AnCap vs. Socialism

[myrkul]

Obligatory AnCap comment: Couldn't you do that without also paying for other services you don't use/want?

That's an interesting dilemma. There's a bunch of services that I don't really use, and it keeps me wondering why I pay that. Best example is, we have a 7$ daycare system for children. Each citizen in Quebec pay 7$/day and can use the daycare system for their children when they go to work.

I don't have any children, I don't use it and a couple of years ago, I didn't like that parents were "forced"(because it's so advantageous) to send their children there instead of educating them at home. For many years, I was against it, seeing it as a waste of money.

The thing is, the system, even if the waiting list is huge, it works. Some studies discovered it even pays itself, because the parent (usually the mother) who go to work instead of staying at home have a better revenue, so pay more taxes. Also, one of my mother's friend work in the daycare system. She's a professional ?educator? (sorry, I don't know the exact term in English) with formation and have a really job as a result. The government have rules and inspectors to insure a good service.

It's far from perfect, but it's not as bad that some people can say about socialism. Even me, I got convinced along the road that it's an interesting service that needs, at least, to be tried.

I think, the biggest problem with a social-democracy is that since the money is so centralized at the same place, corruption can take place and become big, because there's so much money around it. That's where the waste of money occur, and it's hard to make a perfectly efficient system. But still, I'm happy to pay for services that I don't use. Why? I believe we pay a lot less collectively. It's a matter of offer and demand. Let's take an example:

I need a pill badly, because I got sick, I have 7 days to live and I need it now. The seller of the pill, seeing the increasing demand, could charge me more (in a free market), and I would probably pay anyway, because I need it now. If instead, the pill was "socialized", where you get the pill free when you need it, but in exchange, you pay a little amount every year so that everybody can have that pill free when needed, the seller can't jack the price up when you need it, since it already been paid. You buy in bulk and sellers can't control the price to get more profit.

Let's take the example of the daycare system. Right now, nobody can jack the price up, even if the demand is crazy and some people would pay 40$/day. The price is guaranteed at 7$, and when I'm going to have kids, I'll probably appreciate it a lot more.

I know my answer is long and off-topic, but I wanted to explain clearly my position on your question. Even if you don't agree, I hope it helps you understand the socialists.

You make some good points, and they're the same points every socialist system has going for it:

"Everybody already pays for it, so when they need it, they don't have to pay extra"
"the price is fixed, and since everyone pays, that price is low, compared to what it would go for in a free market"

I'm not going to argue those points. As far as they go, they're absolutely true.

But here's the problem:
"I think, the biggest problem with a social-democracy is that since the money is so centralized at the same place, corruption can take place and become big, because there's so much money around it. That's where the waste of money occur, and it's hard to make a perfectly efficient system."

Let's take that pill, for instance. Let's say it's cost to produce is, oh, $5. (random number pulled from my rectum) The drug company that makes that pill lobbies the government to socialize the distribution of that pill. It will save lives, they say. This, also, is true. They're such altruists, in fact, that they're willing to ask only the cost of that pill from each citizen: $5. So, each citizen is now paying an additional $5 in taxes each year, which the government gives to the drug company, so as to make that pill available to everyone who needs it, free of charge. This is great. Lives are saved, and because the company is so nice, nobody pays more than $5 per year for the ability to have that pill, any time they need it.

But that pill is not something that needs to be taken once a year to save a life. It only needs to be taken once, and then is no longer needed, unless that condition springs up again, and most people never need it in the first place. Canada's population in 2011 was 34,482,779. That means that pharmaceutical company brings in $172,413,895 on that pill. It costs $5 per pill, and let's be generous and assume that 10% of the population actually needs that pill each year. That means that providing this service to the people costs them $17,241,390 per year. That's a net profit of $155.2 million, or $45 per pill.

In order to get that same level of profit, they would need to charge $50 per pill, and in a free market, there's no guarantee they could do that. A competitor could come along and choose to sell their pill for $45 (thus only making $40 profit, but that's still quite a lot). However, if everyone buys the $45 pill, the first company will likely drop it's price, down to $40. Or a third company could come in and offer the pill at $25. Eventually, the price of the pill will be reduced, by competition, to very near the actual cost of production. Probably around $7-$10 (and still, half of that price is profit).

So yes, the people who need the pill do end up paying a little bit more, in the end, than they would have had the pill been socialized, but that extra $137.9 million that isn't going to the pharma company can be used elsewhere by the people who don't need the pill... possibly even in paying for a charity to provide the pill to those people who need it at cost, which would still leave $120.7 million to be spent in other endeavors.

Now, obviously, these numbers are grossly simplified. But the concept is there.

[Brunic]

Not going to quote everything, but I also greatly agree with what you say. I would say it depends if the society consider the pill as a vital need or simply an interesting desire.

The goal of social-democracy is to tell to the ones who fall to the bottom of the society: "hey, you're not alone, we're going to help you survive". It doesn't mean getting a free iPad, or living at the expenses of the others. It means that, if something happens to you, you have back-up. It's also about the group of people, because if everybody is supported and have a little better life, we consider that the sum of that is superior to the expenses.

The problem with capitalism is that we only learn to centralize profit. Everything that enter is good, and everything that exit is bad. From a business perspective, any profit that is made elsewhere is a loss for you, and is bad.

The thing is, in a society, it doesn't necessarily works like that. Socialism is a way to decentralize profit. Take education for example. If you make education from a business perspective, it is better to charge a high-entry price, so you make profit and you make high-value diploma that brings you more high-entry prices. But the profit from that centralized education is only in the hands of a little group. If you make education free and accessible, sure, the diplome lose his value, because everybody has one. But with the spreading of knowledge through the society, people can achieve new things that couldn't be done if the education was centralized in a couple of hands.

With free education, the profit is made all around the society. Internet is the best example of what can be done when everything is shared. Open-source also, just look at Bitcoin! No chance in hell Bitcoin can be made if it's based from a business perspective. Satoshi didn't made profit doing his work, if he made any profit, it's only by using Bitcoin like everybody else. But to conceive and create Bitcoin, he didn't generated any profit for himself. But he created profit for everybody that's going to use Bitcoin.

The goal of social-democracy is to take things that generate more profit socially than individually, and socialize them. Free healthcare and free education are the two best examples of what social-democracy can achieve. These are the minimals needs any develop country should offer and there's no place for compromise IMHO.

On the other side, AnCap is great for everything "useless" for survival. If you're making TV or cars, well, I don't see why the government should intervene. I still don't understand why you guys let your own government bail out GM, Ford and Chrysler. Let them crash and burn, and give opportunity to new small car company to take the market instead. It's the same thing with the newspaper "oh my god, Internet is killing us, please help/ban/sue Internet". No, you should close your business. I don't give a damn about the jobs, since people should learn about being an entrepreneur instead of working for a stupid boss.

Even here, we have that problem where business go cry to the governement "to keep the jobs!". A couple of days ago, our government was proud to bail out an asbestos mining company "to save the jobs". No stupid! It's cancerous, it has been banned by Canada Health and we're still exporting this shit to under-developed countries to "keep the jobs".

That's the thing I hate with big business. They want no rules, free market when they're making profits, and they go cry to the government to socialize their loss when it's going bad.

TL;DR, Socialism is golden for vital things (health and education). Can be good on other things (it depends). For "useless", AnCap all the way.

[myrkul]

The goal of social-democracy is to tell to the ones who fall to the bottom of the society: "hey, you're not alone, we're going to help you survive". It doesn't mean getting a free iPad, or living at the expenses of the others. It means that, if something happens to you, you have back-up. It's also about the group of people, because if everybody is supported and have a little better life, we consider that the sum of that is superior to the expenses.

Nothing wrong with supporting the poor. it's being forced to support the poor that I and other libertarians balk at. Libertarians tend, by and large, to be very charitable people. Private charities can compete for our dollars, too, and would provide better, more efficient services to the poor than would a monopoly "charity" that gets its funding by force.

With free education, the profit is made all around the society. Internet is the best example of what can be done when everything is shared. Open-source also, just look at Bitcoin! No chance in hell Bitcoin can be made if it's based from a business perspective. Satoshi didn't made profit doing his work, if he made any profit, it's only by using Bitcoin like everybody else. But to conceive and create Bitcoin, he didn't generated any profit for himself. But he created profit for everybody that's going to use Bitcoin.

On the contrary, Satoshi made his profit the same way the drug companies would without IP law: getting in on the ground floor. By being the inventor of Bitcoin, and generating the first few blocks, he was the first miner. Thus, he got those block rewards. As more miners came on, his profits from that decreased, but he doesn't have to mine anymore to profit from Bitcoin, he has a huge stash of them. As the value rises, so to does the value of Satoshi's stash.

The goal of social-democracy is to take things that generate more profit socially than individually, and socialize them. Free healthcare and free education are the two best examples of what social-democracy can achieve. These are the minimals needs any develop country should offer and there's no place for compromise IMHO.

But neither of those are free. TANSTAAFL The money has to come from somewhere, and that's the people who don't need the service. Education can be made nearly free, with all the information on the internet, but there's still the time factor. Healthcare is such a big, hairy ball of wax that it deserves it's own thread, but the pill example above gives a skeleton of the problem. Again, in a free marketplace, doctors and teachers will compete to give the best service, for the lowest rates. There are, and probably always will be, medical procedures that are expensive beyond the means of normal people to afford, and that is where insurance steps in. Insurance is the ideal method of implementing the socializing of risk, to prevent individuals from being without health care in the event of a catastrophe, because it is voluntary.

On the other side, AnCap is great for everything "useless" for survival. If you're making TV or cars, well, I don't see why the government should intervene. I still don't understand why you guys let your own government bail out GM, Ford and Chrysler. Let them crash and burn, and give opportunity to new small car company to take the market instead. It's the same thing with the newspaper "oh my god, Internet is killing us, please help/ban/sue Internet". No, you should close your business. I don't give a damn about the jobs, since people should learn about being an entrepreneur instead of working for a stupid boss.

Even here, we have that problem where business go cry to the governement "to keep the jobs!". A couple of days ago, our government was proud to bail out an asbestos mining company "to save the jobs". No stupid! It's cancerous, it has been banned by Canada Health and we're still exporting this shit to under-developed countries to "keep the jobs".

That's the thing I hate with big business. They want no rules, free market when they're making profits, and they go cry to the government to socialize their loss when it's going bad.

These three paragraphs sound very agorist. I approve.

[Brunic]

Nothing wrong with supporting the poor. it's being forced to support the poor that I and other libertarians balk at. Libertarians tend, by and large, to be very charitable people. Private charities can compete for our dollars, too, and would provide better, more efficient services to the poor than would a monopoly "charity" that gets its funding by force.

That's an interesting point of view, but it's where I differ. I think that being poor at the point where you can't do what you aspire to is a waste of human potential. Charity can be a great support, but asking for charity is hard and strengthen the notion that you're poor and a citizen of second-class. Being poor is humiliating, and I think a formal and neutral approach with the government is more appropriated. It also ensure that the situation of every citizen is based on neutral conditions (salary, wealth, etc) and have a certain privacy in the process. Having known that situation at a certain point of my life, I REALLY appreciate that aspect.

On the contrary, Satoshi made his profit the same way the drug companies would without IP law: getting in on the ground floor. By being the inventor of Bitcoin, and generating the first few blocks, he was the first miner. Thus, he got those block rewards. As more miners came on, his profits from that decreased, but he doesn't have to mine anymore to profit from Bitcoin, he has a huge stash of them. As the value rises, so to does the value of Satoshi's stash.

Yeah, today we know about that. But go back 4-5 years ago, when Satoshi was writing his document. When he coded the first version of Bitcoin. When one year later, Bitcoin was still worth 1 cent. If he had to pay every developer that worked with him in the first year, if he had to pay back the bank for the loan he took to develop the business, if he was looking for investors after 1 year for his Bitcoin business.....do you really it was a viable business? How can you predict that the price will be 10$ 4 years later? Even after the bubble last year, tons of people were sure that Bitcoin was a fad.

Satoshi made his money with Bitcoin like everybody else (mining, selling, hoarding, etc). He didn't made any money on the development time. His work on development is impossible to make profitable. The only way for him to make profit is to insure that other random people can also make profit using Bitcoin.

But neither of those are free. TANSTAAFL The money has to come from somewhere, and that's the people who don't need the service. Education can be made nearly free, with all the information on the internet, but there's still the time factor. Healthcare is such a big, hairy ball of wax that it deserves it's own thread, but the pill example above gives a skeleton of the problem. Again, in a free marketplace, doctors and teachers will compete to give the best service, for the lowest rates. There are, and probably always will be, medical procedures that are expensive beyond the means of normal people to afford, and that is where insurance steps in. Insurance is the ideal method of implementing the socializing of risk, to prevent individuals from being without health care in the event of a catastrophe, because it is voluntary.

Yeah, our opinions on how will differ surely. But in my mind, I can't negociate on that. Those systems must be free, and after that, you work on how you can finance them. It's simply because uneducated people is a complete waste of human potential, and sick people are also a complete waste of human potential. If your society waste human potential, it develop less, evolve less and is poorer.

I'll give you a real-life example. In Quebec history, we can easily see the benefits of those two systems on a really short period. Before 1960, I swear, our province was composed of poor farmers and poor employees. Big business were owned at 95% by the english-speaking people, so we had very little economic power and very few french-speaking people in the elite of the society.* We were also under a strong religion veil, where the catholic church controlled almost everything.

What happens during the 60's? We called that period: "La révolution tranquille" ("smooth revolution" if I would translate it). We kicked religion out of everything, we established free education and free healthcare. A lot of smaller social programs were also created at that time. The transformation is completely crazy. We went from a backyard and retard province to become a society who could easily become a top-20 country in the world if we were to separate ourself from Canada tomorrow.

Yeah, it cost us more taxes, but it's easy to witness the benefit of it in the last 40 years of our history, it's probably the best move our nation* had made in history. I understand that your position is different, but like I said, those social programs have been so much beneficial to us, I'll happily pay more taxes to keep them.

These three paragraphs sound very agorist. I approve.

Mmm, didn't know that term, thanks! It's interesting to read

*I've put those asterisks just to give you the context of the province of Quebec and Canada. There's a big racial issue between french and english in our history. I don't want to elaborate on that, but consider that at a certain point in history, we were considered the "white niggers" of America and were told to "speak white". The Canadian government also approved the fact that Quebec is a distinct nation in Canada a couple of years ago. Many clashes occurred between Quebec and the rest of Canada, including 2 vote to make Quebec a country and a civil war. But today, it's more peaceful though. We decided to ignore each other  

[myrkul]

Nothing wrong with supporting the poor. it's being forced to support the poor that I and other libertarians balk at. Libertarians tend, by and large, to be very charitable people. Private charities can compete for our dollars, too, and would provide better, more efficient services to the poor than would a monopoly "charity" that gets its funding by force.

That's an interesting point of view, but it's where I differ. I think that being poor at the point where you can't do what you aspire to is a waste of human potential. Charity can be a great support, but asking for charity is hard and strengthen the notion that you're poor and a citizen of second-class. Being poor is humiliating, and I think a formal and neutral approach with the government is more appropriated. It also ensure that the situation of every citizen is based on neutral conditions (salary, wealth, etc) and have a certain privacy in the process. Having known that situation at a certain point of my life, I REALLY appreciate that aspect.

I'm guessing that the government offices in Canada are different than the ones here in the US. They most definitely make one feel like a second-class citizen. In contrast, the charity that I have received at times throughout my life has made me feel loved, by complete strangers. Government doesn't love you. It doesn't care.

Satoshi made his money with Bitcoin like everybody else (mining, selling, hoarding, etc). He didn't made any money on the development time. His work on development is impossible to make profitable. The only way for him to make profit is to insure that other random people can also make profit using Bitcoin.

The dev time on Bitcoin can rightly be viewed as an investment. Investments are not only monetary. You can invest time and effort as well. He has cashed in on that investment many times over.

But neither of those are free. TANSTAAFL The money has to come from somewhere, and that's the people who don't need the service. Education can be made nearly free, with all the information on the internet, but there's still the time factor. Healthcare is such a big, hairy ball of wax that it deserves it's own thread, but the pill example above gives a skeleton of the problem. Again, in a free marketplace, doctors and teachers will compete to give the best service, for the lowest rates. There are, and probably always will be, medical procedures that are expensive beyond the means of normal people to afford, and that is where insurance steps in. Insurance is the ideal method of implementing the socializing of risk, to prevent individuals from being without health care in the event of a catastrophe, because it is voluntary.

Yeah, our opinions on how will differ surely. But in my mind, I can't negociate on that. Those systems must be free, and after that, you work on how you can finance them. It's simply because uneducated people is a complete waste of human potential, and sick people are also a complete waste of human potential. If your society waste human potential, it develop less, evolve less and is poorer.

Did you read the article linked under TANSTAAFL? There's no such thing as free. The best we can do is cheap. Go back and re-read the pill example. Is that socialized pill cheap? It costs the people $50 per pill. Competition can reduce that to $7 or $10, or possibly even lower. Sick and uneducated people are indeed a waste of human potential. Head into one of the ERs and look around at the sick people waiting for health care. Socialized medicine produces low prices, yes... artificially low prices. Artificially low prices create shortages. Shortages create wait lists. The people on those wait lists are still sick, still, as you say, a waste of human potential.

Remember what you said about your socialized daycare?

The thing is, the system, even if the waiting list is huge, it works.

Yeah, maybe it does work. But those people on the waiting list are not getting their education, and as you say, still a waste of human potential. Now, hopefully I've illustrated the problems, and you're asking: OK, what's the solution, then?

Competition. A completely open market on those services. Now, this doesn't just mean letting those doctors and teachers set their own prices. It also means letting new people enter those markets, and the lower the barrier to entry, the better. Medicine is inevitably going to be a fairly lucrative occupation, simply because of the amount of schooling required (high barrier to entry). It can be made cheaper than it is today, and shortages removed, by more competition, but there is a limit. Of course, not everything needs a full medical degree. Nurses can treat many things, far cheaper than doctors. But education - and especially daycare - can be very nearly free, simply by virtue of the number of people offering the service.

[Brunic]

I'm guessing that the government offices in Canada are different than the ones here in the US. They most definitely make one feel like a second-class citizen. In contrast, the charity that I have received at times throughout my life has made me feel loved, by complete strangers. Government doesn't love you. It doesn't care.

Mmm, that's an interesting point. It's probably not about being poor than mainly being how you're handled being poor that change the perspective.

The dev time on Bitcoin can rightly be viewed as an investment. Investments are not only monetary. You can invest time and effort as well. He has cashed in on that investment many times over.

Maybe, maybe not. It's possible that before he disappeared, he sold/sent all his Bitcoins when the price was really low before going to work on something else. When he quit, the value of Bitcoin wasn't more than 1$. Nobody knows how many BTC he mined, had and sold. It's possible that he sold at the worst time ever and made almost no money of it. We'll probably never know about that, so we could speculate all day long, we don't know if Satoshi made a buck or missed an opportunity.

Did you read the article linked under TANSTAAFL? There's no such thing as free. The best we can do is cheap. Go back and re-read the pill example. Is that socialized pill cheap? It costs the people $50 per pill. Competition can reduce that to $7 or $10, or possibly even lower. Sick and uneducated people are indeed a waste of human potential. Head into one of the ERs and look around at the sick people waiting for health care. Socialized medicine produces low prices, yes... artificially low prices. Artificially low prices create shortages. Shortages create wait lists. The people on those wait lists are still sick, still, as you say, a waste of human potential.

Remember what you said about your socialized daycare?

The thing is, the system, even if the waiting list is huge, it works.

Yeah, maybe it does work. But those people on the waiting list are not getting their education, and as you say, still a waste of human potential. Now, hopefully I've illustrated the problems, and you're asking: OK, what's the solution, then?

Competition. A completely open market on those services. Now, this doesn't just mean letting those doctors and teachers set their own prices. It also means letting new people enter those markets, and the lower the barrier to entry, the better. Medicine is inevitably going to be a fairly lucrative occupation, simply because of the amount of schooling required (high barrier to entry). It can be made cheaper than it is today, and shortages removed, by more competition, but there is a limit. Of course, not everything needs a full medical degree. Nurses can treat many things, far cheaper than doctors. But education - and especially daycare - can be very nearly free, simply by virtue of the number of people offering the service.

Ok, maybe not free as "falling from the sky magic free", but more in a way of "economically irrelevant from for the user". The production of an person BEFORE using the service should not be taken into consideration. If you have money, it's because you worked before, but to work and make money, you need to be healthy and educated. You can't work if you're sick, and your work cannot have a great value if you're not educated. You need to break the loop at some point.

I'm not against a little competition from the private sector, because if somebody has a lot of money and is ready to pay more to have more, well, go ahead. But the basic service must still be offered for everybody for free. Some people send their child to private school, and some people pay for private clinics to have services faster. I'm ok with that, but it's not an excuse to not pay taxes for the free service. Usually, when you use those private services, you are richer than most of the population, so yes, you pay more in taxes than what you really use and I completely agree with that. The society gave you a frame and infrastructure giving you the possibility of becoming rich, so you need to contribute to the society.

Free market is great only when there's profit to be made. The problem is, in health and education, there's a margin where no profit can be made when you adjust to what the person can pay. I had an important operation a couple of years ago that cost around 35 000$. I needed it, but could only pay something like 1000$ for it. Using the free market laws, I would had been stuck because I didn't had the means to pay it as I would have not been profitable. No business will accept to take a loss of 34 000$ that type of operation, even if, in my lifetime, because of this operation, I contribute for 1 million $* to the society.

But as a society, paying 35 000$ for the potential of getting 1 million $ in return is really interesting. Private business are effective when there's a centralized profit to chase, but when the profit is completely decentralized, they cannot be used efficiently. Like I've explained before, a private business makes profit using the simple formula: what gets in - what gets out = profit (usually calculated with money). But a society makes profit the other way: what gets out - what gets in = profit (usually a new great citizen). If you go to school, you get in stupid and get out knowledgeable. If you go to the hospital, you get in sick and get out healthy to work. Sure, the process has a cost, but that's why you make everybody contribute to make the cost irrelevant.

Applying business theories to social programs is completely retarded, because they don't work the same way. I'm personally more on the business side than the social side, and it took me a long time to understand how social and human science work.

*As for the 1 million in return, I've read about a study not too long ago estimating that a university student will contribute for 1 million $ in average in its lifetime to society, not only in taxes, but in plus-value, business, discovery, jobs created, etc. I can't find it right now, but even if I found it, it was in French, so I don't know if you could read it  

[myrkul]

The Satoshi stuff, you have a point. We could speculate all day. Hell, for all I know, you're Satoshi, and you're just fuckin' with my head.

Ok, maybe not free as "falling from the sky magic free", but more in a way of "economically irrelevant from for the user". The production of an person BEFORE using the service should not be taken into consideration. If you have money, it's because you worked before, but to work and make money, you need to be healthy and educated. You can't work if you're sick, and your work cannot have a great value if you're not educated. You need to break the loop at some point.

You make a fine point here. It's a bit of a catch 22. This, however, is where the concept of investment that we spoke of with Satoshi comes into play. A free market in say, education does not preclude people investing in a person's future by providing scholarships. What it does do, however, is make the price indicative of the actual cost to provide the service. A price that is artificially low creates shortages, and waste. A price that is too high, on the other hand, creates a market demand for more service providers. When that demand is met, the price drops again, through competition, seeking the market equilibrium.

I'm not against a little competition from the private sector, because if somebody has a lot of money and is ready to pay more to have more, well, go ahead. But the basic service must still be offered for everybody for free. Some people send their child to private school, and some people pay for private clinics to have services faster. I'm ok with that, but it's not an excuse to not pay taxes for the free service. Usually, when you use those private services, you are richer than most of the population, so yes, you pay more in taxes than what you really use and I completely agree with that. The society gave you a frame and infrastructure giving you the possibility of becoming rich, so you need to contribute to the society.

What you (and apparently Obama) don't see is that by becoming rich (unless those gains were stolen), that person has already contributed to society. You look only at the bank account, and don't see what got that money there. Profit is nothing more, and nothing less, than the result of providing a needed good or service to the society.

Free market is great only when there's profit to be made. The problem is, in health and education, there's a margin where no profit can be made when you adjust to what the person can pay. I had an important operation a couple of years ago that cost around 35 000$. I needed it, but could only pay something like 1000$ for it. Using the free market laws, I would had been stuck because I didn't had the means to pay it as I would have not been profitable. No business will accept to take a loss of 34 000$ that type of operation, even if, in my lifetime, because of this operation, I contribute for 1 million $* to the society.

See, now here is where that "big hairy ball of wax" comes in. The current price structure in medicine is so distorted, especially here in the US, that it's practically impossible to sort out. I'm going to leave analysis of the actual problem to those who draw a salary for doing so, but I can offer a solution: Market competition to lower the price of routine procedures to tolerable levels, removal of barriers to entry of medical practice to allow nurses to treat those ailments which do not require a medical degree, which would further lower the cost - and thus the price - of routine medical procedures, and insurance to cover the truly expensive procedures, such as your $35000 one. Think of it as voluntarily socializing the cost of the most expensive procedures.

But as a society, paying 35 000$ for the potential of getting 1 million $ in return is really interesting. Private business are effective when there's a centralized profit to chase, but when the profit is completely decentralized, they cannot be used efficiently. Like I've explained before, a private business makes profit using the simple formula: what gets in - what gets out = profit (usually calculated with money). But a society makes profit the other way: what gets out - what gets in = profit (usually a new great citizen). If you go to school, you get in stupid and get out knowledgeable. If you go to the hospital, you get in sick and get out healthy to work. Sure, the process has a cost, but that's why you make everybody contribute to make the cost irrelevant.

But making everyone pay doesn't make the cost irrelevant, it just spreads it out, along with the inefficiency of any involuntary system. I was being charitable and not including the overhead of maintaining those programs when I spoke of the socialized pill. In reality, people would be paying for that, too... through further increased taxes. It's entirely possible that each and every person could end up paying not $5 per year for the ability to have that pill whenever they need it, but perhaps $7 or even $10. There's no reason social programs can't be funded privately, through charities or by running as a for-profit industry. Private schools in the US do that all the time, and are widely acknowledged as being far superior in quality to the public school system.

[Brunic]

You make a fine point here. It's a bit of a catch 22. This, however, is where the concept of investment that we spoke of with Satoshi comes into play. A free market in say, education does not preclude people investing in a person's future by providing scholarships. What it does do, however, is make the price indicative of the actual cost to provide the service. A price that is artificially low creates shortages, and waste. A price that is too high, on the other hand, creates a market demand for more service providers. When that demand is met, the price drops again, through competition, seeking the market equilibrium.

There's a thing though. Price is not only a matter of offer and demand. In a perfect economic view and completely rational world, yeah, the perfect equilibrium could be attained and we would have optimized prices.

Fact is, the price is a characteristic of a product, like the name, the colour or the flavour is. It's basic marketing rules. Marketing plays on the perceived value of a product by customers. If the perceived value of a product is high, or even, if you want to put the perceived value of a product higher, you put the price higher. BMW would close shop tomorrow if they started to sell their BMW at 5,000$, even if their production cost is 4,000$. Some people prefer paying higher prices because they perceived the product with an higher value. Or if they think something has little value, they buy cheap.

The problem with rational economics is, they have a hard time understanding the effect of marketing, because you cannot calculate marketing. The best live example I could witness in my life was the last generation of video games console (Wii, Xbox and PS3). Before the launch, nobody, I mean, NO-BO-DY gave a chance to Nintendo with their Wii console. Every prediction from reputable analysts believed Nintendo would be dead last, and even suggested to stop making hardware to focus on making software. Every rational graph and prediction was correct, in the sense that they believed in rational economics with rational consumers making rational choices.

You should have seen the E3 2006 line-up for the Wii. I think it's a Guiness record or something. Sales were completely insane and the Wii was sold-out for THREE years. It was probably the most successful launch of any product of any company in history, and it's going to take a long time before we see similar happens. I saw this all unfold in real time, because I was following Nintendo, to learn how to make money. That gave me the incentive to study marketing, because I wondered how something like that was possible.

A market is a big mess of emotions applied to rational tools. There's no optimization, it's all about human feelings. The only time you can optimize in a rational economic way is when nobody cares about your product, and where his only value is the price. As soon as there is another value in the product (it's beautiful/fast/fun, etc), the price is not logic and is never logic.

What you (and apparently Obama) don't see is that by becoming rich (unless those gains were stolen), that person has already contributed to society. You look only at the bank account, and don't see what got that money there. Profit is nothing more, and nothing less, than the result of providing a needed good or service to the society.

And what you guys don't see is that by becoming rich, a part of the profit was made because of the circumstances. Profit is made with opportunities. And when you make profit, it's easier to get opportunities, because you're more powerful to act on them. It's a vicious loop that tend to transfer wealth toward the top. The poorer you are, the less opportunities you have, the less you can accumulate wealth because you're not competitive. Rich people don't understand that, because they see plenty of opportunities and simply think that people are too lazy to seize them. No, they're poor and have nothing to seize. Everyday is the same shitty day, with no chances of having something better. And when they see something, even if it's crazy, they are willing to risk everything to seize that only opportunity in the last 5 years.

You wonder why Mexicans try to immigrate to USA illegally? Because even if they're illegal, even if they risk prison or death, it's the ONLY opportunity they have in their life to make it better. In their shitty country, they stay in shit and can't evolve.

The goal of socialism, the objective of taxing rich people and take their wealth is to bring it back to the bottom of the pyramid, and forcefully finances opportunities for poor people. Wealth is only a representation of how great opportunities have been seized by you or your entourage. If you're so skilled at making money, I don't see the fuss of being taxed. You're skilled anyway, you'll make it back.

I strongly believe that the rich people in USA who oppose Obama with the tax cut story simply doubt of their skills. They probably believe that the money they "lose", they are not able to make it back. But you don't become a rich country by listening to rich people and protecting their assets. You become a rich country by giving the chance for new people to become rich and create assets. Everybody dies anyway, I don't see the point of protecting asset eternally.


As for the rest of your arguments, I don't want really to argue anymore, because it's becoming a loop. I think the left way is better, you think the right way is better
I'll only conclude by this:
If you make a social-democracy, you need a strong watch dog to keep the system efficient. It's too easy to fall into the "it's raining money" and waste everything. Look at what Greece is now.
If you go with AnCap, you need a basic system that extract regularly money from the free market to give a chance to newcomers in the market to join in. I think USA is really screwing themselves over right now. Just look at the wealth transfer from the last 20 years. You're going right for the wall if that continues.

I'll add that this is nice arguing with you myrkul. Too many times, people fall into fallacies to "prove" that their ego is right. I had to rethink many times about my own arguments with what you said. 

[myrkul]

You make a fine point here. It's a bit of a catch 22. This, however, is where the concept of investment that we spoke of with Satoshi comes into play. A free market in say, education does not preclude people investing in a person's future by providing scholarships. What it does do, however, is make the price indicative of the actual cost to provide the service. A price that is artificially low creates shortages, and waste. A price that is too high, on the other hand, creates a market demand for more service providers. When that demand is met, the price drops again, through competition, seeking the market equilibrium.

There's a thing though. Price is not only a matter of offer and demand. In a perfect economic view and completely rational world, yeah, the perfect equilibrium could be attained and we would have optimized prices.

All of this that I chopped out is excellent argumentation. It's all a very good point. But though you reference BMW, you neglect Kia. Not all medical care will be cheap as dirt, there will be concierge care, and other "Doctors to the Stars", who charge premiums essentially because they can. But at the same time, there will be value doctors, who are no worse, medically, than the concierge doctor, but charge far less because they aren't famous, and don't have famous clients. And, of course, there will be the nurses, and other less-trained medical personnel, who can care for less vital issues.

What you (and apparently Obama) don't see is that by becoming rich (unless those gains were stolen), that person has already contributed to society. You look only at the bank account, and don't see what got that money there. Profit is nothing more, and nothing less, than the result of providing a needed good or service to the society.

And what you guys don't see is that by becoming rich, a part of the profit was made because of the circumstances. Profit is made with opportunities. And when you make profit, it's easier to get opportunities, because you're more powerful to act on them. It's a vicious loop that tend to transfer wealth toward the top. The poorer you are, the less opportunities you have, the less you can accumulate wealth because you're not competitive. Rich people don't understand that, because they see plenty of opportunities and simply think that people are too lazy to seize them. No, they're poor and have nothing to seize. Everyday is the same shitty day, with no chances of having something better. And when they see something, even if it's crazy, they are willing to risk everything to seize that only opportunity in the last 5 years.

You wonder why Mexicans try to immigrate to USA illegally? Because even if they're illegal, even if they risk prison or death, it's the ONLY opportunity they have in their life to make it better. In their shitty country, they stay in shit and can't evolve.

You understand that as an illegal in the US, they are essentially at the lowest rung on the totem pole? They have more opportunities, not because they have more money here (most come with little more than the shirts on their backs) but because the society is so much freer. Opportunity is a function of the society, not of personal wealth. In an AnCap society, everyone would have the same opportunities, from the poorest immigrant to the wealthiest socialite. Admittedly, it would be easier for Bruce Wayne to start up a business than it would be for, say, Peter Parker, but the opportunity is still there. In fact, removing the various barriers to entry makes startups much easier to achieve for the poorest members of society.

Let's take child care as an example. I'm not aware of the various restrictions in place for entry into the marketplace as a caregiver in Canada, for that public daycare system, But I'm sure there's some licensing requirement or another. In a completely free market, there would be no such requirement. The barrier to entry would be as low as telling her friends, "Hey, I have free time, and I love kids. I can watch yours, if you like." And she's in business. America is full of success stories almost identical to that one, where people have started doing something in their garage, and end up a major concern. And even if she doesn't end up owning a chain of daycare centers all across the country, she's still making a living where before, she was just taking care of kids.

The goal of socialism, the objective of taxing rich people and take their wealth is to bring it back to the bottom of the pyramid, and forcefully finances opportunities for poor people. Wealth is only a representation of how great opportunities have been seized by you or your entourage. If you're so skilled at making money, I don't see the fuss of being taxed. You're skilled anyway, you'll make it back.

I'm going to be straight with you. I will probably benefit from all this craziness. Doesn't mean that I like the idea. Wealth is not a representation of the opportunities you've grabbed, but a representation of how much effort you've put into exploiting those opportunities.

As for the rest of your arguments, I don't want really to argue anymore, because it's becoming a loop. I think the left way is better, you think the right way is better
I'll only conclude by this:
If you make a social-democracy, you need a strong watch dog to keep the system efficient. It's too easy to fall into the "it's raining money" and waste everything. Look at what Greece is now.
If you go with AnCap, you need a basic system that extract regularly money from the free market to give a chance to newcomers in the market to join in. I think USA is really screwing themselves over right now. Just look at the wealth transfer from the last 20 years. You're going right for the wall if that continues.

I'll add that this is nice arguing with you myrkul. Too many times, people fall into fallacies to "prove" that their ego is right. I had to rethink many times about my own arguments with what you said. 

I agree that the US is royally screwing ourselves, but I don't think we agree on exactly how. If you're willing to continue discussing this, I'd be glad to, It's nice to have a polite debate partner that actually reads what I type for a change.

[myrkul]

What you (and apparently Obama) don't see is that by becoming rich (unless those gains were stolen), that person has already contributed to society. You look only at the bank account, and don't see what got that money there. Profit is nothing more, and nothing less, than the result of providing a needed good or service to the society.

I want to be absolutely clear, here:

The vast majority of the modern wealthy did not get that way honestly. Back-room political deals, buying politicians or lobbyists, Banking scams, and Ponzi schemes, corporate bailouts... the list goes on. These are not the people I am talking about. Dishonest gains need to go back to the people they were stolen from. That's not to say I advocate taxation, but restitution should be made.

[Bjork]

I didn't read through all of this thread but I will comment anyways.

An ideal society IMO would look similar to one as laid out my Marx:

1. "Free" education to all
2. "Free" healthcare
3. aggressively scaling income tax
4. abolished inheritance
5. everyone who is able, is obligated to work

Greed and "hoarding" of resources is a direct symptom of capitalism.  Even the wealthy are constantly worried about their children's future etc. and this gives them motivation to amass much more wealth than they "need".  Ideally, a socialist society eliminates this mentality of needing to hoard for the future by
(1) getting rid of inheritance
(2) supplying the "necessities" (healthcare/education)

and thus there is no need to "worry" about the future, and no need to take more than you need.  People who are talented would be able to become "wealthier" than others, but their money/property will last only one generation before being returned to the state/society.  Again, there is no motivation to hoard resources/money in a society such as this and thus corruption/greed should be largely reduced.

[myrkul]

I didn't read through all of this thread but I will comment anyways.

An ideal society IMO would look similar to one as laid out my Marx:

1. "Free" education to all
2. "Free" healthcare
3. aggressively scaling income tax
4. abolished inheritance
5. everyone who is able, is obligated to work

Soviet Russia, then.

Yeah... That doesn't work. It's been tried, it failed miserably, taking way too many people with it. Communism kills people.

[asdf]

I didn't read through all of this thread but I will comment anyways.

An ideal society IMO would look similar to one as laid out my Marx:

1. "Free" education to all
2. "Free" healthcare
3. aggressively scaling income tax
4. abolished inheritance
5. everyone who is able, is obligated to work

Soviet Russia, then.

Yeah... That doesn't work. It's been tried, it failed miserably, taking way too many people with it. Communism kills people.

Yeah, if you think Communism works, what did Soviet Russia do wrong exactly?

Fundamentally, if you take away property rights and the incentive to produce, you get poverty. That's why collectivism always fails.

[Bjork]

Soviet Russia, then.

Yeah... That doesn't work. It's been tried, it failed miserably, taking way too many people with it. Communism kills people.

There are many reasons why the Soviet Union fell, none of which matter.  I'm not interested in addressing ad hominems but, if you like, I would be glad to debate the philosophy

[myrkul]

Soviet Russia, then.

Yeah... That doesn't work. It's been tried, it failed miserably, taking way too many people with it. Communism kills people.

There are many reasons why the Soviet Union fell, none of which matter.  I'm not interested in addressing ad hominems but, if you like, I would be glad to debate the philosophy

And what, pray tell, were those reasons, that don't matter?

[Bjork]

And what, pray tell, were those reasons, that don't matter?

 I would be glad to debate the philosophy

Discussing a failed state is uninteresting and is simply a "cheap-shot", if you will.  There are plenty of capitalist states that have failed, yet this in no way proves "anything" about capitalism.

[myrkul]

And what, pray tell, were those reasons, that don't matter?

I would be glad to debate the philosophy

Discussing a failed state is uninteresting and is simply a "cheap-shot", if you will.  There are plenty of capitalist states that have failed, yet this in no way proves "anything" about capitalism.

You are stating that communism was not the cause of the fall of the Soviet Union. I say it was. That makes the discussion about why USSR fell quite relevant. If you can present causes, unrelated to communism, that it fell, then I will be willing to entertain the notion that your philosophy might not result in the death of many of the citizens of any State unwise enough to try and enact it. You'll have to convince me, of course, but I'll at least not laugh in your face when you start to try.

[nedbert9]

And what, pray tell, were those reasons, that don't matter?

 I would be glad to debate the philosophy

Discussing a failed state is uninteresting and is simply a "cheap-shot", if you will.  There are plenty of capitalist states that have failed, yet this in no way proves "anything" about capitalism.

Yep.  Many historians agree that the USSR failed largely due to the massive corruption present in the central government.  USSR was an exercise in poorly practiced socialism.

Not to say socialism alone is good.  Though, IMO, a society lacking any pro social policy would not be a successful one.


I strongly disagree with Marx's idea that inheritance should be abolished.  IMO, one of the things that makes the working class so weak is the fact that debt-based consumerism extracts their wealth and there is nothing left for their children to inherit.  I do not believe that each working class generation starting over from scratch results in a healthy society.

[asdf]

I didn't read through all of this thread but I will comment anyways.

An ideal society IMO would look similar to one as laid out my Marx:

1. "Free" education to all
2. "Free" healthcare
3. aggressively scaling income tax
4. abolished inheritance
5. everyone who is able, is obligated to work

Greed and "hoarding" of resources is a direct symptom of capitalism.  Even the wealthy are constantly worried about their children's future etc. and this gives them motivation to amass much more wealth than they "need".  Ideally, a socialist society eliminates this mentality of needing to hoard for the future by
(1) getting rid of inheritance
(2) supplying the "necessities" (healthcare/education)

and thus there is no need to "worry" about the future, and no need to take more than you need.  People who are talented would be able to become "wealthier" than others, but their money/property will last only one generation before being returned to the state/society.  Again, there is no motivation to hoard resources/money in a society such as this and thus corruption/greed should be largely reduced.

(3) supplying food. Otherwise the poor will starve.

[Coreadrin_47]

I didn't read through all of this thread but I will comment anyways.

An ideal society IMO would look similar to one as laid out my Marx:

1. "Free" education to all
2. "Free" healthcare
3. aggressively scaling income tax
4. abolished inheritance
5. everyone who is able, is obligated to work

Greed and "hoarding" of resources is a direct symptom of capitalism.  Even the wealthy are constantly worried about their children's future etc. and this gives them motivation to amass much more wealth than they "need".  Ideally, a socialist society eliminates this mentality of needing to hoard for the future by
(1) getting rid of inheritance
(2) supplying the "necessities" (healthcare/education)

and thus there is no need to "worry" about the future, and no need to take more than you need.  People who are talented would be able to become "wealthier" than others, but their money/property will last only one generation before being returned to the state/society.  Again, there is no motivation to hoard resources/money in a society such as this and thus corruption/greed should be largely reduced.

(3) supplying food. Otherwise the poor will starve.

Sounds like a whole lotta slavery, to me...

Also, the assumption that the state - an entity with no accountability whatsoever and whose entire existence is predicated upon the fact that it will shoot in the face if you decide you don't like its mandates - and society are somehow homogenous, is entirely flawed.