Why socialism is bad

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No, because a capitalist will never wish to destroy a good that they could sell. Even if the large supply made prices low, it is still better to sell at a low price than to destroy and earn nothing.


Well, here I run into a bit of conflict because my ideology is partway in between Austrian and Chicago schools of thought. Austrians would either claim that this doesn't happen or that it would not harm the consumer in a free market economy; Chicago school would favor some government intervention to prevent the most flagrant abuses and obvious anti-competitive behavior. Right now I would somewhat uneasily offer the Chicago answer for this situation, but Austrianism kind of grows on you, and their arguments on this topic (stated better on mises.org than I could express them) can be rather convincing.


Would you prefer instead to simply leave them in even worse conditions? Admittedly, they do not work under good conditions or receive what many would consider decent compensation, but they would be even worse off if even those miserable jobs were not available. All voluntary economic transactions are to the benefit of both parties. There are always growing pains when an economy is developing, and there will be deplorable conditions and a lot of suffering- but that was generally there before, otherwise they would have no incentive to permit such developments. Now the suffering is accompanied by the hope of a better future for the area.

While I can't expect you to find it convincing I know from personal experience that supermarkets destroy goods that they could sell (perishable but not expired) in order to protect their margins and that razor blade manufacturers are permanently on the lookout for metals ever flimsier materials to make blades out of. Of course similarly I can't accept that there are "good reasons" why it is in my interests to constantly need to replace my blades and suffer numerous cuts in the process, while food is destroyed in the same place people go hungry.

THe point about child labour goes back to an earlier asserion that I made, in that there is an inverse corrollation between profit and morality. Sadly I believe humans are so hopelessly amoral and selfish on the whole that suffering of this kind could only be eliminated with the most absolutely ruthless totalitarianism, and I would never trust a human with that level of power. My own response is to try to salve my conscience of this abuse with charitable donations rather than to try and get "clean" produce but I'm just one man on the poverty line so I can't do much.

I will defer to your expertise in the area of razor blades, as that seems a favorite topic of yours. I personally have been using the same razor for over a year with no trouble. But I offered the Chicago remedy for that issue: let there be government interference to discourage such activity. I doubt your claims as to the food. They can't ever profit by destroying their own goods. Theoretically, they could benefit form destroying their competitor's goods to tighten up supply, but there are too many risks involved in that for it to be economical. Some food destruction is promoted by collective agreement, and again, Chicago school would desire a crackdown on that behavior. If that's your only objection to capitalism, it has been dealt with.

Child labor sucks. I won't deny that. But the best way to lift these third world countries out of poverty is by promoting economic growth. Wealth-redistribution schemes don't work out very well in practice, regardless of who's in charge. By confiscating one man's wealth to give to another, the first will no longer try to produce more than the bare minimum. Thus, economic slowdown, less production, and now the resources to provide for everyone are simply not available to society, regardless of any pattern of distribution.

All I'm gonna say here is that I don't support communism or capitalism.

I'll point out here that I don't really consider the US system to be a very good example of capitalism, rather we are a "mixed" economy with lots of corporatism, which I view as pretty bad. Plus a lot of Keynesian and Marxian economic ideas are held by our policymakers, which can't be helping matters any.

OK. We have high taxes. And the Social Democrats are very popular. That's what fooled me, I guess.

The only thing I've ever heard from people in countries with socialized healthcare is how great it is, and condolences that americans can't afford healthcare.

I think I could find more than a few that would disagree with that statement. For example, the UK's NIH disallows people who are willing to pay for more healthcare to receive it (
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/02/ ... html#links). We've also heard those horror stories of Canadians and citizens of other countries w/ national health care waiting months for some treatment (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9659C8B63) that happens in a week in the U.S. Considering basic economics (if you give something away for "free" it will be consumed more), the fact that the marginal benefit of medicine is really zero, and that health care is probably more about "showing you care" than actual health care (http://hanson.gmu.edu/showcare.pdf), I'm not sure that national health care is really all that it is cracked up to be.

socialism is bad because it grants the government too much power and removes the individual's rights and power.

the socialist programs like free healthcare sound nice but aren't very pragmatic and don't work in practice...just ask the UK or canada.



i mean if you want to look at it with non-biased eyes, health insurance is entirely socialistic just done by private industry rather than a government entity and they have such high rates because people abuse it. if you stopped the abuse, private health insurance would be way more effective than any government subsidized program and, really, i think that's pretty much what we all want is just that healthcare.


so to all of you who have health insurance: quit going to the doctor for every single minor problem!! you're messing it up for the rest of us you jerks!! !

I'm sure you could, but I could counter with stories from the 40 million americans who lack health care coverage and can't afford treatment no matter how long they're willing to wait. I'd rather wait six months for a hip replacement than to not have the procedure at all.

It's not because of abuse...it's because insurance providers are just businesses. They look for any way to increase profits and minimize expenditures. The easiest way for an insurance company to minimize expenditures is to deny claims and not take people who have expensive/chronic conditions on the rolls.

pre-existing conditions can be a b***h.

As Mankiw notes in an article on the NY Times, 40 million is an overstatement as millions of those individuals either would not qualify for a national healthcare plan, or already can get healthcare but just haven't.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/business/04view.html

Not only that, but your argument is simply an argument on the distribution of resources rather than the efficacy of healthcare, and frankly, distribution of resources is a problem easily and better solved by moving money around rather than screwing up a health care system, as there are things such as vouchers and stuff like that.

Nonetheless I'm in a situation where I'm essentially uninsurable by anyone but the government.

I also wouldn't call NHC screwing up the system, considering the vast majority of people in countries that have NHC are satisfied with it and have strongly opposed measures to diminish it in any way. I'm not sure how you can screw up the US system, where healthcare expenditures are the highest in the world on an individual and per-capita basis and yet leaves vast numbers of people uninsured or financially ruined by hospital bills.

Well, you used the unequal distribution of services as a rebuttal to poor services provided by a certain system. However, it seems to me that the US actually provides better health care: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2007/11/ ... -sick.html Frankly, I agree with you that the US system is screwed up, but I think that is because of the fact that company provided insurance is not taxed, which leads to it being overprovided and ultimately insulates Americans from costs which leads to overuse of health services, which as already pointed out, in many cases have 0 marginal benefit.

I don't think those are terribly convincing numbers for the point you're trying to make. It seems to me that chart illustrates that life expectancies fall within a relatively narrow range for 1st world countries.

As for where I would rather be sick, I would weigh the quality of treatment versus the cost of the treatment. It's no good to be sick in a place that has great healthcare you can't afford, or in a place where healthcare is affordable but poor quality. I would lean towards affordable because frankly most medical care is just routine...there's no point in paying $150 just to get antibiotics.