Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

[richardhutnik]

HappySqurriel said:

richardhutnik said:

The "free market" (put it in quotes because it is a mythical thing humans can't seem to really manifest outside of a black market situation), has a number of issues that don't get resolved, resulting in situations where other forms of human interaction need to take the place of.  Individuals who believe only in free markets as an answer to everything, don't account for things that even conservatives would agree to.  Here is some:

* Situations where there is a free rider problem.  In cases where there is something like national defense that automatically benefits everyone, to say you will have a voluntary system where people pay to get it or don't get it if you don't, generally won't work here.  Another example of a free rider problem is basic scientific research, or other intellectual property development.  Usually, corporations will try to offload the basic research that is needed for breakthroughs on others, in order to then capitalize on such later.  Have others pay for the costs and then jump on it.   This is a reason for the creation also of artificial monoplies in the form of copyrights and patents, because if an idea that cost a lot of money to develop could just then be copied, less people would develop said intellectual properties.

* Charity and welfare for the poor and caring for the underclass.  Yes, it is true that markets produce opportunities.  It is also true that there is a principle of a good business to fire customers.  End result, you can have a class of people where it isn't profitable to look after them.  It would actually end up being more beneficial for such individuals to just die.  However, if one has other values, like concern for humanity, and desire for benevolence, then you end up engaging in charity.  The free market will fail to take care of these issues, but it doesn't mean that individuals who practice charity won't be able to do this.  You can throw in other forms of charity also and the arts, where such have value beyond that of money, and you can't put a price on something.

* Negative externalities where individuals and companies can create problems and not get caught.  Throw in crime here, and also polution.  In cases where the net effects are costs, rather than profit, a free market situation will end up not addressing the issue.  Societies have court systems to try to put a cost on negative externalities which would normally go ignored.  You would need the court systems to insure personal property rights are protected also.  And also, you can get to the case of where not everything should be private property (see the next point).

* It is debatable whether or not every single thing should be privately owned.  In cases where natural geography would produce a monopoly on roads, for example, privatizing roads wouldn't be in the best interest of a community.   Would a society end up saying court systems, for example, should be run be privately owned, or you have a case of New Detroit from Robocop, where you buy shares in a city in order to vote?  Of course, a person's political persuasion will determine how much should be privately owned, verses owned or run by the government.

I think you're taking things to an extreme level far beyond what anyone would suggest ...

With that said, some public goods are best provided by the government and, being that everyone sees benefit from these programs, revenue to pay for these services should come from a very broad and equitable tax. Examples of services like this are security and defense, and emergency services and income tax, property tax, or a VAT/GST are appropriate taxes for these services.

Beyond that, most services that are provided by the government should be eliminated, privatized or paid for through direct or indirect user fees. For example, gasoline taxes are the best approach for paying for transportation infastructure because the amount of fuel the typical passenger vehicle uses is directly proportional to the amount of infastructure they use.

What I did was lay out some criterion by which the free market isn't a solution.  However, you will find individuals, in the anarchy-leaning Libertarian camp who will actually go and argue that almost nothing should be done by government at all, and that government causes all the problems.  I actually in what I wrote would be up running some counterpoints to some of the talk, particularly in the Tea Party side, that comes up during pro-GOP talking points.

Well, it is good if what I said would be such that few would disagree.  However, I would be curious to see those argue for no government, argue effectively against what I wrote. 

A thing about government is that it is something that people like to rail against, and think they got others agreeing with their railing.  However, when you get down to details, you will find much debate over what should or shouldn't be in the realm of government.