Insurance Company Worse Than Welfare State

...the information being requested by the insurance company is that which the GOVERNMENT demands. The 1035 exchnage was created under tax law and the very problem you are bemoaning was created by the very state you adore - NOT in any way, shape or form by the private sector.

That renders your whole premise (hardly a surprise at this point) silly.

I clicked on one of the links (not knowing it was a link) about Adam Smith. My comment was this.

One should read the essay in Irving Kristol's book "Neoconservatism" about Adam Smith. Kristol says that Adam Smith presumed a morality, widely recognized in his time, underlay the free market. Kristol says that Smith would not recognize the Free Market philosophy and behavior of today, since that presumed moral basis no longer exists.

As the foremost authority on Adam Smith extant (author of "Adam Smith's Lost Legacy" who runs a blog of the same title and has said some very graceful things about my own Adam Smith research) would tell you, Smith might well disagree with many of the attributes defended as capitalism today, but would reject out of hand the notion that there was any presumed moral basis behind the free market. Quite the contrary, Smith argued in favor of "perfect liberty".

Current free market doctrine is ERNTIRELY consistent not only with Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" but also his "The Theory of Moral Sentiments".

Don't confuse neoconservatism (which Kristol advocates so why you would use it as source material is beyond me) with traditional (or even modern) conservative thought. But even Kristol did not argue, as you say, that the "presumed moral basis no longer exists". He argued that the embrace of the free market prevented the US from taking an imperialist role as had the strongest nation at each time in the past.

But Smith argued AGAINST any imperialist role and, correctly, argued that the embrace of the free market mitigated against just that. It is Smith's - not Kristol's - assessment of moral conditions that has been vindicated by history.

...at face value, how can I reconcile it with quotes given to Black Tygr based on your initial essay where you argued that conservatives were pessimistic and believed mankind depraved? A response:

“Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. The nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the Western world stand out as striking exceptions to the general trend of historical development. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the development of capitalist institutions.”

Friedman was not arguing that human beings are “depraved” nor was he “pessimistic”. Quite the opposite, he is arguing that human beings are oppressed by the governments that have arisen and that the embrace of the free market (which he saw as continuing in relation to the world at that time) bettered mankind. History has unequivocally vindicated that view.

I could not find Sowell’s (alleged) quote anywhere. He has spoken at length about the “tragedy of the human condition” – defined as nothing more than a lack of perfection, an inability for example to know everything and make perfect decisions or magically correct every problem. That this is a fundamental point behind conservative reasoning is certainly true. That it even implies that humans are “depraved” or that his outlook is pessimistic is flatly ridiculous.

I likewise could not find the Jaffa quote, but it is inconsistent with many of his actual statements such as “That is not to say that the human condition cannot be improved. It has improved time and time again in history.”

Your use of dubious, cherry-picked and out-of-context quotes merely exposes the weakness of your positions.

Perhaps I'll read the rest. Perhaps not.

You say that governments have "arisen." That is pretty sloppy, Fletch. Pretty sloppy.

Then you go on to say something about the "embrace" of the free market. Also pretty sloppy.

If you want to make clear to me that you understand just why this is so sloppy, perhaps I'll read the rest of that post. If you don't know why this is sloppy, why bother.

Governments "arose" because they did not exist originally in the state of nature and they DO NOT require the mutual consent of all involved to come into being. To the contrary, governmental force is OVERWHELMINGLY applied in the absence of consent upon the governed. The use in English is entirely appropriate and correct.

The free market must be "embraced" by those who would engage in it. All it requires is that eqch individual involved in an exchange do so freely without force. It takes place literally millions of times a day. In the context of government action, the "embrace" of the free market entails the decision by those in government (by definition, because appeasing the particular constituency that wants it is in his own best interests) not to apply coercive force to such economic activities. Again, the use of the term in English is entirely appropriate and correct.

Using the pretense (it is nothing else) that you cannot properly address the argument because you don't like the (completely correct) semantics is a cheap dodge to avoid the argument and, again, merely highlights the bankruptcy of your own position on the matter.

There can only be three possible reasons for the charge of sloppiness: 1) your understanding of the basic use of language conventions in English is horribly lacking (which I would find incredible), 2) by viewing my post through your own ideological filter you have deceived yourself into believing it was so (the one I'll accept for reasons you'll see), or 3) you are being deliberately dishonest in the hope that I would simply accept such an erroneous charge without comment (which I would find insulting).

Of course, given that the Friedman quote cannot POSSIBLY have been used in the manner you did in anything but a deliberate, premeditate attempt to distort the truth (the context of the qoute simply cannot be missed), the third possibility is all too likely.

What is this "state of nature" bs?

It's an empty waste basket that anybody and their mother can fill with any rot they choose because no one can contradict them because it refers to nothing other than what one chooses to put in the waste basket.

Once again, using the "state of nature" is very sloppy.

I think it was Adam Smith who did put forth the idea that prior to the free market people were dependent upon various relationships for their fortunes. The money economy eventually made who your parents were less important and loosened the bonds of traditionalism. As George Will says, "Capitalism destroys tradition."

Most accounts, I believe, invoke the struggles between church and state as being factors that loosened the control that each exercised over the individual. The innovation of Protestantism loosened the authoritative position of the Church and taught that the individual was capable of making his own relationship with God and this spilled over into money.

This is the type of explanation (here very abreviated) that is not sloppy because it tries to put changes in the context of interactions between people and people and our world. A lot of it is, of course, just guess work, because of our limited abilities, but sincere nevertheless, proceeding from the premise that situations and events have causes, the causes being prior events and situations.

"Arose" and "embarrased" are indeed sloppy. If a student wrote a paper so lame I would be hard pressed to hand him a C grade. (Not that I'm a teacher, just saying that this type of thinking should have been drummed out of our students before they graduate high school).

I don't think the quote I use said at all what you said it said. The misery, tyranny and servitude I took to be a comment akin to your "state of nature," though I presumed that Friedman referred the plight of most people around the world in terms of the limits and hardship of their daily lives (which now is relative but wasn't relative previous to the 19th century Friedman cites).

Where I argued that conservatives are pessimistic
and believe that mankind is depraved was drawn from the opinions of various conservatives. As you know "debased human nature" plays a big part in conservative theory, while libertarianism calls for a different sort of human nature. See Tabor Machan.

Once again you make an absurd accusation of “sloppiness”. The “state of nature” is nothing more than that which exists in the absence of human constructs. This is a common and universally accepted usage of the term in historical and ideological theory. Governments, by their very nature, are human constructs. Your complaints about my usage indicate either dishonesty or a glaring ignorance of the topics you have chosen to debate.

Adam Smith said nothing of the kind. And, again, you take someone’s words (in this case Will’s) completely out of context to imply it means something it clearly does not.

Will was discussing the incompatibility of conservative paternalism (conservatism is not just a single set of ideas, but a dynamic school of thought – the point made by the anthologies you read but you have misconstrued as some sort of inherent contradiction) and the unhindered free market. The “traditionalism” he argued is destroyed by capitalism is that IMPOSED BY THE STATE – typically behavioral admonitions. He was not arguing that the lines of conservative thought were contradictory – merely that certain amalgamations were incompatible. The free market isn’t even remotely antagonistic to VOLUNTARY traditional relationships particularly familial or beneficial cooperative ones.

Your assessment of the evolution of Western thought with regard to church, state and, particularly, Protestantism is fairly close to the mark; the extension to one’s relationship to money is absurd on its face and is inconsistent with essentially EVERY non-Marxist account.

The term “arose” in the context that it developed via human action (and specifically due to human action to obtain and retain power) DOES reflect the interactions of people in the real world. Likewise, the term “embraced” in the context that a system (capitalism) has achieved greater acceptance by those very same interacting people is entirely clear in its meaning.

This is not guesswork. There is no historical school that argues that governments did not arise - albeit certain socialist historians (sic) argue inaccurately that initial institutions were socialistic. Nor is the assessment of Friedman’s position at all guesswork. His writings make it abundantly clear that the terrible conditions he perceived at the time were a direct and inseparable result of government (socialist) oppression and that he was unfailingly optimistic about the ability of the free market to improve the human condition.

Your grading scale is entitled to as much consideration as your teaching credentials warrant. I’ve been writing privately and professionally for years, I’ve been a working economist for a quarter century and even taught the subject on one occasion. I have been studying the works of Smith, Friedman, Hayek, Mises, Locke, Bastiat, Rothbard and, yes, Marx, Gramsci, Engels, etc for decades so I am well aware of the positions of each of these men so I can say, completely without risk, that you have mischaracterized the positions of Friedman and Smith at the very least.

I am not versed in the works of Jaffa or Kristol, nor have I read everything by Burke or Sowell, though in the latter case, I am familiar with quite a bit, but I CAN do basic research and your characterizations of their positions is completely at odds with the material from these authors that is readily available. Similarly (and you make the same mistake with regard to Tibor Machan) you confuse a basic conservative concept - the recognition of reality that human beings are both imperfect and unable to achieve perfection (or but another way, human nature is a constant) with the absurd concept that humans are inherently “bad” (debased) and that the human condition cannot be improved.

Quite the contrary, it is an essential part of conservatism that the state of mankind CAN be improved (as opposed to “perfected” – particularly in the discredited Marxist mode). This is especially true for free market conservatives and/or libertarians who argue that the free market (that embrace of capitalism) is the best way to achieve the best outcomes for humanity (including and perhaps even ESPECIALLY the poor). Given the performance of the welfare state, minimum wage laws, agricultural subsidies, etc., all of which have been ABYSMAL failures, it’s difficult to understand how someone could argue otherwise.

It is SOCIALISM that demands/predicts/requires “another human nature” by expecting a system to work in which human beings will abandon their own self interest in order to forward the interests of the collective. This is completely contrary to human nature as demonstrated by every fraction of every moment of all of human history.

that exists without human constructs.

The first thing we run into - which I shall not disclaim about at length - is the controversy of whether there is something out there that human beings perceive without mediation or whether all that we know about the out there is mediated by our brains.

But, the more pertinent point is your lack of specificity. Humans evolved in Africa, once, apparently and moved out around the world, learning, innovating, interacting, etc.

I still don't know what you are talking about when you talk about the state of nature. We have the earth, which was made by comets crashing into each other some 4.5 billion years ago; we have water; we have an atmostphere; we have volcanoes; we have seas, plants, animals, we have quarks, atoms, molecules, we have history, we have evolution.

Your term "state of nature" I think captures none of these specifics; and you can't subtract human beings from the state of nature since we are a product of the processes which created all of the specifics of nature.

This is a mental habit of conservatives and libertarians I find that is persistent, i.e., subtracting human beings, subtracting emotions, subtracting government as though they can be subtracted because they are not an integral part of that which exists. This is a major flaw in your thinking.

You are forced to postulate that the rise of government is a mistake, just as conservatives are forced to postulate that humanity took a wrong turn and became immoral someplace between the 8th and 17th or 20th century (it changes with each author).

The first thing we run into is easily disposed of. The delusions of postmodernist philosophy aside, even the world as perceived by human beings consists of realities that can generally be agreed upon, measured, assessed. Socialists prefer postmodernist thought because it provides a cheap excuse to ignore those measurable, assessable facts because they choose to place primacy upon their own perceptions (even if the facts tell a different story) because their perceptions are no less valid than anyone else’s. The historical refutation of the viability of socialism (or the effectiveness of the welfare state) can then simply be ignored.

Where human beings evolved and how (or, for that matter, why) is completely irrelevant. It has no bearing on the discussion whatsoever. Your deliberate obtuseness on the subject (and drift into tangents on geological history) doesn’t alter the meaning of the term from being the condition before mankind created societal constructs – any state that exists prior to the application of human intellect. The concept is neither complicated nor vague and is universally understood not merely by conservatives and libertarians but is fundamental to the entire body of thought on the subject including Marxist, socialist, anarchist, and, yes, modern liberal thought.

Further, there is no “subtracting” government. There is merely a comparison of results when governmental action is involved and results when similar activities are undertaken in the absence of government intervention. Government objectively scores badly in every form of societal intervention.

And neither I, nor conservatives, postulate that “the rise of government was a mistake” (that is “anarchism” and a number of brilliant thinkers can make their case better than I). The mistake was the EXPANSION of government beyond the role of protector of the citizen to the welfare state, every aspect of which has been a failure.

You do need to read a little Burke and the thread of conservatism which defines tradition as the product of ages of human experience which has distilled the best of human wisdom. It was this traditional wisdom instutionalized in church and family (and woefully for you, no doubt in government) that Will was referring to. You seem to keep reading impositional governement into writings where it doesn't exist.

Did you have any choice in the economic system into which you were born? I think your causality is distorted here.

I think also that you exclude some very important factors in the history of capitalism and freedom. If you read Burke you will see his horror of the French Revolution, but he neglects that the people who made the revolution had issues with the ancien regime. They weren't happy with it. The blacks who rioted in Watts had problems with the social system into which they were born.

One is faced with making a choice about the systems, i.e., traditions, into which we are born. We can go along and make the best of it - which we often do if the overall results are satisfactory or we can try to make changes, either incrementally or violently.

You may not like communism or socialism but they are movements which were made by people who were dissatisfied with the conditions under which they lived.

Furthermore, we are under no obligation to accept the status quo free market if we don't like or agree with it. That is our freedom.

I find it's always necessary to inquire of libertarians and conservatives that they stipulate their zero or base year by which they compare everything which follows.

And, therefore, your critique of the welfare state, minimum wage laws, etc., is distorted and backasswards.

The evolution of the welfare state occurred because people were dissatisfied with the society into which they were born and they took steps to change it. That was their freedom. To say that the welfare state failed is to say that the conditions before the welfare state were better, that the poor were happier and made more money. Bah, humbug.

You cannot simply juxtapose concepts used differently by different authors in order to prove a (specious) point. Certainly, Burke's definition of tradition is valid, but Will was not discussing the complete eradication of traditionalism IN THAT CONTEXT. He was discussing the incompatibility of a conservative political viewpoint that justifies GOVERNMENTALLY PRESERVED tradition with capitalism.

You can't bounce all over the place like that.

Capitalism (or, if you will, the free market) is, BY DEFINITION, voluntary. So, yes, unequivocally, I chose it (as does everyone else whenever they choose to engage in free exchange). The alternatives are either autarky (complete economic independence) which can be either chosen or imposed or socialism in some form (Marxism, communism, fascism) that must invariably be IMPOSED upon at least some of the populace.

Neither the French revolution, which in no small part took place because the crown meddled in the economy (such as fixing the price of bread) causing widespread starvation). The Paris Commune that rose briefly thereafter collapsed quickly due to its own unworkability. The Watts riots were a revolt against perceived inequities imposed by the state (initiated by response to police action). Neither event undermines capitalsim in any way whatsoever.

The conditions under which the advocates of socialism lived were hardly capitalistic (and Marx looked favorably upon mid-19th century America). Dissatisfaction with those conditions did not make their state-driven solutions viable. History demonstrates clearly that they are not.

Furthermore, while you are under no obligation to accept the status quo if you don't like or agree with it, you do not have the right to impose on anyone else (by force or vote or any other means) another system. THAT is our freedom.

It is absolutely unnecessary to stipulate a base year. It is instead relatively easy to assess the consequences of each part of the socialist program and test the outcome.

The welfare state has generated costs approaching $8 trillion dollars and the end result is that it has INCREASED poverty. This, of course, was the only possible outcome as people acting in their own individual interests will sometimes perceive those interests to accept handouts rather than pursuing a course that would make them more productive citizens.

Minimum wgae laws have accomplished one thing only: they destroy jobs. They have never been even remotely successful as an anti-poverty measure. This is neither distorted or "bassackwards"; this is unvarnished FACT cofirmed by ever study on the matter that has survived scrutiny (unlike the debunked Card & Kreuger material).

The welfare state in this country evolved because people were dissatisfied with conditions that had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with capitalism. It rose in the wake of the Fed induced (and governmentally prolonged) Great Depression. To say that the Welfare State failed is to say that conditions were better economically (technology is another matter) before the state-caused Depression, that welfare state policies have yielded poor results and that countries that have chosen more socialist welfare state policies have fared measurably worse than those that have chosen less socialist welfare state policies. Each and every one of those positions is vindicated by actual reality.

in the absence of government intervention."

Who undertakes these activities, for what purpose and for whom? I hope nobody is taking actions on my behalf which I did not ask them to do.

In spite of my continually asking for specifics you remain vague and abstract.

Are you telling me it is a FACT (your emphasis) that Blacks in this country were more prosperous and happier in 1860 than in 2008?

What you've told me as a FACT is that socialism, which didn't begin until many years later, made their lives worse. You state this as a FACT.

One of the basic mistakes you make is assuming that people's goal is socialism, i.e., some sort of package philosophy. People's goals are to have a better life for themselves and their families. If they embrace a particular facet of socialism they do it pragmatically, less interested in the philosophy than in results.

"Who undertakes these activities, for what purpose and for whom?"

Postal services, charity, EVERY productive activity (bar none), trade, employment, etc. The whole point is that, in the absence of government intervention NONE of this is done "on your behalf". It is done in the interests of those engaged in the activity. And, thus, no one demands that you surrender anything in order to accomplish these things.

The studies on the impact of the welfare state are SPECIFIC, the data showing conclusively that countries that are more capitalistic perform better economically (including for the poor) are easily accessed and SPECIFIC. The examples of public charity, minimum wage laws, and now postal services, retirement planning, etyc. are all SPECIFIC.

If you are going to continue lying to my (figurative) face about the content of my responses to you, I'll simply start ignoring you as a waste of time. If you wish to have an actual debate about the specific issues rather than making childish complaints about how "sloppy" my responses are, pretending that universally accepted phrases are undefinable or that I am being either vague or non-specific, then by all means, go ahead.

The choice is yours.

I gave you a specific question. Are blacks worse off now that in 1860. You ducked it. You had to, since they were worse off under that free market system than they are under this welfare state.

I think we are both agreed that there is no point to further discussion between us.

I didn't see it at the time, posting my last response immediately before going to pick up my daughter.

Of course blacks are not worse off now than they were in 1860. They were emancipated from slavery (which hasn't a damn thing to do with capitalism). Only an ignorant fool believes that the GOVERNMENTALLY IMPOSED servitude of a segment of society has ANYTHING to do with a free market - the unhindered exchange of goods and services between free individuals.

And then the blacks were able to benefit from the phenomenal gains in prosperity that RESULTED from prosperity. In fact, more and more balcks moved into the middle class and average black wages in comparison to whites continued to rise in every decade for a hundred years after 1860.

And then it stopped.

In the wake of the not-so "Great Society", black family unity which had been stable for a century COLLAPSED, for the first time average wages for blacks FELL in comparison to whites, black household income fell in real terms (another first). Black poverty has increased (and minimum wage laws keep young black males the most unemployed group in our society).

A strong argument can be made that the condition of blacks have deteriorated since the expansion of the welfare state in order to "help" minorities.

There's a specific answer to a specific question. I don;t suggest that you try to "win" by spouting absurdities such as slavery being an example of the free market.

Liberals think everything is connected, hence we think slavery was intertwined with all of society during that time, but especially in the south. For you to say that slavery had nothing to do with capitalism is true in the sense that capitalism had yet to "arise." But slavery certainly was intimately connected with economics. The south could not have survived as cotton exporters without the free labor of slaves, or so the southerners thought. That's why I ask if you are putting me on.

I can't go on, after reading the rest of your post. I know I've insulted you a lot, Fletch, but I have the sneaking suspicion that you are a teenager without worldly experience, who is claiming to be an adult on your website.

If you are an adult I have to tell you that your posts are inane. I won't waste any more time with you, teenager or adult, whatever you may be.

Slavery was interconnected with societal mores and but it never had ANYTHING to do with capitalism. In fact, when Adam Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations", essentially the first direct advocacy of a free market (long before the term capitalism was coined) argued quite correctly that slavery was an economic disaster.

Slavery is just another system of oppression - the exact OPPOSITE of capitalism which is all about the free exchanges of free individuals (beyond a certain specific economic usage, that is ALL it is). Slavery is a system of curtailed rigts imposed by the state - there is nothing about it that is even compatible with capitalism.

The second enormous fallacy is that "[t]he south could not have survived as cotton exporters without the free labor of slaves". You correctly qualify it with "or so the southerners thought" but they were no less wrong. Slavery costs enormously more than it generates. In a free market environment, simply hiring laborers would have been vastly more advantageous to the South. The economic stagnation that can only result from holding a significant portion of the populace in bondage was a key reason (perhaps THE key reason) why the South lost the war.

You're right about one thing. There's simply no point in continuing. If all you can do (obviously the case) is respond with ad hominem attacks when faced with the FACTS about welfare, the minimum wage, etc. then you are too enamored with your own ignorance to be worth further effort. Perhaps one day you will put aside your ideological blindness and realize that the points I made about the welfare state are not only unassailable but easily verified from the government's own figures. I won't hold my breath, however.

Adieu.

Of all the egregious claims you have made this is the claim that substantiates that you have drunk the kool-aid.

I may be guilty of ad hominem attacks but you are certainly guilty of a rigid, knee jerk recitation of every sophist cliche in the libertarian's vast repetoire of knee-jerk, sophist cliches. But that claim that government imposed slavery on the south does not even have the appearance of being reasonable that is required of sophist rhetoric.

You're simply a fool.

There isn't an historian, or for that matter a layman cogent enough that he is no longer soiling himself (perhaps that's the problem) who does not grasp that slavery is a societal institution only sustainable when enforced BY LAW. Government imposed slavery upon the slaves under European law (English law here) and was retained by the GOVERNMENTS of the states who achieved independence. To the HUGE extent that slavery still exists today in Africa and Asia, it is, again, maintained by the force of government.

That you can't grasp this point plain to any elementary school student makes you no longer worth the time necessary to see if there are any further responses.

You persist is reifying abstractions. Laws are made by men. Governments are made by men. The second amendment, according to Libertarians, is there so that citizens who think government has gone too far can shoot and kill the government men, which no one ever did over slavery. You make government out to be a separate, solid entity with a mind and a will who does things to people. Wake up, Fletch.

sound bites suggested to me by our discourse. Which do you prefer?

"His mind is littered with cliches." or

"His mind is a garbage heap of cliches."

I donno. I like em both.