Deregulation/lack of regulation caused the financial collapse
An economy cannot grow if the money supply doesn’t grow
A free market leads to monopolies
Profits are a form of exploitation (there is a winner and a loser)
The government needs to protect industries (subsidies, bailouts, tariffs)
The government needs to create jobs to curb unemployment
The government needs to provide services that the market cannot, or would underproduce, or would provide inefficiently (lighthouses, research | fire brigade, post office, roads)
The government needs to regulate the market for quality and safety (doctors, food, products, etc)
The ones that didn’t make it for the top 10:
Saving is bad (‘hoarding’)
The curse of machinery
Everyone cool with that? I’m mainly interested what normal people now believe, and also those that are incorporated in current government policies. Does the govvy really do much against ‘the curse of machinery’?
The next step would be to create short and hard-hitting explanations. Also we’d need to find an ordering.
I’m not so sure; it’s the universal answer you hear for why gold supposedly doesn’t work. It’s an issue even a lot of starting libertarians have trouble with.
Do you mean the belief: we are rich because other people are poor?
As I said on the previous page (which you may not have seen): I want the titles of the myths to capture the beliefs of what people think of, i.e. something that catches their attention as true.
I mean the specific belief that international outsourcing in general makes the domestic population poorer in general; buying local helps the local economy.
Public sector provides things for cheap and with compassion. (schools anyone?) while the private forces are all about greed and raising prices. Don’t believe me then just ask Bill Maher.
And what about the big one; He has a Nobel memorial, hence he knows what he is talking about.
Then the whole idiocy about how free market is unsustainable for our environment . (Actually its the only sustainable way of economic behaviour that protects the environment.)
What a great thread! This has so much material for a project I’m working on called “The Con Primer” – it’s a device for a story I’m writing. “The Con Primer” is a small book, like an early grades reading primer, for young folks to study and learn so they can avoid getting conned as they navigate life as adults.
People have all these justifications for government.
Breaking up monopolies, wealth redistribution, national security etc.
A violent organization established for the purpose of breaking monopoly is not a government.
A violent organization established for the purpose of stealing from the rich on behalf of the poor is not a government.
A violent organization established for the purpose of defending a large group of people is not a government.
Once a crises has been fixed, this violent organization will have lost its purpose and therefore ought to disband. Governments do not disband. You can concede all the statist arguments about how coercion is needed to poke and tweak certain aspects of humanity, but there is never any reason for ANY establishment to exist indefinitely.
I mean, if we found a cheap alternative to oil/gas, Exxon would disband, no?
A call for violence does not justify the state. Its a non sequitur.