After thinking about this for a few days and really looking at what they did, I have to say that it definitely could’ve been worse. I mean when this whole thing started, they were talking single payer. They didn’t even get a public option. They got the individual mandate, which really sucks, and they got the ban on denying coverage based on pre existing conditions and they got the subsidies for low to middle income individuals/families, but all things considered, this really could’ve been a lot worse. I’m not saying I’m happy this happened, but at least it’s not single payer.
…yet.
That’s the goal of course. They will expand it to make it single payer at some point. I wouldn’t be completely surprised if it was done by a Republican.
I wouldn’t either. But yeah, that’s their goal. They didn’t get it this time around.
The other way to look at this, ofcourse, is that if they’re gonna socialize medicine they should just do it and save us all the suspense.
since it isn’t a complete copy of the Canadian or UK system, people on the left will still think they have an argument for moving all the way to single payer once this system fails, and once that fails, well we just need to pump more money in.
Yea I guess my point is that the result with a fascistic model is the same as a moderate socialist. A big disruption in economic calculation. The degree at which there is intervention will be the degree of disrupted economic calculation and distortion of prices ect…
But like all things the government does, it’s a stepping stone. Years ago people abhorred social security, but they said “It could have been worse”. Government doesn’t confiscate the market in one fell swoop, it does so incrementally. This addition is just one more step to total control but also total melt down.
I know I know.
My point was that this isn’t the Hindenburg socialism model. Disruption in economic calculation isn’t socialism. There would have to be no meaningful economic calculation at all.
There is no doubt that as we move closer and closer to a centrally planned economy, it is the fascist or Hindenburg type of socialism that seems to be at the end of the road. There may just be a tipping point where things get so inefficient and financially unstable, that we may find ourselves at that turning point, where we are literally overnight , transformed into a socialist common wealth of the German/Hindenburg pattern. There are always tipping or threshold points to every system. I can’t imagine just continuing on this path of micro-stepping into socialism. The economy will tip over.
I hope LVMI is thinking about radical contingency plans for how to continue to operate in a socialist commonwealth. That may actually be an interesting thread.
Yes, but regardless of the direction we take to acheive total socialism, whether it be incrimentally growth in socialist programs, or growth in fascist ones. For each direction in total state, in general, the percentage that is lost in the private market will be that same percentage in lost in economic calculation and the formation of meaningful prices for consumers.
At the point you arrive to total state you have no prices, or at least the prices derrived are meaningless. So I am looking at a 2 dementional plane.
TOTAL STATE<------------------------------<--------->----------------------------------> FREEDOM
No Calculation<----------------------------<--------->---------------------------------->CALCULATION
The farther we move from freedom to statism the less acurate calculations we can perform. The less acurate information entrepreneurs and capitalists have when speculating how to best serve consumers. It matters not whether we choose a fascist model, socialist model, or a mix to arrive at our total state destination, all of them have the same results economically.
I also contend however that a total state cannot formulate in it’s entirety. Such an economic model to exist to it’s full extend democratically, as eventually it will cause more overt harm then it’s alleged good that is propagated to the masses. The state will fall in on itself before it gets that far. Or if it assumes that roll in one fell swoop, it will fall shortly after as many communist countries learned.
It seems in todays method of democracy however the institutional system of installing socialism will not be in the form of a dictators call to order, but slowly and incrementally over time via the democratic method.
What are your thoughts on that?
I don’t see why its never understood that WE CAN argue with emotional appeal as well- but there’s also the logic and facts to back it up! I always thought the problem was that we let leftists get to the moral highground first. There’s no reason why we can’t get through to people’s emotions first- that’s how I’ve convinced many about what goes on within government.
When using analogies and examples- I see a trend that some libertarians or whoever tend to sound like robots instead of trying to relate to the person and try to stray from really attacking them(lol guess its the tendency to not force beliefs onto anyone?).
I know friends like myself who haven’t grown up in the best neighborhood- so when they(obama supporters), try to tell me that “Hey I think we SHOULD help the less fortunate instead of thinking about “my money is mine”- that greed is whats wrong with this country!” I tell them that, if someone tries to rob you on the street for $500, I’m sure you’d start thinking “my money is mine” also. Why don’t you go give your money to help the poor yourself? Why do you want to steal it from someone else?". That’s when you get to the real debate and they’ll talk about “oh what you think everyone in society is Good and will do things just to help people?” You can keep up with the emotional appeal and say “There’s plenty of democrats/liberals in this country, since you all agree that you should help the poor I’m sure you can set up charities pretty easy. Or no? You don’t want to help the poor with your own money? You don’t think you can convince anyone else to help the poor?”
You gotta get to the core of their beliefs- because these guys are NOT people who are versed in Austrian Economics, so they really don’t know a thing about what improves the economy and what deteriorates its situation, so theres really no point to go that route because they’ll simply disagree with you because of their lack of knowledge on the subject(Ego plays a big part here, they’ll just ignore your facts and tell themselves they’ll do the research to find out if its true…but they’ll never actually do the research because they think their beliefs about whats right/wrong about policies defines them as a person). . They’re coming from a place where they just know that something is wrong, people are being hurt, and they want something done about it.
I only resort to the logical and factual arguments when they try to strike back with whatever statistics they might have to try and prove their point.
You must first ask why they were uninsured. The whole reason most of these people were not insured is because to do so would be too risky or unprofitable for insurance companies, This law has just forced insurance companies to take on greater risks, and since this will raise costs, they will end up raising premiums for all of their clients.
Edit: Having said this, many people will also be uninsured because they feel they are healthy enough not to need it. These people will suffer because they will be forced to pay for something they don’t need, hampering their other consumption.
If you mean that the information conveyed by prices becomes less and less informative regarding the valuation of the consumers, then yes, you are absolutely correct. More and more of the information conveyed by the price system becomes more reflective of government preferences and less reflective of the consumers. However, the calculation problem is very different from this.
The calculation problem makes it impossible for the planner to plan at all. It is not just that the planner cannot embark on projects that satisfy the consumer’s most urgent needs. He cannot embark on any project at all. So even if he wants to build a warship for himself, he does not have any method by which he can ascertain the multitude of different paths and alternative ways in which the production process can undertake. Forget the consumers, he cannot even plan for himself.
I am referring specifically to the Economic Calculation problem as defined by Mises in books like HA and Socialism. The inability to create meaningful prices, or the lack of prices all together. In socialism there is no money, and as such no economic calculation. A socialist may argue that they can create money but the prices that are formed would still be meaningless and arbitrary.
It’s not that he cannot build a warship, it’s that he is unaware of the most efficient way to accomplish this.
He cannot build it at all. That is what is meant by “no economy at all”. If there are no prices, there can be no rational planning. The argument is not about inefficient planning. Otherwise, it would be the “inefficiency of Economic calculations” instead of “impossibility”.
No rational planning= cannot plan at all.
The calculation problem is extremly difficult to grasp. Most people that first encounter it and think they got it and just move on, usually don’t. I still struggle with it. It is a difficult mental problem to conceive.
well, this gets into the semantics of ‘plan’. Both filc and DD5 are correct.
It depends whether we say ‘that plan is so stupid it can hardly be called a plan at all’. The Misesian argument as I understand it is about the impossibility of economic calculation, hence economically rational planning. If we are willing to call economically irrational planning, ‘planning’. Then bureaucrats can still have these plans, and attempt them. They will not be plans that are economically rational.
I would agree we are talking about both sides of the calculation problem.
I was simply referring to the monetary(economic) lack of ability on deciding how best to allocate natural resources.
DD5 brings up another good point, at some point the division of labor may break down. Specialities dissapear. There may be no one competent enough to create an electrical system capable of maintaing the war ship ect…
Both of them are valid, the problem of lack of information I believe is Hayekian is it not? It’s not commonly referred to as economic calculation is it? Is there another name for that equally relevant, and complimentary, but different problem? IE the lack of knowledge?
Misesian economic calculation also implies a lack of knowledge, but not in the epxertise of how to build the ship. More so it’s the lack of knowledge in deciding what specifically the economy should produce, how much of it should it produce, and for whom. In other words:
- Should we or should we not produce banana’s
- For whom do we produce the banana’s for?
- How many banana’s do we produce?
This is the economic calculation problem I am referring to. In the case that the formation of meaningful prices is distrubed these questions are less acurately answered.
DD5, I believe you bring up an additional point that at some point the division of labor will fail, and that expertise and cooperation and a certain amount of knowledge will be lost.
This particular part of the problem I am not as familiar with, I think a dictator could easily coerce a scientist into researching whatever material he desires, but it doesn’t mean the scientist is aware on how to accomplish the goal in the most efficient way possible. Those discovery’s are only emergent through market mechanisms.
You’re right when you say that there can be no rational calculation without prices, but you’re wrong when you say that a socialist planner cannot build a warship. He most certainly can, and a good one at that.
Saying that the implementation of socialism, as an economic system, must inevitably lead to total systemic collapse is one thing, but saying that a socialist planner cannot create a single warship is simply absurd.
Indeed. The socialists had many fancy tractors, but they lacked the oil needed to power them, and suffered massive food shortages.
What are you talking about? The former Soviet Union?
I guess you are.
An apparent verification of these errors was seen in the experience of the
socialist governments of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. People do not
realize that these were not isolated socialist systems. They were operation
in an environment in which the price system still worked. They could resort
to economic calculation on the ground of the prices established abroad.
Without the aid of these prices their actions would have been aimless and
planless. Only because they were able to refer to these foreign prices were they
able to calculate, to keep books, and to prepare their much talked about plans. (Mises, Human Action)
Does this clear up the confusion? The “impossibility” refers to its literate meaning. This is why I said before that the calculation problem is much more difficult to grasp then most people think it is.
You cannot build a modern warship or anything even remotley close in the absence of economic calculation.
I know, but that is not the economic calculation problem. That was my point.
The system of division of labor without money prices is confined to nothing more then small primitive tribal barter economies.
The paradox of “planning” is that it cannot plan, because of the absence of economic calculation. What is called a planned economy is no economy at all. It is just a system of groping about in the dark. There is no question of a rational choice of means for the best possible attainment of the ultimate ends sought. What is called conscious planning is precisely the elimination of conscious purposive action. (Mises, Human Action)
He talks about this in his book Socialism also (the latest edition)
You must understand that Mises means the above in its full literate meaning. How can you build a warship in the absent of “conscious purposive action” as Ensuric suggested above?
Ensuric’s mistake is that he takes the former Soviet Russia as an example of a socialist common wealth. It wasn’t. They were able to resort to prices abroad.
you are reading too much into it. walking in a straight line is a conscious purposive action