@Orathaic

I think individuals voluntarily giving up their rights is perfectly fine and a noble pursuit! I also think most people are selfless in that respect and go out of their own way to help others to one degree or another. I volunteer regularly in my community with no expectation of getting anything in return because I enjoy helping others. The thing is, no one is forcing me to do it, if someone was, then the same activities I pursue right now because I want to, I would come to despise.

I don't agree with private prisons, enforcing punishments for breaking the law should be the sole responsibility of the government. It is one of the only functions the government is there to perform!

Healthcare is different from the military because the function of the military is to protect individuals from coercion from others. Healthcare is meant to make sick people healthy, or to keep healthy people healthy, not protect people from the coercion of others. Usually, people do not obtain their illnesses or injuries from the intentional acts of others, they receive them because living parasites attack their bodies, sometimes coming from the body of another person, but there is no act of coercion going on here. In the case of healthcare, providing it is not preventing coercion from another person, so it is not an area where government taxation would be justified. It is providing a service which should be treated like any other good or service, it must be valued by the individual and the individual can decide if the price is worth it or not. Does that make sense?

@"Healthcare is different from the military because the function of the military is to protect individuals from coercion from others. Healthcare is meant to make sick people healthy, or to keep healthy people healthy, not protect people from the coercion of others. Usually, people do not obtain their illnesses or injuries from the intentional acts of others... it must be valued by the individual and the individual can decide if the price is worth it or not. Does that make sense?"

No, that makes zero sense. Lets ignore for a moment injuries caused by humans (whether intentional, like assault or war, or indeed accidental, like a car crash). And worry just about 'natural causes'.

The reason we want to protect people from violence (ie paying for militrary and police) is to give them security. It is based on a minimum quality of life derived from not living in fear. When you have a society where people are not living i fear they will not take major risks (like starting a revolution, or killing someone to feed their family). For everyone gets to live a higher quality of life (ie we believe in equality) then we must compromise our freedoms and co-operate on paying tax for certain things.

It doesn't need any reference to coercion or intention. What matters is the actual impact, the effect on people in their lives. And health care - and security and safety from disease - has the exact same effects.

We need to trust doctors are there to work for the public good just as much as we do with police. Without this trust people stop vaccinating, they spread diseases like Ebola (at least in west africa they have) because public health needs to be shared responcibility not up to the individual.

And i would go further, in linking this to an epidemic of obesity, and an epidemic of inner city crime/violence. (Because researchers who study disease have found their models useful for describing what happens in both of these situations).

What we don't need is what has been demonstrated as one of the most expensive health cares systems in the world - with worse outcomes for Americans citizens than countries where they spend far less per citizen.

The statistics stack up against you, and there is no moral justification in my mind. Why you choose to take coercion by humans as the all-important factor is beyond me.

But further, the obesisty crisis in the western world is a perfect example of how coercion isn't the only evil humans can do. I suspect you will agree that advertising (or propoganda as it was called in the 20s) is not coercive. And yet it is a directly responcible for a huge part of the obesisity crisis.

I suspect you have a concept of free will, and think that people should he responcible for their actions. And that sounds great, but in reality advertising works (or it wouldn't be a billion dollar industry) in reality it has influenced markets to expand America's waistlines in a way which the health system, diet fads, education, and a huge amount of public soending has failed to stop.

It is not coercive, and yet the freedom of speech exercised by these advertisers is doing great harm to society.

Fundamentals of your position (or indeed things i am assuming about your position) seem deeply flawed, especially when compared with reality, not some
ideal model of how humans function.

Also, the function of a public healthcare is to protect people from the coercion of others, lol.

"The reason we want to protect people from violence (ie paying for militrary and police) is to give them security. It is based on a minimum quality of life derived from not living in fear. When you have a society where people are not living i fear they will not take major risks (like starting a revolution, or killing someone to feed their family). For everyone gets to live a higher quality of life (ie we believe in equality) then we must compromise our freedoms and co-operate on paying tax for certain things."

Well, I don't think the american colonists who started the revolution were living in fear, they just didn't like the government of England stealing from them through taxation. THAT is what leads to revolutions, oppressive governments. I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Everyone should be given the same opportunity to make their standard of living whatever they want it to be, making sure everyone's standard of living is the same though is not a goal to strive for.

"It doesn't need any reference to coercion or intention. What matters is the actual impact, the effect on people in their lives. And health care - and security and safety from disease - has the exact same effects."

You can not just look at the benefits while ignoring the costs, that's illogical. If that healthcare has to be obtained by stealing from others or putting people into slavery, then it is not worth it.

"We need to trust doctors are there to work for the public good just as much as we do with police. Without this trust people stop vaccinating, they spread diseases like Ebola (at least in west africa they have) because public health needs to be shared responcibility not up to the individual."

Vaccinations should be a choice, never mandated. Just compare it to abortion. Would it make sense to force somebody to get an abortion? Of course not, that would be despicable! It's their body, and their choice. It is no different with vaccines.

"And i would go further, in linking this to an epidemic of obesity, and an epidemic of inner city crime/violence. (Because researchers who study disease have found their models useful for describing what happens in both of these situations)."

Obesity is not a bad thing, it is a lifestyle choice which is perfectly fine for an individual to choose.

"What we don't need is what has been demonstrated as one of the most expensive health cares systems in the world - with worse outcomes for Americans citizens than countries where they spend far less per citizen."

You know why our healthcare system costs so much? Government involvement. There are so many regulations in place that is drives the cost up so much and makes it difficult for doctors to give poorer people the care they desire. The government creates a bunch of hoops that need to be jumped through to make it near impossible to get the job done. And it doesn't help that the government has helped to create monopolies within the industry. Get the government out of healthcare, it will be much more affordable.


"The statistics stack up against you, and there is no moral justification in my mind. Why you choose to take coercion by humans as the all-important factor is beyond me."

Because I do not believe in theft or slavery.

"But further, the obesisty crisis in the western world is a perfect example of how coercion isn't the only evil humans can do. I suspect you will agree that advertising (or propoganda as it was called in the 20s) is not coercive. And yet it is a directly responcible for a huge part of the obesisity crisis."

Not a crisis. Not even an issue.

"I suspect you have a concept of free will, and think that people should he responcible for their actions. And that sounds great, but in reality advertising works (or it wouldn't be a billion dollar industry) in reality it has influenced markets to expand America's waistlines in a way which the health system, diet fads, education, and a huge amount of public soending has failed to stop."

Absolutely nothing wrong with advertising :)

"It is not coercive, and yet the freedom of speech exercised by these advertisers is doing great harm to society."

I disagree.

"Also, the function of a public healthcare is to protect people from the coercion of others, lol."

What...

@"THAT is what leads to revolutions, oppressive governments"

Yes, but oppressive governments are not the only evil in the world.

States are a human invetion, as are nations where are only a few hundred years old. They continue to evolve with the nation-state as a current norm, but you can see how the power of the nation state in the US has been shifting away from government and into the private sector. Lobbiests pushing the legislative adgendas, advertising influencing the public, and capital accumulating in the hads of the 1%.

No conspiracy theory here, i don't think the 1% are some weird lizard people, but the effect is to accumulate more power into the hands of a few people - some of them spend it on good things, like Tesla or the Gates foundation, but the point isn't that i think a corporatist system is evil merely that the balance of power has shifted away from state.

As with any system a corporatist one has potential fot abuse and oppression. And over time we will adjust and develope mechanisms to check and balance the worst of these, as we did with nation-states (particularily in the US from it's inception).

@"f that healthcare has to be obtained by stealing from others or putting people into slavery, then it is not worth it."

But why is police/militrary spending any different?

@"You know why our healthcare system costs so much? "

Yes, there are more reasons than i can possibly understand for the high cost of healthcare in the US, but government involvement isn't the only one. It is rsther complex, not least of all the fact that demand isn't as flexible as for other goods, people will pay whatever they can in an emergency situation, so the market can charge as high as it wants (especially if an insurance company will foot most of the bill)

This is no the typical supply and demand, which assumes an increase in cost will reduce demand, instead the number of sick people remains the same so pushing up the price doesn't effect the number of patients.

But that is just one side of a very complex system.

You can't just imagine that some magic bullet will fix everythig because the government stops funding. Especially when the most cost effective healthcare in the US is medicare and medicaid.

@"Absolutely nothing wrong with advertising :)"

Do you think there should be no limits on advertisers? Cause the IS is already pretty crazy, with adverts for drugs - the kind of drugs which you can't advertise in most of Europe - because in europe it is assumed that that information is assumed to come from a doctor's recommendation.

Would you approve of advertisers selling crack cocaine? Or i don't know, what is the worst thing you think you could sell to children?

"Yes, but oppressive governments are not the only evil in the world.

States are a human invetion, as are nations where are only a few hundred years old. They continue to evolve with the nation-state as a current norm, but you can see how the power of the nation state in the US has been shifting away from government and into the private sector."

They are the only thing that causes revolutions though.

I'd say it is quite the opposite, government has been becoming ever more involved in people's everyday lives, with it having the most power today than it has ever had before. You look back to the beginning of the country in the 1700s, you can probably count the number of taxes the government had on one hand and the number of functions it served on the other. In the 1800s it carried on much the same, but with the new functions of exploring and allocating all the land west of the Appalachians to its citizens, which involved many unjust wars it is notable to point out. Still, there was very little government involvement by the turn of the twentieth century. Then, the government began to grow at a rapid clip in the twentieth century. The federal reserve was created in 1913 to manage the nations money supply (which has led to a slew of problems), the income tax was first created in 1913, a large military campaign was conducted in 1917 and 1918 as part of WW1, the federal reserve attempted to manipulate the money supply in the early 30s in a failed attempt (it made things much worse) to alleviate early symptoms of what became the great depression, the government brought itself into the business of creating jobs with FDR's new deal, a huge military force was created and deployed in WW2 which has failed to fall to respectable peacetime levels since, and war after war after war has been conducted since the 40s. Before the 1930s, the government had a strict policy of balancing the budget and avoiding debt, that flew out the window with FDR and really took off in the 80s under Reagan, leading to a gross neglect on the part of the government to the level of debt it has gotten its citizens into, with the spending having no slowdown in sight. Regulations have been put into place on everyone and their mother for anything you can imagine whereas most private businesses were very lightly regulated before the last century. So, I'm really not sure why you would say that the power has been shifting to the private sector from the government, it's quite the opposite.

"Lobbiests pushing the legislative adgendas, advertising influencing the public, and capital accumulating in the hads of the 1%"

I'll tell you how to fix that, get rid of the laws and policies that allow crony capitalism to happen in the first place! f the government did not have as much power and influence as it did, then there would be no reason for the lobbyists to lobby! But as long as that power is there, greedy individuals will seek to control it for their own purposes, it has happened throughout history without fail.

Advertising influencing the public is kinda the whole point haha.

Capital accumulating into the hands of the one percent is really an opinionated topic. I personally don't care, but I can see why some would have an issue with it and deem it unfair. Yet, I don't believe there is anyone with the authority to redistribute that wealth, two wrongs do not make a right. I would like to note though, as you do later, that many in the 1% give boat loads of money to charity and other good causes when they have no obligation to do so, with some giving as much as 99% of their fortune away before the die (I think that is what I've read ta least).

"But why is police/militrary spending any different?"

Because it is necessary to ensure the freedom from coercion that is necessary to keep our society free. Normally, taking taxes to pay for the military/police would also be deemed as a coercive act, but it is the only way to ensure we are free from all other coercive acts, so it is justifiable and a necessary evil. It is like a catch-22 though, or a creation of the universe type thing. How does all matter and energy come into existence without any matter/energy in the first place? How does a god create the universe without a god in the first place? Well, how do you create a world free from coercion without a little bit of coercion in the first place? You don't.

"Yes, there are more reasons than i can possibly understand for the high cost of healthcare in the US, but government involvement isn't the only one. It is rsther complex, not least of all the fact that demand isn't as flexible as for other goods, people will pay whatever they can in an emergency situation, so the market can charge as high as it wants (especially if an insurance company will foot most of the bill)

This is no the typical supply and demand, which assumes an increase in cost will reduce demand, instead the number of sick people remains the same so pushing up the price doesn't effect the number of patients.

But that is just one side of a very complex system.

You can't just imagine that some magic bullet will fix everything because the government stops funding. Especially when the most cost effective healthcare in the US is medicare and medicaid."

I did not mean to imply that the government is the only reason for healthcare costs being high, I was just highlighting it as one of the primary factors for the purpose of this discussion. You are right, the in-elasticity of demand for healthcare is another prominent factor in high healthcare costs. But, I disagree when you say that the market can charge as high as it wants. If the price is high for healthcare, then more suppliers of it will enter the market and cause the price to come down so that the market can not charge whatever price it wants. More students will go to medical school and become doctors, provided that the government does not make it too difficult and costly for medical professionals to do their work, but it is.

And to an extent it isn't exactly like a typical supply and demand, it still is in many ways. When I am sick, I do not go to the doctor. Why? Because I'd rather take a couple of Tylenol and tough it out than spend the money required for the doctor to tell me what I already know. If I needed surgery though, then of course I'd have to go to a doctor rather than do that myself. So, it depends on the exact healthcare service you need, the demand for some will definitely go down as price goes up, but not as much for others.

"@"Absolutely nothing wrong with advertising :)"

Do you think there should be no limits on advertisers? Cause the IS is already pretty crazy, with adverts for drugs - the kind of drugs which you can't advertise in most of Europe - because in europe it is assumed that that information is assumed to come from a doctor's recommendation.

Would you approve of advertisers selling crack cocaine? Or i don't know, what is the worst thing you think you could sell to children?"

Yes, I think placing limits on advertisers is an act of coercion and therefore unjustifiable. I don't mind the advertising of selling anything to an adult which will not effect the safety from coercion of another individual. I would support the selling of crack cocaine to children though, and so any advertising would obviously make no sense because it would be illegal to sell to that target market. Kids are a special case where their brains are not developed to allow for them to be independent in their decision making. Parents have a duty to protect them harm until they are old enough to care for themselves, and the government does have the duty to tell parents what acts are unacceptable for their children to take, such as consuming crack cocaine.

@"
I'll tell you how to fix that, get rid of the laws and policies that allow crony capitalism to happen in the first place! f the government did not have as much power and influence as it did"

You seem to be imagining an ideal workd where governmet doesn't hold all the power and magically everything is happy.

You don't seem to think that corporations will form monopolies and collude to increase their own power, to exploit and oppress people, both their workers an their customers, that the 'free market' will quickly become neither free, nor a market.

That somehow if only the state didn't hold power, that power could not be abused? Do you think it would magically dissappear? That there is no abuse by corporations?

Do you not see the resistance to corpate entities already growing? Capitalism is like a hydra, it has multiple heada (corporations) each with it's own mind and adgenda. Each will try to 'profit' the most, by attacking some target, if one head fails, no matter, the system remains intact.

And so it has spawned many different movements. The environmentalism (being discussed elsewhere), the feminism (complaining about negative effects of advertising on things like self-esteem and body image, along with a 'pink tax' on good specially designed for women), there is an anti-colonial movement (fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline, this is but one example, they also oppose TTIP, TTP and CETA) and there are a direct anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movements (whether you look at protesters who go to G7/8 meeting to disrupt things, going back to the 90s, or you look at the Occupy movement... )

You said: "They [states] are the only thing that causes revolutions though."

And meanwhile you ignore the trend towards organising revolutionary movements against capitalism, or against the individual heads of the hydra... You ignore that it is only now the shift of power away from states is happening.

You are entirely right to say modern state have far more power than they did in the past. They have been developing for a few centuries, but the modern corporation has been doing the same. It has been fighting to dominate state power because thst is where power lies, we still don't have a more stable system than democracy (becuase instead of revolution you can have an election) but you can buy an election if you've got enough power...

And the fact that you can't see what is blindingly obvious to me, makes me think you are indoctorinated into a system of belief which you can't see challenged.

You blame everything on the state, except when the stateis protecting property rights. You are happy to let the poor die, so long as they are desperate enough that a corporaion can exploit them (i presume you support no minimum wage) - desperate people don't have time to organise a revolutipn, so it makes sense to leave the poor witout health care, to provide them with options of who will exploit them.

And it is moving into the middle classes, education, once a great equaller, is now becoming painfully expensive, it allows middle class people get into such debt that they will never escape it, makes them as desperate as they can be made. So they can't organise a revoluion either... And all the support the tiny fraction of humanity who - acting in their own self-interest - believe it is right and good to do whatever it takes to profit at all costs.

The averge person with some savings will put it into a bank and look for the best interest rates. And it is the accumulated capital, just looking for the best rate which acts as a power in this system. Individual investors take other people's money and put it into corporations with look like they're going to make a killing - which look like the are the most effective at exploiting and oppressin their target; whether the take advantage of the psychology of customers or exploit the labour of workers, or they commodify natural resources... Or a combination of these tactics. There is no shadowey conspiracy. There is merely the complete ststem, each part interacting, in manifold complex ways, to produce an output which is inherently amoral. Corporation do no do good. They do what they were designed to, they profit. (And there are alternatives models, alternative designs, where profits to share-holders are not a factor driving decisions).

And your indoctorination? Is it taught by some special interest groups who like the status quo? Where does this meme you have in you head come from? How does it soread? How does it lodge itself in brains such as yours and blind you to an other perspective?

I really don't know...

"You seem to be imagining an ideal workd where governmet doesn't hold all the power and magically everything is happy."

Precisely :)

"You don't seem to think that corporations will form monopolies and collude to increase their own power, to exploit and oppress people, both their workers an their customers, that the 'free market' will quickly become neither free, nor a market."

Nope. Monopolies come as a result of government intervention in the economy. Stop the government from patronizing some firms while creating barrier to entry to the market and you get a freer market with more competition and fewer opportunities for monopolists to thrive. Just look at where the monopolies are - utilities, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and then look at the amount of government involvement in the sector/industry and you will see a direct correlation. I would like to see increased competition and diversity in the marketplace, and that comes from taking government out of the equation, not putting it into it.

"That somehow if only the state didn't hold power, that power could not be abused? Do you think it would magically dissappear? That there is no abuse by corporations?"

That power would be much harder to harness, government gives it an easily manipulated conduit for special interests to take advantage of it. Currently, corporations can take action to create laws that benefit themselves, leaving citizens powerless. If you take away the government's abilities to create such laws, the corporations will need the consent of the citizens to do whatever they wanted to do through legislation formerly. The people get more power at the expense of the government/corporations (they are one and the same).

"Do you not see the resistance to corpate entities already growing? Capitalism is like a hydra, it has multiple heada (corporations) each with it's own mind and adgenda. Each will try to 'profit' the most, by attacking some target, if one head fails, no matter, the system remains intact."

I do, and it is extremely unsettling and misguided. The way these firms profit is by giving the consumers, the citizens, the people, whatever you call the group that makes up the vast majority of the country, exactly what they desire in the manner that they desire. If a corporation does not do what the citizens want it to, then it will cease to be profitable and be forced to leave the system.

"And so it has spawned many different movements. The environmentalism (being discussed elsewhere), the feminism (complaining about negative effects of advertising on things like self-esteem and body image, along with a 'pink tax' on good specially designed for women), there is an anti-colonial movement (fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline, this is but one example, they also oppose TTIP, TTP and CETA) and there are a direct anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movements (whether you look at protesters who go to G7/8 meeting to disrupt things, going back to the 90s, or you look at the Occupy movement... )"

And as I just said, the majority of these movements are misguided (a select few have their merits). They are attacking the wrong issue. They think their problems are caused by capitalism and freedom, but they are really caued by the government working against capitalism and freedom. I'm not saying that all of everyone's problems will be solved by removing all of government's involvement in areas where preventing coercion is not involved. What I am saying though is that government has a net negative effect in all of these instances. Not only does it promote the curtailment of freedom, it leads to undesirable consequences on the whole.

"And the fact that you can't see what is blindingly obvious to me, makes me think you are indoctorinated into a system of belief which you can't see challenged."

And I'm sure that you realize I can say the exact same thing.

"You blame everything on the state, except when the stateis protecting property rights. You are happy to let the poor die, so long as they are desperate enough that a corporaion can exploit them (i presume you support no minimum wage) - desperate people don't have time to organise a revolutipn, so it makes sense to leave the poor witout health care, to provide them with options of who will exploit them."

Well, this just isn't true. Not everything is the sate's fault, but the state is always in the wrong when it is acting in a capacity that is not involved in protecting the citizens from coercion. And I am not happy to let the poor die at all. I do not support the minimum wage, but I do support UBI. A UBI sufficient enough to cover one's food and housing expenses is necessary to compensate those born into a world where all property has already been claimed. It is a necessary postulate for the whole concept of property rights. Healthcare is not a natural thing though, it is a human made service qualifying as the property of the one who produces it until ownership is transferred, so that is not owed to anyone.

"And it is moving into the middle classes, education, once a great equaller, is now becoming painfully expensive, it allows middle class people get into such debt that they will never escape it, makes them as desperate as they can be made. So they can't organise a revoluion either... And all the support the tiny fraction of humanity who - acting in their own self-interest - believe it is right and good to do whatever it takes to profit at all costs."

The problem with the idea of the middle class is that it arbitrarily designates a certain standard of living as being desirable, and varies greatly from country to country. A long time ago, a person would have been content with being able to eat, sleep, spend time with loved ones, and not get eaten by a lion. Now, a person needs a two story house, two door sports car, college education, and everything the jones' have to be happy. It might just be that the issue we have isn't that hundreds of millions of people aren't getting the things they want, but that what they want is simply too much. Technology has advanced so rapidly in the past few decades that we simply do not have the resources to provide everyone with all of the best consumables (in terms of products and services) that we have invented recently. Prime case, healthcare.

"The averge person with some savings will put it into a bank and look for the best interest rates. And it is the accumulated capital, just looking for the best rate which acts as a power in this system. Individual investors take other people's money and put it into corporations with look like they're going to make a killing - which look like the are the most effective at exploiting and oppressin their target; whether the take advantage of the psychology of customers or exploit the labour of workers, or they commodify natural resources... Or a combination of these tactics. There is no shadowey conspiracy. There is merely the complete ststem, each part interacting, in manifold complex ways, to produce an output which is inherently amoral. Corporation do no do good. They do what they were designed to, they profit. (And there are alternatives models, alternative designs, where profits to share-holders are not a factor driving decisions)."

If a person is putting savings that they don't plan on using within the next 3 months into a savings/checking account at a bank, they need serious financial help. Now, if you were referring to a CD or money market fund, that's a different story and more acceptable. Individual investors use their own money. Institutional investors use other people's money that has been entrusted to them. Putting money into corporations that look like they are going to make a killing (growth investing I am going to assume) is only a single simplified strategy for investing, not everyone does this. Corporations making a killing are far from the most effective at exploiting and oppressing "target"s haha. Corporations making a killing are providing consumers with the goods and services they desire better than anyone else is. They are providing the greatest public good, and being rewarded for doing so by customers who patronize them. Corporations are the single largest influence on improving the standard of living worldwide over the past century. They are one of the greatest boons to society man has ever created!

"And your indoctorination? Is it taught by some special interest groups who like the status quo? Where does this meme you have in you head come from? How does it soread? How does it lodge itself in brains such as yours and blind you to an other perspective?

I really don't know..."

It's actually taught by a large four year public university that I attended. Not to say that I took everything they taught me at 100% face value though, I can and do think for myself. It has also been reaffirmed through life experience where I have seen how things really work, which is much different than the way some people try to paint a picture of it.

@'Nope. Monopolies come as a result of government intervention'

So government regulation which prevents mergers, prevents one company buying up all it's competition. This 'anti-trust' regulation is a pretty big responsibility of governments.

@"I do, and it is extremely unsettling and misguided. The way these firms profit is by giving the consumers, the citizens, the people, whatever you call the group that makes up the vast majority of the country, exactly what they desire in the manner that they desire."

They also tell the people what to desire through the means of advertising - and as you admitted it works or they wouldn't do it.

And the fact is, on average Americans are three times the weight of the average human.

That means they need to eat three times the food, and drink three times the water. Thus decades of advertising has grown the food market at the cost of public health.

The pure service provision of companies has done untold harm. (And increased the health care needs at the same time) because the only way to gain growth in the food market is more mouths to feed or more food in each mouth.

And at the same time, the quality of food has gotten worse. Because the corporations aim to minimise their costs. Anything to reduce cost maximises profit. So advertising cheaper (to produce) products and selling more of it at a higher price helps.

You can see the effect on the US population very clearly. And moves to implement a sugar tax are the reaction to this damage. I'm hoping the government isn't corrupted so much that they can't tackle this public health issue.

@"What I am saying though is that government has a net negative effect in all of these instances. Not only does it promote the curtailment of freedom, it leads to undesirable consequences on the whole."

I entirely disagree. There are instances where the government steam-rolls local movement and directly sides with individual corporations against the people, and that is negative.

There are other instances where a government body like the EPA acts in the public interest. Having been set up in response to movements like this. And the government does good.

As with every complex system, there is subtlety in the details, and your ignorance of


@"And I'm sure that you realize I can say the exact same thing."

You can try, but i'm not represented by any major power in a position to indoctorinate.

@" the state is always in the wrong when it is acting in a capacity that is not involved in protecting the citizens from coercion"

So you don't believe in representative democracy. You believe that the people should *not* be able to elect officials who will pass laws which will protect the environment or use positive discrimination or whatever other form of regulation those people happen to support...

@"A UBI sufficient enough to cover one's food and housing expenses is necessary to compensate those born into a world where all property has already been claimed. It is a necessary postulate for the whole concept of property rights. Healthcare is not a natural thing though, it is a human made service qualifying as the property of the one who produces it until ownership is transferred, so that is not owed to anyone."

Well at least we agree a UBI is a good principle, however you are now magically in favour of government taking money from people??

Why the sudden turn around?

Your world of a low UBI and $0 minimum wage is a paradise for corporations - it is an effective subsidy for every employer. Which helps corporations minimise their costs. They can offer $1 an hour and nobody has any sympathy for the poor - because their 'needs' are taken care of by your UBI - they could work harder than they do now, and have less money, and less sympathy with the public. And corporations would be even more powerful. (Of course i get the impression that this is also what you are in favour of).

I believe in cover all basic needs. In some countries where there is a universal health care system, the UBI level would be lower.

In places with subsidised transport, you could lower it even further.

But you believe in an inhumane society. Where people have the ability to grow food and cure disease, but it is not delivered to those in need.

The market is good IF it effectively manages the distribution of goods and services from the people able to provide them to those who need them.

And when it fails to do that, there is no reason to believe it is doing a moral good.

Your twisted principle seems to say markets are good for their own ends. Not the principle of serving the social good.

@"The problem with the idea of the middle class is that it arbitrarily designates a certain standard of living as being desirable, and varies greatly from country to country"

No it isn't. There was a very clear distinction between working class (farmers and factory workers) and upper class (land owners and factory owners) for centuries. A middle class is not arbitrary, they are a class of people who are not exploited directly by the upper class (see labour exploitation and wage slavery) - the likes of doctors and lawyers, aswell as merchants, who became free-er than serfs toiling in farms but not as powerful as the upper class (who could live off their wealth without working at all)

As living standards increase, this doesn't magically disappear. Now the US may not have the same history of class, and lower class people have often been divided by splitting them with racism, whether against blacks or immigrants - but there is still a clear difference between people wealth enough to live off their wealth (without working) and those poor enough that they can't begin to save, and gain any wealth.

The middle class remains a well-defined middle position.

@"Corporations making a killing are providing consumers with the goods and services they desire"

I already addressed this 'services they desire' but still they are profiting. They are explicitly taking wealth out of the hands of the many and into the hands of the few (those with enough wealth to invest in the first place). And they have no interest in provide a quality of service except for the occasional PR disaster (when the media has the attention to address a story) or when they can't compete on price so they start selling a 'luxury' product (and stop selling to the most exploited lower class).

@"Corporations are the single largest influence on improving the standard of living worldwide over the past century. They are one of the greatest boons to society man has ever created!"

Tell that to the people left behind. Those who have suffered and died. The tobacco users who got cancer because corporations hide the evidence that smoking caused lung cancer.

The fact that some good has come from corporations and markets doesn't mean it has come without the exploitation and oppression of a vast majority. The hydra i described above will attack everything it can exploit, and has been doing a great job.

But at times it has also failed completely, the great depression saw a time when there was more productive capacity than ever seen before, and at the same time a greater need for goods; yet the economic system ground to a halt, until a massive injection of government money appeared, coinciding with world war 2. (The new deal wasn't enough)... It is by no means perfect, and your rather simply views betrays your ignorance of the complexity. Corporation the bad things to people are well as good ones. Same as governments. Can you at least admit that?

You claim to be anle to think for yourself, but you have yet to demonstrate it.

*UBI is universal basic income, in case anyone is following.

** able, not anle - in that last paragraph.

And apologies for any other typos.

This paragraph should have read: "As with every complex system, there is subtlety in the details, and your ignorance of the subtlety is as impressive. Especially considering your ability to discuss in depth the issues with government action."

@orathaic

i still think you have a massive over condemnation of advertising. In fact, advertising works in WEIRD ways, there have been stories of companies accidentally not putting up ANY new advertisements on a 3 month quarterly cycle: and they make record profits. For substitutable goods!

Of course the companies are too scared to admit that they have little idea of what is going on, so they fire the people who screwed up and dump hundreds of millions into marketing anyways.

Of course it can have some effective results, but the EXTENT, it's really questionable. Frankly, i think people like the security of the monopolies, but the psychological nuance to this can also be reversed, in severe distrust of a brand.

that's just one tiny input, please don't drag me into this

Just watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzLGb06EEXc

And reminded of how wealth (and associated power) have drifted into the hands of capitalists. When previously the most wealthy men in the world were Emperors, Rockerfeller managed it through industry.

And an example of monopolies created *not* by government intervention...

"So government regulation which prevents mergers, prevents one company buying up all it's competition. This 'anti-trust' regulation is a pretty big responsibility of governments."

Yes, they do perform that function, while creating monopolies elsewhere. Just another act of crony capitalism, those with money and influence in the system dictating how the economy forms, which businesses are allowed to grow and which are prevented from doing so.

"They also tell the people what to desire through the means of advertising - and as you admitted it works or they wouldn't do it."

They do influence what people desire by revealing latent wants and needs to people that they already possessed but were unaware of. People are still in complete control over what they want even in the presence of advertising though.

"And the fact is, on average Americans are three times the weight of the average human.

That means they need to eat three times the food, and drink three times the water. Thus decades of advertising has grown the food market at the cost of public health. "

Again, it is a lifestyle choice and I see nothing wrong with it.

"And at the same time, the quality of food has gotten worse. Because the corporations aim to minimise their costs. Anything to reduce cost maximises profit. So advertising cheaper (to produce) products and selling more of it at a higher price helps."

I was unaware of this, I would need a citation showing that the quality of food has been getting worse to believe that. And anything to reduce cost does not maximize profit. If you reduce costs by lowering quality and this lowered quality causes you to sell a smaller quantity, your profit can go down.

"You can see the effect on the US population very clearly. And moves to implement a sugar tax are the reaction to this damage. I'm hoping the government isn't corrupted so much that they can't tackle this public health issue."

The only issue I see if that people are attempting to dictate how others live their lives. The government should never be in charge of how much soda an adult can consume or anything similar. That's pure coercion right there.

"I entirely disagree. There are instances where the government steam-rolls local movement and directly sides with individual corporations against the people, and that is negative.

There are other instances where a government body like the EPA acts in the public interest. Having been set up in response to movements like this. And the government does good."

Well, without going through every single action government has ever taken, I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree here.

"So you don't believe in representative democracy. You believe that the people should *not* be able to elect officials who will pass laws which will protect the environment or use positive discrimination or whatever other form of regulation those people happen to support..."

On the contrary, I believe a constitutional republic with elected representatives is the best form for government to take to most effectively achieve its purpose of protecting citizens from coercion. Protecting the environment is a duty of the government and must be done for sure, some other regulations though encroach upon freedom and should not be implemented. It's a case by case issue.

"Well at least we agree a UBI is a good principle, however you are now magically in favour of government taking money from people??

Why the sudden turn around?

Your world of a low UBI and $0 minimum wage is a paradise for corporations - it is an effective subsidy for every employer. Which helps corporations minimise their costs. They can offer $1 an hour and nobody has any sympathy for the poor - because their 'needs' are taken care of by your UBI - they could work harder than they do now, and have less money, and less sympathy with the public. And corporations would be even more powerful. (Of course i get the impression that this is also what you are in favour of).

I believe in cover all basic needs. In some countries where there is a universal health care system, the UBI level would be lower.

In places with subsidised transport, you could lower it even further.

But you believe in an inhumane society. Where people have the ability to grow food and cure disease, but it is not delivered to those in need.

The market is good IF it effectively manages the distribution of goods and services from the people able to provide them to those who need them.

And when it fails to do that, there is no reason to believe it is doing a moral good.

Your twisted principle seems to say markets are good for their own ends. Not the principle of serving the social good."

No, I am consistently in favor of protecting people from coercion. All people born on this planet are entitled to the basic natural resources necessary for survival since no one can claim ownership of earth, and any resources borrowed from them before they were born must be given back once they are here. Thus, the UBI sufficient to provide basic food and housing. Beyond that, everything they desire must be obtained by themselves by working towards it, either through self-employment or employment under someone else.

I completely disagree with your assessment of a UBI and $0 minimum wage being very favorable for corporations, I think it is quite the opposite. Currently, if you want to eat and have a place to live, you MUST get a job at whatever wage you can, you don't have a choice. You are forced to take the lowest wage that you can, the minimum wage. And one of the key problems with the minimum wage, besides being coercive, is that it is man-made and subject to massive error. Many claim that the minimum wage is too low for people to obtain basic food and housing. With UBI that wouldn't be a problem and people would not be forced to work for low wages. Currently, people are forced to work for low wages and still not even able to afford food and housing. So, why don't we just increase the minimum wage so that people can get food and housing? Because the corporations currently have all the power! They are the ones controlling the politicians who control what the minimum wage is set at. And even if they weren't, inflation is constant and inconsistent, so it would be difficult for a well-intentioned government to set it correcting for future bouts of inflation.

Contrast this to no minimum wage and a UBI, everyone is guaranteed to have their basic necessities met, and will only take on jobs if employers are offering fair wages. Wages must be high enough to make it worth it for people to put in the work for employers that they don't have to put in. Wages would be fairer under this system because the power would be transferred from the government/corporations tot eh people.

I believe in a humane society, where slavery and extortion are not tolerated. Everyone has the food and housing they need to live, and if the unfortunate occurs and they become sick, debt/charity money/donations from family and friends/etc. are all options for them to fund the healthcare they would need (which would be cheaper without the government involved in it) even if they didn't have a job they were already making money from.

And to say that markets don't serve the social good is very very wrong. Read this article, it will explain how property rights (and the markets they create) are extremely beneficial to society. http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmarotta/2013/02/18/are-property-rights-human-rights/#60b033032718

"No it isn't. There was a very clear distinction between working class (farmers and factory workers) and upper class (land owners and factory owners) for centuries. A middle class is not arbitrary, they are a class of people who are not exploited directly by the upper class (see labour exploitation and wage slavery) - the likes of doctors and lawyers, aswell as merchants, who became free-er than serfs toiling in farms but not as powerful as the upper class (who could live off their wealth without working at all)

As living standards increase, this doesn't magically disappear. Now the US may not have the same history of class, and lower class people have often been divided by splitting them with racism, whether against blacks or immigrants - but there is still a clear difference between people wealth enough to live off their wealth (without working) and those poor enough that they can't begin to save, and gain any wealth.

The middle class remains a well-defined middle position."

I was referring to the middle class that came about here in America in the 1950's and the idealism that is brought with it. The so called "American Dream". And I think you misread what I said or something, as your response "No it isn't" doesn't grammatically make sense in response to what I said. I'm not really sure what part of what I said you disagreed with.

"I already addressed this 'services they desire' but still they are profiting. They are explicitly taking wealth out of the hands of the many and into the hands of the few (those with enough wealth to invest in the first place). And they have no interest in provide a quality of service except for the occasional PR disaster (when the media has the attention to address a story) or when they can't compete on price so they start selling a 'luxury' product (and stop selling to the most exploited lower class)."

Of course they are profiting, they would not be in business otherwise! You would not work 8 hours a day five days a week for free, so why would it make sense for them to do so? And more than half of Americans are investors in the stock market, so half of the population is receiving the dividends the corporations give out when they are profitable. If you don't have money in the stock market, chances are that your neighbor does. But we have to remember, the only way that these corporations make money at all is if they provide you with something you value more than your money. They have to be creating value and benefiting society in order to exist. Why do you pay $400 for an iPhone? Because the iPhone is worth more than $400 to you, there is nothing else you would rather spend that $400 on, and you would rather have the iPhone than that $400. The corporation gets your money because they are giving you something worth more to you. They have created value for you. The only way they stay in business. It has nothing to do with exploiting anyone (except for those instances where people are forced to work for food and housing because there is no UBI).

"Tell that to the people left behind. Those who have suffered and died. The tobacco users who got cancer because corporations hide the evidence that smoking caused lung cancer."

They hid the evidence? What? You mean, they disagreed with the surgeon general and medical professionals? Well that is definitely unethical in my opinion on the part of the tobacco industry, but if a consumer wants to believe the person trying to sell them a product in stead of a qualified medial professional, that's their choice. It would be a dumb choice to me and I'd tell them so, but it wouldn't be my place to make the decision for them.

"The fact that some good has come from corporations and markets doesn't mean it has come without the exploitation and oppression of a vast majority. The hydra i described above will attack everything it can exploit, and has been doing a great job."

Strongly disagree.

"But at times it has also failed completely, the great depression saw a time when there was more productive capacity than ever seen before, and at the same time a greater need for goods; yet the economic system ground to a halt, until a massive injection of government money appeared, coinciding with world war 2. (The new deal wasn't enough)... It is by no means perfect, and your rather simply views betrays your ignorance of the complexity. Corporation the bad things to people are well as good ones. Same as governments. Can you at least admit that?"

Your history here is inaccurate. There was not a greater need for goods at all, that was the problem. Inventories piled up way too high in the end of the 1920s and without people buying up the unsold inventories, the businesses had no need for producing any more goods and had to lay off workers. And the government exacerbated the problem immensely by quickly reducing the money supply to a third of its level, causing the great depression to occur, it would have most likely just been an ordinary downturn in the cyclical nature of the economy otherwise But the newly established Federal reserve had to start experimenting with their power. Talking about my ignorance of the complexity of the situation when your facts are all jumbled up, quite ironic.

I can completely agree that corporations are capable of doing bad, but I believe that their ability to do so is greatly limited when the people are given full control, which necessitates the government not playing god and deciding what is right and wrong for a corporation/individual/whatever to do. When preventing coercion is the sole responsibility of the government, corporations are at the mercy of the people because the government can not enable corporations through de jure measures. Corporations can only act in ways which the population agrees with, or else they will cease to be profitable and crumble.

And I can also admit that governments can do good. When preventing corporations from being able to employ child labor (children can not give consent, their brains are not fully developed), the government is acting in a good manner. When protecting the environemnt which we all depend upon for our existence (it is a coercive action to threaten the life of another), the government is acting in a good manner. When preventing Bob the burglar from stealing from sweet old Granny (stealing is a violation of property rights), the government is acting in a good manner. The government is capable of doing plenty good, but I believe it is doing so much harm as well right now through coercive acts that go against what the nation was founded on, the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (notably, liberty) are being maligned by the very body meant to protect them.

@"They do influence what people desire by revealing latent wants and needs to people that they already possessed but were unaware of. People are still in complete control over what they want even in the presence of advertising though. "

You seem to be proposing the existence of free will. Which i solidly reject. People are influenced by their environment, their decisions are biased by advertising. (that point could have it's own entire thread...)

I said: "And the fact is, on average Americans are three times the weight of the average human.

That means they need to eat three times the food, and drink three times the water. Thus decades of advertising has grown the food market at the cost of public health. "

You said: "Again, it is a lifestyle choice and I see nothing wrong with it."

Would you say the same about Tobacco advertising? Tobacco firms having evidence that their product caused cancer and keeping it quiet?

Sugar in this case is more damaging than Tobacco. It causes Diabetes, it may be addictive - in that it can be habit forming, and show withdrawal sympthons...

But overall the point is, this is a bad thing for the quality of life of the average American.

@"If you reduce costs by lowering quality and this lowered quality causes you to sell a smaller quantity, your profit can go down."

Yes, unless everyone in the Industry takes the same strategy of lowering quality, slowly and over time. So A) there is little other option, and B) the advertising tells you you're getting a better product - ie it is hard to compare... some differences may be put down to personal taste.

OK, i will respond to this : I said "the quality of food has gotten worse."

You said: "I was unaware of this, I would need a citation showing that the quality of food has been getting worse to believe that."

Ok, some food quality has gotten worse, it is also hard to measure quality. Processed and frozen foods can be great in terms of long-term storage and convenience (ie defrost whenever you want, and know the meat is already cooked enough to kill any bacteria) At the same time you can have 'processed' foods which have more energy available (ie they take less energy to digest and release into the body, thus they effectively help you gain weight faster... ) - aka bio-availability.

Now those could be good things, or you could see them as a trade-off of convenience for worse health value. But factory processing of food does change the quality (several qualities infact). Fresh food has a different set of nutrients available and cooking breaks some of them down (how much cooking you do, and whether you're boiling, frying, or baking will have an impact on the resulting flavour and nutritional quality - aswell as the bio-availability). Overall, it is hard to judge the effect on food quality 'in general' - but you can look at the effect on the population - specifically on their health.

I'm sure doctor's would recommend diets which involve more fresh foods, more fibre, less sugar and fat. And the reasoning for this is that we evolved to love sugars and fats in an environment where they were scarce. We are not optimised for a sugar/fat rich diet (though improved nutrition can account for increased height, and brain development in humans over the past four or five hundred years... overall we've been doing much better)

I can't cite anything specific. But if you're interested i'm sure there are several serious academic studies discussing the issue.

Just back to your point about 'seeing nothing wrong' with certain systems where people have free choices.

Imagine if you will a giant doctor-corporation, where they get paid based on how many sick people they have. So instead of helping those people to prevent themselves becoming ill (ie sharing accurate information about what they can do to make positive life-style choices). Imagine if you will that all these doctors are bound by Non-Disclosure Agreements, and they techniques used by doctor-corporation are patented.

Even assuming there is fair and free competition, can you not see how this kind of system produces worse outcomes than one where doctors are paid (by a nation health service, by the state) based on the health of the citizens they serve. So those doctors are incentivized to go out and prevent illness rather than trying to maximise their profits by maximising the levels of illness??

Is there not a moral imperative to see that doctors use their knowledge to minimise illness, in a way which would put themselves out of business if they could?

@"The only issue I see if that people are attempting to dictate how others live their lives. The government should never be in charge of how much soda an adult can consume or anything similar. That's pure coercion right there"

That is pure coercion?? (but advertising isn't) Please explain the difference to me then.

A sugar tax, (or any vice tax) works on basic market principles. Increase the price to discourage the consumption of the product or service.

People are still entirely free to buy and/or sell whatever they like. No-one is coerced, the market is merely manipulated to serve (what is considered) the public good.

Basically, everyone profits if the average health of the society is improved. A win-win, which can only be achieved by co-operation, not the competitive approach of free market systems.

@"some other regulations though encroach upon freedom and should not be implemented"

So you believe that so long as 51% of the population (or whatever of your particular political system... so long as they get a majority) vote for a given item, then democracy is served, and the government's 'encroaching on freedom' is justified - because the democratic interest is being served?

Is that an accurate description of your views?

@"With UBI that wouldn't be a problem and people would not be forced to work for low wages" - i disagree with you here. You would have exactly the same problem - governments aren't as good at keeping up with the market as prices fluctuate. and UBI would also end up being too low for people to survive on. Living in a country where there is a 'rent allowance' from the department of social protection - for those on low incomes - and where it is woefully inadequate. Demonstrates to me how bad this would be. And for the exact same reasons you brought against current minimum wage practice.

@"I completely disagree with your assessment of a UBI and $0 minimum wage being very favorable for corporations, I think it is quite the opposite."

It acts as a government subsidy for corporations. Previously they would have to pay a wage which covers the basic needs aswell as more. Under your UBI they could offer less.

The other side of this is that nobody would be bound to work for a particular company. They would be free to quit their job and not have to worry about their food or shelter. This would effectively provide employees with a lot more power and thus leverage in negotiating with employers... how and ever, i believe the majority of the benefit will go towards the people who currently have the most power.

@"you MUST get a job at whatever wage you can, you don't have a choice. You are forced to take the lowest wage that you can, the minimum wage. And one of the key problems with the minimum wage, besides being coercive, is that it is man-made and subject to massive error."

I can agree with you that the current system is problematic. And UBI may be a good solution. HAVING to get work to survive is coercive, or at least it seems like that to me.

@"I believe in a humane society, where slavery and extortion are not tolerated. Everyone has the food and housing they need to live, and if the unfortunate occurs and they become sick, debt/charity money/donations from family and friends/etc. are all options for them to fund the healthcare they would need (which would be cheaper without the government involved in it) even if they didn't have a job they were already making money from."

I like the kind of society you imagine, but unfortunately it seems entirely fanciful to me.

1) can you prove that healthcare would be cheaper without government involvement. Especially when the lowest cost of healthcare in the US comes from the government run Medicare and Medicaid programs.

2) how do you fund a UBI program without coercively taking wealth from some and redistributing it to others?

3) When people, entrepreneurs even, fear that they will get sick and not be able to afford their healthcare; they are forced to save all of their income to protect against such an eventuality. And thus not invest and take risks. This is damaging to the economy. (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCLt1w7EeeQ - this is rather pre-ObamaCare... things have changed, and i'm sure this vlogger has made videos updating their personal situation)

@"And to say that markets don't serve the social good is very very wrong. Read this article, it will explain how property rights (and the markets they create) are extremely beneficial to society"

I'm pretty sure i said that the market doesn't ALWAYS serve the social good - infact the market does a pretty good job most of the time. But it would allow the formation of massive monopolies which BY DEFINITION would stop the market being free.

Of course there are currently some massive monopolistic corporations. Remember i was talking about food earlier. About 10 food corporations own the majority of the brands you know. Coca-cola, Pepsico, Nestle, General Mills, Unilever, Kellogs, ABF, Danone, Mars, and Mondelez (formerly Kraft).

The smaller a company the closer it is to it's customers, and more responsive it needs to be to their needs. The bigger a company the easier it can write off losses and harm customers without losing too much. And as a result, the term 'faceless multinational' has become common place.

The fact is, a present on arm of Nestle could be advertising how nice and vegan they are, while a second arm is advertising to sell their puppy meat to their audience. The corporation itself has no moral compass. No interest except in profits, and thus - particularly when it gets bigger - corporation can take actions which harm individuals.

Again the reactions of these individuals to resist - whether it is Occupy, NoDAPL, Anti-corporate Feminism (or the PC police as some people might call them) - is an example which shows that this damage is occurring.

And from the article you linked @" If he uses his spear to kill an antelope, it too would become his property."

So if i murder Donald Trump, does he become my property? It seems the idea of property rights assumes that I can't simply kill someone and take their property. Thus requiring a system of coercion to prevent this.

@"I was referring to the middle class that came about here in America in the 1950's and the idealism that is brought with it. The so called "American Dream". And I think you misread what I said or something, as your response "No it isn't" doesn't grammatically make sense in response to what I said. I'm not really sure what part of what I said you disagreed with. "

You said 'The problem with the idea of the middle class is that it arbitrarily designates a certain standard of living as being desirable, and varies greatly from country to country. A long time ago, a person would have been content with being able to eat, sleep, spend time with loved ones, and not get eaten by a lion.'

My reply was "No, the problem with middle class isn't that it is arbitrary, that 'it arbitrarily designates a certain standard of living as being desirable'. " - edited for clarity.

I described a very specific set of circumstances (the historical ones) where middle class makes sense as neither lower/working class nor Uppers/leisure class.

I my analogy, working class (those who are exploited for their labour and can never afford to save and thus accumulate wealth) are equivalent to slaves in the US's southern states. While Upper Class are equivalent to slave owners.

Alternatively: working class are equivalent to Russian serfs bound to the land, while Upper class are equivalent to land-owning lords.

Typically Upper class held most of the political power, while the lower classes held none.

In either case, middle class refereed to the merchants, traders and 'professionals' who had to work, but also held some political power.

None of this is arbitrary. None of this depends on current standards of living.

And in a world where automation will soon get rid of many jobs, leaving only wealth machine owners (whose automated slaves produce wealth) and everyone else who is trying to survive on an ever smaller un-automated work load. We will very quickly find that these 'leisure' class vs 'working class' distinctions become very relevant once more. (and only a UBI can really alleviate the future economic problems)

@"Of course they are profiting, they would not be in business otherwise!"

Bullshit. You can create a business where the 'profit' is based on the service provided to members. Where all profits are given back to the members.

Credit Unions, acting like banks, but where all profits are paid out to the members in the form of dividends - see the amount of service provided to their members as a net positive, not a negative cost to be minimised.

And they continue to be in business. It just depends on your organisational structure. If your employees are the only shareholders, then their interest in generating profit suddenly becomes identical to their interest in paying themselves out their wages. This wages are no longer a cost to be minimised, but instead a profit to be maximised (and you probably see some managerial positions where wages are already maximised, hence the multi-million dollar wage package some bankers/investors earn... but i digress).

"They have to be creating value and benefiting society in order to exist." - Well unfortunately that isn't necessarily true, especially in banking, they have to create the illusion of value, and that may be damaging to society.

You can see with any boom/bust cycle that at issue is the over-valuing of stocks. As people believe the share value will increase they invest more, and the value goes up, seeing it go up people assume it will continue to do so. This boom eventually collapses as there isn't any more money in the system to invest, and on the bust everyone suddenly tries to sell because they see their stock losing value.

In financial systems this illusionary value can have even more serious consequences, as the 2008 crash demonstrated (though the Great Depression's stock market collapse may be a better example. Because in that case we saw what happened when the state didn't bail out the worst offenders - still bail outs, which hurt the poor the most while leaving those who generated the 'value' which failed free to take massive payments for quitting their jobs, aren't even close to describing a 'positive' outcome/social good.)

@"Why do you pay $400 for an iPhone?"

Ok, terrible example, a) i don't, my iphone was free. b) people don't, the iphone cult is one of artificial status, not usefulness of the product (hence the constant new versions which people just *must* have...) The newer product is usually marginally better than the last. And Apple has used clever marketing to get into the cultural position it has to be seen as 'cool'...

Now try to sell me on the idea that 'coolness' adds value to our society as a whole and i'll refer you back to my comments on 'illusionary value'.

@"It has nothing to do with exploiting anyone " - in theory it wouldn't, except that not everyone has equal power.

Some iphone assembly plants have suicide nets to catch the people throwing themselves off the roof. Because without the ability to form unions and collectively negotiate they are taken advantage of. (never mind the environmental costs associated with extracting some of the minerals and metals required in iphone production) - now some of the rarer elements are only mined in a few developing countries in slave-like conditions. Those people are definitely being exploited, and exposed to potentially toxic working conditions, where applicable.

The fact is, Apply will do whatever it can to beat it's competition and if that means using slave labour (in Africa), or terrible working conditions (which require the deployment of suicide nets, in China), then they will do just that.

How and Ever, consumers can also be conned into exploitative relationship with corporations. Ones where they get into debt to pay for goods or services which they don't need. Or where their self-esteem is damaged by the advertising - just look at the increasing prevalence of eating disorders, particularly among young women and teen age girls. This is the kind of exploitation which large corporations don't even take a second thought about, because they only seek maximising their short-term profits.

@"They hid the evidence? What? You mean, they disagreed with the surgeon general and medical professionals? Well that is definitely unethical in my opinion on the part of the tobacco industry, but if a consumer wants to believe the person trying to sell them a product in stead of a qualified medial professional, that's their choice"

They had research which showed the links to cancer. They then lied about it. They fought against anyone else who could provide similar evidence and attempted to mislead and misinform the public. Basically anything they could do to prevent the truth coming out, and to place doubt in the minds of the public.

Not surprising given they were large corporations. If one CEO decided to follow a different policy, and lost money, was fired and replaced, then the corporation would have continued afterwards (or after being absorbed by a more successful company which didn't make the same choices). Thus regardless of any individual working for a corporation, it is possible that the structure will enforce it's own will, ie the profit motive. Regardless of the morals which any individual employees may hold.

@"that's their choice. It would be a dumb choice to me and I'd tell them so, but it wouldn't be my place to make the decision for them."

That's fine, and a state which chooses to offer health care to cover diseases caused by such poor choices has an interest in reducing the eventual cost.

You can look at a vice tax as future insurance for the state against the risk of unhealthy people depending on the state for medical care. This is both wise, and in the interest of the social good.

@"Your history here is inaccurate. There was not a greater need for goods at all, that was the problem."

Ok, i'm currently reading a book about the Great depression, written in 1932.

@"There was not a greater need for goods at all, that was the problem. Inventories piled up way too high in the end of the 1920s and without people buying up the unsold inventories,"

That is not correct. The need is different from the demand. Many people starving need food. If they have the money to pay for it there will be demand, if they don't then the need doesn't disappear.

During the Great Depression the need was greater than ever before. There were more people in the world. Also production was at an all time high. Unfortunately the wages were too low for workers to afford what was being produced. And over production lead to workers being laid off, which triggered a recession and eventual depression.

I'm pretty sure i'm not jumbling anything up here. Your facts appear to be wrong. In 1930 the money supply was reduced when private investors withdrew their money from banks, causing a run on the banks. And thus banks stopped lending out. (cutting the money in circulation) In the US the state was committed to the Gold Standard, thus they didn't take action to expand the money supply (the idea of the gold standard being to prevent the illusionary value issues i discussed previously).

From what i can tell, it was only in 1937 when the federal reserve required banks to increase their required reserve amounts (to prevent banks failing) that government policy had a negative effect on the money supply (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_the_United_States )

@"Corporations can only act in ways which the population agrees with, or else they will cease to be profitable and crumble. "

You just seem deluded at this point. You realise that corporations can lie to the public. Can crush competition without government interference (as Walmart is often accused of, they under-cut local businesses until they are driven under, and then increase their prices...)

Populations largely don't realise that the majority of the good they buy come from a very small number of companies under different brands. And when you do that an unpopular policy can be boycotted, while the company profits off another branded product which isn't associated with that policy.

Without government interference, you would see monopolies forms where the consumers don't have any choice at all. Left to their own devices corporations would do untold harm to customers and employees.

Unless they are re-structured to consider services provided, and/or employee wages to be a profit rather than a cost.

@" The government is capable of doing plenty good, but I believe it is doing so much harm as well right now through coercive acts that go against what the nation was founded on, the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (notably, liberty) are being maligned by the very body meant to protect them."

I believe that the government is capable of doing bad, but i believe that most of the damaging things you've described have been a result of corporate propaganda, trying to undermine the power of government to regulate them, rather than government doing bad.

The most evil things governments do are declaring war for economic reasons, allying with evil tyrannies to further strategic and aims, and denying humans their rights for political reasons.

EG: trans-phobic bathroom bills - passed to satisfy political needs of a religious base, while denying trans men and women the right to exist in public spaces (because bodily functions require the use of bathrooms)
Also: US alliance with Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive regimes in the world.
And finally: US invasion of Iraq, when Saddam Hussein threatened to start selling his oil in Euros instead of US dollars... (also economic sanctions stopped US companies from exploiting the oil-natural resources of Iraq, so an estimate 1.2 million iraqis died (by 2007) to allow US oil companies explore and exploit Iraqi oil fields...

"You seem to be proposing the existence of free will. Which i solidly reject. People are influenced by their environment, their decisions are biased by advertising. (that point could have it's own entire thread...)"

This may be where our disagreements mainly stem from. I'm 100% in support of free will. You seem to not be against the idea of it, but the reality of it if I am correct? You think that people aren't able to make choices themselves because of what occurs in their environment? Could you elaborate please.

"Would you say the same about Tobacco advertising? Tobacco firms having evidence that their product caused cancer and keeping it quiet?"

I have no problems with tobacco advertising, or with people making the choice to use tobacco. I do have a problem with firms lying or withholding information requested by either their customer or the government though. When that occurs, the transaction between the customer and the company was not truly without coercion, the firm was aggressing upon the customer by being dishonest and having them enter into an agreement they may not have otherwise wanted to enter if they knew all of the information.

"Sugar in this case is more damaging than Tobacco. It causes Diabetes, it may be addictive - in that it can be habit forming, and show withdrawal sympthons..."

As long as the sugar producers and producers of food with sugar in them are not being deceptive about the facts concerning their products, there is no reason for limiting the amount of it that customers can buy and eat, it is their choice.

"But overall the point is, this is a bad thing for the quality of life of the average American. "

That is a very subjective statement, some people may value the benefit of consuming sugar to be greater than the cost of contracting diabetes, and who are you to tell them they are wrong?

"Yes, unless everyone in the Industry takes the same strategy of lowering quality, slowly and over time. So A) there is little other option, and B) the advertising tells you you're getting a better product - ie it is hard to compare... some differences may be put down to personal taste."

Not all firms in the industry can compete based on price, only one or two will be successful with this strategy because if many firms tried to do this, they would lower the price to below cost eventually and be bankrupted out of the industry. While every industry has a cost leader who lowers quality to cut down on costs and price, most firms have to compete on quality and giving their consumers enough value to compensate for the higher price of their product.

"Ok, some food quality has gotten worse, it is also hard to measure quality. Processed and frozen foods can be great in terms of long-term storage and convenience (ie defrost whenever you want, and know the meat is already cooked enough to kill any bacteria) At the same time you can have 'processed' foods which have more energy available (ie they take less energy to digest and release into the body, thus they effectively help you gain weight faster... ) - aka bio-availability.

Now those could be good things, or you could see them as a trade-off of convenience for worse health value. But factory processing of food does change the quality (several qualities infact). Fresh food has a different set of nutrients available and cooking breaks some of them down (how much cooking you do, and whether you're boiling, frying, or baking will have an impact on the resulting flavour and nutritional quality - aswell as the bio-availability). Overall, it is hard to judge the effect on food quality 'in general' - but you can look at the effect on the population - specifically on their health.

I'm sure doctor's would recommend diets which involve more fresh foods, more fibre, less sugar and fat. And the reasoning for this is that we evolved to love sugars and fats in an environment where they were scarce. We are not optimised for a sugar/fat rich diet (though improved nutrition can account for increased height, and brain development in humans over the past four or five hundred years... overall we've been doing much better)

I can't cite anything specific. But if you're interested i'm sure there are several serious academic studies discussing the issue."

I agree it is hard to measure quality, sometimes it is even subjective based on personal preference (especially true when it comes to food). If you want to assume that processed food is of lower quality because it lacks certain desirable nutrient, or for any other reason for that matter, there is still organic non-processed food for those who desire it. Nobody has beenn forced to eat the processed food, people want to because 1. They simply have the opinion that it is better than organic food and actively desire it for that reason or 2. It is much cheaper to supply (Can you imagine having to supply 7 billion people with organic food??) and has a lower price to it. If you value organic food, you can spend the extra bucks to get it. It's all about personal choice, nothing wrong with eating either type of food.

"Imagine if you will a giant doctor-corporation, where they get paid based on how many sick people they have. So instead of helping those people to prevent themselves becoming ill (ie sharing accurate information about what they can do to make positive life-style choices). Imagine if you will that all these doctors are bound by Non-Disclosure Agreements, and they techniques used by doctor-corporation are patented.

Even assuming there is fair and free competition, can you not see how this kind of system produces worse outcomes than one where doctors are paid (by a nation health service, by the state) based on the health of the citizens they serve. So those doctors are incentivized to go out and prevent illness rather than trying to maximise their profits by maximising the levels of illness??

Is there not a moral imperative to see that doctors use their knowledge to minimise illness, in a way which would put themselves out of business if they could?"

Are you asking me to believe that doctors are paid currently for keeping people sick? I'm not sure what point this exercise would have otherwise. I'm not sure about you, but if I go to a doctor and he doesn't help me get any better, I stop going to him. Doctors get paid by patients because their service works, they make unhealthy people healthy. A system such as the one you are proposing does not make sense because the doctor-corporation would have 0 customers and go out of business. But, I'll go along with it for a moment and answer your queries. I can not see how this system is worse than one where the government pays for a nationalized healthcare system, because at least freedom is maintained in this system, even if people aren't getting the care they are paying for. They maintain their personal sovereignty. There is not a moral imperative to see doctors use their gifts to the utmost of their ability because those doctors are not slaves of the state and have the choice on whether to exercise the use of their abilities or not.

"That is pure coercion?? (but advertising isn't) Please explain the difference to me then."

Yeah, under the first act, you are telling someone that if they consume soda, you are going to steal from them. Blatant act of coercion. Under the second act, you are telling someone that they should want to buy your soda, but the choice is completely theirs on whether they actually do or not. There is a huge difference there.

"A sugar tax, (or any vice tax) works on basic market principles. Increase the price to discourage the consumption of the product or service.

People are still entirely free to buy and/or sell whatever they like. No-one is coerced, the market is merely manipulated to serve (what is considered) the public good.

Basically, everyone profits if the average health of the society is improved. A win-win, which can only be achieved by co-operation, not the competitive approach of free market systems."

I agree with your analysis of the outcome, price will increase and demand will go down, that is true. But it is morally wrong because the government is stealing from people who make a certain lifestyle choice. There is coercion! It is a lose-win situation, a loss of freedom (and money) by the consumer and a gain of tax dollars for the government and a sigh of relief for anyone wanting the total amount of soda consumed to go down for whatever reason.

"So you believe that so long as 51% of the population (or whatever of your particular political system... so long as they get a majority) vote for a given item, then democracy is served, and the government's 'encroaching on freedom' is justified - because the democratic interest is being served?

Is that an accurate description of your views?"

No, that is the opposite of what I have been saying! I'm saying that is the problem right now, the government has been encroaching upon people's individual liberty in so many ways because it has a so called majority of support from, the people for doing so. I'm saying that the government's role is to only raise tax dollars and spend them for the purpose of protecting it's citizens from coercion, to protect their freedom. That is why it is imperative to have a constitution to limit the power of the government (I don't think ours goes far enough), to protect liberty from attacks by "the majority".

"i disagree with you here. You would have exactly the same problem - governments aren't as good at keeping up with the market as prices fluctuate. and UBI would also end up being too low for people to survive on. Living in a country where there is a 'rent allowance' from the department of social protection - for those on low incomes - and where it is woefully inadequate. Demonstrates to me how bad this would be. And for the exact same reasons you brought against current minimum wage practice."

What if the UBI was provided in the form of an actual building to live in and actual food to eat instead of cash payments? A business can't pay its workers in this way, but the government can give its citizens these things and that would avoid the issue of human error in estimating how much money people need for their basic necessities.

"It acts as a government subsidy for corporations. Previously they would have to pay a wage which covers the basic needs aswell as more. Under your UBI they could offer less.

The other side of this is that nobody would be bound to work for a particular company. They would be free to quit their job and not have to worry about their food or shelter. This would effectively provide employees with a lot more power and thus leverage in negotiating with employers... how and ever, i believe the majority of the benefit will go towards the people who currently have the most power."

You just agreed with me when you said "The other side of this is that nobody would be bound to work for a particular company. They would be free to quit their job and not have to worry about their food or shelter. This would effectively provide employees with a lot more power and thus leverage in negotiating with employers", so why do you say that the majority of the benefit will go to those in power? Wages will have to be fair or people will not take them (because they will have the choice not to now). How is this not so?

"1) can you prove that healthcare would be cheaper without government involvement. Especially when the lowest cost of healthcare in the US comes from the government run Medicare and Medicaid programs.

2) how do you fund a UBI program without coercively taking wealth from some and redistributing it to others?

3) When people, entrepreneurs even, fear that they will get sick and not be able to afford their healthcare; they are forced to save all of their income to protect against such an eventuality. And thus not invest and take risks. This is damaging to the economy. (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCLt1w7EeeQ - this is rather pre-ObamaCare... things have changed, and i'm sure this vlogger has made videos updating their personal situation)"

I probably can prove that it would be theoretically cheaper without government involvement given some time and effort, but we could also just look back at the past eight years. It is a well-established fact that premiums and the cost of healthcare have skyrocketed over the past decade, happening simultaneously with a large amount of government involvement in the form of the Affordable healthcare act. I think 99% of economists agree (at least, I have not seen one try not argue otherwise) that the affordable healthcare act is itself the cause of the majority of this increase in the price of healthcare.

For number 2, this again comes back to the how do you create matter/energy without matter/energy conundrum. You simply can't, so it is one of the very few acts of coercion and violations of freedom that is absolutely necessary to create the most free society you can create. Remember, coercion through taxation can be justified when those funds are used to protect citizens from all other forms of coercion, and only then.

For number 3, I don't see an issue here. Any financial planner will tell you to keep at least 3 months worth of potential expenses saved up at all times, there is absolutely no reason we need to put all of our money into some investment vehicle at all times. But that is aside from the point that all of the money "saved" in a savings/checking account is invested by the banks anyway, so even when individuals are saving their money instead of investing it, it really is still being invested.

"So if i murder Donald Trump, does he become my property? It seems the idea of property rights assumes that I can't simply kill someone and take their property. Thus requiring a system of coercion to prevent this."

That is comparing apples to oranges. A deer is an animal. Donald Trump is a human. Humans are given human rights, while animals are given animal rights. The two have always been different. So while it is ok to kill a deer, it is not ok to kill a human.

"My reply was "No, the problem with middle class isn't that it is arbitrary, that 'it arbitrarily designates a certain standard of living as being desirable'. " - edited for clarity.

I described a very specific set of circumstances (the historical ones) where middle class makes sense as neither lower/working class nor Uppers/leisure class.

I my analogy, working class (those who are exploited for their labour and can never afford to save and thus accumulate wealth) are equivalent to slaves in the US's southern states. While Upper Class are equivalent to slave owners.

Alternatively: working class are equivalent to Russian serfs bound to the land, while Upper class are equivalent to land-owning lords.

Typically Upper class held most of the political power, while the lower classes held none.

In either case, middle class refereed to the merchants, traders and 'professionals' who had to work, but also held some political power.

None of this is arbitrary. None of this depends on current standards of living.

And in a world where automation will soon get rid of many jobs, leaving only wealth machine owners (whose automated slaves produce wealth) and everyone else who is trying to survive on an ever smaller un-automated work load. We will very quickly find that these 'leisure' class vs 'working class' distinctions become very relevant once more. (and only a UBI can really alleviate the future economic problems)"

I'm not saying that what constitues what the middle class is is arbitrary (although I'm sure there is some debate about where each class ends and the next begins), what I'm saying is that there is no real reason why someone can not be content with being in the lower or upper classes. I don't get why someone must be in the middle class to be happy. Why can a poor person not be happy? Why can a rich person not be happy? If it is because they are comparing themselves to others, then that is really just a personal problem .That is all I was trying to say in regards to the whole class thing.

"Bullshit. You can create a business where the 'profit' is based on the service provided to members. Where all profits are given back to the members."

You know that is what a corporation is, right? 100% of profits go to the shareholders, nobody else gets a cent of it. Unless you are saying that all of the profit goes to the consumer? Then I'm not sure of any businesses like that. Non-profits would come the closest, but those aren't really businesses, they are charities.

"Credit Unions, acting like banks, but where all profits are paid out to the members in the form of dividends - see the amount of service provided to their members as a net positive, not a negative cost to be minimised."

You're example of credit unions who pay out all profits to their members doesn't do anything to refute my previous claim that businesses don't stay in business without a profit though, as you just noted yourself, these credit unions make a profit. Doesn't really matter who gets the profit, the main point is that there is a profit to be given out. Without that, there is no business.

""They have to be creating value and benefiting society in order to exist." - Well unfortunately that isn't necessarily true, especially in banking, they have to create the illusion of value, and that may be damaging to society."

Tell me your feelings about bankers :)

"You can see with any boom/bust cycle that at issue is the over-valuing of stocks. As people believe the share value will increase they invest more, and the value goes up, seeing it go up people assume it will continue to do so. This boom eventually collapses as there isn't any more money in the system to invest, and on the bust everyone suddenly tries to sell because they see their stock losing value.

In financial systems this illusionary value can have even more serious consequences, as the 2008 crash demonstrated (though the Great Depression's stock market collapse may be a better example. Because in that case we saw what happened when the state didn't bail out the worst offenders - still bail outs, which hurt the poor the most while leaving those who generated the 'value' which failed free to take massive payments for quitting their jobs, aren't even close to describing a 'positive' outcome/social good.)"

You are mixing up the causes and the results of the business cycle. Normally, the market moves up because we have a positive GDP every year and are creating real value most of the time through he products and services we manufacture. The stock market crashing is the result of a poor performing economy (or an economy of the verge of performing poorly), not the cause of the economy's troubles. It is a symptom that tells us what is happening, not the disease itself. The Great Recession was caused by easy money coming from the Fed with artificially low interest rates leading up to it, government insured bank account leaving banks free to gamble with people's money, government propping up businesses deemed "too big to fail" leaving them to take on as many risks as they wanted because they knew the government would bail them out, and deception/negligence on the part of the rating agencies. None of that had to do with the stock market, the stock market was the victim of the whole affair.

"Ok, terrible example, a) i don't, my iphone was free. b) people don't, the iphone cult is one of artificial status, not usefulness of the product (hence the constant new versions which people just *must* have...) The newer product is usually marginally better than the last. And Apple has used clever marketing to get into the cultural position it has to be seen as 'cool'...

Now try to sell me on the idea that 'coolness' adds value to our society as a whole and i'll refer you back to my comments on 'illusionary value'."

Well, I was really wanting speaking about anyone, not you particularly even though I used the word "you", but you are right in saying that was a bad example, it was. But the argument still stands and you can replace iPhone with any other product out there. People don't buy it if it isn't worth more than their money to them.

"Some iphone assembly plants have suicide nets to catch the people throwing themselves off the roof. Because without the ability to form unions and collectively negotiate they are taken advantage of. (never mind the environmental costs associated with extracting some of the minerals and metals required in iphone production) - now some of the rarer elements are only mined in a few developing countries in slave-like conditions. Those people are definitely being exploited, and exposed to potentially toxic working conditions, where applicable.

The fact is, Apply will do whatever it can to beat it's competition and if that means using slave labour (in Africa), or terrible working conditions (which require the deployment of suicide nets, in China), then they will do just that."

These problems stem from preexisting issues in these countries. That doesn't excuse Apple's behavior in taking advantage of the situation though.

"How and Ever, consumers can also be conned into exploitative relationship with corporations. Ones where they get into debt to pay for goods or services which they don't need. Or where their self-esteem is damaged by the advertising - just look at the increasing prevalence of eating disorders, particularly among young women and teen age girls. This is the kind of exploitation which large corporations don't even take a second thought about, because they only seek maximising their short-term profits."

I see these as lifestyle choices, not anything bad. Especially debt, people like to treat it as a dirty word when it is actually a very helpful tool when used correctly. Most people just don't know how to handle it in the right manner, they take too much of it on at one time and are bad with paying it back on time.

"They had research which showed the links to cancer. They then lied about it. They fought against anyone else who could provide similar evidence and attempted to mislead and misinform the public. Basically anything they could do to prevent the truth coming out, and to place doubt in the minds of the public.

Not surprising given they were large corporations. If one CEO decided to follow a different policy, and lost money, was fired and replaced, then the corporation would have continued afterwards (or after being absorbed by a more successful company which didn't make the same choices). Thus regardless of any individual working for a corporation, it is possible that the structure will enforce it's own will, ie the profit motive. Regardless of the morals which any individual employees may hold."

I touched on this earlier. Lying to customers/ the government should be illegal and punishable through punitive damages. That causes your relationships to become coercive.

"That's fine, and a state which chooses to offer health care to cover diseases caused by such poor choices has an interest in reducing the eventual cost.

You can look at a vice tax as future insurance for the state against the risk of unhealthy people depending on the state for medical care. This is both wise, and in the interest of the social good."

If the state was offering healthcare, that would make sense. I don't think it should be though.

"Ok, i'm currently reading a book about the Great depression, written in 1932."

That doesn't make sense to me, the depression wasn't even half way over in 1932, it wasn't even at its worst by then. It's like reading a book about the Great Recession written in 2008.

"That is not correct. The need is different from the demand. Many people starving need food. If they have the money to pay for it there will be demand, if they don't then the need doesn't disappear.

During the Great Depression the need was greater than ever before. There were more people in the world. Also production was at an all time high. Unfortunately the wages were too low for workers to afford what was being produced. And over production lead to workers being laid off, which triggered a recession and eventual depression."

Well, I'm sure the supply of various products (food, automobiles, beds) varied and there was probably more of some and less of others. Food may have been on the low end, I wasn't there and don't know, but generally speaking, there was too much of most things and that was the problem.

But you started to agree with me in the second paragraph there. Inventories were too high, so production had to fall, people had to be laid off, and without jobs people started running out of money.

"I'm pretty sure i'm not jumbling anything up here. Your facts appear to be wrong. In 1930 the money supply was reduced when private investors withdrew their money from banks, causing a run on the banks. And thus banks stopped lending out. (cutting the money in circulation) In the US the state was committed to the Gold Standard, thus they didn't take action to expand the money supply (the idea of the gold standard being to prevent the illusionary value issues i discussed previously).

From what i can tell, it was only in 1937 when the federal reserve required banks to increase their required reserve amounts (to prevent banks failing) that government policy had a negative effect on the money supply (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_the_United_States )"

Here is a simple classroom aid I found put out ny the federal reserve bank of St. Louis, https://research.stlouisfed.org/pageone-economics/uploads/newsletter/2011/Lib1111ClassrmEdition.pdf

The Federal Reserve is the sole body in charge of maintaining the money supply in the U.S. When funds were drawn out of the system at such a rapid rate (the money supply shrunk by 1/3, not 2/3 as I said previously, the Fed should have replaced those funds so that the monetary base increased at a steady rate instead of shrinking so much. This all occurred during the first years of the 1930s. So, while the Fed itself didn't cut the money supply, they re the ones in charge of it and failed to take measures to counteract the decreases they were seeing. They were not doing anything malicious, they just did not understand how bad the effects of not keeping the money supply steady would be.

@"This may be where our disagreements mainly stem from. I'm 100% in support of free will. You seem to not be against the idea of it, but the reality of it if I am correct? You think that people aren't able to make choices themselves because of what occurs in their environment? Could you elaborate please. "

As i said, this almost deserves it's own thread.

And yes you're right, i'm disagree with you on the reality of free will.

First there are two things, i don't disagree with holding people responcible for their actions, because as a part of their social environment, knowing you will be held responcible affects your actions. So this can be a social good.

Second, we go sligthly more philosophical, i believe free will is an illusion created by the brain. Unfortunately the brain is usually unable to pierce that illusion (because it is designed to fool itself, and if you were able to simulate your own mind to the extent that you could see how limited your choices were, then you'd also be free-er in your choices).

Third, i don't believe there is no will, merely that it is heavily limited. The homeless person on the street is not free to make the same kinds of decisions as the average billionaire, also the decisions we make are limited by our experience, so a billionaire who became homeless would still have different choices (i'm not talking about privilege here, though i'm sure that is a consequence of differences in choices available and experiences).

Fourth, we are limited by our biology, both physically and mentally. We can't just decide to grow wings and fly off into space (i'm sure this is uncontroversial) but likewise, we can't suddenly ignore our emotions and experiences and choose to do (say) work harder at school, or give up an addictive habit*, or see the world from another's perspective (without talking to them at least... there are a lot of things we can do with other people, in a social context, as opposed to as part of a greater community.)

*we can give up addictive behaviours with the proper support system in place, it has been said that 'the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety it is community' (or connection) - if you look at the number of Vietnam troops who were using Heroin while in Vietname, the numer who ended up continuing when back home (where they had a social support system in place) was vanishingly small, something like 10-20% of all troops returning had continuing drug problems, and those were the people without a community to return to.

So what we can do depends heavily on our social circumstances. Not some ultimate individual free will. In some ways the community (or lack thereof) is responcible for some of the worst choices of human individuals (thinking specifically of lone wolf terrorists, who go out and shoot up a school - they are usualmy very isolated people who, as children, were play deprived, whose brains developed in way to not handle stress as well as the majority... There is some great stuff on play which you should look up).

Me explaining this, makes me think we should hold communities responcible for the behaviour of their members... I suppose in a way we do, with family as the smallest common form of community, we will hold parents partially responsible for the behaviour of their children.

I notice you did make exceptions for children previously, saying their brains weren't fully developed. Well i would say 1) not all adults have 'fully' developed, or healthily developed brains (play deprivation is just one example) and 2) what a fully developed brain is does not have the freedom it feels like it has. I don't think it has the attributes you ascribe to it.

I'm sure there are many philosophical discussion on this topic around the place. But i think a modern psychological / developmental approach would be more helpful in understanding what 'normal' adult brains are capable of... There is some great developmental psychology taught to teachers in training. Some interesting limitations of children at different developmental stages are illustrated here: https://youtu.be/TRF27F2bn-A

But my point would be 1) not all adults reach the highest developmental stage (as described by the researcher Piaget) and 2) even those of us who do reach that stage do not become omnipotent.(this is just an illustrative example, it doesn't help show all the parts of human development, but it does show 4 stages of cognitive ability... Lying for example is impossible before age 3-5 when the ability to think about what other people know, and how it differs from what you know, develops.

@"I have no problems with tobacco advertising, or with people making the choice to use tobacco. I do have a problem with firms lying or withholding information requested by either their customer or the government though. When that occurs, the transaction between the customer and the company was not truly without coercion, the firm was aggressing upon the customer by being dishonest and having them enter into an agreement they may not have otherwise wanted to enter if they knew all of the information."

So what about lies of ommission? What about intentionally misleading their audience for the sake of selling a product? I'd like to reference deodorant ads, where the advertiser would leave the audience with the impression that using their product will guarentee they will have sex. Which clearly isn't true. But there are many other examples which aren't as clear cut. And the advertiser always has a clear incentive to mislead as much as possible - though usually the job is to make the audience believe that they need a given product (like Apple's iphone marketing strategy has successfully managed... ) note, i say need not want.

The only market where government regulation (in the US at least) seems to infringe on advertiser's lies is the sale of prescription medication. Where side effects are mentioned, and maybe they advise you to speak to your doctor... In (most of europe) drug companies aren't allowed to advertise at all, so instead sell the idea of their drug being great directly to doctors (buying them dinners, paying for them to go to conferences, etc... Which may have other side effects...)

Again, this largely comes down to free will, and we appear to differ on this issue. I'd be happy if all advertising was banned. If you could use google and word of mouth to find what you wanted. I don't see how this would be a worse world (and i know google is currently funded by advertising revenues... But i'm talking about my ideal here)