in Denmark and NL I hope) but more to the fact that writers (as journalists and politicians) are merely people. One should always be aware of the source. That does not mean that you should completely disbelieve everything you read or hear, just be sceptical. Look at politics, see the hypocrisy (for instance, Jacques Chirac playing the "conscience of the world" today, while nuking Pacific Islands ten years ago) and be aware. That was my basic point.

 

[Mise]

Odd that the last paragraph mentions bias in articles, when the extracts you took from the article are clearly biased to favour of Thatcher.

 

[Evertonian]

I found a nice article on the Thatcher, here's the link:

http://www.bized.ac.uk/current/mind/2003_4/170504.htm

If you don't mind, I quote a text from the article:

At the heart of Thatcherite economics were the following:

A belief in freeing up markets
De-regulation to encourage enterprise and efficiency
Reducing the influence of government
Reducing the strength of the trade unions
Cutting personal taxation and shifting the burden to indirect taxation
Increasing incentives to enterprise and improvement
Increasing public involvement in business - shareholding for example
Increasing public property ownership - through the sales of council housing
A focus on monetary policy to control inflation and economic growth


So you say that the working classes living condition decreased during the Thatcher era right? I presume that you say that because some (or many) lost their jobs? Well I can do nothing else than agree! There is one remark I have to make though: the working classes has been losing their jobs ever since, roughly speaking, the 70s, in every western nation. Some people say that this is caused by capital moving abroad, to low-wage-countries, but empirical research shows that it has more to do with technological progress. The working class (by definition) fullfill jobs that involve physical activities rather than intellectual effort. Technolical progress has made it ever easier and cheaper to have machines take over the physical part. Thus, people like miners are losing there jobs then, today and in the future, and relative wages will continue to go down.

I added the bold type in the quote

Do you have any links to/details of this empirical research fazzoletti? It is certainly completely at odds with what I have heard/read about research into unemployment before. I don't want to dismiss this research before i read it, but it seems to me very unlikely that technological progress can be identified as the cause of unemployment given that technological progress has been going on for ever (generally speaking), yet unemployment rates have fluctuated.

Naturally, it is possible for a society to simply forbid companies to fire people (1), or to pay them certain amounts as wage(2).

1. Imagine the following scenario. You a looking for a cook in your household, and you are thinking about hiring me! However, new goverment legislation says that once you hire me, you can't fire me afterwards. What do you do? You don't hire me, because you're afraid you cant get rid of me in the future. Maybe you will want to, if your financial circumstances change, say you better not take the risk.

2. Goverment or labour union says "we want so and so much to be paid to workers". What do you (plant manager) do? You try to purchase some extra machines so you need less workers for the job to be done. Your collegue managers reason the same way, so aggregate demand for labour decreases. Unemployment goes up.

Given that we're talking about the British economy, you may be interested to know that since the Labour Government was elected in 1997, they did just what you described in point 2 and introduced a minimum wage. Unemployment has fallen to a lower level than it ever was under Mrs Thatcer, and the number of people employed as a percentage of the population of working age has risen to a higher level than it ever did under Mrs Thatcher.

This implies strongly to me that things other than the existence of a minimum wage determine the rates of unemployment.

 

[insurgent]

(added emphasis was mine)
Well, this surprises me a little bit that a libertarian would say this. Have I understood correctly?
I'd thought the libertarian point of view was 'individual autonomy is the best end in itself,' rather than 'individual autonomy is the best(only?) way people can achieve happiness, which is the best end in itself .' What do other libertarians think?

If the second, it leaves open the door that psychologists and social scientists find ways of increasing people's reported happiness, without them having autonomous decision making powers in all areas of their life, and the logic of the 2nd libertarian position would have to accept it.
Happiness is something that is subject to academic study. People can and do study happiness, and what things contribute to it.

I'm sorry to say that you've lost me completely. I can just say that there are two classic liberal schools of thought.
1) The utilitarianists, mostly today represented by what is known as neo-liberalism. They justify capitalism with its results (ie. the wealth and success of capitalist economies) and deduce that people's happiness is automatically maximised if they get to pursue it by themselves. They then go from this and build their theory - ie. this is because. That is why they're known in some countries as "consequential liberals". They would say that people are happier if they get to choose for themselves and they are happier with their own choice, so the choice should be theirs.
2) I don't know what to call these in English, but most libertarians belong to this school. In Denmark, they're known as "right liberals" in that they consider the rights of individuals an end in itself - not their results, as the utilitarianists. I'm one of those. We morally justify freedom as a system.

So, my belief is that people are generally happier with their own choice and they are generally happier if they get to choose simply because it is their right. Nobody knows better than people themselves about matters that touch their lives. I hope this in some way clarified my position and what I think you can expect from my fellow libertarians.


Yeah, I agree with forcing people to make this trade off (requiring them to insure against bad health, either through a tax system or some other insurance that guarantees they'll get health care when they are ill).
If you don't, people with innaccurate probability assignments etc may make bad decisions.

Take this as an example insurance (against one particular ailment) costs (say) $50. An operation to cure this particular ailment costs (say) $50,000. A (risk-neurtral) person thinks their odds of getting the ailment are 0.01%. Now 0.01%*$50,000=$5, that's the persons expected cost, so they decide the insurance is bad value for money and don't buy it. In fact their true chance of getting the ailment is 1%. That means the true expected cost is $500 making the insurance excellent value for money.But they haven't bought it because they didn't have an accurate probability distribution of the chances of getting the ailment.

Look at how private insurance works in other parts of society. There, people know what to buy and they are/would be careful enough with their choice when it comes to their health.

Do you think every person has knows accurately the probability they might get any particular disease? I doubt more than a few hundred people in the world (if that!) really know their own chances of anything from getting cancer, to falling in a vat of hot oil, to getting there arm trapped in a car door, to having an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Yet to make a decision about health insurance when it was optional this is the information you need.

I don't think the government has that knowledge. Simply because it isn't all the information that is needed. You also need to know what the person prioritises. If he really needs his money for something else, then I don't see why it's wrong for him to take a risk. As long as he is willing to bear the consequences. Just because we think the decision is wrong, it doesn't mean that we're right. In fact the only person who really knows is the person himself.

Now, somebody might inacurately assess which brand of potato chips (say) is likely to give them most eating satisfaction. I don't believe the state should say ,'you should only buy brand X because more people say its tasty.' I don't care if people don't maximise their happiness from potato chips, because the consequences aren't serious. But for something as important as healthcare, the alternative isn't that somebody is slightly less happy, its that people are dying unneccessarily.

You've wrapped it pretty well, but as I read it, all it tells me is that people shouldn'e be trusted with important decisions. They just don't know what's best for them. If it appeases them to make little decisions such as choosing potato chips, then let them have that. But where it really matters, government knows better. That logic is very much implied, you might as well admit it, even though I know you're going to object to this.
This logic could be applied to most aspects of human life by anyone in charge who thinks he knows better.

 

[fazzoletti]

Do you have any links to/details of this empirical research fazzoletti? It is certainly completely at odds with what I have heard/read about research into unemployment before. I don't want to dismiss this research before i read it, but it seems to me very unlikely that technological progress can be identified as the cause of unemployment given that technological progress has been going on for ever (generally speaking), yet unemployment rates have fluctuated.

I don't have it now at hand, but I'll look for you. But notice, technological progress is not the cause of unemployment in general, but rather the cause of this particular type of unemployment. I mean the type that demonstrates itself in western societies where you find that it gets increasingly harder to find a job if you are unskilled.
Economists usually divide unemployment into different types (i.e. frictional -, business cycle related -, structural -) and subsequently try to explain the causes of each type. Keynes for instance, figured that you could remove business cycle unemployment by installing progressive taxes to stabilize the economy. So once it gets overheated, you pay more taxes, which removes money out of the economy (into goverments hands) and thus the economy will be slowed down (almost) instantly. Of course there is disadvantages to having too progressive taxation (as Luiz pointed out).

Given that we're talking about the British economy, you may be interested to know that since the Labour Government was elected in 1997, they did just what you described in point 2 and introduced a minimum wage. Unemployment has fallen to a lower level than it ever was under Mrs Thatcer, and the number of people employed as a percentage of the population of working age has risen to a higher level than it ever did under Mrs Thatcher.

This implies strongly to me that things other than the existence of a minimum wage determine the rates of unemployment.

Yep, you're right about that! But you may have noticed that in other countries there has been a boom as well. Besides, economic features seldomly have unipolar causes. It is possible to do well inspite of bad policies. I'm not saying that Labour currently has bad policies, frankly I don't now so much about them so I can't judge. But I think that the minimum wage in England is very low (compared to the continent) isn't it? Do you happen to know how much it is?

 

[fazzoletti]

Odd that the last paragraph mentions bias in articles, when the extracts you took from the article are clearly biased to favour of Thatcher.

Ok, I'm buying that. Can you indicate what sort of bias there is in the article? Is it
1. Removed facts (ommissions)
2. Emotional attachments
3. Plain Lies
4. Something else?

 

[Evertonian]

I'm sorry to say that you've lost me completely. I can just say that there are two classic liberal schools of thought.
1) The utilitarianists, mostly today represented by what is known as neo-liberalism. They justify capitalism with its results (ie. the wealth and success of capitalist economies) and deduce that people's happiness is automatically maximised if they get to pursue it by themselves. They then go from this and build their theory - ie. this is because. That is why they're known in some countries as "consequential liberals". They would say that people are happier if they get to choose for themselves and they are happier with their own choice, so the choice should be theirs.
2) I don't know what to call these in English, but most libertarians belong to this school. In Denmark, they're known as "right liberals" in that they consider the rights of individuals an end in itself - not their results, as the utilitarianists. I'm one of those. We morally justify freedom as a system.

Apologies, my bad for not explaining clearly
I'll try and rephrase it, and use the info you've provided here. It seems to me somebody might say individual autonomy is good for 2 reasons (among others):
(1) It is a morally worthy end in itself
(2) Happiness is a morally worthy end in itself, and personal autonomy leads to people maximising happiness

I thought this earlier quote:

a libertarian believes that happiness can only be found for the individual by the individual through individual decisions

meant that you were subscribing to (2) above, but from what you now say I must've misunderstood because it seems your alligning yourself with (1).

So, my belief is that people are generally happier with their own choice and they are generally happier if they get to choose simply because it is their right. Nobody knows better than people themselves about matters that touch their lives. I hope this in some way clarified my position and what I think you can expect from my fellow libertarians.

Yes, you've clarified your position very well, and I can understand now, (I think) what you want to stand for.

However, the sentence beginning 'nobody knows' I have to disagree. It seems to me libertarians take it as an article of faith rather than something that might or might not be true. For example smokers in some parts of the 20th century didn't used to know the damage that smoking was doing to their own long term health, even though some scientists etc did. This shows the people didn't know the most on the issue (they just didn't have the facts available). But it won't be enough to convince libertarians, I'm sure of that

Look at how private insurance works in other parts of society. There, people know what to buy and they are/would be careful enough with their choice when it comes to their health.

Aren't there vast numbers of uninsured people in places where health insurance is voluntary? I don't know enough about the US system to say for sure, but aren't there lots of uninsured there?

I don't think the government has that knowledge. Simply because it isn't all the information that is needed. You also need to know what the person prioritises. If he really needs his money for something else, then I don't see why it's wrong for him to take a risk. As long as he is willing to bear the consequences. Just because we think the decision is wrong, it doesn't mean that we're right. In fact the only person who really knows is the person himself.

Sometimes people make bad decisions, and sometimes vunerable people make the worse decisions. Sometimes people don't understand the significance of the consequence of the decisions they make (in fact its impossible to know since the future is uncertain in our perception). So the Government can act as a safety net.

You've wrapped it pretty well, but as I read it, all it tells me is that people shouldn'e be trusted with important decisions. They just don't know what's best for them. If it appeases them to make little decisions such as choosing potato chips, then let them have that. But where it really matters, government knows better. That logic is very much implied, you might as well admit it, even though I know you're going to object to this.
This logic could be applied to most aspects of human life by anyone in charge who thinks he knows better.

I see what your saying, and I'm not offended I don't object too much except for this point.
The criteria I'd use for government intervention v personal autonomy would NOT be important v unimportant. Eg its very important to you who you marry, but i don't think the government should tell you who that should be. Its something else.

I can't think how to phrase it exactly, but its something along the lines of the government should intervene where individuals have a tendency to systematically misjudge what contributes to their well being. That's not it exactly though, but something similar to that.
Health insurance is a great example, because if 10% of people get ill, individuals might think they are certain to be in the 90%, whereas the cost of the insurance is far far far less than the downside of being in the 10% without the health insurance

 

[Mise]

@fazzoletti:
The main article (i.e. the bit that begins with Theory in bold) was fine. The blue part at the top was a biased, but it was supposed to be (the reader is supposed to comment on it afterwards in the Tasks). It was the way you only extracted the pro-Thatcher things, and not the anti-Thatcher things from the article that made me say that.

 

[Evertonian]

I don't have it now at hand, but I'll look for you. But notice, technological progress is not the cause of unemployment in general, but rather the cause of this particular type of unemployment. I mean the type that demonstrates itself in western societies where you find that it gets increasingly harder to find a job if you are unskilled.
Economists usually divide unemployment into different types (i.e. frictional -, business cycle related -, structural -) and subsequently try to explain the causes of each type. Keynes for instance, figured that you could remove business cycle unemployment by installing progressive taxes to stabilize the economy. So once it gets overheated, you pay more taxes, which removes money out of the economy (into goverments hands) and thus the economy will be slowed down (almost) instantly. Of course there is disadvantages to having too progressive taxation (as Luiz pointed out).

Yep, you're right about that! But you may have noticed that in other countries there has been a boom as well. Besides, economic features seldomly have unipolar causes. It is possible to do well inspite of bad policies. I'm not saying that Labour currently has bad policies, frankly I don't now so much about them so I can't judge. But I think that the minimum wage in England is very low (compared to the continent) isn't it? Do you happen to know how much it is?

@fazzoletti apologies if i read too much into what you were saying about the causes of unemployment in Britain.

Regarding the UK minimum wage, its currently £4.50 and due to go up to £4.85 in October. In Euros that's E 6.74 rising to E 7.27, and in US dollars thats $8.37 rising to $9.02.

 

[fazzoletti]

Evertonian, no apologizes required! Thank you for that data. In NL, the minimum wage for people over 23 is about €8,-, so the figures are fairly similar. Just for the record, my former statements does not necessarily imply that I promote lower minimum wages. After all, if you lower them, you'd have to lower welfare benefits as well, else there's no incentive to find a job for the unempoyed. But I realize that welfare isn't particularly generous as it is now.

@Mise
So it's number 1, omissions?

 

[storealex]

So you say that the working classes living condition decreased during the Thatcher era right? I presume that you say that because some (or many) lost their jobs? Well I can do nothing else than agree! There is one remark I have to make though: the working classes has been losing their jobs ever since, roughly speaking, the 70s, in every western nation.

My problem with Thatcher is that she fired the workers in so great numbers, and so rapidly that there wasn't nearly enough avaliable jobs for all of them. That combined with a poor social secrurity net, equals bad times for many people. Im not saying we should keep obsolete industries alive, but Im saying we should make the transsision gradually, or at least have a decent welfare system to aviod poverty among unemployed for a long time.

Denmark is left wing (or socialist or social-democratic or whatever you want to call it) and Thatcher was right wing. Is it likely that you find positive statements about Thatcher in Danish school books?

No but that's not because she was right wing. Danish books have plenty of positive remarks of conservatives, but they tend to avoid being positive towards Thatcher. Could it be because she wasn't such a great PM? No, of course not. It is simply because we hate right wingers here in Denmark, except all the right wingers we dosn't hate of course...
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Yamaha Information

 

[fazzoletti]

You seem to feel very strongly about this subject. How come?

 

[nonconformist]

Thatcher went and screwed the country up. The police beat the living daylights out of the miners. Watch the footage; it just makes me angry.

 

[BassDude726]

I hope this question hasn't been posed already:

Is there much of a difference between leftism in America and in other countries?

 

[storealex]

You seem to feel very strongly about this subject. How come?

Again, I would like you to aswer to what I write. You can either admit Im right, or you can prove me wrong. Or or course you could turn the subject away from it's focus and ask me about my feelings...
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Zoloft problems

 

[Japher]

"Is there much of a difference between leftism in America and in other countries?"

I'm gonna say there is much difference, though I have no idea. I say this because most other countries are socialist, and socialism conforms more to liberal ideals. However, American Liberals are still greedy capitalists, they just like to lie about it. Conservatives, however, never lie about be greedy. In fact, most conservatives lie to make themselves look more successful at being greedy!

Vote Bush, 2004
Liberals are greedy liars. Conservatives are greedy and they lie.