The markets are responding well to the EU&IMF stability package, and Greece has accepted the IMF's position that it'll need to make big cuts before it gets help (which is pretty similar to what happened in Britain in the 70s)

Meanwhile here in Australia several mining companies have suspended multi-million dollar projects because of a proposed new tax aimed at mining companies during these mineral-fueled boom-times, after the new government plunged us from surplus to large deficit (for defensible reasons though)

Personally I think government is a double-edged sword at best and a necessary evil at worse. It does some very stupid things at the same time as it does necessary things that only government seems to be able to do

My 2c anyway

Can u believe that Germany paid that much money to them??

"Personally I think government is a double-edged sword at best and a necessary evil at worse. It does some very stupid things at the same time as it does necessary things that only government seems to be able to do"

With the exclusion of judiciary, policing and defense, what are these things?

Education, social welfare, health, pensions, building and maintenance of infrastructure, protection of culture and language...

Education is a States rights issue, KoBorg. The only thing the feds have to do with it is the ability to withdraw federal funding if a school system isn't keeping up. But the states decide what will be taught and have their own funding as well.

@ LJ, I agreed with you on Tito. China only completely cut off Soviet aid in the 50's, leaving a large while of Soviet help, even know people can see what token help can do for a country. India's industrialisation started approx 50-75 years after Europe and America. Therefore India should be somewhere in around the level near the Great Depression (I'm not saying they should be in one, but at the same level in terms of legislation, industrialisation, etc).

As for failed Communist states, I mentioned my reasons for why they failed, but I'll summarise them again:
1. Lenin deviated much from Marxist theory
2. The Russian Civil war and invasion by 14 countries
3. Stalin being a totalitarian
4. Most other revolutions afterwards were in some way influenced or supported by the USSR (as for Maoism, most Marxists call it Fascism, as it is claimed as a derivative of Stalinism, an obvious candidate for The Worst Place to Live award)

Cuba did run for Soviet help, and therefore to appeal to their benefactors, they would have modeled themselves after the USSR. And again Marxists don't like the Cuban revolution, as they (and I) believe it was more of a civil war/insurgency than a popular uprising.

@ Tantris, I second your point (except I don't think Europe is Socialist)

@ The Ghostmaker, I'm guessing from your previous point you are a market anarchist. If I'm wrong then correct me. However, for you quote and your point, the government does a good job with health care and education, something that I believe is one of the few things that should NEVER go into private hands, while government schools may not have the best infrastructure, they have good teachers and it is possible for anyone to go, even for free. Contrast this with private schools where even a 50% scholarship can cost up to $14,000 a year.

P.S. Do many right-wing Americans believe Australia and many European countries are Socialist? Because those countries have public health care, guaranteeing that everyone can see at least a basic doctor. But I dislike Obama as much as you do, but for different reasons.

Countries aren't divided between socialist and not-socialist. Instead, some countries are more socialist than others, having larger taxes and (ideally at least) providing more basic rights using tax funding (for instance free college and cheap food and quarters for students).

@Drag:
"Education is a States rights issue" - things on the state level can be socialist aswell...

the state's government can mess thigns up just as easily as on the federal level.

When i talk about Ireland it is more like a state in the US (in terms of overall size) or a state within the EU, though all EU members are sovereign nations with the ability to withdraw their pooled sovereignty...

Still 'Education, social welfare, health, pensions, building and maintenance of infrastructure, protection of culture and language' in state hands instead of federal is still government.

Yeah, I realized after I posted that the comment was government, not federal. States are still run by governments so my bad.

I guess we could have some places like...Alabama or Mississippi to just stop having public schools. Would be a scary trend if it happened.

I'm not a market anarchist: I explicitly said "With the exclusion of judiciary, policing and defense..."

Healthcare is an old one I don't really want to go into, but I think a genuine free market would be the best option.

Education: in the UK private schools take less money per student than state schools, and offer greater levels of improvement. Even in the slums of India there are private schools outstripping state schools by a country mile.

I'm an Englishman and believe that England is, to a great extent, a socialist country.

Jesus Christ I give. I'm done arguing with people who can't see the obvious.

We can all see the obvious....it just appears to not be the same obvious that you see.

@Draugnar - you could argue that states should run education like a business, taxing their population and only allowing residents free education (encouraging migration to allow better education services depending on state - or encouraging the wealthy to send their kids to state-run educational institutions which they then have to support financially) - but i don't think that sort of state Vs state competition works out particularily well for either the state or the serviced...

@ LTD: it is obvious that the government of Greece didn't do a particularily good job of minding their economy, it is further obvious that they had some social spending (maybe more than the US) It is not obvious that if they followed a pure free market strategy that they wouldn't have had a financial collapse - threatening access to those same services...

I'm glad the things which are so obvious to you are not clear enough that you can explain them to anyone else.

@Draug, what i meant to say is - there may be a better scale for education than a federal one. I can see no reason why a specific national or global schooling system would be any better than individual local state-run schooling...

It has been shown that individuals who do not get any education (which amounts to stimulation of the mind) have poorer IQs, which means poor people who cna't afford to pay for expensive education also tend to be poor adults who have more difficulty using the grey matter to improve their situation - this seems like an injustice to me, and likely to encourage a underclass of poorly educated people who are not equiped with the same tools to 'live the american dream' as others (read: be successful by some measure)

@orathaic interestingly, some adoption studies have suggested that poor children, even if adopted at an early age by a wealthy family, do less well than wealthy children adopted by wealthy families at the same early age.

(Poor/wealthy child meaning one from a poor/wealthy family)


Disregarding that tangential note.

"It has been shown that individuals who do not get any education (which amounts to stimulation of the mind) have poorer IQs, which means poor people who cna't afford to pay for expensive education also tend to be poor adults who have more difficulty using the grey matter to improve their situation - this seems like an injustice to me, and likely to encourage a underclass of poorly educated people who are not equiped with the same tools to 'live the american dream' as others (read: be successful by some measure)"

It seems to me to be an injustice to say to a parent that they are not allowed to spend their money to benefit their child. How unnatural is that? If I am wealthy and successful, the first thing that I will aim to do is to improve the lot of my children with that money.

Nor is this at the expense of other children, because life isn't zero sum. This "underclass" of which you speak does actively benefit from the fact that my hypothetical children will likely innovate and improve in the economy.

@TGM:
I would imagine that malnutrition could play into mental growth, especially at very early ages.

As for you spending money to benefit your children, that is fine, but there should also be a publicly provided education system for others. That system should be paid for by everyone, as it is now. What some of those in the free market camp seem to wish is for there to be an overclass and an underclass. If we did not have public education, and private schools cost as much as they do now, there would be no way many people would ever get an education. Overall, that would be a great detriment to our society, though, it would lead to your children being well off, and in charge of things, until there was an uprising. Yeah, you can provide for your kids, and maybe that is what you want, for them to be some of the few that can actually read. Why not educate everyone, and let everyone attempt to innovate, rather than just the well-off kids?

When we look at policies, some of us look at how they affect our immediate family and children. Social Security should not exist, because *I* could do better with the money myself. Public education should not exist, because *I* could afford a private school. How about if we look at it from another direction? If Social Security did not exist, what would the people that depend on it now do, and would you be happy with that outcome? I guess for you, and many others, the answer is yes. I do not think that I would be happy with forcing millions of people that are unable to work into the streets. If public education didn't exist, I would have been fine. My family had enough money, but many of my friends wouldn't be. They are holding down very good jobs, but couldn't have done it without public education and scholarships, even while working full time. Losing some of them would be a detriment to our society.

"It seems to me to be an injustice to say to a parent that they are not allowed to spend their money to benefit their child. How unnatural is that?"

- i never said you shouldn't be allowed, just that the state should provide some minimal amount of education to every child - any educational institution which meets certain standards could be funded to the same amount per child (so you will be taxed, but some of that will go toward your child's education even if you choose to spend more)

is that fair?

The studies i've heard about were just twin studies from sweden where identical twins with different educations had their IQs compared, i'll see if i can find a reference...

@Tantris

The reason private education is so expensive is because its only customers are the wealthy. I cite again the private schools from the slums of India- they have different customers, and so are dirt cheap.

There are many ways of providing education to those who can't afford it. Charity (from people like yourself) to an extent, but also sponsorship. Education increases productivity, so having pay-later schemes would be very beneficial indeed, to all involved.

My stance is one, as you probably know now, of the property right, and I consider that issue. Taxation is so clearly theft-violence that I cannot permit it on the basis of public good. It also limits the ability of the taxed parents to pay for their child's education, among other things.

This is all before we start mentioning the shoddy quality of most state schools, of course...

@orathaic, no taxation is fair. It is all theft, and all grossly unfair. If I make something, it is not fair that someone calling himself the government should come along and say, "part of this is mine"

@TGM -"no taxation is fair. It is all theft" - I'm saddened that anyone can think that - what has become of what was society in Britain? Even the furthest right wing politician knows that somehow the nation has to pay for the armed forces and police force.

Plus think hard about that underclass you seem to wish to create - your barricades will have to be very large to keep them out as they get more and more desperate to provide for their children while the footballers etc etc get paid crazy money and bankers screw us all.

I don't want to create an underclass. That's just slander. Nor would one form, either.

I genuinely believe that people would voluntarily pay the government sufficient to run a military and police service, by lotteries, as one example, but also just by having businesses making donations via a voluntary 1% community service charge that their customers can decline to pay (just like a tip).

The use of violence, which taxation is, is to me immoral. If it truly is unavoidable, you should only be taxed to fund those things which we think you deserve to be shot for not funding.

@TGM
I think you should run for election and institute that. It would make Greece's failure peanuts by comparison. The minute the government did anything unpopular, funds would drop to 0, even if you got enough to maintain it in normal times, which I don't think you would. I probably wouldn't pay taxes, if it wasn't required. You would turn it into a public good, which can easily be taken care of. As long as most don't abuse it, it is ok, but...

@TGM: i think the free-rider problem in a communist country, (as many have stated in various places) is that if you personally don't want to work but the state will cover all your living costs then why would you work?

in a similar vein, in a system you suggest, if you don't have to pay taxes why would you? The same free-rider problem but fixed by forcing people to do something which society needs them to do. (in the communist case forcing them to work may be less useful than forcing them to pay taxes on whatever they choose to work at... i mean the capitalistic approach has proven more effective) - I would argue that you are not entitled to live freely in your country as a 'right' it is a privilidge which you can lose if you break the laws.

You are free to leave (and not have to pay any taxes) but while you choose to live their you are bound morally to obey those laws (made by representatives of the people, and our various systems of representative democracy mean those representatives embody the will of the people) By those laws it is not possible to steal anything from you because your will is that these things be taken away - in accordance with the laws of your nation.

Is that an acceptable moral argument?

"I don't want to create an underclass. That's just slander. Nor would one form, either." - yet what would naturally form from an anarchy would be a government, and this government may choose to naturally support education by taxing everyone.

Irony, reducto absurdum.

I can understand the arguments for payed education: If I want my children to prosper, I must work and be productive and then I will be able to pay for my children education. On the other hand, if education is free, then I don't need to work as much, or be productive, because my children will do OK.

But there are less fortunate. I barely managed to get through the free high-school and free college, working part time (on and off), and with a single (not working parent). And what really got us through (until my dad finally got work) is the social benefits we received... So I am grateful for my education and opportunity I was provided.

I suppose it could have worked similarly with private schools... But I don't know how. I don't have this experience. Perhaps someone could enlighten me?

@ Tantris

Lotteries remain successful.
Do you pay waiters and waitresses tips?

@orathaic

The "you are free to leave" argument fails, as Hume pointed out in his analogy of the ship.

""I don't want to create an underclass. That's just slander. Nor would one form, either." - yet what would naturally form from an anarchy would be a government, and this government may choose to naturally support education by taxing everyone. "

1. This makes very little sense- does it mean anything
2. I don't want anarchy. I want government police, government defense and government judiciary & prisons.

@KoBerg, the free market solution is to offer the social benefits to the child as a student loan, to be repaid when the child reaches working age.

@TGM: you said that 'an underclass would not form' - speaking of what would and wouldn't form, i think you agree that governments naturally form and that by my arguements they can't possibly steal from their people because theirs is the will of the people...

now the irony is that this arguement is completely absurd, I have destroyed my own arguement to pushing it to the extreme. (which is what irony means, but usually you intend to destroy someone elses arguement by demonstrating how absurd it is)

my sense is lost it seems. apolisgies.

As for you not being free to leave. I'm not familiar with hume's analogy, but there are other boats, or you can become a boat maker - even join with boat-makers who like your designs...

how about removing the nation-state entirely and having a series of coprpoations run everything - educational corporations are groups which you may voluntarily join - those corporations which require and educated population to work for them will support education as neccessary.

Why not?

@Orathaic

Why not have corporations run everything? because not everybody has MONEY to PAY - hence the idea of the liberal/welfare state. Before you knock that, I'd like to point to 1850's/1860's England - the most powerful nation in the world, operating as a liberal state with poor benefits, a rapidly growing school system, etc.

As well, Greece has had a LOT of problems with money - the European Union was a BIG issue, and they didn't adapt. Canada is what many people would call a socialist state - yet in our country, we survived the recession reasonably well off

Government supported by a voluntary 1% "tip"? Where I am, at the cash register you can donate to various charities at $1 and $5 rates (commonly)... many of these charities are quite reasonable and do good. How many people actually donate? Frankly I have never heard someone ahead of me in line donate to one of these. Never. Undoubtedly some donate or they wouldn't bother asking... is it one out of hundred? Less? So maybe under TGM's system the effective return might be 0.01%? Maybe I just live in a cheap-skate area... maybe the average might be 0.1%... Is that a rate that could actually support defense and other public services? I doubt it. Indeed even 1% (with full participation) would still be ridiculously restrictive. What useful services could you have for one penny on the dollar?

I favor a roommate analogy over the tip analogy... would you leave roommate contributions to rent, cleaning, utilities, and such to be on a voluntary basis? That hardly seems like it would work... and more than that, it hardly seems fair. Indeed, it seems communistic (in the worst sense of tolerating free-loaders... which, by the way, is not even communistic in the sense that Marx proposed) (as others have pointed out).