h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Guess what thread title inspired this one?

As I see it. When this form is supported against detractors. It is done so with retorhic or by attacking socalism or by saying it is the only way to freedom.

The gist seems to be to reduce or nullify tax and rely on self interest. I've heard the phrase survival of the fittest (seemingly ignoring inherited wealth and the creation of dynasties)

So aside from pure fantasy. How would this work?
Could all "true belivers" of this system be shipped to a land mass to show us it's perfection?

Interestingly, there never *has* been such a place as Libertaria, though there are islands aplenty for sale, where one could be set up..
In Ayn Rand's book, Atlas Shrugged, there is a description of her libertarian 'paradise', a place called Galt's Gulch. She doesn't really say how it would work, but it's an outpost of hell to me - no one does anything for anybody without payment, even for their best friend!

What baffles me about many libertarians (most are actually propertarians who aren't really interested in liberty, but never mind that now), and particular the kind of pseudo-philosophy spouted by disciples of Rand, is that extreme capitalism is in no-one's advantage, not even the richest.

No social welfare or employment rights will mean a lot of hungry and desparate people. Result - more begging, anti-social behaviour, and more crime. Crime and the fear of crime reduces the value of life, and is expensive.

A lack of access to decent healthcare will mean that disease will be rife, and diseases like TB might re-emerge. Some diseases are contagious, and those that are don't care how much money people earn.

A lack of access to decent education reduces equality of opportunity and competition for key jobs. This is bad for the economy and bad for everyone. Many talented people will never get the chance to compete on a fair basis for vital jobs - teachers, doctors, architects, etc etc. The more competition, the broader the range of potential applicants, the better these people are likely to be.

A lack of a decent standard of living means that the poor can't buy goods and services, which means that those goods and services can't be sold, meaning that people go out of business. More and more money in fewer and fewer hands will wreck the economy.

So why do people want to live in a state like that??

A brilliant summary, Otto!
Why *do* people want that?

I remember my grade 10 philosophy teacher commenting that Marx was right in his assessment of Capitalism as it existed in his time. But the teacher argued that Marx erred in basing his antithesis on the capitalism of the time which was incomplete capitalism. Today, the teacher argued, we have a more complete capitalism, so there is no need for Communism. For some time that seemed to me a reasonable statement.

But later in life I realized that capitalism in the real world since Marx has actually developed into socialism, which seems to me to be a synthesis of capitalism and communism. So, Marx was, in his Hegelian way, absolutely correct. And my philosophy teacher was out to lunch. Except when he inadvertantly agreed with Marx that Capitalism was doomed to failure.


There. Should we let the other side in?

Well, there are currently several such places in various stages of development. All that I know of are offshore of one variety or another. Either an island/archipelago that a group has purchased, or in at least one case, a large cruise ship. I'll dig around later tonight and see if I can find any of the links -- they made for interesting reading. At least one was directly based on the Heinlein flavor of Libertarianism.

In all of the ones I've seen, all members were going to have to "buy in" to become residents -- almost like buying into a condominium. Several were planning on offering reduced rates for people who were trained and skilled in various highly needed occupations.

Still though, I don't think they are adequate experiments for answering your question. Because of the buy-in issue, there wouldn't be any founding residents who weren't capable of self-support. And it seems highly likely that should the communities survive into subsequent generations, they would find it most expedient to simply expel residents who weren't capable of supporting themselves. The problem isn't eliminated, it's just shoved onto someone else.

To truly test whether a purely capitalist libertarian society could survive, you would need something more closely approximating a closed model.

Personally, as far as fictional utopias go, I found Skinner's Walden II community somewhat more appealing than Rand's Galt's Gulch. Even that, though, wouldn't be easily sustainable on a national scale -- to begin with, it would have a massive impact on research/development for everything from medicine to computers and engineering.

Yes, that model you mention does look a lot like cheating. A true social experiment would have to be cradel to grave and as such, would take a very long time to develop.

One major problem with the system as I see it is that the richer someone is, the less likely they are to spend money.

In general observation: The lower to middle income people temd to spend a higher percentage of that income and are the people who keep the economy ticking over in real terms.

The extreemly wealthey are a drain and a sinkhole of wealth.

If the TV show I saw the other day is any kind of indication, the extremely wealthy find all kinds of "creative" ways to spend their money.

This particular program was about the expense the rich and famous will go to in order to maintain beauty and youthfulness. It only *began* with plastic surgery of all types. The most ridiculously expensive indulgence seemed to be the custom produced makeup - at $7,000 for a tube of lipstick and $10,000 for a jar of foundation.

I'm sure there are similarly overpriced items and services available for use in all areas of their lives.

Of course, those who run the businesses that the filthy rich support are not exactly hurting financially either.

It's still a *significantly* smaller percentage of their total wealth than what us low and mid earners spend of course, otherwise they wouldn't be rich any more.

Wealth is a very odd thing. If you have a lump of clay it might be worth a few pence. If you spend a few quid painting it once youve shaped it and pay a couple more quid to fire it and glaze you could end up with something worth a couple of hundred quid.

In a capitalist system the rich are not the problem they are an intergral part of the system just as much as the poor, if the system is run equitably. What tends to happen is that people in such a system tend not only to asspire to creating wealth for themselves but recognise that they can gain an advantage by restricting the wealth creating potential of others.

Human greed for power has destroyed communism by diverting the flow of resources to unproductive endeavours. Like wise the human greed, need to be more wealthy than others, where wealth is used to restrict the earning potential of others destabilises capitalism by creating resentment amongst those who are aware of being held back.

If companies like nestle were really interested in developing their markets things could be very different. Yet they profiteer instead, the profit margin is paramount. Instead of the volume of trade increasing peole starve while the profit margin widens. So you get terrorism, civil wars and communism or radical religious states emerging and nationalising food production. Companies do not like tis as it threatens their markets but do they make trade fairer to avoid this or will they use all the influence and wealth at their dispoal to keep the poorest in poverty.

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Pure, unregualted, capitalism, of course, could never work. We need protection for the vulnerable, financing for equal opportunties in health and education...etc etc. Capitalism unbounded can't give us that, it canonly make a few people unreasonably rich. Read about he aftermath of the industrial revolution or social conditions in the middle ages.

On the other hand socialism in it's purest sense doesn't seem to work too well either. People need motivation to be efficient and efficiency is required to produce the right kind of material goods and services which we humans seem to need. The profit motive provides the best..perhaps the only effective..motivation. They didn't have that motivation in the USSR and East Germany or in Hungary or Poland and we know what happened to the economies of those countries. Its a pity but, pragmatically, greed is what motivates the majority of humans; not all but a big enough proportion to make it the best motivator.

What we actually need is a capitalist system, with all its powerful motivation, regulated to protect the vulnerable and the environment and whatever other things need protecting...most of us will have our own agendas...and taxed to the most efficient degree to provide finance for publically provided goods and services. Schools, hospitals, roads, defence, policing, social security and so on. These are just examples and maybe some of them shouldn't be on the list; maybe some others should.


By taxing to the most efficient degree I mean taking the earnings of entrepreneurs and employees to the extent and balancethat will provide the optimum balance between yield and motivation. In theory that would equate to the balance between material well-being and money available for public services though the extent an balance remain elsuive and different people would find different balances and extents ideal.

This wouldn't do away with the small minority of very wealthy people, not even those (to me!) undesireables with enherited wealth. Nor would it necessarily eradicated poverty. But it would reduce the effects at both ends of the scale, whichas go to be good.

It's also pretty much what most advanced economies in the world are working towards. No-one has actually achieved the optimum balance yet but a lot of econmies have moved a long way down the road. It's not like it in sub-Saharan Africa, I know (different argument!), but in general, things in the advanced economies are better than they've ever been in a material sense. mayb there's more to follow...

Pure, unregualted, capitalism, of course, could never work. We need protection for the vulnerable, financing for equal opportunties in health and education...etc etc. Capitalism unbounded can't give us that, it canonly make a few people unreasonably rich. Read about he aftermath of the industrial revolution or social conditions in the middle ages.

On the other hand socialism in it's purest sense doesn't seem to work too well either. People need motivation to be efficient and efficiency is required to produce the right kind of material goods and services which we humans seem to need. The profit motive provides the best..perhaps the only effective..motivation. They didn't have that motivation in the USSR and East Germany or in Hungary or Poland and we know what happened to the economies of those countries. Its a pity but, pragmatically, greed is what motivates the majority of humans; not all but a big enough proportion to make it the best motivator.

What we actually need is a capitalist system, with all its powerful motivation, regulated to protect the vulnerable and the environment and whatever other things need protecting...most of us will have our own agendas...and taxed to the most efficient degree to provide finance for publically provided goods and services. Schools, hospitals, roads, defence, policing, social security and so on. These are just examples and maybe some of them shouldn't be on the list; maybe some others should.


By taxing to the most efficient degree I mean taking the earnings of entrepreneurs and employees to the extent and balancethat will provide the optimum balance between yield and motivation. In theory that would equate to the balance between material well-being and money available for public services though the extent an balance remain elsuive and different people would find different balances and extents ideal.

This wouldn't do away with the small minority of very wealthy people, not even those (to me!) undesireables with enherited wealth. Nor would it necessarily eradicated poverty. But it would reduce the effects at both ends of the scale, whichas go to be good.

It's also pretty much what most advanced economies in the world are working towards. No-one has actually achieved the optimum balance yet but a lot of econmies have moved a long way down the road. It's not like it in sub-Saharan Africa, I know (different argument!), but in general, things in the advanced economies are better than they've ever been in a material sense. Maybe there's more to follow...

Modern capitalism and modern money for me is represented by the sight of thousands of well off people retreating out of the cities into well-protected estates to keep them away from reality. They are not prepared to try to change the decline of society, rising crime, drugs etc. but wish to use their money to escape from it. They want good roads and cheap petrol to take them too and from their luxury locations and aren't bothered about public transport or housing. It is the Thatcher legacy, can't get a council place? Buy privately. No public transport? Get a car. We are building a divided society. It's a mini Grapes of Wrath scenario.

I dont think its fair to judge communism on by the outcome of the soviet bloc. It failed because it was locked into a resource draining arms race with the west. The soviets had to rely on their own produce while NATO had the advantage of being able to economically exploit the rest of the world.

I dont think its right to say that communism does not make a good environmet for production, MIG jets, AK47s, and space stations were just a few of the exemplorary products from behind the iron curtain.

Very good points there Otto, I never considered the health issues before.

One does have to wonder why the wealthy feel such a necessity to avoid paying tax when they have more money than many of us will see in our entire lifetime, and why governments allow such loopholes when they rely on tax to fund services.

A few months ago I heard an opinion piece on NPR by someone who was against the Bush tax cuts. He rationalised it thus (and I paraphrase the gist of his argument from memory):

"The $600 I received was very nice and there were a number of things I could have spent it on. There may have been a trickle-down effect of my spending for the benefit of people less well off than I am, but I would still have received the greatest benefit from the money. However, I don't really need the money, and I'd rather it was spent on something worthwile to help society. But what good is my $600 on its own when most large scale public projects (such as hsopitals, schools, transport schemes, etc) cost millions? How on earth am I and the others who feel the same way to get together and organise architects, consultants, contractors, in order to get a hospital built? No, I'd rather the government kept our money and pooled it the way they should, and do, in order to fund and build the infrastructure a successful country needs to look after its population."

(I can't find a link to the story on npr.org, but I know it's there somewhere because I've posted a link to it at least once. I'll look again when I have more time).

What I understand from the above is that lower taxes mean 'divide and rule'.

First off, Capitalism and Libertarianism are not the same thing.

Capitalism is the process of creating wealth through profit.

Libertarianism is a philosophy that seeks to free the individual from external "oppressive" pressures that attempt to dictate what he/she does and attempt to control his/her life.

Anyone who thinks they are "one and the same" needs to read a big book on politics and economy.

Anyway...

I think, from what I know, that Adam Smith's notion of free-market economics is entirely workable. However, like (to some extent) Marxism, it relys a lot on the personal morality and public spiritedness of those doing the "wealth creating". The Smithite idea, from what I can gather, is that if the state does not interfere in the process of buying and selling that this will allow the "wealth creaters" unrestricted freedom to "create wealth" as they see fit. They will, of course, be able to increase wages of employees and the money they create can also be plowed back into society in the form of the arts, schools, universities, etc. All this will benefit society and ensure that new generations of "entrepreneurs" and happy employees are created.

This ideal has one problem. It is an ideal. It is utopian and (like Marxism) it ignores flaws in human nature.

For example, it assumes that once an individual is rich that he is happy to (to some extent) freely share his wealth with his employees and society. It does not take into account selfishness or hoarding (both of which are common traits in humans generally, rich or not). There is also the problem of it not taking into account a "man is an island" mentality, whereby a person, having made their millions, feels that they have no reason to plow any of it "back into" society and does not care for the next generation.

The existence of these mentalities (and these are only some of the flaws in this ideal) creates problems. The problem with free-market ideologues (rather than progressive or moderate free-marketeers) is that they pretend that these problems are non-existant (a common trait amongst the ideologically strident) or, in some cases, pretend they are virtues (which is self-evidently nonsense).

However, the attitude to many people who recognise that free-market economics is flawed is not to iron-out or deal with the flaws so much as insist that the whole system is rotten to the core, unworkable and should therefore be replaced with it's equally-flawed polar-opposite State-Socialism.

Zagreb, I didn't see anyone here postulating that capitalism and libertarianism were the same thing. After all, one is a an economic model and one is a political model.

However, a librertarian political model *would* make it far easier to achieve a *pure* capitalistic economic model, so the two are not totally unrelated. And it's hard to envision a pure libertarian political model that wouldn't involve capitalism to some degree.

It was this combination of the two that this thread was about, and specifically, the extreme version dictated by the intersection of the pure forms of each.

In the last twenty years we have seen the relentless rise of the right and free market capitalism. The free marketeers who now have the ear of influential people, e.g. The Adam Smith Institute, were laughed at as a bunch of anti-humanist crusaders. Capitalism in its purest form descends to the level Of Darwinian theory- the fittest rise to the top and thrive, those unfit fall to the bottom and perish. At what point do you ditch the purist vision and begin to install the safety nets such as social security benefits, public housing etc. I take it no-one is in favour of bringing back such charitable institutions as the workhouse and parish relief. Who sets the levels, supply and demand have no place, and who pays and how much. Is child benefit out-dated? Should rural amenities be heavily subsidized? So many 'socialist' ideals such as the NHS were unchallenged by the right as they too thought of them as rights not a charitable handout. These ideas are now relentlessly under attack by the so-called free marketeers and where they want to take us is, in my view, unaccepatable.

As I understand the contemporary trends in economics I see that those with the soap box are saying that the free market cannot flourish without enforceable rules. This comes after Enron.

Does this mean, then, that we are on the threshold of change. Perhaps this is "the third" way of Cinton and Blair. As I see it, free trade is essential for global security. And why to we have to classify as "3rd" anyway?

The key thing is that the early libertarians never envisaged the modern global corporation and its symbiosis with the state. For them, and I think it's still relevant, the key guarentee of liberty was a layer of small producers/traders and small scale civil society institutions.

The catch 22 of the situation now is that we need to end the situation of corporations being the political paymasters; but you can't get elected without the cash, and the corporations won't support you if your campaigning to remove their influence from government.

Noggin