This is a blog to discuss philosophy, chess, politics,
C. S. Lewis, or whatever it is that I'm in the mood to discuss.
Thursday, June 09, 2022
Markets and Justice
Do markets ever produce unjust results that government has to correct? Markets supported racial discrimination in restaurants and in housing. It took government interference to put a stop to that.
It took markets to correct for the genocidal, tyrannical, and mass evil tendencies of those in power. Yeah, markets create low wages, government created the Holocaust.
Segregation was enforced by the government. Today in 2022 the only institutions that separate public spaces by race are supported by the government. See the University of California.
I'm curious, can anyone listen to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, AOC, (what's that lying lunatic's name?)... Adam Schiff and tell themselves, I want to give those crazies more of my money and more power over me, my business and my family?
>I'm curious, can anyone listen to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, AOC, (what's that lying lunatic's name?)... Adam Schiff and tell themselves, I want to give those crazies more of my money and more power over me, my business and my family?
Certainly not the first few, but Bernie and AOC? Sure, to a degree. In general, they want a return to the New Deal era, which was good for the working class as it emphasized unions, collective bargaining, higher taxes on the wealthy, social support for the working class, raising the minimum wage, etc. The current trajectory of the wealthy elite getting wealthier and wealthier while the poor and middle class get squeezed out is unsustainable, and will likely lead to violence, eventually. The New Deal was partially an attempt to stave off a full communist revolution. I don't think any of us want that, so a New New Deal would be good.
Frankly, I find it absolutely breathtaking just how effectively the wealthy elite have managed to convince a wide swath of the working class that policies favoring the working class would be bad. They really played us.
When I see working class people oppose policies generally associated with AOC and Bernie, all I can hear is "I side with the wealthy elite over us working class folk!"
Martin: What they often says is a) People like Bernie are politicians who haven't actually been in the working class, so they don't know what the working class needs and 2) efforts to ameliorate the plight of the working class on the part of government are self-defeating and end up harming the very people they are trying to help.
Sometimes white working class people buy in on policies because they think such policies will help them at the expense of a) immigrants and b) ethnic minorities.
What we actually say is we don't trust these political charlatans. But, why not characterize us racist, against the working class, and self-defeating. That characterization plays best to the elite who are screwing the middle class.
Taking a lead from Victor, what THEY often say is a) sit down and shut up you racist b) how dare you be self employed and not pony up big government, big corporations, and big bought and paid for academia. They last thing these scoundrels want is an independent people in thought, religion, and economics.
Do markets ever produce unjust results that government has to correct?
Well, of course they do. There can't be many economic libertarians who think that no legal constraint on business is justified, so what is the point of raising this question? If 'government interference' just means legislation for or against certain behaviours then that principle is accepted throughout the West. It doesn't need arguing for. We acknowledge that, in general, a free market is an engine for prosperity, and that it's individual proposals for constraint or direction that have to be debated.
Sometimes white working class people buy in on policies because they think such policies will help them at the expense of a) immigrants and b) ethnic minorities.
This sort of thing was also said of pro-Brexit voters in the UK, and was equally tendentious.
>What they often says is a) People like Bernie are politicians who haven't actually been in the working class, so they don't know what the working class needs and 2) efforts to ameliorate the plight of the working class on the part of government are self-defeating and end up harming the very people they are trying to help.
I would answer a) by saying that this might as well be the case for ALL establishment politicians, so until the situation changes, you have to pick SOMEONE. And that someone may as well be a politician that at least pays lip service to the working class AND has actual policy proposals, as opposed to politicians who either blatantly support the wealthy or those who CLAIM to support the working class but only offer easy emotional slogans with no policy to back them up (e.g. "you'll get tired of winning!")
As for 2), this only seems to come up when the policy is to help the poor and working class. If a policy consists of government aid in some form for the wealthy, we get crickets. But as soon as it is suggested that we also provide government aid for the poor and working class...
"And then Jesus drug tested everyone using taxpayer money before deciding if the lazy, freeloading masses were worthy enough to receive fish and bread. 'I can't feed these people, it will destroy their incentive to better themselves,' Jesus said. Once their urine tested clean, Jesus reminded them that this was temporary assistance and warned against becoming dependent on his hand outs. He went on to explain that tax revenues were actually for corporate subsidies and funding war."
>What we actually say is we don't trust these political charlatans. But, why not characterize us racist, against the working class, and self-defeating. That characterization plays best to the elite who are screwing the middle class.
And the cynicism is well-deserved. Nonetheless, as I said above, you have to pick someone to represent your interests, so why not pick someone who both A) claims to represent the working class over the wealthy elite, and B) has policy proposals to back up this claim. Schumer, Pelosi, Trump, etc are clearly not in this category, but politicians like Bernie and AOC (even if not them specifically) are.
It's mostly poor citizens who are impacted by the shortage of baby formula and the population of poor citizens consist mostly of recent (legal) immigrants and minorities...no? I don't blame poor citizens of a country for complaining about their government, which is supposed to be protecting them, for ignoring them in favor of citizens of another country.
And you wonder why minorities are abandoning the Democratic Party.
Limited Perspective, They last thing these scoundrels want is an independent people in thought, religion, and economics
Said by a person economically dependent on government infrastructure, religiously dependent on scandalous fore-fathers, and intellectually dependent on paid shill for the wealthy.
bmiller, It's mostly poor citizens who are impacted by the shortage of baby formula and the population of poor citizens consist mostly of recent (legal) immigrants and minorities...no?
Baby formula shortages were a creation of the market forces of consolidation maximal profit.
Said by a person economically dependent on government infrastructure, religiously dependent on scandalous fore-fathers, and intellectually dependent on paid shill for the wealthy.
The government infrastructure I use I have paid for directly. My property taxes pay for the fire department, police department and public schools (which my kids did not use until going to college), costing me plenty and saving the taxpayers thousands. My income taxes pay for boneheads like you. Add it up I'm a net good for our country economically, I mean like bookkeeping addition, not government dependent new math. The sales taxes I generate through my business have paid for all of your idiotic government programs which has caused so much harm to real people. My forefathers? You're absolutely clueless.
My gas taxes pay for the roads I use, the high speed rail they've been pouring billions into with no end in sight. My user fees, hunting, fishing license, DMV fees, city fees for water, trash, street sweeping, pay for few useful things the government actually does.
If a SCOTUS assassination attempt is not reported, does that mean it didn't happen?
# of mentions of "Kavanaugh": ABC's This Week: 0 mentions NBC's Meet The Press: 0 mentions CBS's Face The Nation: 0 mentions CNN SOTU: 0 mentions Fox News Sunday covered
My guess is you would love to be more independent and work directly for your students instead of having to suck up and kiss ass to the administration. I think most independently minded people would like to say, "take this job and shove it." I did. Perhaps you are of the same caliber but don't have the guts.
I think you would also like to have a church community where the ladies show up with meals for about three weeks after your wife gives birth. There's the important things, like illness, funerals, weddings, or just feeling screwed over by life that a church can be a great support. We always have the corrupt in the back of our mind, but we mostly remember the saints and our fellow brothers and sisters.
Because I work for an administration, I don't have to come up with my own curriculum (spending hundreds of hours conferring with individual engineering teachers, individual science teachers, individual nursing teachers, etc. to make sure what I teach meets the needs of the classes they want to teach), choose my own texts among dozens of choices (and there would be hundreds of choices, at triple the already extremely high cost, if every teacher worked on their own), recruit students, arrange for payment, secure facilities, etc. I get to focus on relaying information, which is already a complex and difficult task. I'm smart of enough to understand the value of working other specialists, and still have enough flexibility that I can throw in the occasional treat for myself. I know what I want and what I do not want to do, and you most certainly do not.
If one gains benefit from belonging to a church, I encourage that one to go. It does me no harm at all, so why should I object? That doesnt change my statement at all.
I'm fine with that. It's when you, Victor, the crazy Star guy want to inflict your dependent instincts on the rest of us through government socialism that I become concerned.
"the crazy Star guy want to inflict your dependent instincts on the rest of us through government socialism"
Who me? Aren't I the guy on this site who's always advocating that the proper solution to any societal problem, be it guns or abortion, is not laws but education? How in the world is that "inflicting" my instincts on anyone?
Do you mean if you have a choice of which schools you can chose from rather than what only the state supplies, you have a degree on independence from the state?
Isn't it ironic that leftists oppose monopolies as long as they arise outside of their control (governmental) but support monopolies controlled by the government, while classical liberals oppose monopolies of both sorts and therefore encourage competition and excellence?
bmiller, Do you mean if you have a choice of which schools you can chose from rather than what only the state supplies, you have a degree on independence from the state?
As long as you are willing to not take taxpayer money, you can go to any school of your choice and no political party has ever opposed that.
Isn't it ironic that leftists oppose monopolies as long as they arise outside of their control (governmental) but support monopolies controlled by the government, while classical liberals oppose monopolies of both sorts and therefore encourage competition and excellence?
In some situations, competition encourages excellence. In other situations it undermines excellence.
I'm sorry for my unclear comments, Inderdendence is used by tyrants for control of dependent people. It is the mantra of tyrants. This is common in history, and widespread today. Voluntary negotiated interpendance starts with independence, which has been rare in human history.
Can you give me a list of tyrants that advocated for the independence of the people? If asked, I will give quotes from the tyrants who used the language of interdependence.
So, you're saying people at one extreme tend to use one type of rhetoric. You seem unaware that people at the other extreme use the opposite rhetoric. Show me any of the quotes of violent anarchists that speak of interdependence, and I can throw back twice that in quotes about independence.
I don't know any anarchists that had power over people to imprison them, kill them legally, or take their property. Perhaps the French revolution? But I haven't studied that secular death cult. If you know of anarchist with the power to give independence, that would add to my knowledge and I would appreciate it. I just don't know.
Regarding the French Revolution. The Committee of Public Safety was the name of the organization that implemented the Reign of Terror where heads rolled. Doesn't the name of that committee sound like such a pleasant and reassuring organization?
I think leftists delight in inverting the meaning of words.
Yes, humans are are fond of inverting the meaning of words. Do you only object when the left uses this tactic, and approve when it happens on the right?
It took markets to correct for the genocidal, tyrannical, and mass evil tendencies of those in power. Yeah, markets create low wages, government created the Holocaust.
ReplyDeleteSegregation was enforced by the government. Today in 2022 the only institutions that separate public spaces by race are supported by the government. See the University of California.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious, can anyone listen to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, AOC, (what's that lying lunatic's name?)... Adam Schiff and tell themselves, I want to give those crazies more of my money and more power over me, my business and my family?
ReplyDeleteDo governments ever produce unjust results that people have to correct?
ReplyDeleteNot sure about the US but in the UK these sorts of ills were largely cured by changes to the law of the land rather than government interference.
ReplyDelete>I'm curious, can anyone listen to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, AOC, (what's that lying lunatic's name?)... Adam Schiff and tell themselves, I want to give those crazies more of my money and more power over me, my business and my family?
ReplyDeleteCertainly not the first few, but Bernie and AOC? Sure, to a degree. In general, they want a return to the New Deal era, which was good for the working class as it emphasized unions, collective bargaining, higher taxes on the wealthy, social support for the working class, raising the minimum wage, etc. The current trajectory of the wealthy elite getting wealthier and wealthier while the poor and middle class get squeezed out is unsustainable, and will likely lead to violence, eventually. The New Deal was partially an attempt to stave off a full communist revolution. I don't think any of us want that, so a New New Deal would be good.
Frankly, I find it absolutely breathtaking just how effectively the wealthy elite have managed to convince a wide swath of the working class that policies favoring the working class would be bad. They really played us.
When I see working class people oppose policies generally associated with AOC and Bernie, all I can hear is "I side with the wealthy elite over us working class folk!"
Martin: What they often says is a) People like Bernie are politicians who haven't actually been in the working class, so they don't know what the working class needs and 2) efforts to ameliorate the plight of the working class on the part of government are self-defeating and end up harming the very people they are trying to help.
ReplyDeleteSometimes white working class people buy in on policies because they think such policies will help them at the expense of a) immigrants and b) ethnic minorities.
What we actually say is we don't trust these political charlatans. But, why not characterize us racist, against the working class, and self-defeating. That characterization plays best to the elite who are screwing the middle class.
ReplyDeleteTaking a lead from Victor, what THEY often say is a) sit down and shut up you racist b) how dare you be self employed and not pony up big government, big corporations, and big bought and paid for academia. They last thing these scoundrels want is an independent people in thought, religion, and economics.
ReplyDeleteMartin already said what I would have. So I'll give his comment a "like" and leave it at that.
ReplyDeleteDo markets ever produce unjust results that government has to correct?
ReplyDeleteWell, of course they do. There can't be many economic libertarians who think that no legal constraint on business is justified, so what is the point of raising this question? If 'government interference' just means legislation for or against certain behaviours then that principle is accepted throughout the West. It doesn't need arguing for. We acknowledge that, in general, a free market is an engine for prosperity, and that it's individual proposals for constraint or direction that have to be debated.
Sometimes white working class people buy in on policies because they think such policies will help them at the expense of a) immigrants and b) ethnic minorities.
This sort of thing was also said of pro-Brexit voters in the UK, and was equally tendentious.
>What they often says is a) People like Bernie are politicians who haven't actually been in the working class, so they don't know what the working class needs and 2) efforts to ameliorate the plight of the working class on the part of government are self-defeating and end up harming the very people they are trying to help.
ReplyDeleteI would answer a) by saying that this might as well be the case for ALL establishment politicians, so until the situation changes, you have to pick SOMEONE. And that someone may as well be a politician that at least pays lip service to the working class AND has actual policy proposals, as opposed to politicians who either blatantly support the wealthy or those who CLAIM to support the working class but only offer easy emotional slogans with no policy to back them up (e.g. "you'll get tired of winning!")
As for 2), this only seems to come up when the policy is to help the poor and working class. If a policy consists of government aid in some form for the wealthy, we get crickets. But as soon as it is suggested that we also provide government aid for the poor and working class...
"And then Jesus drug tested everyone using taxpayer money before deciding if the lazy, freeloading masses were worthy enough to receive fish and bread. 'I can't feed these people, it will destroy their incentive to better themselves,' Jesus said. Once their urine tested clean, Jesus reminded them that this was temporary assistance and warned against becoming dependent on his hand outs. He went on to explain that tax revenues were actually for corporate subsidies and funding war."
>What we actually say is we don't trust these political charlatans. But, why not characterize us racist, against the working class, and self-defeating. That characterization plays best to the elite who are screwing the middle class.
ReplyDeleteAnd the cynicism is well-deserved. Nonetheless, as I said above, you have to pick someone to represent your interests, so why not pick someone who both A) claims to represent the working class over the wealthy elite, and B) has policy proposals to back up this claim. Schumer, Pelosi, Trump, etc are clearly not in this category, but politicians like Bernie and AOC (even if not them specifically) are.
Martin,
ReplyDeleteIt's mostly poor citizens who are impacted by the shortage of baby formula and the population of poor citizens consist mostly of recent (legal) immigrants and minorities...no? I don't blame poor citizens of a country for complaining about their government, which is supposed to be protecting them, for ignoring them in favor of citizens of another country.
And you wonder why minorities are abandoning the Democratic Party.
Limited Perspective,
ReplyDeleteThey last thing these scoundrels want is an independent people in thought, religion, and economics
Said by a person economically dependent on government infrastructure, religiously dependent on scandalous fore-fathers, and intellectually dependent on paid shill for the wealthy.
bmiller,
ReplyDeleteIt's mostly poor citizens who are impacted by the shortage of baby formula and the population of poor citizens consist mostly of recent (legal) immigrants and minorities...no?
Baby formula shortages were a creation of the market forces of consolidation maximal profit.
Said by a person economically dependent on government infrastructure, religiously dependent on scandalous fore-fathers, and intellectually dependent on paid shill for the wealthy.
ReplyDeleteThe government infrastructure I use I have paid for directly. My property taxes pay for the fire department, police department and public schools (which my kids did not use until going to college), costing me plenty and saving the taxpayers thousands. My income taxes pay for boneheads like you. Add it up I'm a net good for our country economically, I mean like bookkeeping addition, not government dependent new math. The sales taxes I generate through my business have paid for all of your idiotic government programs which has caused so much harm to real people. My forefathers? You're absolutely clueless.
ReplyDeleteMy gas taxes pay for the roads I use, the high speed rail they've been pouring billions into with no end in sight. My user fees, hunting, fishing license, DMV fees, city fees for water, trash, street sweeping, pay for few useful things the government actually does.
ReplyDeleteHere's a philosophical question.
ReplyDeleteIf a SCOTUS assassination attempt is not reported, does that mean it didn't happen?
# of mentions of "Kavanaugh":
ABC's This Week: 0 mentions
NBC's Meet The Press: 0 mentions
CBS's Face The Nation: 0 mentions
CNN SOTU: 0 mentions
Fox News Sunday covered
Limited Perspective,
ReplyDeleteThe government infrastructure I use I have paid for directly.
It was paid using money pooled from the entire community. You're not a economically dependent as you claim to be.
My income taxes pay for boneheads like you.
Just as mine pay for you. Interdependence, the true human strength.
My forefathers? You're absolutely clueless
You're religious. Every religion is the creation of scandalous forefathers. I don't need to know the details to apply a universal.
bmiller,
ReplyDeleteIf a SCOTUS assassination attempt is not reported,
If only there were other sources of news besides Sunday morning talk shows.
One Brow,
ReplyDeleteMy guess is you would love to be more independent and work directly for your students instead of having to suck up and kiss ass to the administration. I think most independently minded people would like to say, "take this job and shove it." I did. Perhaps you are of the same caliber but don't have the guts.
I think you would also like to have a church community where the ladies show up with meals for about three weeks after your wife gives birth. There's the important things, like illness, funerals, weddings, or just feeling screwed over by life that a church can be a great support. We always have the corrupt in the back of our mind, but we mostly remember the saints and our fellow brothers and sisters.
Limited Perspective,
ReplyDeleteBecause I work for an administration, I don't have to come up with my own curriculum (spending hundreds of hours conferring with individual engineering teachers, individual science teachers, individual nursing teachers, etc. to make sure what I teach meets the needs of the classes they want to teach), choose my own texts among dozens of choices (and there would be hundreds of choices, at triple the already extremely high cost, if every teacher worked on their own), recruit students, arrange for payment, secure facilities, etc. I get to focus on relaying information, which is already a complex and difficult task. I'm smart of enough to understand the value of working other specialists, and still have enough flexibility that I can throw in the occasional treat for myself. I know what I want and what I do not want to do, and you most certainly do not.
If one gains benefit from belonging to a church, I encourage that one to go. It does me no harm at all, so why should I object? That doesnt change my statement at all.
"That doesnt change my statement at all"
ReplyDeleteI'm fine with that. It's when you, Victor, the crazy Star guy want to inflict your dependent instincts on the rest of us through government socialism that I become concerned.
"the crazy Star guy want to inflict your dependent instincts on the rest of us through government socialism"
ReplyDeleteWho me? Aren't I the guy on this site who's always advocating that the proper solution to any societal problem, be it guns or abortion, is not laws but education? How in the world is that "inflicting" my instincts on anyone?
Limited Perspective,
ReplyDelete... your dependent instincts ...
Interdependence is reality, not instinct.
Starhopper,
ReplyDeleteStudent (indirectly) pay me to inflict my ideas of mathematics on them. That's what education is.
"Interdependence is reality, not instinct"
ReplyDeleteDepends on the context. The slave and tyrant has one form, the church member another.
Limited Perspective,
ReplyDeleteDepends on the context. The slave and tyrant has one form, the church member another.
I agree.
Independence for the slave is what the tyrant fights.
ReplyDeleteInterdependence is what the tyrant wants from his slave.
ReplyDeleteIndependence is a person alone in the wilderness. Most of these people are dead within five years.
ReplyDeleteInterdependence is building a society together, and it's what a capitalist needs from thier customers. You can't sell when there is no one to buy.
ReplyDeleteWhen people have a degree of independence, the negotiation for interdependence is more voluntary and acceptable.
ReplyDeleteLimited.
ReplyDeleteDo you mean if you have a choice of which schools you can chose from rather than what only the state supplies, you have a degree on independence from the state?
Isn't it ironic that leftists oppose monopolies as long as they arise outside of their control (governmental) but support monopolies controlled by the government, while classical liberals oppose monopolies of both sorts and therefore encourage competition and excellence?
Miller,
ReplyDelete"while classical liberals..."
I would really like to resurrect that term.
Mrs Perspective came home from work the other day. I told her I read the news that Roe v Wade was overturned. I will never forget the joy in her face.
You never know what's gonna happen.
ReplyDeleteLimited Perspective,
ReplyDeleteWhen people have a degree of independence, the negotiation for interdependence is more voluntary and acceptable.
Thank you for the agreement.
bmiller,
ReplyDeleteDo you mean if you have a choice of which schools you can chose from rather than what only the state supplies, you have a degree on independence from the state?
As long as you are willing to not take taxpayer money, you can go to any school of your choice and no political party has ever opposed that.
Isn't it ironic that leftists oppose monopolies as long as they arise outside of their control (governmental) but support monopolies controlled by the government, while classical liberals oppose monopolies of both sorts and therefore encourage competition and excellence?
In some situations, competition encourages excellence. In other situations it undermines excellence.
"Thank you for the agreement."
ReplyDeleteI too am glad that we agree that independence is primary, and interdependence is negotiated.
I am glad you stopped saying interdependence is tyranny, since it's the foundation of civilization.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry for my unclear comments, Inderdendence is used by tyrants for control of dependent people. It is the mantra of tyrants. This is common in history, and widespread today. Voluntary negotiated interpendance starts with independence, which has been rare in human history.
ReplyDeleteCan you give me a list of tyrants that advocated for the independence of the people? If asked, I will give quotes from the tyrants who used the language of interdependence.
ReplyDeleteLimited Perspective,
ReplyDeleteSo, you're saying people at one extreme tend to use one type of rhetoric. You seem unaware that people at the other extreme use the opposite rhetoric. Show me any of the quotes of violent anarchists that speak of interdependence, and I can throw back twice that in quotes about independence.
I don't know any anarchists that had power over people to imprison them, kill them legally, or take their property. Perhaps the French revolution? But I haven't studied that secular death cult. If you know of anarchist with the power to give independence, that would add to my knowledge and I would appreciate it. I just don't know.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the French Revolution. The Committee of Public Safety was the name of the organization that implemented the Reign of Terror where heads rolled. Doesn't the name of that committee sound like such a pleasant and reassuring organization?
ReplyDeleteI think leftists delight in inverting the meaning of words.
Limited Perspective,
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me like you re moving the target.
bmiller,
Yes, humans are are fond of inverting the meaning of words. Do you only object when the left uses this tactic, and approve when it happens on the right?
Conversations always wonder off topic.
ReplyDelete