Joe – thank you as well for leaving such an insightful
comment on my blog – I think that the dialogue that is going on is extremely
important.
First, I would like to say that I am a firm believer in the
capitalist system – my qualms are not with the theoretical legitimacy of the
system in its purest state – for I believe that a world of anarcho-syndicalist
values would probably work in a vacuum.
The problem is that this is ONLY true in a vacuum!
I will address the first part of the comment here: my
argument is not that government funded projects are the only thing that creates
innovation – in fact I am only making the argument that a stable flow of
government funding to programs that incentivize research programs is beneficial
to the innovation that you two are discussing.
You can be correct about all of the things that you
discussed – the creation of different fuel/power sources, but it skirts the
core issue that the basic technology that enabled the spin-offs that you are
talking about were all a result of focused government programs that used
national interests in order to speed up the development of an efficient
technology.
This is just a warrant as to why government projects and
investments are essential to the joys that we take for granted every day; namely
the internet which was created in a government project.
Now I will address a point that keeps coming up (stay with
me for the second part of your comment because I feel this is a good point to
explain my views on the whole “transaction” business).
You are correct about this; in a perfect transaction,
everyone benefits.
Yet you, along with everyone else that defends this
ideology, blissfully ignore the systemic flaws in the system of transactions
that is the prerogative of those with resources to “game” the system.
This perfect mathematical system of transactions goes very
well until one of the following things happens: Theft, Opportunism, Failure of
Regulations, Lack of Regulations, Off-Balance of Supply and Demand.
Any of those above problems, along with a large other number
of issues leads to the economic disparity that the Occupy movements have been
criticizing.
What I keep saying about the rich getting richer and the
poor getting pushed through the gutter is true – sure in 1900 the average
person would have been in horrible poverty if they were to be alive today, but
the income disparities of the 1900’s were much less than they are today.
I feel as though I have just answered your third paragraph
by accident, but it is sufficient because at the end of your comment you come
to similar conclusions as I do.
Keynesian economics is more predictive of human nature and
greed than is Friedman economics – this is a fact, and the most basic
difference between the two.
I will defend until the day I die that most people, when
left to their devices, will take as much advantage as possible of the things
they can – some people are smarter than others and have that ability at an
unbalanced level – this is what the purpose of government regulations are.
The status quo is a trap for the poor. It must end – this is
the thesis of my argument and I see no alternative to this approach.
Other than just writing off government approaches as
coercion… but that seems intellectually dishonest and lazy to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment