John Stewart: "That Custom-Tailored Obama Scandal You Ordered Is Finally Here"

[jsem]

I can see in a libertarian society an existence of health inspectors. They're just private, and restaurants can choose to have themselves examined. If they don't want to get examined by this private inspector, the consumers know they don't want to visit that restaurant.

There are many ways to get around the problems without government. One might ask about bribery... and I must say that the chances of bribery is about equal to government being health inspectors.

[emindead]

That's what happens with subsidies...

Really? By looking at one company? There's plenty of other examples.

Yeah, I wasn't looking at this as a general proof. Even i Keynesian economics theory, there's going to be government waste when the government spends in order to boost aggregate demand - so the fact that there's waste when the government subsidizes is practically impossible to avoid.

I do believe that subsidies are terrible though, look no further than corn for that. The corn subsidies in the US are absolutely vomit-inducing.

Even in a libertarian, free-market world, there's going to be companies that go under, and which effectively waste money / resources.

Yeah, but the thing is that of all economic systems laissez-faire capitalism is the only one able to work toward correcting its imperfections in a systematic and rational manner. In an imperfect and ever-changing world, the market will never achieve equilibrium, but it has a way of working out disequilibria over time. This is what distinguishes spontaneous orders in general—over time, they are self-correcting and hence self-regulating systems. They are always perfecting themselves but they never achieve perfection.

[jsem]

To be fair, the only way you're going to reach perfection is in the means of some kind of post-scarcity state, or in fact eliminating greed as a factor from human life.

To reach a post-scarcity state, capitalism is clearly the best way forward (even Keynes recognized this) as it creates the robotic ways of manufacturing that will be necessary.

[Scheavo]

That's what happens with subsidies...

Really? By looking at one company? There's plenty of other examples.

Yeah, I wasn't looking at this as a general proof. Even i Keynesian economics theory, there's going to be government waste when the government spends in order to boost aggregate demand - so the fact that there's waste when the government subsidizes is practically impossible to avoid.

I do believe that subsidies are terrible though, look no further than corn for that. The corn subsidies in the US are absolutely vomit-inducing.

Even in a libertarian, free-market world, there's going to be companies that go under, and which effectively waste money / resources.

Yeah, but the thing is that of all economic systems laissez-faire capitalism is the only one able to work toward correcting its imperfections in a systematic and rational manner. In an imperfect and ever-changing world, the market will never achieve equilibrium, but it has a way of working out disequilibria over time. This is what distinguishes spontaneous orders in general—over time, they are self-correcting and hence self-regulating systems. They are always perfecting themselves but they never achieve perfection.

I'm sorry, but democratic government is open to the same kind of changes and self-corrections you love the market for. Democratic governments are spontaneous orders.

There's also one time/short time intervention to get the market back on track, and then leave it well alone. Nature is not automatically self-regulating - someone brought up how animal populations regulate themselves, and while that is mostly true, there are also powerful examples of where this does not happen. I remember one example where a grazing animal herd grew too large, ate everything it had on the island, and went extinct because no one animal had enough to survive. If theoretically the animals could've rationed out food, the herd would have survived.

I mean, I'm talking largely about exceptions to the rule, the rule being that free-market and spontaneous order.

I can see in a libertarian society an existence of health inspectors. They're just private, and restaurants can choose to have themselves examined. If they don't want to get examined by this private inspector, the consumers know they don't want to visit that restaurant.

There are many ways to get around the problems without government. One might ask about bribery... and I must say that the chances of bribery is about equal to government being health inspectors.

What's to stop me from creating a "food inspection company" which then certifies my restaurant? Corporations do things like this now, so there's no reason to think they wouldn't do it in the future.

Government agents can be open to bribes, but there are the occasional people who are actually altruistic, who join up with the government. Many many soldiers are like this, there are tons of bureaucrats who are just the same. With private industry, the motivation is money - so if you can get that money by taking money under the table, it's the same difference to you.

And no, I'm not arguing for the federal government to inspect restaurants. That would be hugely inefficient.

To be fair, the only way you're going to reach perfection is in the means of some kind of post-scarcity state, or in fact eliminating greed as a factor from human life.

To reach a post-scarcity state, capitalism is clearly the best way forward (even Keynes recognized this) as it creates the robotic ways of manufacturing that will be necessary.

We could very easily be post-scarcity in America, but greed had made it so a good 20% of the population lives in poverty.

[PraXis]

Greed is good. Not if you're like Madoff, but most wealthy people are very hard working and generous.

Greed is a motivator.

[jsem]

We could very easily be post-scarcity in America, but greed had made it so a good 20% of the population lives in poverty.

Post scarcity (also styled post-scarcity or postscarcity) is a hypothetical form of economy or society, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free.

Why would greed be a factor at all in such a society. You can get anything and everything you want, there'd be no material greed. Or maybe I'm missing your point here...

What's to stop me from creating a "food inspection company" which then certifies my restaurant? Corporations do things like this now, so there's no reason to think they wouldn't do it in the future.

Government agents can be open to bribes, but there are the occasional people who are actually altruistic, who join up with the government. Many many soldiers are like this, there are tons of bureaucrats who are just the same. With private industry, the motivation is money - so if you can get that money by taking money under the table, it's the same difference to you.

Not to be impolite here, but I don't think you get my point.

The consumers are in charge of the inspection, and the consumers fund the inspection agency. Well, basically this is all in the new "free market" thread anyway.

[Scheavo]

We could very easily be post-scarcity in America, but greed had made it so a good 20% of the population lives in poverty.

Post scarcity (also styled post-scarcity or postscarcity) is a hypothetical form of economy or society, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free.

Maybe I'm not understanding what ou mean by post scarcity, but I just mean that if money weren't so concentrated in even just 1% of the population, 20% of the population wouldn't be in technical poverty/

[emindead]

Yeah, but the thing is that of all economic systems laissez-faire capitalism is the only one able to work toward correcting its imperfections in a systematic and rational manner. In an imperfect and ever-changing world, the market will never achieve equilibrium, but it has a way of working out disequilibria over time. This is what distinguishes spontaneous orders in general—over time, they are self-correcting and hence self-regulating systems. They are always perfecting themselves but they never achieve perfection.

I'm sorry, but democratic government is open to the same kind of changes and self-corrections you love the market for. Democratic governments are spontaneous orders.

There's also one time/short time intervention to get the market back on track, and then leave it well alone. Nature is not automatically self-regulating - someone brought up how animal populations regulate themselves, and while that is mostly true, there are also powerful examples of where this does not happen. I remember one example where a grazing animal herd grew too large, ate everything it had on the island, and went extinct because no one animal had enough to survive. If theoretically the animals could've rationed out food, the herd would have survived.

I mean, I'm talking largely about exceptions to the rule, the rule being that free-market and spontaneous order.

Actually, in a democratic government it takes too much time to get all people to agree. In an unhindered market the forces would act immediately. I don't know until what extent democratic governments are spontaneous orders, but what we have right now is a more determined type of government rather than one that spontaneously appeared.

Actually, nature is very self-regulating. Sometimes species have to go, sometimes herds have to die, some others fire has to burn an entire forest for it to reboot (correct) itself.

[El Barto]

We could very easily be post-scarcity in America, but greed had made it so a good 20% of the population lives in poverty.

Post scarcity (also styled post-scarcity or postscarcity) is a hypothetical form of economy or society, in which things such as goods, services and information are free, or practically free.

Why would greed be a factor at all in such a society. You can get anything and everything you want, there'd be no material greed. Or maybe I'm missing your point here...

Because value will be arbitrarily created and assigned.  The people who own the means of production won't be ceding the power that gives them.  There are already plenty of things that are for all intents and purposes post scarcity.  So what does a capitalist society do?  It finds a method of convincing people to pay extra for it. 

Cracked actually wrote a pretty amusing article a while back about their take on the subject.  https://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-ruled-by-b.s..html

[Super Dude]

For more on the topic of dominant social goods, power through monopoly of said goods, and why even in a post-scarcity society we'll have people using the exchange and distribution of goods to establish authority over others, see Michael Walzer's Spheres of Justice.  Intriguing stuff.

[Scheavo]

https://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee/

It’s often claimed that the Solyndra loan guarantee was “rushed through” by the Obama Administration for political reasons. In fact, the Solyndra loan guarantee was a multi-year process that the Bush Administration launched in 2007.

You’d never know from the media coverage that:

    The Bush team tried to conditionally approve the Solyndra loan just before President Obama took office.
    The company’s backers included private investors who had diverse political interests.
    The loan comprises just 1.3% of DOE’s overall loan portfolio. To date, Solyndra is the only loan that’s known to be troubled.

Because one of the Solyndra investors, Argonaut Venture Capital, is funded by George Kaiser — a man who donated money to the Obama campaign — the loan guarantee has been attacked as being political in nature. What critics don’t mention is that one of the earliest and largest investors, Madrone Capital Partners, is funded by the family that started Wal-Mart, the Waltons. The Waltons have donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates over the years.

And no, I'm not blaming Bush - it's far more institutional than either Bush or Obama.

Yeah, but the thing is that of all economic systems laissez-faire capitalism is the only one able to work toward correcting its imperfections in a systematic and rational manner. In an imperfect and ever-changing world, the market will never achieve equilibrium, but it has a way of working out disequilibria over time. This is what distinguishes spontaneous orders in general—over time, they are self-correcting and hence self-regulating systems. They are always perfecting themselves but they never achieve perfection.

I'm sorry, but democratic government is open to the same kind of changes and self-corrections you love the market for. Democratic governments are spontaneous orders.

There's also one time/short time intervention to get the market back on track, and then leave it well alone. Nature is not automatically self-regulating - someone brought up how animal populations regulate themselves, and while that is mostly true, there are also powerful examples of where this does not happen. I remember one example where a grazing animal herd grew too large, ate everything it had on the island, and went extinct because no one animal had enough to survive. If theoretically the animals could've rationed out food, the herd would have survived.

I mean, I'm talking largely about exceptions to the rule, the rule being that free-market and spontaneous order.

Actually, in a democratic government it takes too much time to get all people to agree. In an unhindered market the forces would act immediately. I don't know until what extent democratic governments are spontaneous orders, but what we have right now is a more determined type of government rather than one that spontaneously appeared.

Actually, nature is very self-regulating. Sometimes species have to go, sometimes herds have to die, some others fire has to burn an entire forest for it to reboot (correct) itself.

Immediately? You're really going to stick with immediately?

[Scheavo]

Greed is good. Not if you're like Madoff, but most wealthy people are very hard working and generous.

Greed is a motivator.

Greed is by definition a vice, like Madoff. A lesser degree of "greed," something like desire or motivation, would be the good, virtuous thing.