John Larsen wrote:bcspace wrote:Really? I mean... REALLY? You must hate our socialized Department of Defense. You must despise our socialized NASA. Our superhighways, roads, bridges, levees... Our socialized megaprojects... You must hate our socialized universities, federal funding to private universities, public schools, the Internet, and a myriad of other tech/social/educational advances that have been achieved through collective democratic participation... Through the government.
The less government the better. But I think you've got a lot to learn about socialism and economics in general if this is your conclusion. For example, there is a huge difference between the efficient distribution of goods and services in the health care system and war which in order to be succesful must not be efficient by it's very nature.
Speaking of learning a lot about economics:
Competition may lead to efficiencies within a company, but that does not translate to efficiencies in a market. Competition requires redundancy in the distribution of goods and services and strategies aimed solely at reducing or eliminating competition--which may not lead to better economic conditions for the consumer. Indeed, private forces are known to collude, fix prices, stuff channels, engaging in predatory pricing and a host of other things that do not benefit the consumer.
Furthermore, if your system is entirely based on profit, then private companies will have no incentive to do those things which are by their nature unprofitable. Such as rural mail service or providing health care to the elderly.
John, why would competition lead to efficiencies in the company itself but not the market? Isn't the company trying to compete in the market and that is why it is trying to be more efficient?
Your redundancy argument makes it sound like we would all be better off if everything was a monopoly - there is clearly no redundancy in those situations. However, in a monopoly, the company has little incentive to be more efficient, improve, and meet consumer demand. If you don't believe me, think of the cable company of old (now they are slightly more responsive due to competition from satellite TV). Are we worse off because FedEx and UPS each have a fleet of trucks, planes, distribution centers, etc. from which to ship goods? Should all parcel carriers be combined so that we can eliminate the redundancy? No. Why? Because in this market, and most others, there is no redundancy. FedEx has a share of the market that they service with the trucks, planes, etc. that they own. UPS has a share of the market that they service with its trucks, planes, etc. There is no redundancy. The redundancies where goods and equipment sit idle, which would lessen the overall welfare of society, do not exist because no one in their right mind would create them (government is the exception).
As for the profit motive, you are exactly correct that private companies will have no motivation to do things unprofitable. In most markets that is good because it eliminates waste. However, with regard to space exploration, the environment, etc., there is a role for government. The problem is that even in these areas the government gets hijacked by the special interests to the point that the clean air act is more of weapon to punish "bad" companies than it is a weapon to clean up the air (I should tell you sometime about my travails of trying to get my truck converted to run on much cleaner natural gas only to be denied by the EPA in reliance on the clean air act; bureaucracy run amok, I tell you!!).
In most areas, the profit motive works magic to get companies to be more efficient, offer lower prices, better products, etc. In some areas it doesn't. In those areas where it doesn't, there MAY be a legitimate role for government.
