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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (182694)	3/5/2006 3:28:17 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<you maintain governments don't do anything well, > You are obviously confused. There is a difference between not doing anything well and <Governments never create wealth, > I don't recall ever thinking governments don't create wealth. I suppose you have confused me with somebody else. <I see governments engaged in pretty much the full spectrum of commerce that individuals and corporations play in. > You will only see that where they enforce their monopoly. Let's take the Post Office. They were a monopoly using public assets. I don't know USA laws, but in NZ, competition is now allowed in many ways, but of course a lot of taxpaer cash goes into the post offices, making it tough for competitors to compete. Their market share has dropped a lot. <Its not like the laws of human behavior are magically different if one is a government employee vs. working for a large company, vs. being self-employed. > You have obviously not met many people from each of those examples. Government employees are different from large company and they are different from self-employed. They operate quite differently. I don't mean met socially. I mean in the thick of action and the heat of battle where the dollars are flowing and results matter. I think they might even have genetic differences, though of course an individual can work in any of the three. I think there is a statistical variation in their DNA. In the same way that melanin-deficient people in the USA have lower average intelligence than Chinese-origin people in the USA and both are lower on average than Ashkenazi Jews. Which, since people nearly always get the point wrong, doesn't mean that you can't name a Jew who is dumb and a white who is bright. You are obviously white if you think that would disprove the point. <People with strong philosophical approaches to issues, be it economics or politics, tend not to want to look at both sides.> Speak of the devil. What are the weaknesses of capitalism again? I can't think of any. Bear in mind that of course the function of governments in capitalism is to enforce contracts, protect private property [which includes people], protect public assets [air, water, roads etc] and divvy up the commons [spectrum, parks, roads, air, fishing rights, minerals etc]. Some people think that capitalism means we revert to law of the jungle like a pack of wolves. I have no idea where they get such an idea. Governments can't even do what they need to do very well. Roads should be sold, sewerage too, water supplies, airports and so on. Policing can probably be largely privatized, and courts could be privatized too, with people forming contracts agreeing to a jurisdiction; Legal and Eagle Contract Enforcement Incorporated perhaps. Whatever the agreed jurisdiction determines is enforced by Bailiff and Bailiff Inc. and maybe the state could just provide a few armed Marshalls to help the bailiffs in case one of the parties goes recalitrant and needs sorting out. Mqurice