Practical Politics

I am so lacking in energy this morning I may not have it in me to do a great deal of posting today but I wanted to say this. I am reading a number of observations on socialism and capitalism, some pro some con. In my view like libertarianism socialism is a fine value with which to inform one’s political opinions but it makes for a lousy governmental organizing principle. Anarcho-capitalists cannot bring themselves to admit that their preferred system may produce intolerable social outcomes. Socialists can’t bring themselves to admit that culture and history are important and are not infinitely malleable.

The track record of state socialism is terrible. That cannot be denied. It is possible for small, wealthy, ethnically and culturally homogeneous countries to create expansive welfare systems for themselves only to pull back from them as they become less ethnically and culturally homogeneous and less wealthy. There is no experience to which to turn to consider such systems in large, wealthy, diverse countries. I think the results will more closely resemble the Soviet Union or China than they do Denmark, a tiny country of six million which, when it adopted its system, was 99% ethnically Danish and culturally Lutheran.

Something for those promoting the virtues of capitalism to consider: crony capitalism which is what we have now is not one whit better than soft socialism. If you’re going to defend capitalism, you need to condemn the aspects of our system which have led to it becoming crony capitalism.

What, then, is the solution? I think it lies in patient, constant stewardship. There is no broad, sweeping simple solution to our problems. As H. L. Mencken pointed out a century ago “there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”

25 comments… add one
  • Andy Link

    Unfortunately, that’s where I see things headed – crony capitalism (heading toward state capitalism) vs European-style socialism (heading toward state socialism). It’s yet another false binary choice to go along with all the others.

  • Guarneri Link

    Your points, in general, are well taken. But I would observe:

    “Anarcho-capitalists cannot bring themselves to admit that their preferred system may produce intolerable social outcomes.”

    This seems a straw man. The number of absolutist libertarians is quite small, and the movement has never really gained political traction during my lifetime. I’ve only known two in my lifetime, and they were kooks. Just lamenting that a government at Fed, state and local levels that taxes away 35-40% of the national income has gone astray does not equate to damn the poor or disabled. And after all, that’s not where we really spend the money anyway.

    As for crony capitalism, a pox on both their houses. How often do I rail here, especially in the context of some new government scheme, that it will just be used to fleece people for the benefit of the connected and very wealthy.

    By any measure, government is too large, and growing. Smaller, not zero.

  • Guarneri Link

    PS – If you have gotten the flu I pity you. I’ve been struggling with it for three days. It’s a bad one.

  • Gray Shambler Link
  • I agree with his assessment and I have posted on most of the issues he raises myself in the past. High points: we need to update our system of intellectual property to the 21st century (it’s 18th century now) and we should be breaking monopolies up as a matter of routine. There are a few natural monopolies but most are a result of rent-seeking.

    Unmentioned by the author: regulatory capture. Either we need serious restrictions on the activities of bureaucrats and elected officials once they leave office or we need to change how we compensate bureaucrats to remove the incentives for them to collaborate with the companies they’re supposed to be regulating.

  • At this point no flu symptoms. Just pain and fatigue.

  • Gray Shambler Link

    “pain and fatigue”
    Me too, but should improve with age.

  • I’ve been tired and in pain for 25 years. This is different and, I hope, transient.

  • steve Link

    ” I’ve only known two in my lifetime”

    I feel the same about socialists. I have known only a few in my life. In the conservative world wanting a top tax income rate of 39% makes you a socialist, or supporting universal health care. But everyone I know who wants those things doesn’t want the state owning and running businesses. As to crony capitalism I think I see conservatives claiming they oppose it, then supporting the legislation and the people who support and enable it. (To be fair a lot of liberals also do that, just not to the same degree.)

    Agree about regulatory capture. In order to stop it we need to go beyond regulating people who leave government. We need to look at the families of government officials too.

    Steve

  • Guarneri Link

    I just read the summary dot points on this so called Green New Deal. I had two thoughts:

    Where does Ben purchase his psilocybin.

    What is the media doing fawning over this AOC women? And by association all this new progressive class. She is self identifying as a complete idiot. Media is only hastening her demise. And Kamala Harris? Joining in on sponsoring the bill? Is she next tin eared Hillary?

  • We need to look at the families of government officials too.

    Good point. Agreed.

  • On another blog I just commented my take on the Green New Deal. I think it should be phased in starting by banning cars in California and air conditioning in DC.

    Interestingly, national gas taxes have the greatest impact on the Mountain West and the South and agricultural states (unless you rebate taxes paid by farmers which we do).

  • Andy Link

    “Interestingly, national gas taxes have the greatest impact on the Mountain West and the South and agricultural states (unless you rebate taxes paid by farmers which we do).”

    That’s true. Here in Colorado the state Air Quality Control Commission unilaterally adopted California’s emissions standards for the entire state. That means in 6 years, average MPG for vehicles sold in the state must be 36MPG – 10 more than the existing requirements. This is fine for the front-range urban core, but will be very difficult – to say the least – for the rural plains and mountain areas.

    As for the New Green Deal, it’s just a list of aspirations and questionable assumptions. Let’s see an actual bill that will implement it.

  • Andy Link

    Regarding socialism, I guess it depends on what one means.

    Does nationalizing health care quality?

    What about people who openly advocate policies that would give government programs a competitive advantage (ie. the “public option”). What about people who openly advocate regulation as a means to kill some businesses and promote others?

    Currently, 21% of US GDP comes from government spending. Add in all the things that progressives want and I bet we’d be well over 50%.

    At what point can we call it socialism? I don’t think we need to get to state socialism before we can call it socialism.

  • Ben Wolf Link

    Whether socialism happens isn’t set in stone. Capitalism’s end is. There is no evidence of any kind that this system is capable of saying “enough”. That it is in any way able to cease destroying the biosphere upon which it depends for existence.

    If you want evidence of this, look at what the super-wealthy are doing with their money. They are trying to build interplanetary ships to escape what they themselves acknowledge will be a global devastation wrought by climate change. It’s a ridiculous idea that won’t work, but that makes the point: the capitalists themselves, knowing their actions are making what they call “The Event” an inevitability, will not stop. Even to save themselves. That’s how irrational the profit motive is. That’s how contradictory market systems are.

    “Socialism” is a broad term adopted in the 19th Century to mean one was critical of the new system of capitalism that was spreading through Europe. So ultimately all it means is a move beyond the current system, after which the employee no longer serves the employer. No ruler, no ruled. No lord, no serf. Whatever replaces capitalism, assuming there’s still a society left, can be called socialism, or post-capitalism, or a hundred other things. The name of it doesn’t really matter. If it makes people more free than capitalism, you can call it Liberty Pie and I’ll be fine with that.

  • 60-70% of U. S. health care spending is paid by government at one level or another. In France it’s about 85%. Is the French health care system socialized while the U. S.’s isn’t? That seems like a stretch.

    I think a better rap on the U. S. system is that it’s paid for by the government but the actual beneficiaries (measured in terms of outputs rather than inputs) are actually quite limited in number.

  • There is no evidence of any kind that this system is capable of saying “enough”. That it is in any way able to cease destroying the biosphere upon which it depends for existence.

    I think that can only be claimed by non-operational systems.

  • Andy Link

    “Whether socialism happens isn’t set in stone. Capitalism’s end is.”

    I suppose much depends on how you define Capitalism and the precise criteria and indicators that would signal its end. Harder yet is figuring out what would replace it. Marx hasn’t been right so far, what alternative do you envision?

    “That’s how contradictory market systems are.”

    As opposed to what? As Dave often notes, the only two methods for allocating resources are via markets or fiat – and no one has yet devised a fiat system that works sustainably better than markets do.

  • steve Link

    “and no one has yet devised a fiat system that works sustainably better than markets do.”

    Without arguing too much over the meaning of sustainably, I would argue that health care in most other first world countries works better and is much cheaper while insuring everyone. So, is it socialism to manage health care that way, or is it pragmatism because you are just choosing the model that works better?

    Steve

  • So, is it socialism to manage health care that way, or is it pragmatism because you are just choosing the model that works better?

    I would put that under the rubric of socialism’s informing one’s views as I mentioned in the body of the post.

    I don’t think that any reform will have the necessary effect without the willingness to deny care and due to our history, size, and diversity we don’t trust the government to make those decisions. I gather that steve disagrees.

  • steve Link

    “I would put that under the rubric of socialism’s informing one’s views as I mentioned in the body of the post.”

    First, only if you call it socialism and not the only known successful model. There is objective evidence on costs, numbers of people covered and outcomes. Those all favor many of those other systems over ours. (Is turning to the government to run our police forces socialism?)

    “I gather that steve disagrees”

    I dont think we have tried very hard yet and things are not bad enough to force change. Let’s say the GOP finally overturns Obamacare, all of it, and we go back to the path we were on. In 30 years only 60% of people have health care coverage. Health care takes up 30% of the US budget. Would that be enough to force change, especially if all of the other first world countries have everyone covered and health care takes up just 20% of their budgets? Might.

    Steve

  • Andy Link

    “So, is it socialism to manage health care that way, or is it pragmatism because you are just choosing the model that works better?”

    Socialized healthcare in first-world countries is a hybrid between market and fiat – including our system. Even a place like Cuba isn’t completely by fiat as they rely on medical tourism to get hard currency.

    What progressives seem to want is something that can’t be realized – unrestricted individual access to whatever healthcare they want paid for by the government while changing little else in our system. Who controls the bottom line in that case? How can such a system deal with shortages?

  • steve Link

    I am sure there are progressives that want that, but not any that I am aware of in the health care policy/economics arena. Everyone recognizes that there are trade offs. They talk a lot about denying care. For example we know that some surgical procedures do not improve outcomes, yet insurance companies keep paying for those procedures. No company wants to risk losing market share by denying them. A government program could decide to not pay for those procedures. Doesn’t have to worry about losing market share. When we have three treatments that all have the same outcomes, but one costs an order of magnitude more than the others, why do we cover that expensive one?

    So there is actually a lot that progressives would change. And again, there are multiple models for stuff that works, or at least much better than our system works.

    Steve

  • Ben Wolf Link

    Andy, with respect, markets vs. planning misses the point entirely. Freedom, which neither delivers, is the goal. Having a bureaucrat tell you what you do or get is no better or worse than a market, because the market is a mirage. It’s still controlled by bureaucrats, just of the private variety.

  • Andy Link

    Ben,

    That’s actually kind of the point I was driving at.

    We have a culture where we believe the place to determine care is solely between a doctor and a patient – ie. we want the freedom to choose, or the freedom to let doctors choose for us.

    So when steve talks about discussions on denying care I’m skeptical. When those on the right talk about how markets will sort everything out I’m skeptical.

    But I don’t think it can be denied that there are limited healthcare resources and therefore the freedom of people to have whatever healthcare they and/or their doctors want is, by necessity, limited. The freedom to access services provided by another individual cannot be absolute, especially if such services are paid for by a third party. If we eliminate markets and bureaucrats in the allocation of healthcare, then what is the alternative?

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