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Dogen
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 9278
Location: Bellingham, WA
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 Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 8:56 am Post subject: |
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| Dark Archon wrote: | | Laissez faire not about having or social care, it's about freedom of buisness and separaion of it from the goverment. In that ways, Scandinavian countries are more free than US. That is keep them floating. |
Laissez faire is far more drastic than that. It means no government regulation on industry, and the only things protected are property rights. I'm still curious about how these countries are more free than the US. I found the Heritage Foundation economic report that you seem to have gotten the info from, but for the life of me I can't find definition for things like "fiscal freedom" anywhere. How do they define these terms, do you know?
| Quote: | | Dogen wrote: |
No. Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland and Australia are nothing like the US was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Nothing at all. This is simply, blatantly false.
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They are totally free market countries, too. |
No, they really aren't. To be "totally free" would mean to have no insurance laws, no employment protections, no discrimination laws, no minimum wage, no restriction on the number of hours an employee can work, no restrictions against child labor, no safety regulations... none of them are totally free. From wikipedia:
| Quote: | | Laissez-faire is an economic environment in which transactions between private parties are free from tariffs, government subsidies, and enforced monopolies, with only enough government regulations sufficient to protect property rights against theft and aggression. The phrase laissez-faire is French and literally means "let [them] do", but it broadly implies "let it be", or "leave it alone." A laissez-faire state and completely free market has never existed, though the degree of government regulation varies considerably. |
It's odd that you said a laissez faire state has never existed, but now you're saying these countries are "totally free."
| Quote: | | Dogen wrote: |
Yes. Having a relatively free market that's regulated by a strong central government, with a variety of social safety nets and guaranteed services, promotes health and happiness. Hence, Ayn Rand is wrong and so is utopian communism (as the two extremes). |
I agree with that. It's only shame that social safety destroys foundation on which it standing.
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/5616.aspx and links in there.
...and we can move our economical argue up there. |
There's a lot of information there. I did read a couple of interesting papers on Sweden. Did you have anything specific to say about the info there?
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman |
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mouse
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 15441
Location: under the bed
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| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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Dark Archon: your propaganda posters are not showing for me, so i can only comment on the captions you have provided.
one thing i should ask is what vintage the posters are. "Liberating the Western Ukraine and Belarus is your sacred duty" looks to be a 1930's-40's poster, which suggests they they are talking about liberating those countries from the germans. but still, doing something because it is your "sacred duty" is not altruistic - one presumes there will be at least a spiritual reward to you for doing it.
many of the others also seem to be wartime things - so, for example, "be alert!" to enemy spying or sabotage is to your benefit, because you will hopefully reduce the chances of an enemy attack that could kill you.
but really, i think you need to understand the definition of altruism. the dictionary definistion ShadowCell gives is correct, but it does not perhaps sufficiently stress that a truly altruistic action has NO benefit for the actor. an action that benefits others, BUT ALSO YOU, is not truly altruistic.
so: if i argue that the government should provide free healthcare for all citizens, that's not really altruistic, because i (as a citizen) will also get free healthcare. if i argue that the government should provide free healthcare for all unemployed people, that's getting towards altruism, but there is always a chance that i will become unemployed. to be truly altruistic, i would need to argue that the government should provide free healthcare for some category i can never possibly be a member of - immigrants, say.
| Dark Archon wrote: | | ShadowCell wrote: |
seeing as how that was in the middle of a war against an enemy that had literally genocidal intentions, that's not a very good example. |
Yeah, many were fighting for their lives. But there were many of those, who were willing to sacrifice themselves. Not on an order - they does it on their own will. Matrosov is the trope codifier there. |
which means all americans (including canadians) who volunteered in world war II were acting altruistically (the americas were in only minimal danger of invasion by germany or japan, had could probably have survived without trade outside the continent). even the citizens who bought war bonds (at the government's urging) were acting altruistically. and yet - neither the u.s. nor canada became totalitarian states. so it seems that it is possible for governments to call on their citizens to act altruistically without turning into soviet russia.
so we're back to "maybe russia is historically different". russia has now had 4 (by your count) governmental systems: totalitarian monarchy, constitutional monarchy, communism, and now free market democracy. you are the expert - how much of a difference has there been in the lives of the average citizen under those governments? how much of a difference for anyone who disagreed with the government?
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