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| Thread: Should the EU be dissolved? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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markkur
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posted September 29, 2013 05:04 PM |
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baklava said:
Taking into account the precautions taken for curbing monopolies such as Standard Oil throughout history, and also considering there never was a genuinely free market in your terms, there were fewer monopolies unsupported by the government than there would've been had circumstances been different. Microsoft is, however, close. It's been fined about it, but that's it. Whether you consider Microsoft's service a positive or a negative thing depends on your point of view. Economy considers monopolies unable to reach Pareto optimality, and therefore bound to generate deadweight loss - ergo, be negative for consumers. There is also a large number of effective cartels, or monopolies distributed between a few large companies. This is also evident on the local level in many places, and can only grow worse with globalization.
Hey Bak, good to see you.
I think Governments today are centered on "generating economics and anything goes". Old laws & ethics, like collusion etc. are ignored. i.e. Because the Gov. ignored old U.S. monopoly laws; AT&T was "eventually" dismantled by the U.S. Gov, only to, over time, allow a new one to form from the ashes; lot's of moolah to be gained by the elite during this cycle, eh? The old name AT&T was even allowed to be resurrected by the new company that started buying the fragments of the old AT&T.
There's another reason this crap is going on; the employees of the New AT&T are in a much weaker position (pay and representation) than the employees of the old At&T.
I'm sick of the so-called free-market, it's more bleed-market, meaning make a handful of the rich..richer and bleed the average joe to do it. Free-market only means they're free to exploit wherever they can find "needy-workers that are desperate for employment."
end o' rant
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VOKIALBG
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posted September 29, 2013 05:12 PM |
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No. But some members need to leave. Bulgaria for example. We have 0 benefits and lots of lots of damages.
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xerox
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posted September 29, 2013 06:05 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 18:23, 29 Sep 2013.
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Isn't Bulgaria one of the countries that gets the most money from the EU?
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Free-market only means they're free to exploit wherever they can find "needy-workers that are desperate for employment."
Here you need to study five years to become a teacher, who can only work in the public sector, or engineer, most of them working in the private sector. The engineer's wage is twice that of the teacher. How exploitive of the market!
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mvassilev
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posted September 29, 2013 07:44 PM |
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Bak:
Strictly speaking, intellectual property laws (at least in the form of patents) are contrary to a free market. In a free market, only that which is the initiation of force or fraud is forbidden. Given that copying someone else's design is neither, in a true free market, there would be no patent laws. By the way, this is one of the cases in which I'm not advocating a totally free market, because I support patent laws, while recognizing that the current system needs reform.
As far as Standard Oil goes, historically it's had a hard time forming a monopoly. It tried several times, but it failed - without government intervention. It's hard to establish a free-market monopoly, even if you already have most of the market. It's much easier to have the government give you a legal monopoly or subsidy, or to cartelize your industry, which is what happened historically. The government set prices so companies wouldn't undercut each other. This is obviously detrimental to the consumer, but "people who want cheap things" don't have nearly as strong of a lobby as oil companies do. It's true that monopolies are possible in a free market, but you have to compare the free-market amount of monopolies not to "no monopolies", but to the real effects of government intervention, which favors the politically well-connected. I find it somewhat confusing how you correctly describe the evils of corporatism and then sort of treat it as a criticism of the free market.Quote:
I haven't been following for a while, but where exactly would you draw the line and call a system economically ethical?
The ethical system is one in which the government doesn't force people to sacrifice* for others. This means both no welfare state (unless it is a more cost-effective policy for reducing crime than police is, which I doubt) and no bailouts of failing companies. It also has freedom of association - for example, if I want to hire foreigners to work for me, I should be perfectly free to do so; if I want to sell my kidney, that's my choice; if someone wants to join a union, that's voluntary association (so so-called right-to-work laws should be repealed); if I want to marry multiple people, some of them being of my same sex and my adult relatives, that's part of freedom; if someone wants to sell drugs or be a prostitute, as long as they don't initiate force or fraud (such as selling drugs laced with something, or being unclean as a prostitute), that should be legal too. It also means strong protection of private property rights, such as the government not being able to seize my house so it could build a highway through it (something that has historically been more of a problem for poor people).
The category of things that should be illegal are initiations of force or fraud on the part of private parties. This ranges from someone breaking into your house and stealing your stuff, to an employer forcing you to work more hours than you agreed to, to people selling you tainted goods.
However, though as I said above, people should not be forced to sacrifice, that doesn't mean anything like the total abolition of taxation is desirable. Public goods, such as national defense and herd immunity from vaccinations all benefit more people than just the person paying for it, so the level at which it would be provided in a free market (with people paying for themselves, to the extent that it benefits them) would be too low. To solve this coordination problem, taxation is necessary, and it isn't an example of sacrifice, because those taxpayers who pay for it benefit more from it than what they give up. Generally, if coercing someone would be in the coerced person's self-interest, they should be coerced. Naturally, we should be careful about how we apply this principle, because people have a variety of different preferences (tradeoffs they make, the risk level they prefer, etc). The vast majority of the time, it's hard to say that coercing someone would be in the coerced person's self-interest, especially once you factor in motivated reasoning by those who have an incentive to coerce. But there are some cases, like national defense and some others, in which coercion does benefit the parties being coerced (at least under a defensive foreign policy, not under the US's current and historical foreign policy - so things like blowing up civilians in Pakistan and engaging in non-defensive wars are out).
*"Sacrifice" in this context meaning giving something up to receive something of lesser value, or nothing.
(I should really know better than to write posts this long on my phone.  )
Markkur:
I'm sick of the so-called free market too. I'd prefer an actual free market.
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Stevie
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posted September 29, 2013 11:14 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 23:15, 29 Sep 2013.
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mvassilev said:
if I want to marry multiple people, some of them being of my same sex and my adult relatives, that's part of freedom; if someone wants to sell drugs or be a prostitute, as long as they don't initiate force or fraud (such as selling drugs laced with something, or being unclean as a prostitute), that should be legal too.
This is grounded in materialism and humanism, with dire consequences for the individual and the society. And what does this have to do with free market anyway? Are you gonna establish a code of ethics using materialism? Why bother? Cuz if matter and energy is all there is then all interactions between them are equally valid, thus no need for an arbitrary moral code.
As for the "interest" part, you can't have freedom when someone else decides what's best for you. It's the 3rd time I'm saying this but you somehow fail to notice it, maybe this will help:
freedom [free-duhm]
noun
1.the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.
2.exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3.the power to determine action without restraint.
4.political or national independence.
5.personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom.
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markkur
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posted October 04, 2013 04:23 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 16:30, 04 Oct 2013.
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Sorry, lately, I'm moving kind of...s..ss..salooow.
@Xerox
Quote:
The engineer's wage is twice that of the teacher. How exploitive of the market!
Well they are worth more right? I mean after all. teachers are just teaching.
@mvassilev
Quote:
I'm sick of the so-called free market too. I'd prefer an actual free market.
It's funny, most folks don't seem to notice all the "controls" (US market at least)and still think what's going on is freely unfolding.
But, its kind of like that Senator that knows a Fed-highway is taking a certain route and is able to figure a way to profit by that knowledge. Wall street is wired for automatic buying and selling how the heck is that...free?
Another "angle" that gripes me (much worse than that actually) is that a man elected to public office, will fight against (you name it) and then will get out of that office and make the big $ fight FOR...whatever. Heck they're more like double-agents, than anyone serving the people.
<imo> Free-market, means all ethical constraints are long gone and nothing more. iow, "I've made it to the upper-crust...I can now do anything I want". (that's true only because, at 1st, muck-rakers will make sure they never get to whatever office)
This is why I am constantly saying everything is an illusion, we only have notions "that we know" but that's not truth. i.e. Money, FDR took the dollar off the gold-standard, in what, 1933 or 34?...that was the secret of his success. For when money is worth nothing but we treat as it is; lots of magic can happen with a magic-money-wand. I want one too!
Back to the EU, the sort of scene I've described seems the real benefit to the EU? Have there been any scandals along these lines but instead of affecting only one country, they involve/include others?
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JollyJoker
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posted October 04, 2013 04:45 PM |
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markkur said:
Sorry, lately, I'm moving kind of...s..ss..salooow.
@Xerox
Quote:
The engineer's wage is twice that of the teacher. How exploitive of the market!
Well they are worth more right? I mean after all. teachers are just teaching.
Extremely short-sighted, isn't it? Teachers are responsible for laying the groundwork for basically everything, and that's probably the most responsible job there is. Whole schooling department is woefully underfunded, basically everywhere, in a gross misplacement of priorities.
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OmegaDestroyer
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posted October 04, 2013 05:18 PM |
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I agree 100% with you on that one, Joker.
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markkur
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posted October 04, 2013 06:09 PM |
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Edited by markkur at 18:13, 04 Oct 2013.
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I meant it to be very sarcastic; guess I'm not that enough, to have it easily recognized.
<imo> Teachers are one of the most important roles in society, if not The Most Important...beyond life-saving jobs.
Edit. I see now, I forgot to add this thought; "after all, we are only putting our children into their hands". Maybe that would have done the trick.
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Fauch
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posted October 04, 2013 07:37 PM |
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I would say growing food is more important. crazy to think that many of those people barely earn enough to live...
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JollyJoker
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posted October 04, 2013 09:23 PM |
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markkur said:
I meant it to be very sarcastic; guess I'm not that enough, to have it easily recognized.
<imo> Teachers are one of the most important roles in society, if not The Most Important...beyond life-saving jobs.
Edit. I see now, I forgot to add this thought; "after all, we are only putting our children into their hands". Maybe that would have done the trick.
I see. Yes, would have done the trick, as far as I'm concerned.
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mvassilev
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posted October 04, 2013 09:25 PM |
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The thing about teachers is, it's not hard to become a teacher. Seeing as how a lot of people can do those jobs (as I've seen firsthand), it's no surprise that teachers aren't paid much.
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artu
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posted October 04, 2013 10:41 PM |
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It may not be hard to become a teacher, but it would be much more beneficial, in the long term, to produce better teachers. Seems like the obvious point you missed?
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Fauch
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posted October 05, 2013 12:03 AM |
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mvassilev said:
The thing about teachers is, it's not hard to become a teacher. Seeing as how a lot of people can do those jobs (as I've seen firsthand), it's no surprise that teachers aren't paid much.
did you mean, seeing that today's ideal is to pay workers as little as possible, it's no surprise that teachers aren't paid much?
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mvassilev
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posted October 05, 2013 12:33 AM |
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No, I mean that if there are a lot of people who can do the job, it's no surprise that they're not paid much.
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markkur
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posted October 05, 2013 02:21 AM |
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I see your point, maybe the bar should be raised? Shoot, we've all had teachers that did not have any skill at teaching.
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OhforfSake
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posted October 05, 2013 02:29 AM |
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I'd rather blame the inertia to changes in the education system than I'd blame the lack of quality teachers. Forcing someone to stay at a location for several hours no matter their prospects of learning during the given day, more because the school is a place where parents can put their children, than because it's a place that forms our future.
Let go of this daycare concept, and I think a lot of the rigidity would vanish, allowing people to decide their own future through interests.
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xerox
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posted October 05, 2013 02:30 AM |
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Edited by xerox at 02:34, 05 Oct 2013.
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I can only speak for my own country but my theory is that the primary reason for relatively low teacher wages here is the public sector monopoly over the profession. This has led to an absence of wage competition and the supply-demand mechanism related to that has been disorted. There is a significant teacher deficit here and in the private sector, that would have led to higher wages. This doesn't happen in a public sector monopoly where wages are dependant not on supply and demand, but on the spending priorities of politicians.
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Over himself, over his own
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mind, the individual is
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- John Stuart Mill
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markkur
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posted October 05, 2013 02:56 AM |
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Edited by markkur at 02:56, 05 Oct 2013.
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That's a good point. For many years I supervised work crews but all men received the same pay. Needless to say, there was no reason for the top performers to keep caring about being the best...over the years.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 05, 2013 10:10 AM |
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It's not THAT simple, is it?
You have to keep in mind that everything that the public coffers are funding is funded with taxes, and the simple fact is that no one wants to pay taxes - or at least as low taxes as possible.
For that reason the public sector pays badly - everywhere. Cops, fort example, are paid crap as well: you would want good and able cops doing that job, therefore they should be paid well, but they are not, so it's no wonder that you have so many idiots there.
Same story with teachers.
Same story with politicians, mind you. If you compare the salaries of presidents, secretaries of state and so on with those of high level execs in the private sector, it's clear that there is a big gap between responsibilities and payment.
That's because people want other people to work for the public for free, because the don't want to pay for something they conceive either "no real job" or a "job done badly".
In some cases it's a quality problem, in others a quantity problem, but the simple bottom line here is, that our society wastes too much money in the fun sector: vices, games, TV, holidays, good food, big cars, you name it ... the list is long. If you want to know where a lot of the money sits, just consider how many used cars are waiting to find a buyer. And lots of them won't find one, but will just be written off over the years by the car dealers, who received them in payment and then ask prices for them that no one wants to pay.
So the problem is actually, that people are not prepared to put more money into the societal machine for better workings: keep in mind that every country has a massive public spending deficit.
What the world needs, is less "growth" in the entertainment sector and more "growth" in the public sector, and THAT would mean a dramatically changed tax policy: entertainment (fun) taxes, sugar taxes, fat taxes, wealth taxes, and a dramatically increased spending for a change in quality and quantity in most public sectors.
That, however, won't happen, with all the "free market" nonsense and the general premium on what is called individual freedom. People just don't want to pay taxes - but that's only because no one bothers to explain them the things and because everyone has something to complain about when it comes to the question what the taxes are spent for. I mean, THAT one is like sports: EVERYONE knows how to coach a football team, right? And the actual coaches are earning too much money for the crap everyone else can do better - same with politics, right? Everyone could do better - and for a lot less money.
Sure.
Specifically for schools. Does "competition" makes sense? OF COURSE NOT. Why? Because as parents your options to pick a school are somewhat limited, right? That's basically the same thing as with the health business. If it says, schooling is best in state XY, while you have a good job in state AB, you cannot just say, to hell with the job, let's move to XY, they have the best schools.
Instead, society depends on that elementary and general schooling up to an age where the educational options branch out, has roughly the same quality, nation-wide. Which means, there are standards needed, that have to be kept everywhere.
Free market doesn't work here, because there must not be natural selection in the sense that the bad schools simply go out of business. Instead it must be granted that basic standards are met everywhere.
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