
The Candlemakers' Petition - dangoldin
http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html
======
kiba
If Bastiat was alive today, he would run circles around politicians and
economists like Krugman, while at the same time being ridiculed as one of
those crazed nut-case libertarian. He will also generally being unpopular. And
he _was_ unpopular and unknown in his time. I mean, this man had braved the
French Revolution and risked getting his head chopped off.

What he did for us is to write pretty good fables and stories teaching us a
thing or two about economic fallacies. That's the whole reason why we still
read him today. That what have earned him legion of fans.

But, in this era and age, some of the things he said would still be seen as
heresy.

Breaking windows(or digging holes and filling up again) is still seen as smart
by some crazy economists.

The other day, I stubbornly argued against wars as stimulus on the basis that
it's a broken window fallacy on hacker news. I got lot of karma points
alright, but my opponent was pretty damn persistent about wars being a smart
idea.

~~~
_delirium
It's hardly only Krugman who's in favor of economic stimulus; most orthodox
neoclassical economists believe in at least _some_ role for fiscal stimulus,
including those who lean right. For example, _The Economist_ has generally
supported some degree of stimulus programs and warned against too-quick budget
reductions plunging economies back into recession, despite usually being
against government intervention in the economy.

Where I'll agree is that it does seem preferable for stimulus spending to
actually produce something useful, preferably something infrastructural that
produces long-term value, as opposed to just having people dig holes and fill
them back up again. For example, the Works Progress Administration in the
1930s produced a bunch of schools, bridges, hydroelectric dams, national park
trails/structures, etc., many of which we still use.

That was one of the criticisms of the 2009 stimulus plan, which in the
interest of short-term stimulus ended up spending a bunch of money on things
without any real lasting value. E.g. instead of building $20b of high-speed
rail, we spent $20b on repaving roads.

~~~
stretchwithme
The problem is that its always something that people are unwilling to pay full
price for with their own money. so the actual value is somewhat unknown. But
there are so many distortions and subsidies, one cannot really tell with a lot
of things.

One thing is certain though. When government spends money, it borrow it or
take it by taxation or inflation. So it really just changes who is spending it
and the desirability of the spending.

Desirability drops because people spend on thing or invest in things that are
of real value to them, where as government puts money where it politically
popular.

I hear the government is going to be giving two solar companies $2 billion
that will create 2000. That's $1 million per job. And on a technology that is
not all that competitive yet.

But don't worry. Government knows exactly what technologies will win out. And
if it doesn't, it will spend whatever is required to make it look like its
winning.

~~~
sprout
Why are you so hostile to research that sees production use?

The theory, which is increasingly being borne out, is that economies of scale
will kick I bun if you subsidize it.

But even if not, it's small-scale research, and extremely important. But
politicians need a message that sells, and talking about the complexities of
solar panel research and job creation that motivate this endeavor just leaves
people's eyes glazed over.

~~~
kiba
Solar research will dramatically kicks in as soon as oil become too expensive.
Moreover, solar productions will kick in when it become too expensive to run
our economy on oils.

There is no need for solar researches until then. We could use that money to
spend on other research programs, such as space exploration, semiconductor
research, or even water conservation research. However, we don't know which to
fund. So we end up with a government that more or less redirect the path of
technological development, not so much advance the overall state of
technology.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

~~~
chwahoo
Do libertarians not believe in externalities?

There is a free lunch! It's the other costs of fossil-fuels (political
instability, pollution, global warming, risks of environmental disaster) that
are not reflected in the price of oil and so are unable to influence
development of energy alternatives!

~~~
kiba
_Do libertarians not believe in externalities?_

Some libertarians like to cry rivers about our roads today because of the
traffic cogging that happens since congestions are not priced.

So you want to tell me that libertarians do not believe in externalities?

~~~
chwahoo
I meant the question seriously and your answer was informative.

However I suspect your example really stems from an argument that "common
property" like roads should be minimized and that a private owner would better
price road use. I think libertarians would not argue that the government
should create a fancy new road-taxing system. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Many other externalities are harder to privatize. For example social
costs/benefits of hiring or firing employees, of providing employees with
insurance or not, of destroying local businesses with everyday low prices and
shipping the proceeds to China, of promoting education and/or research, of
taking advantage of peoples' poor choices in credit use, of selling highly-
addictive drugs, of polluting, of destroying the Gulf's tourism and fishing
industries, of global warming, etc. I doubt libertarians advocate private
ownership of the atmosphere.

I certainly don't like the idea of the government micromanaging every
conceivable, nebulous externality, but I think there is a time and a place for
regulation, taxes, government investment, government subsidies, etc. as tools
for dealing with the most troublesome systemic problems.

~~~
stretchwithme
The time and place for government action is when individual rights are being
violated. A right is something that authorizes the use of force to defend it.

You have the right to live, to breath and to own property. You're free to buy
insurance, promote education, bargain with people who are dumber than you, use
substances or sell them to others.

You have the right to hire and fire, and capriciously change where you buy
your gasoline.

But you don't have the right to force others to fund your pet projects or make
their decisions for them if you think they're being dumb. And we gain no
special right to do so just because a group of us get together and decide to
do so.

Our system is stronger specifically when individuals are free to disagree and
to try many competing ideas without a central approving authority.

But, yes, some things are inescapably shared like the atmosphere and we must
cooperate on protecting it.

~~~
chwahoo
Your take on government's "time and place" doesn't resonate with me. I value
many functions of government that I don't consider "rights" such as antitrust
enforcement, insider trading prosecution, radio frequency allocation, long-
term research funding, deposit insurance, unemployment insurance, driver
licensing, pharmaceutical testing.....

I also don't see completely unregulated industry as remotely tenable. I
suspect that wealth and power would rapidly concentrate in a small number of
companies (and probably individuals) and competition would be minimal. While I
don't exactly understand how the interplay between consumers, workers, share-
holders, and corporations would work in that world, I suspect it would be
something like a less democratic, less accountable, less liberty protecting,
government.

~~~
stretchwithme
I think more can be accomplished when people cooperate voluntarily.

There is nothing that says people cannot voluntarily enter into contracts to
cooperate on many things often seen as things coercive governments must
manage. For example, one can enter into agreements with other property owners
in an area that could govern all kinds of things. No one need be forced to do
anything, other than keep their agreements.

Freedom is not being free from all commitments and all arrangements. It is
merely being from having them imposed upon you by physical force or threat of
it.

But some of the things on your list no one would ever agree to. For example,
paying someone when they don't have a job, something they have a lot of
control over and which simultaneously gives them the means to not have to take
a job. We're better off if people learn to save their money. Most can
certainly do that.

Likewise, deposit insurance takes away all reason to evaluate where you put
your money and has certainly subsidized a lot of reckless banking. I think
people who make decisions should bare the risks. People who have nothing to do
with it should not be forced to bare such risk.

Other things on your list would continue under a more private system. People
would still fund long term research; companies do that now too. Perhaps you've
heard of Xerox PARC, HP Labs, IBM and Bell Laboratories.

And if you've got a private highway, you're going to require people know how
to drive on it. Why wouldn't you? You lose money when there are accidents.
You'll probably even come up with a way to keep drunks off of your road.

The wealth concentration you fear is frequently empowered by the very
government you think prevents it. The corporations control the government now.

Who handed the lands and right of ways to the railroads? Who stood by as they
lied to farmers to get them to move out there where they only lifeline was the
railroad? Who told BP their liability was limited to $75 million? Some might
even go as far as saying it is no coincidence that the rise of big business
parallels the rise of big government.

And as for being less liberty protecting, I really don't see how a government
that fiercely enforces individual rights will not be protecting them.

Just because things have been done a certain way doesn't mean things can't be
done in a better way. But I certainly don't expect people to drop the current
approaches without having those alternatives being demonstrated as better.

I see things as very incremental. A lot of things have gotten bad because of
whole series of less than optimal choices. We can certainly move towards
better systems incrementally.

~~~
chwahoo
I feel obligated to respond since you put so much time into your response.
However, I'm not going to follow this thread further so I'll resist the urge
to get in the last word.

I think our debate can be summed up as follows:

I believe that government has a role in fixing/preventing systemic problems,
preventing private entities from engaging in harmful social behavior when the
market is inadequate to do so, and performing socially important functions
that the market does not incentivize. I certainly don't think the government
should tackle every conceivable problem - we have a democracy to decide. In
practice, I think the costs of the fix is high enough in many cases that it is
preferable to live with the problem. (However, this is a practical observation
rather than a determination based on principle.)

I think you would say that the government has no authority to meddle in those
issues and must rely on coercion to do so, always gets things wrong when it
does, the purported benefits of regulation can be achieved by voluntary
agreements between private entities, and that "important functions that the
market does not incentivize" is an inherent contradiction.

~~~
stretchwithme
ok

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klutometis
"+ x + = - ... would be to heap _absurdity_ upon _absurdity_."

Perversely, "+ x + = -" is valid Scheme:

    
    
      #;1> (= (- (+) (*) (+)))
      #t

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sambeau
Thus, Foxconn gives us half an iPhone for free?

