blaen99

iTrader: (6)

Yeah, some of the sites labels are just funny.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

welcome commrades.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

I think being to the left of the mean basically says you believe in some regulation and that corporations (and individuals) cannot be trusted to totally self-regulate...

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

They allude that left/right on this spectrum is ecomonic.

Therefore, those plotting left are more likely to believe that the government should control of a country’s economy.

And totalitarian and libertarian is pretty self explainitory, where those plotting north would be more likely to believe that the state may dispose of a person in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own collective good.


At least it's safe to say, while most of us disagree on how the economy should be handled, we all love freedom.


So:
---dictatorship
statism + capitalism
----freedom

y8s

iTrader: (8)

that's a reasonable assessment.

I have no problems with rich people. I want to be one. I also want a decent minimum standard provided for the masses. though that is not to say I want to enable laziness!

also I love my freedom.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists.

miatauser884

iTrader: (11)

Agree, I wonder how close we were on the chart?

Brain's breakdown made sense. I'm on the left ----> I believe there is a large portion of the population that are stupid, and would therefore make stupid decisions. They need some oversight.

We could harvest prisoners and homeless people for their organs. Thus easing the financial burden on taxpayers, helping the unemployment ratio, and saving lives while taking lives.
Where does that fall on the sheet? lol

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

I agree with y8s here.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

my standards are pretty high. i wouldn't associate with you people in real life.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

I disagree with "providing a decent minimum standard". When the "de-facto minimum government standard of living" is higher than or equal to "bob's standard of living", then the government will always end up financing 100% of the government's standard for bob, and bob then has the ability to make "poor" choices with his money.

If, on the other hand, bob has to earn his shtity standard of living, then he is forced to make "good" choices (or face death), and he is only allowed to make "poor choices" with money above his standard of living. If bob's self-defined "standard of living" is that he lives in a mobile home while sharing the costs with 20 other people, then who are we to tell him he has to have more?

Once a government is no longer willing to allow it's citizens to die, that government becomes hostage to those citizens.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Much like all bourbon is whisky but not all whisky is bourbon?

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Decriminalization/regulation will be on the ballot here in CO this November, but I don't believe for a second it will pass.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1305217.html



Oh, and what up 3rd quadrant peeps. Holla.

JasonC SBB

There is no such thing as "self-regulation".
There IS such a thing as "market-based regulation", which is usually better than monopoly gov't regulation.

In fact, there is MORE market-based regulation that occurs around you, than gov't regulation, you are just not aware of it.

For example, insurance companies provide a regulation mechanism because it is in their financial interest that you (or the company they insure), don't engage in reckless behavior. You try not to hit a lot of things with your car because your insurance rates will go up.

If Lloyd's of London insure a lot of say, small old farts' homes, they will likely come up with a bunch of regulations their clients have to follow, and may have an inspector who goes around to enforce compliance. Non-compliance may mean higher premiums or being dropped. Here you then have the push and pull of the clients and the insurers, and it's in their mutual interest to come up with low cost rules that improve safety.

In fact, this is EXACTLY what United Laboratories did. In the early 1900s they insured a bunch of electrical gizmo manufacturers and got them to get together to come up with and follow a bunch of design rules to improve safety. Today when I design say, a laptop charger, *I* have to follow industry standards which are actually UL rules so the laptop charger doesn't burn a user's house down or electrocute someone.

Additionally it is in my (and corporations') interests to NOT attract a lawsuit, negative publicity, and LOSE customers.

When was the last time you heard of a cellphone or laptop electrocuting its user?

And, there are non-gov't certification agencies that independently test products using standard tests for Safety. Among them are VDE, ISO, TUV, etc. They test everything from oven tops to aftermarket wheels to scuba gear.

The big difference between these safety and certification agencies, and gov't regulation, is competition. If a private agency turns corrupt, they will lose their reputation and lose customers. In the case of gov't monopoly agencies, corruption will not make them lose customers. And with a gov't-granted monopoly, the lobbyists have a single, easy target...

JasonC SBB

The implicit assumption there is that absent gov't "minimum standards for the masses", that the masses' standard of living will not be decent. The counterpoint to this is that the free market makes things more affordable for the masses due to competition between producers. Also, the productivity of said masses goes up (it is in the interest of employers to do so), thus driving up the value of their labor.

blaen99

iTrader: (6)

How about a cell or laptop battery blowing up, Jason?

JasonC SBB

"Liberal" in that context is "market liberal" or akin to "classical liberal".

The original meaning of the word liberal, before 1900, was to be against the existing monarchic order, which was also very market interventionist.

The meaning of liberal became "socialist" in the USA and in Europe became "pro labor".

"Classical liberals" are closest to today's libertarians.

JasonC SBB

To me utopia means an "ideal" society by means of top-down, regimented control. This is anathema to individual freedom. With that definition I don't want a "utopia".

The converse isn't necessarily true, that centralization of power is better for the masses. E.g. Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Sung Il. I argue the de-centralization doesn't mean more despotism. De-centralization is more likely to allow the people more control over their "leaders". It also allows more competition between say, States, so that people can vote with their feet.

See Switzerland. Or the US Constitution.

The same USSR committed suicide without a whimper.

Or the Estonian "Singing Revolution", or the Philippine "People Power", or the recent Arab Spring.

The USA was arguably less Corporatist in the early 20th Century (outside of Prohibition), precisely because of less centralized economic control.

A common implicit assumption is that more centralized power produces better leaders. The opposite is probably true because the worst characters rise to power (see Chapter 10 of Hayek's Road to Serfdom.)


Exactly, but this is why more centralized power is worse.

What do you think the mob in Washington DC is virtually doing? They raid dispensaries in CA, and take your money in order to bomb brown people, give it to "green" corporations, "for your own good" (and enrich their cronies in the process).

I suggest reading the free pdf of "Machinery of Freedom" if you want to open your mind. Shuiend sent it to me and it opened mine.

JasonC SBB

Since you're better at the following, can you show graphs showing the above going back several years or decades, and also the graph I showed, with the same time frame?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

So, the answer is to "deregulate" government the same way we deregulated the phone company, and allow multiple, smaller governments to compete for our tax dollars?


I'm still having trouble deciding whether you believe that it is actually possible for

• The central government of a large and "economically mature" nation such as the US to be, in essence, dismantled and have most of its powers distributed amongst its constituent states,
  
• In a manner which does not severely disrupt the economy and degrade the well-being of its citizens,
  
• Or lead to civil war between the states,
  
• Or result in an end-state configuration which resembles feudalism, or tribal warlord-ism, or any other condition which is less desirable than its prior condition, and
  
• Results in a stable collection of local governments which are able to enjoy trade and commerce, both intra-nationally and inter-nationally, at a level no less satisfactory than before.

Or if we're just speaking in abstract hypotheticals.



It's impossible to speak predicatively in absolute terms based on historical precedent, as there have been relatively few "supernations" in the history of man, and it's fairly rare for large, federated nations to undergo radical shifts in their mechanism of government of any kind.



You noted that "The same USSR committed suicide without a whimper," and yes, that's true. It took them 70 years to get through the whole process of "kill the royal family, then have a revolution, then have civil war, then have a totalitarian government with lots of purges and forced-labor camps and materials shortages" only to finally settle into in an end-state configuration which strongly resembles that of the present-day US, which according to most of what you have stated, is not a desirable structure.



There are some parallels to present-day Europe, where for the past several generations, the overall trend has been for independent states to voluntarily seek admission INTO the EU/EMU, thus giving up some measure of sovereignty and autonomy in exchange for the perceived benefits of participation in what has become a de-facto Federal government. So the trend there, on average, is to become more like the present-day US from a standpoint of economic and monetary policy.




Rome has been mentioned, and that's a tricky one for several reasons, not the least of which is that the fundamental concept of government "for the people" didn't really exist at the time. The Roman Empire also tended to grow by conquest, rather than by voluntary confederation (eg, the consent of the governed.)

What is interesting is that Rome did, in fact, implement a policy of "de-centralization" similar to what you seem to espouse. In response to the Crisis of the Third Century (which was essentially a period of minor foreign wars, inflation, economic depression and a banking system collapse, just as the US has experienced in recent decades), the Emperor Diocletian declared that the empire was essentially too large to effectively manage under a single, central government (sound familiar?) Thus, between 285-293 AD, he divided the government into four regional branches (the Tetrarchy), which were further subdivided into twelve dioceses (states) which were granted local authority over tax collection, law enforcement and judicial administration, and so on.

The immediate effects of this reorganization were indeed favorable, though short-lived. By 306, a 20 year period of civil war and infighting over succession began, after which Constantine essentially declared himself Supreme Leader of all of Rome, thus ushering in a 50 year era of totalitarian rule characterized by mass exiles, internal military conflict, and the eventual collapse of the ENTIRE western empire.

And that's how the Dark Ages began.

devin mac

iTrader: (2)

i want to have joe's babies