I imagine most of you are capitalists but to what extent? What should be left to the private sector and what should be public, when if ever should the government regulate the private sector. I’d be interested to hear what your principles are in determining when and how the government should intervene.
FYI: I might ask some seemingly stupid questions with seemingly obvious answers. This is only because I am trying to get down to people’s fundamental principles and grounding for their beliefs. I’m saying this because I posted on r/AskALiberal and some people thought I was being disingenuous and bad faith. Appreciate the responses!
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Like parenting teenagers: cut them a wide berth, let them do their thing and occasionally fail because you have to try at something in order to fail at something. But the moment they fuck up meet them with rules and restrictions so they know that if they do it again the consequences will be much much worse.
Sorry but I didn’t understand. What are you talking about?
Encourage and foster innovation but punish malfeasance in the private sector.
I agree with this
Too big to fail does not exist, and I agree wholeheartedly
The Government should regulate safety, EPA standards and antitrust and collusion.
basically setting rules to protect Americans from corporate sleazebags
Well the current admin doesn't believe in more than half of those
well if you preferred over regulation, that will stifle the economy, maybe he democrats should choose a better candidate next time
Based on what evidence?
Ceasing enforcement of FCPA would be a good example.
The current one or all of them! Because even when they appear to manage, they ( all sides) seem to get mighty rich!
The government should play as little of a role in the economy as possible. Its best course of action is to largely stay out of the way of commerce and let the market allocate resources. Now this does not mean there is not a role for government, but those roles are only that which the government can fill such as national defense, the building of infrastructure, and the protecting of liberties. Otherwise it should be free commerce and free markets between free people.
Curious where you would place the following and why:
Education- Can be handled by the state, but it does not have to be. The government does have an interest in ensuring that its citizens are well educated, prepared for productive lives, and capable of self-government. That can be provided via government-run schools, religious schools, privately-run schools, or, preferably, a combination of all three.
Healthcare- Government should involve itself as little as possible in the providing of healthcare and the paying for it. This is one of those times where the government's best course is largely to stay out of the way, especially seeing how government intervention has mucked up healthcare already.
Environmental protection- There is a place for government in preserving certain natural environments for common use and there is a more nationalist argument for protecting certain landscapes and unique flora and fauna that is only found here. But in the large swaths of the country where that is not a concern, the government should lean in the direction of promoting commerce and enriching the people through the use of natural resources.
Central banking- This is one of those areas where the promotion of commerce requires a steady and consistent role for government. Alexander Hamilton recognized this some 230 years ago.
Market regulations- Again, this is one of those areas where the promotion of commerce and the promotion of the free market may require a role for government. Some regulation is necessary, too much is onerous, so a balance is needed.
International diplomacy- This is the one of the areas where only the government can take charge. Similar to national defense, only states can negotiate an end to wars or a shift in borders. In a perfect world, there would be no need for trade negotiations because there would be unencumbered free trade between the nations of the world. But we do not live in a perfect world. But that should be the guiding path for trade negotiations, one of continuously expanding free trade among the free nations of the world, rather than this protectionist nonsense that serves as an incubator for corruption and crony capitalism while hurting average citizens.
The legitimate role of government is to provide Public Goods, full stop.
Public Goods are those goods (really services) the are non excludable and non rival. That means if provided to anyone they are provided to everyone (may be geographically limited) and one persons consumption does not impair another's.
National defense is a public good. So are police and fire protection and Infectious disease control
Would you also want to have some mechanism to prevent economic cartels, oligopolies, and monopolies? Or would you consider those to be a natural part of a free market?
*Edited to fix poor grammar
Said mechanism being the free market...
Three kinds of monopolies exist- government created (usually bad), natural (eh), and superior producer (good).
Natural monopoly- results from a market where there is a huge cost of entry but then low marginal costs, ie grid power. High cost of creating the network and no value in having two redundant distribution systems. There is room for government intervention here.
Government monopolies can be good or bad, but usually bad. Patents are a government (created) monopoly and are good because they reward and encourage innovation.
And superior producer monopolies are fine because they earn their monopoly status by being preferable to the alternatives
I wonder what you would think of adding a fourth kind of monopoly to your list?
For me, yours leaves off the kind that has cropped up in the last few decades -> the superior producer monopoly/oligopoly that maintains its monopoly status by either:
1) buying out their competition (see most of the large tech players that have bought out their meaningful competition / looked for vertical integration opportunities - Google buying YouTube or Facebook buying Instagram and Whatsapp for example) or
2) being large enough and well capitalized enough to absorb accounting losses until their competition dies, at which time they take their monopoly and sometimes monopsony pricing power and use it to distort markets (for example, Amazon's willingness to bleed AWS cash on Prime until everyone expects two day delivery, or their "most favored nation" pricing agreements that force sellers to offer their best price on Amazon to maintain access to the platform, or Uber's infamous cash burn that got people used to magically summoned driver service for ludicrously low prices until such time as a new expectation was created for short distance transportation service such that they could then use their monopoly pricing power to pay drivers less and charge riders more).
I tend to be a bit of a Smithian when it comes to monopolies in general, in that I see these sorts of monopolies/oligopolies as dangerous in that they almost always use their near monopoly and monopsony status to extract as much as possible from their workers, suppliers, and customers, leaving everyone else worse off for having done business with them. In that regard, one could draw interesting parallels between Apple's walled garden approach to its app store commissions and Walmart's effects on the economies of the small towns where they have become the major retailer and major employer.
It seems to me that this sort of oligopoly/monopoly pricing situation winds up being the long term goal of all large firms. Given that large enough firms start to distort the market (I am assuming that you would agree with that statement, but perhaps I am wrong to do so) in ways that make competition difficult to impossible, do you see the market coming up with a solution to these market distortions? Of course you may reject my analysis of this situation as incorrect, if you do, would you be willing to expound on the grounds for that rejection?
Would you consider health care to be a public good then? If not, why?
One person's consumption does impact another, so probably not by their definition
Health care is a public good, but professional health care is not. You can treat yourself or ask someone to treat you, whatever you like, with or without payment. The government should provide information on medicine, drugs, and surgical procedures for free, though.
HEALTH CARE IS NOT A PUBLIC GOOD!
Curing your cancer does not make me better off. And a physician can absolutely refuse to treat you. Health care is both excludable and rival.
Like I said- infectious disease control is a public good. If you don't have measles you can't spread it to me. It not being spread to me does not impair it not being spread to someone else. And I can't be excluded from people you aren't spreading it to.
Paying for a fire department to put out a fire in your house across town does nothing for me but empty my pockets…
Paying a police department for investigating someone stealing your car does nothin for me And my car payments…
Your neighbors house not being on fire means it won't spread to yours. A criminal in jail can't commit a crime against you.
A neighbors house across town has no bearing on my house.
A car thief being caught doesn’t affect me if I don’t have a car.
Tell that to people in Chicago living a mile away from Mrs O'Leary...
And I'm not aware that criminals super-specialize...
You could do the same with police and fire. I could just have my own gun and a few fire extinguishers to provide fire and police safety for my family and defund those departments… but wouldn’t that have a bad effect on community and society at large?
You may find a personal gun and fire extinguisher is not safe enough, while private security guard and fire fighters are too expensive, crowd fund within your local community is the natural choice. You can crowd fund professional health care in a local level as well if you can convince enough people, no law is stopping you, I just don't think I'm convinced to participate in a crowd fund national level professional health care with so many strangers who have a record of doing unhealthy and even dangerous behaviors.
Yes, you can. Public Goods are not a black and white issue. That's why private security guards and sprinkler systems (even private firemen) exist. Everything has both universal and individual aspects, though usually one or the other is trivial (but not always).
Which is why think there should be a public health care system that allows private health care if you choose that.
So if you want a privately funded cardiologist, you can opt for that. But if you cannot afford one, you can still see a publicly funded cardiologist.
Capitalism is amoral so government needs to step in and regulate certain aspects of the economy for the public good. For instance, regulating discharges from businesses so we can maintain clean air and clean water. Worker safety as in OSHA and MSHA. Citizen safety like seat belts and air bags. There are many examples of government regulations that are necessary. There are also many examples of unnecessary regulations. It is a fine line to determine what is government's responsibility and what is the market's.
I am a very huge capitalist. I believe if the freedom exists, capitalism always wins in such society. With that saying, I think government needs to add strong regulations on corporations. Wealth gap is a huge issue. I don't think its an issue if people think they are being treated fairly. But that's not what's happening. Companies are laying off people to meet estimates and predictions and reporting profits. We need to form regulations to fix that. I think that's a step to keeping capitalism alive.
I do not agree wealth gap is an issue, except in people's perceptions. Instead, real median income is the issue.
No, that's the very engine of a profit-driven economy. We do not need regulations to "fix" that.
Would companies laying off their workforce for the perception of economic growth via estimates and reporting profits have a negative effect long term for that company… in lieu of short-term profit.
Short-term profits do very little for sustainable and long term innovation.
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Minimal public sector economic activity but reasonable regulation to protect consumers and communities from bad faith. Private business is more efficient, reacts to demand more efficiently, and incentivizes hard work and innovation. In particular small businesses are really important. Public sector economic activity tends to be inefficient and poorly incentivized.
Regulations are really important though because capitalism can also turn into a harmful race to the bottom. As an example, you can look at an apple in the store and know what it is, but you have no way of verifying that your infant formula doesn't have melamine in it. The apple just falls under pesticide safety so you don't get poisoned along with the insects. Baby formula needs a lot more attention. We like safe, clean drinking water but companies will covertly dump chemicals into watersheds to help the bottom line. That needs to be monitored.
The government has interfered with labor unions much too strongly. People should have the right to organize and negotiate for wages. Friedman also thought monopolies wouldn't happen but he didn't see the way massive companies could scale and harm markets. We need more monopoly-busting.
Since you are asking about a fundamental belief, I'll answer from a free market point of view:
Usually, a monopoly is established by providing a good or service at the lowest price. But what if the cost of producing something is already near zero? For example, a rule is essentially a cost imposed on others and could be set up by anyone. However, nobody has to respect your rule. To make someone follow your rule, the usual practice is to make the potential cost of not following your rule high enough, maybe to the point of death.
Governments all over the world have proven inept at many roles of “Government” so this is a difficult question.
On the one hand, we need them to manage oversight but without bias or fraud - sadly lacking. In the other, private sector has had some amazing success BUT isn’t without major issues without governance and enforcement.. again, sadly missing in private and government ability..
I hate the way government spends money when it wastes so much. I guess I’m saying, if Government were good at something with 100% transparency, and it’s good for society as a whole, I’m ok with them managing those roles. But when governments change, sadly, so do the rules!
To use it for the national interest. It's in our interest to not poison our water supply and to grow our own food. It's in our interest to make most of our critical infrastructure and systems. It's in our interest to make sure we have enough goods and services to be able to sell to the world.
The purpose of thd government is to provide snd regulate common goods. Things like air/water quality, roadways, justice, defense, etc.