Charlie's Diary

Er Charlie, there's been little difference in the actual party positions for years.

And people wonder why there's voter apathy...

Of course. They could suck up to George Bush much better.

Andrew: actual position vs. tribal loyalty is another matter. (And yes, I know Blair is the best damn Thatcher-successor the Tories never had and they've been green with envy for the past decade.) What this suggests is that not only is the actual cross-party consensus there, but even the tribal battle-lines are getting a bit blurry.

One party state with two heads, anyone?

Or as the sadly not immortal Bill Hicks put it,

I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs
I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking
Hey, wait a minute there's one guy holding up both puppets
Shut up
Go back to bed America your government is in control

This may be a serious mistake. Is there any evidence that the public actually like "Blair's reforms" - foundation hospitals, ID cards, creationist used-car salesman schools - as opposed to "Blair's spending"?

Re,Post #5: I've discovered that most cultures seem to like all the nice social programs, i.e. health, education, national security, but not when their taxes go up and up and up...

Americas are wondering why they cann't have free health care and social security and lots of other things. The answer is, no one wants to pay for it! (I pay enough taxes G-d Damit!)

We have a plutocratic-neo-aristocracy in America,(I think Britan just has a plutocratic-aristocracy.) We need to tax the hell out of this 1% of the population, which would leave them only slightly less filthy rich.

Jeff

Jeff: my pet project would be a progressive income tax.

Currently in the UK there are two bands -- 25%, and 40% (which cuts in around the £30,000 mark, i.e. way lower than in the USA).

The marginal utility of money diminishes the more you have, so I'd like to see a logarithmic scale that recognizes this. The 40% rate could stay around 50K, but I'd like to see supertax brackets: 50% on income over half a million per year (note: that's about US $1M in pay), 60% on income about 5 million, 70% on income about 50 million, and 80% thereafter on 500 million or more.

(Oh, and a shitload less stock-option related avoidance loopholes, so that if an executive is being paid £300,000 in salary and £3 million in shares, they get taxes on £3.3M.)

Of course, the city will scream -- but how many people do you know who would be affected by a 50% bracket that cuts in if their take-home pay goes over a million dollars a year? This isn't even going to touch most paper millionaires: but it's good for annoying the hell out of the likes of Conrad Black.

Finally, the US needs to bring back inheritance tax. That's what broke the back of the British aristocracy, between 1945 and 1979; no better tool exists for shaking up hereditary nobs and their sense of entitlement. Here in the UK we've still got it (indeed, it's set at an unfeasibly low threshold -- about 50% more than the value of an average family home), but it's no accident that one of the first things Bush did in office was to abolish it.

Charlie,

forget about taxes. Simply invoke an income funktion that states how much money you'll get by the end of the month on the basis of the amount of the money you earned. That would do away with quite a bit of the mess that tax and welfare systems are in these days. Also politicians would have a much better control over social dynamics* in terms of income.

(*People are much more likely to take up a job if they actually earn more money afterwards. With welfare organized as money for the jobless you face the problem that you'll get less or not all that much more money in return for your taking up a job. The whole thing has some resemblence with thermodynamics, welfare recievers being in the solid phase, the broad middle class liquid - that is flexible but bound to work and the rich (kind of like gas) with work being an option, not a necessity. As with thermodynamics the transition require copious amounts of energy without any obvious returns in terms of increased available founds/temperature - until you made the jump and got in the other phase. The whole thing works the other way around as well. And btw. any sudden change in the incomefunktion creates second order phase changes - so do away with the old "progressive" taxation, use smooth curves.)

They had the gall to bring up the Waldon Family (the children of the founder of that millstone of small businesses, Walmart) in the context of the "death tax."

Someone (and I'm sorry, I forget who) once said that Margaret Thatcher's real legacy was Tony Blair, so I suppose there's a certain symmetry in Blair's legacy being David Cameron.

Charlie Stross @ 3

One party state with two heads, anyone?

Might not be too bad, depending on which head they do the thinking with.

Ideally they'd keep each other in check. Oh, that's...aaargh!

Finally, the US needs to bring back inheritance tax.

It depends at what level you want to bring it back at... Most middle class families have a million or two dollars now when they die, when you count property and various retirement accounts. You get situations where the kids have to sell off the old family home to pay the taxes on inheriting it, which is always unpopular. If you set it at $5 million or so, pegged to inflation, that wouldn't be so bad. Alternatively you could adjust it based on the number of children inheriting. Obviously you aren't going to get the same problem with old-money families if there are 5 kids inheriting $5 million vs 1 kid inheriting it. But I don't really think hereditary nobs are much of a problem here in the US. I live in a state famous for them (Connecticut), but they don't really affect my life at all (other than being a major funding source for where I work). On the plus side, I guess an inheritance tax might be an incentive for them to will even more money to my employer... :)

my pet project would be a progressive income tax.

As for taxes in general, personally I'm in favor of a low flat tax, and no inheritance tax. Something like 25% for everyone, on all income (earned or via stocks, etc.) over $25,000 with no deductions. Even better would be a negative income tax, but I don't think anyone could ever explain that to the US public well enough to get them to support it.

A universal sales tax with exemptions for food and clothing under $100 would be the most fair, but I doubt it would ever be workable -- once you get to a certain level of sales tax, it becomes worth it to dodge the tax and a black market develops.

Generally the people with lots of money are good at using resources efficiently or they wouldn't have it. Governments are not famous for using resources efficiently. Progressive tax makes us all poorer.

So do you give all your money to Bill Gates then?

If the aim is maximum economic growth nobody should get more money than they can earn for themselves. General growth is not the only priority but it is pretty high. 6% annual growth triples our wealth in 20 years. If taxes lower it to 4% it only doubles. That is a huge loss, growing exponentially.

Daniel B: welcome to my journal ... now, what makes you think governments are inefficient and rich people aren't? Hint: money lets you buy commodities -- including politicians, and laws to let you collect rent. This may be efficient in some abstract sense, but it's hardly productive or useful for society at large.

Also: why should we aim for maximum economic growth? Maximum economic growth that trashes the places we live in and requires us to work like slaves is counter-productive. I'd rather aim for maximum happiness: it's harder to quantify on a balance sheet but much more useful overall.

Finally, you seem to be ignoring all sorts of externalities -- such as the kind of infrastructure that individuals and companies (who work on a time scale measured in months and years) can't maintain profitably. Like sewerage systems that need replacing every 150 years, or railroad tracks that need replacing over a 30 year period, or roads that need repaving every decade. Economic growth tends to be dependent on infrastructure provision, and if the difference between your 4% growth rate and 6% growth rate is the tax required to fund educating the work force and building the roads and infrastructure your economy depends on, you're going to throttle your economic boom well before that 20 year period you're talking about. And end up living in a shit-hole to boot.

Charlie - well, the other representative democratic working model seems to be one party with lots and lots of heads (coalition governments). I'm not entirely convinced it's better.

I'm not sure about fundamental tax reform, but "benefits" should be taxed identically to income, and there should be breaks for people investing rather than hoarding wealth.

C.S., you commented on Tax loopholes, of which the US tax code is so full of that it allows very expensive tax lawyers to make huge amounts of money for their very wealthy clients. The lawyers tend to become quite well off also. It's insane that many individuals with incomes over 100 million $ a year can --in many cases -- avoid paying much of their fair share. Our tax codes are designed to protect wealth.

I just learned how to avoid paying a death tax on our family summer home, which is now in my father's name. He will transfer the title to me and I will allow them to stay there just as they do now (they trust me?). In seven years (my father has to live for at least seven more years)I then get the house free and clear. No tax. Thank you US tax code. I will then convert this big house in the country into a retreat for young women who need to get away for a while(pregnant teenage sluts). I will then take the current value of the property and take the charitable deduction off my federl taxes, and can spread that deduction over a number of years.

Jeff

Thank you, love your books. Governments are inefficient because they are monopolies and because they spend other peoples money for them and not their own. The solution to the problem of corrupt laws is less sellable power, not making everone else so poor or politicians so rich that interest groups can't afford to buy politicians.

Economic growth is more efficent use of resources. This is one reason why there is the least pollution in the richest places. We work less now that we are richer than a century ago (or in poor regions today) when you had to work a lot longer and harder simply not to starve. But let's aim for freedom so everyone can maximize what they want.

Private companies happily built railroads in the 19th century before the wave on nationalizations. Recently they built the wonderfully anarchistic internet. They can probably build roads and sewers too.

Andrew Crystall: Practically all wealth that is not consumed is invested. Very few people buy, say, warehouses full of washing machines just to let them stand and collect dust.

Daniel B:
"We work less now that we are richer than a century ago (or in poor regions today) when you had to work a lot longer and harder simply not to starve."

Actually, we (the American middle class, I assume) work a lot less now than we did back when we did our own work. Now we do "busy work" in cubicles while most of the real work of producing our necessities is done by brown people in other countries. We've even taken it a step further by letting brown people come here to do the work that can't be done anywhere else (landscaping, much construction, low-level service jobs).

I also believe it is debatable as to whether we are richer with iPods than we were with fresh locally produced meats and produce. I think I'd rather skip the iPod and DVDs if they come along with e-Coli and exploitation.

I think we as a nation have confused quantity with quality.

Daniel, I'm amused by your unwavering faith in capitalism.

Here's a hint: the country I live in -- the UK -- was near as dammit a minarchist utopia back in the 1850s; no income tax, no sales tax, no social security or pensions or government spending on fripperies like sewer systems and railroads.

Investigating the reasons why this is no longer the case may shed some illumination on what people really want. Or, to put it another way, the poor man's cholera bacteria are no respecters of the rich man's bank balance.

Finally, another hint: I'm not terribly interested in the United States' finding a way out of their collective problems, except insofar as I might be affected if the dollar tanks of the neofascist lunatic fringe gain [more] power.

C.S., Most Americans, per ce, are probably not too terribly interested in the ecconomics of any other country other than their own, and even that's quite questionable. I think I'm very interested in European index funds and have done well by investing in them. We can always bennifit from some other country's ecconomic down turns (even if it's our own) if we know how to invest well. This is part of the global ecconomy. I suggest a cyrstal ball and a good summoning grid for accurate market predictions. Or some software that can do close to the same thing, which I wrote.

Jeff

While I agree that it's handy to go back to the C19th to find out why all this collectively-provided stuff tends to be demanded ("Make it _illegal_ to put sand in flour? How dare you sir!"), actually we did have income tax in the 1850s. Came in for Napoleon, abolished in 182mumble, brought back in 184thing.

Daniel, are you sure that it was private companies that built the internet? I keep thinking about DARPA, and CERN, and JANET, you see...

Incidentally, I should clarify something: I have lots of American friends and like to visit, so I'd be quite happy if you could sort things out. (I'd be even happier if that involved stopping invading other countries "for their own good" just to keep the wheels of the military-industrial complex turning.)

A secondary issue is that most places I visit in the USA are striking for their run-down infrastructure. Pot holes in well-used roads in business districts that are big enough to swallow cars, abandoned buildings rotting by roadsides, slum districts that are just unbelievable. Something's gone badly wrong with the way the US government (at its various levels) spends its funds; $883M for a midget submarine that doesn't work, and you still can't catch a train from New York to Washington DC in 3 hours (which you bloody can for equivalent trips in Japan, and soon in most of mainland Europe).

Chris: I think Daniel is thinking about the Internet's origins in Delphi, Compuserve, and Microsoft's Blackbird.

Stephen: (Everyone with an internet connection, Swedish lower middle class personally.) Buy locally produced stuff and make brown people unemployed if you want but please don't make the police throw them and their goods out by force. And read In Defense of Global Capitalism by Johan Norberg.

Charlie: I don't know much UK history but wasn't it the usual tragedy of the commons? Everone tries to get the government to make everone else pay to them. And wierd trends like fascism or religious movements, how does that work?

Chris: Of course governments have been involved but really, the internet is not built or run by governments.

Bah. Money sucks. Bring on the Bitchun Society post haste!

Daniel (#26)

You assume that I want to throw the brown people out of the U.S. I never said that, although I could see how you could make that leap especially since there's been much rhetoric flying about on the subject lately.

I still have mixed emotions on how illegal immigration should be handled. I have yet to see a public figure speak honestly on the subject and everyone seems to have an ulterior motive.

Illegal immigrants would suffer if we simply threw them out, but letting them stay illegally allows them to be exploited. Business and individuals benefit by hiring illegals for less than the minimum wage. Naturalizing the illegals in the U.S. would counteract the stated benefits of having them here. It's often said that Mexicans are doing the jobs that Americans are unwilling to do. What happens when minimum wage laws apply to the former illegals?

America benefits greatly by exploiting those who can't complain about illegally low wages. We also benefit by exploiting cheap foreign labor. If our borders were open we could not have the artificially high standard of living we enjoy. The only way we have kept our position in the world is by being an exclusive club.

I don't really have any firm conclusions, just observations. Ideally, we would open our borders and remove all tariffs and let the global market decide our standard of living. I just don't think that most Americans are prepared to accept an income equal to the global average. With that being the case, fairness is hard to find.

How can this be an issue in the USA, founded on immigration, the statue of liberty "send me your poor homeless masses" and all that?

Reopening the borders will increase your standards of living. Tariffs don't make foreigners send you valuable things, only getting something in return does.

If immigrants get to stay legally and be covered by minimum wage laws they either will become unemployed and even poorer or they will continue to work illegally. They will probably choose the latter but what harm is done by making it legal for them to live where they live?

"And read In Defense of Global Capitalism by Johan Norberg."

-- capitalism is like fire, a good servant but a bad master.

Specifically, political democracy means 'rule by the people'; in reality, that always means and can only mean 'rule by A people'; Magyar people in Hungary, Polish people in Poland, French people in France, and so forth.

Britain is still having problems over the distinct identities of Scots and English, despite 400 years of dynastic and 300 years of political union... and the Scots and the English are very similar.

'A people' means a specific, historically grounded community of shared history and identity residing within the boundaries of a sovereign state.

These are the people who _own_ the country and have a right to run it just as they please, and to establish whatever conditions they please for entry. Social obligation stops sharply at national frontiers; beyond that your only obligation is not to wantonly attack or defraud, and that's iffy.

Charlie: A secondary issue is that most places I visit in the USA are striking for their run-down infrastructure.

-- actually it's more accurate to say that much of Europe spends far too much on some types of infrastructure, irrationally misallocating capital.

Note that France, which has much better passenger trains than Britain, consistently performs rather worse economically; it has twice the unemployment and even higher ratios of youth unemployment.

This is not a coincidence.

There's been a great deal of spending on railways in the US in the past decade, but it hasn't been wasted on glossy prestige projects; it's gone into new freight capacity, where it earns a profit.

"Something's gone badly wrong with the way the US government (at its various levels) spends its funds; $883M for a midget submarine that doesn't work, and you still can't catch a train from New York to Washington DC"

-- no, the real point is that the US government at all levels spends much _less_ than its European equivalents; about half the percentage of GDP, on the whole.

This has all sorts of positive consequences; higher rates of job creation, more R&D spending, and so forth and so on.

The US has a little over 30% of the global GDP but spends about 50% of the global R&D budget; the endowment of the richest US university produces funds equvalent to the entire budget for higher education in the UK.

US _government_ spending on R&D is about equivalent to European levels. _Private_ R&D is much higher, which makes the difference.

Charlie: Also: why should we aim for maximum economic growth? Maximum economic growth that trashes the places we live in and requires us to work like slaves is counter-productive.

-- because of the magic of compound interest. It may not matter all that much if your per-capita GDP is 15% less.

When you hit 50%, it starts to matter a lot; and the magic of compound interest ensures that it does. Wealth translates into clout and power; without it you become, at best, an irrelevant backwater, or more likely a cesspit in which the survivors eat each other like crabs in a bucket.

Capital flees; so do talented people. Why do you think there are nearly 500,000 French people in London? They're not there for the great food, fast clean trains, the climate, the quaint architecture, or the relaxed and pleasant pace of daily life... those are the reasons Brits go to France. They're there to _make money_.

Charlie: The 40% rate could stay around 50K, but I'd like to see supertax brackets: 50% on income over half a million per year (note: that's about US $1M in pay), 60% on income about 5 million, 70% on income about 50 million, and 80% thereafter on 500 million or more.

-- go right ahead, but don't complain at the inevitable results; take a look at the wonderful economic climate of Britain in the 1970's for a hint.

Capital is mobile. Very highly paid people are mobile. They won't stay still to be fleeced; they'll just pick up their toys and move.

Ratchet up taxes to that level and capital will flee; that which remains will start gaming the system like mad (and will always, in the long run, beat the civil servants) and thus reducing overall economic efficiency; government revenues will decline as the economy does. Whereupon everything goes down the toilet in a splendidly classic example of a negative feedback cycle.

It's a mystery that intelligent people don't realize all this is _automatic_. It's like pulling on a rope connected to a bucket -- 100% predictable.

S.M. Stirling: *googling* The original quote is

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

by George Washington.

Re #25 & 27, Well, it seems you've been to Detroit. The Bitchun Society it ain't. Although parts of our city might pass for haunted house theme park attractions. There is actually a new "urban archeology" group that will take people on guided expeditions through some of the the uban ruins that dot the city scape. And of course our city is sometimes used to film dystopian sf films such as The Island. Decay has its attraction.

Jeff

Stephen: We also benefit by exploiting cheap foreign labor.

-- no, we don't. Nobody is "exploiting" the factory workers of Guangdong, except possibly their own government.

If we didn't buy the products of their labor, they'd be worse off, back in the village trying to make a living off .3 acres of rice and six cabbages each with its own full-time worker.

Obviously they think they're improving their standard of living by moving to town and getting jobs in the factories; otherwise they wouldn't do it.

Since they're better off because they trade with us, we're not exploiting them. QED.

The only 'fair' price for anything is what you can get in an open bargain, neither more nor less. We owe them nothing beyond that.

"If our borders were open we could not have the artificially high standard of living we enjoy."

-- immigration is a privilege, not a right. Nations belong to their citizens, who have an inalienable right to control them, including controlling the conditions of entry for outsiders. They owe foreigners nothing and are under no obligation to allow them in if they don't want to.

S.M. Stirling: "Stephen: We also benefit by exploiting cheap foreign labor.
-- no, we don't. Nobody is "exploiting" the factory workers of Guangdong, except possibly their own government."

That would be true if there were no such thing as a multi-national corporation. When a U.S. based company puts a factory in a foreign country and pays less than they would have to in the U.S., that's exploitation. Otherwise, they would pay the prevailing U.S. rate and take less profit. If it were simply a matter of a sovereign nation running things as they saw fit and the U.S. buying from them, I wouldn't have as much of a problem. It would still be wrong of that country to take advantage of it's own citizens but until we have a perfectly fair society the extent to which we can dictate conditions in another country is limited.

While people in some countries may now be better off working in factories I have to wonder true that would be if the introduction of factories hadn't altered the local economy. We didn't have mass starvation in America prior to the industrial revolution. We are more efficient producers but corporate profits don't necessarily equate to quality of life for the worker bees.

I also think that the idea that "immigration is a privilege, not a right" makes sense only if you ignore some variables. Hypothetically, if we were to make an agreement with a foreign country to remove natural resources and pay the foreign officials very well to do it resulting in the local population not being able to support themselves, would we still be ethical in sealing our borders against the resulting refugees? If our actions only affected our own citizens it would be fine to say that we run our country and you run yours. However, that seems simplistic to me. I'm not saying that we have any legal obligation to share what we have with foreigners. I just think it takes a special kind of person to ignore the suffering of others under the theory that they aren't breaking any rules so no one can make them care. If you're an automaton that makes sense but a human being has to occasionally ask themself if they are being a decent person, not just acting within their rights.

P.S. I'm not sure if my comments apply to Guangdong. They may well be exploited by their own government, in which case we may not be responsible for their exploitation. I still say though that there are many cases where corporations are directly exploiting the citizens of foreign countries, not just dealing with their government.

I have to assume that you are also opposed to "regime change" in foreign countries based on humanitarian issues, such as Saddam Hussein using poison gas on his citizens, since that is between the government and citizens of a sovereign nation.

Jeff Minor, to be fair that provision also exists in the UK. You can even set it up legally so that your parents have the exclusive right to determine who can live in that house, and that only reverts to you when they die.

S.M. Stirling, and that's one reason why I'm happy I'm a citizen of the European Union, a vast state and free trade zone, with large zones which are not fully developed by first world standards, and have great economic growth potential. As well as the United Kingdom.

Stephen: If an employer exploits an employee if there exists some other person in the world willing to do the same job for higher pay then don't all employers exploit all employees all the time?

I pretty much agree with what Steve said, though I think it could be taken even further.

In theory everything provided by governments could be provided by private industry, better and cheaper. I fear the transition from one system to the other wouldn't be pretty however.

That would be true if there were no such thing as a multi-national corporation. When a U.S. based company puts a factory in a foreign country and pays less than they would have to in the U.S., that's exploitation.

You have an odd idea of what exploitation is, unless you're using it in the neutral sense of using a resource.

A US company putting a factory in a low-wage country is just a US company putting a factory in a low-wage country. There's no exploitation, only benefit. Workers get better jobs, consumers get lower prices, and companies get larger profits.

Now, workers in the US might complain because they can't work for wages that low, so they've lost the opportunity those jobs represent. But they have no right to force others to pay more for goods just because their labor is more expensive.

Daniel (#40),

You raise a very good point and I admit I was only looking at the issue from one direction. On reflection however it occurs to me that the distinction depends on the goods being produced in one location and sold in another. If a U.S. company produces their goods in a 3rd world sweatshop with wages based on that local economy, then sells the goods at exorbitant prices back in the U.S., then yes, I would consider that exploitation.

That's not the same as purchasing goods where they are cheaper and selling where they are worth more; that's the definition of trade. The difference as I see it is that some goods are cheaper due to a different climate or availability of natural resources and may be traded at a profit ethically. If the relative value of the goods is due to a lack of opportunity or representation on the part of the workers, then that is exploitation.

There are fine lines and shades of grey involved. I don't pretend to be perfectly correct. I am just very bothered that many people seem to have no problem living better than others due to chance circumstances and then pretending that they deserve their higher standard of living. Americans are not intrinsically better or more deserving than Africans (or Germans vs. Salvadorans, etc). Some people are lucky enough to be born somewhere prosperous. I just get the feeling that Stirling figures, "Well it sucks to be you" and goes on with his life. That may not be true, but that's how it sounds to me. It's easy to cite examples of people that pulled themselves out of the ghetto or moved from a 3rd world country to the 1st world and improved their prospects. Those are exceptions to the rule though. The truth is that the circumstances of one's birth have a major effect on their potential for fulfillment and happiness and it doesn't make me feel good to know that some people are suffering to support the gluttony of others, even if I can argue that you don't have the right to force me to care.

Here's a hint: the country I live in -- the UK -- was near as dammit a minarchist utopia back in the 1850s; no income tax, no sales tax, no social security or pensions or government spending on fripperies like sewer systems and railroads.

Sure, the US was too -- a lot of countries were. You could pay for everything with property tax and tarrifs, which meant only the wealty paid taxes really. And it worked well enough that the UK was the leading ecomonic power of the century, and along with the US was one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

And while we might not like the conditions of our countries 150 years ago, they were far better than most of the rest of the world. England had issues with class that the US didn't, but we were both much better off than the average Italian, German, or Russian.

Andrew (#42)

I see what you are saying and I think I understand why. I think you are assuming that a "low-wage country" exists in a vacuum. I think you need to ask why that country is "low-wage". My post #43 also partly addresses your comment. The exploitation is due to the fact that the company is based in the U.S., sells their goods in the U.S., but takes advantage of a weaker local economy to get cheaper labor. I also think it's important to remember that the motivation for putting the factory where it is, is that profits will be higher. To me intent is very important. A company that could be profitable in the U.S., or put a factory in the 3rd world and pay U.S. scale wages instead chooses to pay the local wage regardless of the effect on the local workers or economy in order to increase profits. Corporate growth rates and profit increases may be a game where dollars are like points if you are an American CEO but for somebody trying to feed a family in the 3rd world it's far from a game.

Again, just because there aren't laws limiting corporate profits doesn't make it ethical for a company to maximize profits with no concern for the effects of their policies.

Stephen: I fully agree there is a moral duty to help those in need. The thing about trade, including trade of labor, is that you don't help anyone by refusing to trade with them. The reason they want to trade is because it benefits them.

Take China. There people have had a serious lack of opportunity and have been living in poverty and misery under communism. For a long time there was no way to improve your situation so when the government started easing the restrictions and allow businesses people were willing to work for almost nothing. Foreigners can make huge profits by producing cheaply in China and selling expensively at home. The result of the big profits is a gold rush to China with companies competing to be the first to pour in the most investments to reap the profits before anyone else beats them to it. For the chinese workers this means skyrocketing wages and living standards and hundreds of millions of people being lifted out of poverty in just a few years. This is good.

Again, just because there aren't laws limiting corporate profits doesn't make it ethical for a company to maximize profits with no concern for the effects of their policies.

Companies aren't sentient beings (yet). The *only* ethical thing they can do is to maximize profit. Anything else and they are cheating their investors.

Now, it often pays for a company to appear to behave ethically. And treating employees well makes good business sense for a number of reasons. But there's no ethical consideration there.

Plus, there's competition to consider. If company A won't lower the cost of production, then company B will and will likely take much of company A's business away. The primary concern for consumers (in the US anyway) is price, followed by aesthetics and quality. There's a niche market for ethical products (ethics are in effect part of the product of the company), but it's not something you can build an industry dominating business on.

Andrew G.,

Not that it stopped google from claiming it did.

Andrew:
"Anything else and they are cheating their investors."
and
"There's a niche market for ethical products (ethics are in effect part of the product of the company), but it's not something you can build an industry dominating business on."

I guess that's where we differ. There's no room in my world for people who hide behind an imaginary abstract entity and abdicate their responsible to be ethical human beings to an imaginary construct.

Maybe I read you wrong but what I got from the above quotes is that it is ok to screw anybody you want as long as they aren't your investors and the decisions made by any constituent human members of a corporation are not the responsibility of the individual but of the non-sentient corporation. It's the same old, "I was only following orders" defense again except this time the orders come don't even come from an actual person.

If the ultimate goal is to be the mindless servant of a business and to make it "industry dominating" then I guess there's no room left for sentimental concepts like morality. If that's the prevailing attitude then I think Charlie can stop waitng for the post-humans to arrive since we've already sold our humanity in return for special edition DVD box sets.

We have met the post-humans, and they is us.

Stephen,

I guess what I'm getting at is that ethics can only be applied to people. The question you raise is a good one -- who is responsible for the actions of a corporation, the employees or the owners (shareholders)? Legally, the shareholders aren't liable, that's one of the original rationals behind corporations. And yet while they may not be legally liable, some people do feel ethically uneasy about investing in companies that act in ways they don't approve of -- that's why there are various ethical mutual funds for investors.

Which brings us to something that is becoming increasingly obvious to me -- ethics & morallity are just another commodity to be bought and sold on the market. If society values ethical behavior, then corporations will value it as well. But only if they value it more than they do other things, such as low price or trendiness or convenience.

The "Buy American" meme is an example. You'll see the occasional commerical in the US encouraging people to buy American products over foreign products. And there are some who do, out of patriotism or whatever, even if the product costs more or is of lower quality. The idea of supporting American workers has a tangible value to them, where as to me it doesn't.

Charlie, going back to your #25: what places in the USA are you visiting? Maybe the UK puts its roads and sewers on the national budget, but in the US items like that are paid for by city and county governments.

And I think the reason why there isn't a fast passenger rail service going from Boston to Washington (where it would make economic sense) is that there's a slow passenger rail service going from Boston to Washington, and between every other pair of cities in the US, which is owned by the federal government and legally obliged to serve every city in the US. The money spent to send passenger trains from Seattle to Dallas would be far better spent upgrading tracks in the Northeast, but Amtrak can't spend it that way because its budget is controlled by Congress.

Also, rail has had to compete with private cars and with planes for a long time. Most people would rather drive -- even now gas is half the cost in the US that it is in places like Germany. It's usually cheaper & faster to drive than to get a train ticket.

And until 9/11 at least flying was much faster and just as cheap. A lot of people would fly from Boston to DC, it's only an hour flight or so.

Looking at tickets, unless you're trying to get them at the last minute it's about 50% cheaper to fly than to take the fastest train from Boston to Washington. It takes 1.5 hours to fly, and about 6.5 to go by train. Driving would be cheapest, about 1/2 the cost of flying but it's an hour longer than taking a train according to Google Maps.

So that's the main reason passenger trains are out of favor in the US -- they're the least efficient use of resources. Freight trains are another matter, of course -- plenty of those.

Historical note: in fact, the total share of GDP taken by government in the UK remained fairly stable between 1815 and 1914; up a little at times (during wars), down a little at times.

And there was an income tax all that time except for a brief gap between the 1820's and 1840's. It was reintroduced by Peel when customs duties were lowered with the introduction of free trade, and even Gladstone couldn't get rid of it.

Stephen: When a U.S. based company puts a factory in a foreign country and pays less than they would have to in the U.S., that's exploitation.

-- sigh. No it ain't, any more than paying the local price for aluminum or electric power is.

You do know why wage costs differ between countries, don't you?

And that if workers in Guangdong were paid American levels of wage, there wouldn't be any jobs at all, and they'd starve?

"Otherwise, they would pay the prevailing U.S. rate and take less profit."

-- no, they wouldn't make _any_ profit, and the laborers in question would be _worse_ off.

Cheap labor is what Guangdong has to offer to attract capital. Nobody's going to invest there for the wonderful infrastructure or the reliable court system or the complete security of property.

And without capital investment, you can't get out of the animalistic filth and poverty of peasant existence and start your way up the ladder.

"While people in some countries may now be better off working in factories I have to wonder true that would be if the introduction of factories hadn't altered the local economy. We didn't have mass starvation in America prior to the industrial revolution."

-- no, we had chattel slavery and a third of all the children died by the age of 5.

We also didn't have 1.3 billion people in a country with less good farmland than the US.

Have you ever _done_ any farm work?

"We are more efficient producers but corporate profits don't necessarily equate to quality of life for the worker bees."

-- ah... actually, yes, they do. Living standards are a function of productivity, and no profit = no productivity.

Note that there are no millions of Americans trying to get into Mexico.

"I just think it takes a special kind of person to ignore the suffering of others"

-- oh, puh-leeze. Shall we all hold hands and sing a chorus of Kumbaya?

If you want to reduce the poverty of the Third World, invest money in companies that do business there. That will help them. Or write your Congresscritter to reduce tariffs on textiles.

Stephen: "I think you need to ask why that country is "low-wage".

-- yeah. Well, try low levels of skills, lack of entrepreneurial talent or the conditions to encourage same, low productivity, not much accumulated investment, poor and/or very corrupt administration, and a long history of being skint broke.

Every country was a low-wage country once. Poverty doesn't need explanations; it's the default state.

Oh, and Charlie -- in the 1850's, a big chunk of government revenue was spent on welfare expenses. Google "New Poor Law" and "rates".

"I just think it takes a special kind of person to ignore the suffering of others under the theory that they aren't breaking any rules so no one can make them care."

Historically, this kind of person is actually the norm. People who act to relieve the suffering of others, when they aren't compelled to, are rather rare; you only find them often in cultures that explicitly teach their members to regard this as a merit. And even in those it isn't usual. Callousness, like poverty, is our default.

Steve, I, um ... words fail me when it comes to any attempt to use the terms "welfare" and "Poor Law" in the same sentence. (Where and when I was growing up there were still old folks who were deathly terrified of ever going in to their local hospital ... not for any medical care-related reason, but because it was the old Workhouse, and occupied a place in local history about as beloved as the local konzentrationlager.)

Michael: Callousness, like poverty, is our default. ... And we know better, at least in principle: which pretty much makes it a deliberate sin not to strive to create a legislative and social environment in which callousness is counter-productive for individuals. (Training wheels, if you like. A nanny state, if you don't.)

Andrew G: if corporations will only act to maximize their bottom line within the boundaries defined by law, then that's a damn good reason for legislating to impose standards of behaviour on them. Because we've got a technical term for human (as opposed to corporate) entities who act solely to maximize their own desires without heed for external damage they may be causing to others: "psychopaths".

Incidentally, the really good source for a picture of Britain as a minarchist utopia is avaiable online:

London Labour and the London Poor

Plenty of good illustrations of how marginal life is when there's no social safety-net at all. Check out the many examples of how employers treat hired labour, or count how many of the beggars and street-sellers interviewed are failed small businessmen. (It's what makes it difficult for me to see the world of "The Difference Engine" as dystopian.)

I assume you've read it, Charlie? Or did you get the bit in "Singularity Sky" about making money by gathering dog turds from somewhere else?

Sam: I got it elsewhere. (This stuff isn't exactly hard to find once you start trying to look into how our great-grandparents really lived, rather than sticking to the biographies of kings and nobles.)

Charlie: if corporations will only act to maximize their bottom line within the boundaries defined by law, then that's a damn good reason for legislating to impose standards of behaviour on them. Because we've got a technical term for human (as opposed to corporate) entities who act solely to maximize their own desires without heed for external damage they may be causing to others: "psychopaths".

Which shows why you can't apply human standards of behavior to artificial entities like corporation.

I don't think there's a need for strict laws restricting corporations. A general framework, perhaps, but the market will determine just how valuable ethical behavior is, and companies will have to act accordingly or risk loosing profits. Information is easily available today that it would be very difficult for comanies to be overy unethical. It's just a matter of how much people really value ethics, as opposed to how much they say they are. With a free market minarchist state, you have exactly the sort of society that most people want, rather than what they say they want. Anything else is inefficient and false.

For those interested in our current and past ecconomics in Great Britian and the USA, I'm currently reading Niall Ferguson's: Empire, the rise and demise of the British world order and the lesons for global power.

Ferguson looks at the cost of Empire building and some of the pros and cons for society. Very interesting read and not too dense.

Jeff

Andrew: There is a mechanism to make gold out of shit too. The clever thing about free markets is that they turn the normally destructive egoism constructive. When violence is banned the only way to satisfy egoism is to be nice to others and give them what they want so that they volontarily give you what you want in return.

But yes, in cases where violence is accepted, such as slavery or food animals, markets do horrible things with high efficiency too.

But yes, in cases where violence is accepted, such as slavery or food animals, markets do horrible things with high efficiency too.

Though if that's the case, then those things aren't really horrible by the standards of those participating in the market. Maybe to us, but we're on the outside looking in.

Andrew G:

Are the slaves participating in the market? What do they think? And note that, although Daniel's talking about slavery-by-violence rather than (say) debt slavery, the same problem arises whenever there's a big imbalance of power between participants in a transaction.

For an example of a society based on principles other than constant competition and agression, I'd like to recommend:

Always Coming Home by Ursula K. LeGuin.

I doubt many will take the time to check it out or read with an open mind, but it is a great book and a plausible example of a societal structure not based on mindless acquisition.

Charlie: I don't know if you've read LeGuin, but her style is soooo very different than yours that I think it might be beneficial to your creative process. I'm far from qualified to give you writing advice so I hope it doesn't sound like I am; I just know that it helps me creatively to expose myself to works outside my normal range.

I even have one of Mr. Stirling's books from a used book store that I'll be reading soon. I used to be much more libertarian and I have the impression that he is very much so, so it will be a challenge to try to avoid preconception when reading his work. I look forward to it.

Stephen: yes, I've read Le Guin. (I've also read Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, oddly enough. This might surprise you ...)

This thread is very effectively reminding me Why I Am Not A Libertarian. (I could put it slightly more rudely, but let's just say that I think any ideology that puts abstract principles on a plinth and worships them is already well on the way to building pyramids'o'skulls -- and the dogma of leaving everything up to Market Forces is no different from, say, Mein Kampf or the scribblings of Vladimir Ulianov in that respect, if you pursue it to the logical extreme.)

Andrew@#61:

With a free market minarchist state, you have exactly the sort of society that most people want, rather than what they say they want.

Erm - no. Even assuming a rational market where the results of composite choices were predictable, you're still assuming that the resulting system maps onto a consensus opinion. In reality:

1. The consequences of many individuals making a particular decision are unlikely to be predictable to the individuals making that decision (chaos)
2. Even where said consequences are predictable, the consequences to an individual of making a different choice based on that knowledge may be such that they reap the benefits only if all other individuals make the same decision. (prisoner's dilemma, tragedy of the commons)
3. The consequences of individual decisions may have unequal impacts of different individuals.
4. Some individuals' decisions might be more influential than those of other individuals.

A free market is just a system for distributing decisions, not a moral shibboleth or the ordained will of the divine Adam Smith. It has the weaknesses described above, and others. Declaring that the results must be right because they're the results that the system has produced is not a rational response to those weaknesses. Nor is abolishing the system. The rational response is to modify the system to discourage decisions that lead to conditions like the race to the bottom - preferably not through punishment (which depends on a system which can reliably detect transgressions, and on participants expecting to be caught (people tend to be optimistic about their chances)), but by shaping the results of a decision so that consequences for the individual participants match the consequences for the commonwealth.

Charlie:

I'm not surprised the you've read Heinlein or Asimov since they are so much in the mainstream. For a long time my thinking was very much influenced by Heinlein. I wasn't sure if you'd read LeGuin just because she is less identified as a Science Fiction author and often moreso as "Literary". As I'm sure you know many genre readers and writers take a somewhat negative view of more "academic" or "literary" writing. I think much of that has to do with Heinlein's statements about commercially successful writing being more admirable than ivory tower literature. I should also clarify my statement that her writing is so different from yours. I didn't mean politically but rather stylistically. I can't really explain it well but I guess you're more plot and fact oriented whereas her writing is often more ambiguous and more poetic. I am tempted to say more Female.

I especially enjoyed your comment at #67 about the dogma of the Free Market. I think that it is often overlooked how much faith is involved. It can get really ugly when a person thinks that their point of view is natural law.I like LeGuin because she doesn't assume that the direction western culture has taken is inevitable, rather it is one direction we could have taken. I was born in 1971 and I think most people of my generation don't realize to what extent we were raised by television and advertising and how it affects our unquestioned assumptions.

I'm looking forward to reading more of your work now since I have some idea of how you think and I'd like to see how it comes through in your writing (other than Singularity Sky, which I've finished and the first chapter of Iron Sunrise). Thanks for giving me books to read.

...already well on the way to building pyramids'o'skulls..

Only if the market calls for them. :)

A free market is just a system for distributing decisions, not a moral shibboleth or the ordained will of the divine Adam Smith.

I know that. Taken to it's broadest extent it's everyone's interactions with everything, the sum of all choices made off of all the information given. At the moment, it's the most efficient system we have. At some point our technology may enable us to model civilization better than having 6 billion poorly networked computers (so to speak). Once you can accurately model what each and every person would choose, you can allocate resources more easily because it's easier to get accurate information in the system.

But for now, it's best to distort the market as little as possible. The way our system works now, someone tries to "patch" something, and then down the line other problems pop up requiring more "patches". Each one lowers the efficiency of the system a little.

Andrew G, if markets were occupied solely by atomized human individuals, all of whom had full insight into their needs and desires, and the ability to rationally make decisions ... then yes, you'd have a point.

Sadly, this ain't the case.

Firstly, not all people are capable of making correct choices most, or even some, of the time. I'm not talking about schizophrenics and senile dementia sufferers here; we all have large areas where we aren't competent to make decisions effectively and seek professional assistance -- and as often as not, we don't even know how to evaluate the professionals we turn to for competence.

Secondly, you or I are probably giants, in buying-power terms (price signaling equaling speech in this scenario) compared to folks who live in countries with poor per-capita GDP. And we're dwarves compared to the ultra-rich. We don't have a level playing field; the more money you've got the more you can get what you want (in a pure market system) and as often as not that's going to include ways and means for grabbing a bigger slice of the pie.

Finally, we're all -- except possibly Warren Buffet and Bill Gates -- bacteria teeming around the feet of the real economic actors, the large corporations. Who are currently legal persons and who have such a huge footprint that their mere presence in the market makes a mockery of the idea that it's undistorted and fair. Giving companies some of the legal attibutes of individuals was, IMO, a horrible mistake: few individual citizens, after all, can rarely pursue a course of behaviour inimical to their neighbours and steamroller them by means of SLAPP lawsuits.

Basically, your ideal of an undistorted free market doesn't exist. It has never existed, and it probably never will -- unless we hit "reset", abolish money and corporations and all existing property rights, and start again from scratch.

"unless we hit "reset", abolish money and corporations and all existing property rights, and start again from scratch."

Communitarian anarchy? I really like the idea, but short of nanosocialist post-scarcity civilisations, I'm not sure if we can get back to that sort of state.

I'm reminded here of your introduction to Toast, about how the change to an agricultural society is one-way. I suspect that until we make money obsolete, then free-market capitalism might be a similar movement.

Stephen A. Russell@69: I feel that a similarity between Charlie's writing (sorry, Mr. Stross, I hope that you don't mind the familiarity), and Ursula Le Guin's is the abhorence of violence. Glasshouse (and many of Charlie's other books) for all it's brutality, seemed to me to be a book about the paucity of any system that resorts to violence. A sentiment which Ursula Le Guin has often stated in her books.

Charlie, why do you imagine the welfare state makes callousness counter-productive? All the evidence runs the other way: the intricate net of regulations such states create as a matter of course, frustrates those who follow their own judgement and rewards those who obey orders and do nothing beyond them. The wish to help those who suffer is just as disruptive as the wish to pile up wealth; you can't block the latter without blocking the former as well.

Isn't it the main objection to the panopticon, that anything you might do will be examined and judged by rules invented by others, and therefore you dare not do anything that is not specifically permitted? Under a lidless eye callousness becomes the last refuge ...

Sorry to go back to Charlie's original post, but something just occurred to me. I seem to remember, back when David Cameron took over as leader of the Tory party, that he was widely expected in his maiden speech as leader to give the government a slapping over something (I think it was education, but I could be wrong) and when he got up in the Commons he wrongfooted everybody by saying, `No, it's fine, we think you're doing okay, we'd do the same stuff and we approve of you doing it.'
It was seen as a tactical move at the time, and to be honest Blair did look momentarily nonplussed, which was nice to see. Cameron did say that when his party agreed with the government he would say so, rather than opposing them just for the sake of it, and I wonder if George Osborne's comments aren't just more of the same, which casts them in a slightly different light.

Excuse me while I yawn, Charlie.

This thread seems like a rerun of so many that have gone before. I could exclaim that I am shocked to see rampant libertarianism here, but it certainly doesn't seem difficult for you to round up the usual suspects.

"Why bother?", I ask myself. I think I'd do more good running up another batch of CGI Furry Porn. Somebody might get some pleasure out of it.

And some people get horribly confused by the first bars of "All You Need Is Love".

Sorry, Dave, but whenever I say anything remotely political the lunatics start rattling their cage bars. It's most annoying.

I think for future political posts I'll just disable comments.

I think it would be as well if I didn't bother reading them. Maybe it just needs some sort of warning tag.

Mind you, I'm led to believe that I'm pretty lunatic about politics myself. I believe in such things as rational thought.

Thought for the day: "Violence is the last resert of the sexually inadequate."

Oh, and I meant it about the CGI furry porn.

Squeee!

I could exclaim that I am shocked to see rampant libertarianism here...

For some reason libertarians *love* Scottish scifi. I don't know why. It may be Ken McLeod's fault, for writing the best libertarian scifi novel ever.

Charlie,

As such discussions go, the political discussions on your threads are models of civil discourse compared to what goes on at many other sites.

<wittering type=random>
I no longer find it odd to note the majority of people focusing on rates of pay whenever a (foreign|immigrant|illegal) work force is discussed. However, it is depressing that few comment on the opportunity for said work force to realise wealth which is almost inherent in its exploitation (NB: used in the neutral sense of the word) by a wealthier concern.

David Brin had a few choice remarks on the latter in his novel Earth. His examples suggest to me that wealth — as opposed to currency — often flows from the exploiters to the exploited.
</wittering>

On a substantive, I think you'll find that the TGV programme is profitable, which in the Stirling worldview invalidates all possible criticism. Also, it ain't the state that "misallocates" capital into French motorways - they are built and operated by private enterprise.

Did he know that a priori and lie, or does he just not know what he's talking about?

Alex: TGV programme is profitable

It may well work in Europe or in other high population parts of the world (it works even better in Japan), but such a system wouldn't really work well in a place like North America. Frace has 3.5x the population density of the US, for any given mile you'll have over three times the potential customer base. And the UK is twice as dense as France, meaning that there's 7x more customers on a route than over here. The only place that's at European levels of population is the Boston-Washington Corridor, which does have profitable train service.

But it gets worse when you consider that gasoline prices are less than half the price in the US that they are in Europe. This means that there's a bigger competition from people driving themselves, reducing the potential train passengers even further. Added to that, car prices are often lower in the US, and cars larger and more comfortable for long trips. These two factors are largely artificial, there's no reason that gas prices and cars in Europe can't be as cheap as in the US. Taxes artificially increase the cost of private travel and vehicles, leading to an indirect subsidy to rail. That's an example of inefficiency.

"why do you imagine the welfare state makes callousness counter-productive? All the evidence runs the other way: the intricate net of regulations such states create as a matter of course, frustrates those who follow their own judgement and rewards those who obey orders and do nothing beyond them."

I can't help but note that when the British invented the Industrial Revolution, they had the most generous welfare state on the planet.

Chris, that's like referring to the tallest building in Dubuque, Iowa. Remember what Charlie said up in #22, about how England was the minarchist utopia in the 1850's? And his remarks on the New Poor Law, which is the "generous" provision for the indigent you're talking about?

Charlie writes a mean novel, and is a better pharmacist and coder than me. I am a better historian than he is. Check it out then get back to me if you still don't get it.

re: the OP

This isn't exactly unprecedented is it? it seems like politics are getting blurred. Everyone is gathering at the center praising capitalism and The American Way Of Life. No matter if they're "left" or "right". There's only one ideology left these days, and that's capitalism. In the recent national elections in Sweden the former conservative party turned neo-liberal during the 80's won the people over with a very successful campaign saying they were the new workers party. And people believed them!! That says something about how the lines between ideologies have been blurred in the last 20 years...

C.S., (RE:#77). In some of your stories you describe a "Borgistic" community, which I assume you may like to see evolve. You can try to keep people from going political in your own evolving Borganism, but that's probably not going to happen. People are political animals by nature. Besides, the talk in here has been VERY civil.

Jeff

Andrew G, may I ask how old you happen to be?

Noel: 29, why?

Chris, #87: your point is that at the start of the industrial revolution, the Poor Law was more generous than anything anyone else had. Right?

I'd counter this by pointing out that stating that something is the best we've got does not imply it's the best that's possible.

As for profitability as a measure of success ...

I once worked for a multinational that, 14 years after it was founded, turned a profit for the first time. It needed to do so for two quarters running in order to complete its IPO, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered (showing a profit, that is). As long as turnover and creditworthiness rise faster than debt, you can run a business at a loss -- and avoid being liable for taxes levied on profits. This company had grown from a father-and-son startup to a $200M/year software multinational during those 14 consecutive loss-making years.

My point?

Viability is not automatically obvious just by looking at the bottom line on a balance sheet.

Yeah, that's the one (if you want to get economic history with my ass, you can argue that the one in the Netherlands was comparable, but hey). The point I was trying to make was that yr basic libertarian utopia is a very long way from the actually existing political economy that has served as a substrate for runaway innovation. On this planet, that is: perhaps it's been different elsewhere.

As for the 1850s, yes. The British state, even if you include the local bits, was very small by modern standards. The same can't be said of 1890, incidentally, when local government had put some serious money into infrastructure.

And as for the 1930s, also yes. The (new) Poor Law was hated for a century, with good reason. By the standards of the 1930s it was not very generous. In fact, by the standards of the 1830s, it wasn't either. But like the old poor law, it was an expression of a committment by the British government to keep everyone in Britain (even illegal aliens) from starving to death, and tax property accordingly.

Andrew G: Since your comments showed little recognition of externalities, coordination problems, information asymmetries, or time-inconsistent preferences in either an academic or in a practical form, then your posts came across as being made by someone very young.

You reminded me of a more radical version of myself at age 20 or so.

Apparently I was wrong, and you are quite a bit older than I'd thought. Apologies.

Noel,

You were thinking someone along the lines of Adam Yoshida, perhaps? Not that Andrew G. is ever nearly as vociferous as A. Y..

Noel:

Well, my political views were formed around the age of 20, though I was more radical back then. I've mellowed a bit. I know most of what I favor is impractical. When it comes to actually voting, I tend to be a moderate (in the US sense).

But if we were able to start fresh, with a blank canvas of some sort, then I would be a market anarchist.

As it is, I just try to promote market based solutions to problems whenever possible, and minimal government involvement.

Whether I agree with Andrew G. or not, I'll at least give him credit for maturity. I've seen flamewars start over less than Noel's comments #94. To respond to being called ignorant of reality and accused of acting like a 20 year old and respond so unemotionally shows great restraint, especially considering the "Apologies" ending the comment.

Honestly, I think we all sound immature and simplistic any time we try to assert that we know how societies ought to we run; I'm sure I do. I think the best we can do is recognize our own ignorance in the face of such complex systems. It's like claiming that you can predict the weather perfectly through year's end.

The flip side is that anyone with the guts to go out on a limb and try to make predictions opens themself up to looking immature. The best way to look mature is to agree with commonly accepted views, avoid those who disagree, and say as little as possible. That's why (at least in the U.S.) we have the saying that someone is "the strong, silent type".

No matter how much I disagree with someone I have to respect the risks involved in putting your opinions out for discussion and anyone who can do so without becoming emotional. In that respect, Andrew G. has shown great maturity, prehaps greater than Noel.

As an administrative aside, I'll put up with quite a lot, including opinions I disagree with and in some cases find repugnant ... but certain persons are Not Welcome Here: if the likes of *d*m Y*sh*d*, J*rd*n B*ss**r, or J*m*s M. D*n*ld were to drift in from usenet and try posting, I'd delete their comments and ban their IP.

I'm not running a newspaper and I feel no compulsion to provide an unlimited platform for trolls; if they want to communicate they can get their own blogs.

Nobody here (at least, at present) has shown any signs of getting even remotely close to that territory, though.

#5 Alex, the Yorkshire ranter- I think that actually it doesnt matter if his policies are unpopular, as long as there is no public perception of any kind of organised opposition they would want to vote for. If there is a lack of such opposition, then many people would either not vote or hold their noses and swallow the propaganda.

Ah, fair 'nuff, Stephen. The "apologies" was uncalled for. My apologies for that last line, Andrew. The rest was honest.

Charlie: I'm glad you're willing to tolerate us, I don't often get to interact with the interesting mix of political views of people who post here. It's especially enlightening to see European views, and to read about UK politics -- even if I don't fully understand the issues. :)

Noel: It's OK, I'm not offended or anything. I'm used to people thinking I'm naive or a money-grubbing corporation lover. I work with mostly left-wing academics -- in the 2000 election there were more Nader supporters on campus than Gore or Bush. And the political discussion group I spend the most time in is dominated by pretty right-wing nativists, where I'm the lone libertarian voice. :)

I suppose if I was British, I'd be a supporter of the UK Independence Party. Not that I really know much about them other than their stated platform.

Andrew G: the UKIP are racist crackpots who've fallen off the far-right end of the Conservative party. They hate Europe (on general principles), want to bring back the Empire, don't mind having wogs darkies immigrants around as long as they know their place and wear white-face, and think Margaret Thatcher was a dangerous liberal.

The decay function for UKIP members has two paths -- alcoholism, or the BNP.

Charlie: That's what I was afraid of... There are parties like that in the US too, who seem reasonable on paper until you actually meet the people in it. :(

I actually doubt there are any parties anywhere that would match what I believe...

Andrew G: I actually doubt there are any parties anywhere that would match what I believe... ... me too.

(There are some that come close, but they've all got at least one or two policies I strongly disagree with. For example, the Liberal Democrats have a no-more-nuclear-reactors platform. Stupid stupid stupid! ... But no more stupid than the stupidities the other major UK parties espouse.)

Polical parties are typically slow to adapt. How are politics changing in light of our approaching sigularity? In America, one indication is (IMHO)the rising importance of the net and how it's used to promote one's self. All these presidential canidates have thier own sites from which they can spew out endless versions of themselves. It's like having a private TV network. It's all about moment to moment spin control, which seems to be about creative re-packaging. Which, when you think about it, only makes sense in a culture that is used to commercialism from sun-up to sun-down. It can only get worse before it gets better. Of course it all makes for some interesting entertainment. "Hello. Will you entertain us?" (Charles Stross; --Singularity Sky--2003.)

Jeff

Thank you, Andrew. I do strongly suggest that you re-evaluate some of your positions. They are at variance with the facts.

I recommend a good read of "Growing Public," by Peter Lindert, and then a serious investigation of, well, externalities, coordination problems, information asymmetries, and time-inconsistent preferences.

The upshot is that you'll have to stop defending libertarianism on the grounds that minimal government will make everyone, or even most people, better off. (This is another way of saying that you should stop using "efficiency" to justify your arguments.) That position is at variance with the facts.

(I thought about pointing out exactly why the arguments you've advanced on this thread are at variance with the evidence or logically flawed, but I decided that would be too hostile. Plus, I've got a deadline to meet.)

On the other hand, you can, of course, continue to be libertarian on moral grounds. That, however, starts to take you towards Charlie's "pyramid of human skulls," because you'll need to divorce what you consider morally right from what contributes to people's material well-being.

That sort of absolutism leads to kulaks --- or bureaucrats, or trade unionists --- being liquidated, if taken too far.

Not that I'm particularly afraid of radical libertarians taking power anywhere anytime soon. Maybe that's the ideological danger of the 22nd century, but not this one. Huh. Charlie?

P.S. The mainstream of the Democratic Party of the United States pretty much fits my policy preferences. Where the Democrats are vague or divided, I generally happen to be conflicted or undecided. So there, all you people taking the fashionable "oh, no party fits me, nobody at all" line!

Jeff @105, "How are politics changing in light of our approaching sigularity?"

I notice that in the U.S. the predominant reaction seems to be fear. We're inundated with media and political warnings of bio-terrorism, dirty bombs, etc. As hard as it has been in the past to predict future technology and it's social implications, it's getting harder all the time. While bigger spaceships and nuclear power were predicted along with the assumption that they would be used by humans very similar to those of the 1930's now we're faced with a future that is populated by people who will be stranger than we can imagine. Our political and social systems are just not prepared to handle these changes. We're still getting by in the 21st century using attitudes and opinions that aren't much different from those of the 16th century. Carl Sagan said that in the midst of the 20th century are pockets of the 16th. I think we're nearing the point where that just won't fly anymore.

I'm actually amazed that fundamentalism is still around. Considering how many religious assumptions have been absolutly disproven already I expected a major shift in human thinking by now. People are still clinging to old beliefs but I still think that soon that will become impossible. That's a cause for fear to many. With the breakdown of many traditions, fear has become one of the last viable tools for control of large populations.

Stephen @ # 107: It's Future Shock all the way from here! I understand that many people are fearful; this world seems very good at causing general anxiety and that is often experienced as fear. Those who can adapt will, the others will become Amish, or retreat to some burb-clave where most of the outside world is kept behinda well-protected perimeter (like Disney Land). As for our failing traditions and fear as a tool: hope can also be used, and in that regard Christianity really did/does use hope with some very fine results. It's all about ballance, of course.

Jeff

Stephen, "disproven"?

Also, don't judge other faiths by Christianity. I'm Jewish, and I simply don't see the conflict.

At the time Gallileo was being picked on by the Inquisition (mostly because what he said about the Pope, his intellectual bullying and complete lack of manners as anything else, but still) for saying the Sun did not revolve around the Earth, Jewish Rabbis and astronomers made the distinction that religiously, it simply didn't matter..and scientifically, at the time, they disagreed with him.

It's clear that social and economic systems cannot handle the increasing pace of change, but I am far from convinced (in the UK) that the base attitudes are to blame (because here, they go back well before the 16th century in many ways) as it is the post-War governmental structures, established to being some stability to a people lashed by war.

Andrew,

I did mean to refer more to "fundamentalist" views, especially but not limited to Christians. I take the view of Carl Sagan, that religion is fine as long as it does not insist on making predictions about physical reality that are at odds with observed fact. I did not in any way mean to disparage Judaism.

Oh, and I just realized what you meant by quoting the word "disproven" with a question mark. I didn't even realize I was using a regional dialect. I live in Western Pennsylvania in the U.S. Our English is very much influenced by German immigrants. We refer to that ancestry as Pennsylvania Dutch. Formulations like "disproven" sound natural to me and would never be challenged in spoken English in my region.

Andrew Crystall (re: 109) -- but Giordano Bruno was executed, not for just preaching Copernicanism, or even his brilliant deduction that the universe contains an infinite number of worlds, but for suggesting that some of these alternate Earths are just like ours, except the Mass is said in the vernacular. Now, if he'd thought of Alderson disks too, he could have beaten Charles Stross into print by 4 centuries...

I was reading something recently, I cannot recall the details, but Bruno was executed as much as anything else for espousing decidely non Catholic approaches to religion etc, in fact he was tending towards Hermeticism. Needless to say this was not a good idea.

Andrew G: "You get situations where the kids have to sell off the old family home to pay the taxes on inheriting it, which is always unpopular."

Have they actually found an example of that? Last I heard, that was a myth.

Jeff Minor: "I just learned how to avoid paying a death tax on our family summer home, which is now in my father's name."

How much is that house worth? According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States),
"....there is a unified credit against the tentative tax which effectively eliminates any tax on the first $2,000,000 of the estate (or the first $2,000,000 on a combination of taxable gifts during lifetime and a taxable estate at death), ..."

Which is in line with what I gathered from casual browsing of the news.

BTW, 'death tax' is simply untrue, since only estates over a certain amount are taxed. For example, my parents have done well, solidly middle-class US, but their estate won't be big enough to trigger even the 1990's threshold. I'd have to seriously accumulate mucho wealth over the next 30 years, to hit the current threshold.

In a way, though, it's useful. Just as 'Darwinism' is a pretty good sign that the speaker is a creationist, so does 'death tax' give valuable information about the person using the phrase.

Barry: inheritance tax is increasingly becoming an issue in the UK, because the threshold is around £300,000 (about US $590,000) and the tax rate is 40%. It has increased over the years, but not in line with inflation in the price of housing. As the average family home in the UK is now worth over £200,000 -- and that's the average, a 2-bedroom flat in most suburbs of London will set you back over £300,000 -- a tax which originally only affected the super-rich is now beginning to bite into the middle classes.

The flip side of this is that not having an inheritance tax permits a rentier aristocracy to develop. And bringing in the inheritance tax (and ramping it up post-WW2) was one of the two measures that did most -- in the UK -- to free up social mobility and take a crow-bar to the class system.

I'm not terribly keen on inheritance taxes for personal reasons (my parents are in their eighties; I'm going to get hit by it in the next several years, for sure), but doing away with it has some very nasty long-term social consequences.

Too bad Carlos doesn't post here, Charlie. He could tell you a few things about the history and effect of inheritance taxes.

So here's a modest proposal.

US$590,000 ain't low for an inheritance tax threshold. Nope. Neither is two dollars. Oh, two dollars may be unenforceable, but it ain't low.

So: Take it all. Every last dime. Adult children should get nada. If your parents didn't invest enough in you by the time they kicked over for you to succeed, too effing bad.

Incentives? My ass. If you believe that, then you also believe that unintended sterility leads to laziness. Pshaw.

Morality? Only if you believe that property rights are sacred, and if you believe that then you've got a fundamental problem with civilization.

Community? Well ... tight intergenerational family bonds are generally not associated with societies in which there is a great deal of positive community feeling.

So that leaves enforceability. Good argument, there, can't disagree with it. Guess decent countries will stick with half-million thresholds after all. But the only reason for that is a practical one.

All this nattering about passing on "Ye Olde Family Suburbane Homestead" gives me a headache. Enough already.

Postscripts:

Barry: you are correct, the family losing the old homestead to the inheritance tax is a myth. (Not that it would bother me if it weren't, of course.) I'd also like to take the opportunity to point out that the statement that "most middle class families have a million or two dollars now when they die" is rather at variance with reality. The average net wealth in the 50-75 percentile of the wealth distribution, a reasonable definition of "middle class," was only $185,000 in 2004.

More relevantly, the median net wealth of non-Hispanic white households headed by somebody over age 70 (which I do believe is the sort of household that Andrew was thinking of) is only $212,000.

Stephen Russell: while I cop to being overly snarky, and have apologized for it, the above misconception is one of the reasons why I thought Andrew G. was rather younger than 29.

Link disappeared, for anyone interested.

www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/markets/w07-1.pdf

Noel: Maybe it is a moral/ethical position that separates us. I think that the individual is the only thing that matters, and that society is a fictional construct, the sum of the interaction of individuals. Therefore anything done in the name of society is wrong if it isn't done with the express permission of those individuals affected.

Barry - thanks to the way property prices have risen where my parents live, it's a situation I will almost certainly be facing (unless the price drops, basically). The price has risen pretty astronomically in the last five years. But between the way the Mortgage is set up (which would be highly illegal these days, it was nicely grandfathered in though...) and inheritence tax...

Noel - do that and I'll either use dodges (like, say, a fund) or I'll leave for somewhere with sane laws.

Andrew G @117: I dare you to go visit your local town hall naked and clutching a bottle of whiskey, then tell the cop who arrests you that he's a representative of a fictional construct.

(Hint: while I'm all in favor of the rights of individuals, saying something is wrong if it isn't done with the express permission of those individuals affected would tend to undermine our ability to, for example, arrest robbers. In general, the way republics deal with this conflict between the interests of the individual and the collective of individuals is to have everybody delegate their interest to the collective, at least in such fundamental matters as providing for the rule of law. Or are you not in favor of that?)

Andrew C: the threshold for most taxes in the US are set a whole lot higher than in the UK -- although there are exceptions: I boggled when I discovered how much some American friends of mine expect to pay in local income tax/poll tax/real estate tax, for somewhat worse local services. And there are things we get for free in the UK that would set you back £1000 a month in the US -- like health cover, for instance.

Charlie: Fictional was probably the wrong word for me to use, since society is real in the same sense that religion is. Belief has a way of creating it's own reality.

Legitimate? No, I don't think it is any more than a school yard bully is.

Just because a republic or other government might claim it's legitimate because it's forced or brainwashed people into delegating it authority doesn't make it so. It just means it has a monopoly on force -- which has been the primary function of governments from the beginning, saying who could hurt who and when.

Ideally, Tort Law would be the only law, without the need for Criminal law. The whole focus of law should be on restitution, not punishment. Civilization lost something when our ancestors abandonded weregeld.

Charlie, regarding local taxes in the US that's probably a result of the federalized nature of the US government. I have the feeling in the UK the central government pays for a lot of things that are funded locally here. Schools, for instance, are usually funded from the property taxes of the school districts (one of the reasons towns hate apartment complexes and condos and love single family homes and businesses).

It varies a lot from place to place as a result. When I was in Florida we had no state income tax -- hotel taxes covered it. In Connecticut I pay about 6%. I also pay property taxes on my car, which I didn't in Florida. Wages are about 25% higher in Connecticut though, and there are more services, so it's offest some. But that's why you see so many retirees going South once they're on a fixed income.

Andrew G, your philosophy boils down to, "Wouldn't it be nice if human beings didn't behave like human beings," and that's a rather childish position. You're not exactly coming across as much of a serious thinker, I'm afraid.

Feel free to go to any of the many parts of the planet where there's no monopoly on force. I've been to several. There's a reason I own body armor.

I know that you'd hate those places. It's possible that you don't know that, but I suspect that you know that your philosophy is rather silly. In other words, I don't believe that you believe in your own philosophy.

Noel, it sometimes seems to me that one of the major triumphs of western civilization is that it allows people like Andrew G. to cling on to their rather optimistic world-view long after a less civilized environment would have shattered the underlying illusions.

(There's probably a moral hiding somewhere, but I am too tired and jaded to go ferret it out tonight.)

Andrew G.@120: Andrew, you seem to have Subjective Reality and Concensus Reality a little mixed up. Both are real and both exist. They are both required in this reality, or so it seems. The society you live in is very real in all of the most important kind of ways.

Jeff

Noel, I'm not trying to be utopian here and say that the world would be perfect if we got rid of governments. It likely wouldn't, and you'd probably end up with a lot of petty tyrants. I'm just saying that a government isn't any more legitimate than a Somali warlord and his thugs driving around in a technical shooting eachother up.

Besides, those places you mention are messed up for reasons completely unrelated to their lack of government -- there are plenty of nations with strong governments even worse than Somalia -- North Korea, Zimbabwe, Iran, Venezuela, Sudan...

When it comes down to it, there are no places in the world and never have been that are true anarchies, just places with different types of thugs.

Andrew G: I think you're wrong about legitimacy and government. While the wellspring of legitimacy has varied with time, these days the prevailing model seems to be "legitimacy arises from the consent of the governed". And, y'know, I think this means you're out-voted.

Charlie:

I think we're in somewhat murky times for the concept of "consent of the governed", at least here in the U.S. and when applied to the right to vote for representatives. In our system, political candidates are selected and culled by each of our two parties and then dangled out for the public to debate over. When we complain about the government here we're almost invariably told to vote to change matters. It is an article of faith that voting can change any aspect of our government and to challenge that is considered unpatriotic and an indication that the speaker has no right to their opinion. No matter how corrupt the system gets or how obvious it is that votes and representatives are being bought and sold by corporations and wealthy individuals, we are still expected to consider voting to be equivalent to consent.

Expecting accurate representation through voting in a democracy is not much different than expecting benevolent corporations through consuming in a capitalist system.

Consent in any sense other than voting is simply a tautology: The government is in place because no one has overthrown it.

Andrew G, you've lost me here.

First, you've used words in a completely non-standard way, which makes it impossible to figure out what you're trying to say. Take "legitimacy." A legitimate government is one whose right to rule is accepted by the people it rules over. By definition, a group of people who have to "shoot people up" and whose authority does not extend beyond their gunsights is not legitimate.

I have no idea what you meant, therefore, when you wrote, "I'm just saying that a government isn't any more legitimate than a Somali warlord and his thugs driving around in a technical shooting eachother up," since that makes as much sense as writing "I'm just saying that the sky isn't any more blue than a bright red rose."

Second, you've used examples that undercut the argument that you seem to by trying to make. On what basis do you believe that life in Zimbabwe, Iran, or Venezuela is worse than in Somalia? What's your metric?

I mean, Venezuela? Venezuela? Where would you get the idea that life in Venezuela is worse than life in Somalia?

Leaving Iran and Venezuela aside, you also mentioned the DPRK and Sudan. They are clearly abhorrent places, but your point is still most unclear. A statement that the DPRK and Sudan might be worse places to live for their citizens than Somalia (or at least for non-Arab Darfuris in the case of Sudan, at least, because most of Sudan's Arab citizens have never had it so good) is only an argument against the proposition that all governments everywhere at all times make for a better life than no government.

Who's argued that? Charlie argued that modern democratic governments make for a better life than a world with no government. I've gone a bit further, and argued that most governments are better than no government. But nobody's supported the straw man that your comparison to the DPRK implicitly argues against.

Finally, I'm sort of lost as to why you posted at all, since you also seemed to write that you don't, in fact, believe what you claimed to believe. Or am I misinterpreting you when you write, "Noel, I'm not trying to be utopian here and say that the world would be perfect if we got rid of governments. It likely wouldn't"?

Charlie @ 126:

That's a good point, but can a government legitimately govern those who don't consent? Or is consent implicit by a lack of resistance? That is, if you aren't actively resisting a govenment, you accept its legitimacy.

Noel:

Regarding your first point, are people really accepting the rule of a government or are they merely afraid of the power it possess the same way some poor residents of Somali fear their tribal chief or local warlord? If, say, I don't want to pay that portion of my taxes that go to the Iraq war will that be OK with my government any more than not paying whatever tolls or extortions a Somali warlord demands in his territory? The only truly free system would be one based on negotiated contracts, and payments for services. If I don't like what my national defense contractor doing in Iraq, I should hire another one.

On your second point, perhaps I was a little unfair to Venezuela. It's not that bad yet, Chavez hasn't been in power long enough. You're right, that there's a continuum, and that even a warlord-filled anarchy is preferable to a bad government, but not as good as a good government. A stateless society with the with the right social underpinnings and legal structure would be better yet, however.

And for your final point, I'm just saying that a perfect world isn't possible. No matter how great a human endeavor is, there's some flaw. Democracy, tyranny, feudalism, fascism, anarchy -- they all have their good and bad points.