Democracy

[hippifried]

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

Yeah, because that happens every single time, just like when... Uh... Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot. It's never happened. Never mind. Just another bullshit statement in quotes.

[trish]

An unregulated free market cannot exist as a permanent form of economy. Individual businesses will form coalitions to edge out their competitors. Coalitions of coalitions will edge out even more competitors until the entire world and the people in it will be the property of handful of the greediest and wealthiest powers. The market will no longer be free, but ruled by these massive conglomerations. Wealth and power do not radiate wealth and power away from themselves, but rather, like massive black holes they coalesce and spin around each other. In a mad attempt to grab the last raw material and score the last profit these last swollen giants will swallow the world.

Don't believe me, check out the theorems of John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern: The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior

Every working engine needs a governor or a regulator of some sort to prevent runaway feedback and keep the engine working within functional tolerances; every kind of useful engine, including economic engines need regulation.

[an8150]

hippifried, "Yeah, because that happens every single time, just like when... Uh... Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot. It's never happened. Never mind. Just another bullshit statement in quotes. "

You haven't heard about what been happening recently in certain of the PIIGS countries, then?

[an8150]

trish,"An unregulated free market cannot exist as a permanent form of economy. Individual businesses will form coalitions to edge out their competitors. Coalitions of coalitions will edge out even more competitors until the entire world and the people in it will be the property of handful of the greediest and wealthiest powers. The market will no longer be free, but ruled by these massive conglomerations. Wealth and power do not radiate wealth and power away from themselves, but rather, like massive black holes they coalesce and spin around each other. In a mad attempt to grab the last raw material and score the last profit these last swollen giants will swallow the world.

Don't believe me, check out the theorems of John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern: The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior

Every working engine needs a governor or a regulator of some sort to prevent runaway feedback and keep the engine working within functional tolerances; every kind of useful engine, including economic engines need regulation. "

You want to control and direct me for my own good? That is kind. And who is to control and direct you in that endeavour? And who they?

[Stavros]

Stavros, "And if the majority in an election support a policy that uses their taxes to fund education and health, the minority cannot complain, or can campaign against a change in the law, or mount a revolution to overthrow a government that doesn't give them what they want, or better still, do away with representative democracy."

And on that last point, I give you (depending on whom you believe) either Tytler or de Tocqueville:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

The difficulty most libertarians have with revolution is that, unlike our ideological opponents, we are a peaceable bunch. Indeed, ideologically, we have to be.

Neither Tytler nor de Tocqueville are responsible for that notorious quote, not least because the last line you quote is followed by the phrase The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. I don't think an educated man like de Tocqueville would have written that, nor would Alexander Tytler, an educated Scot living in the glow of the Scottish renaissance. It is common enough for democracy to be challenged as the best form of governance that we have, because democracy is not perfect. Although they lost seats in the 1932 election the Nazis were the largest democractically elected party in the Reichstag,, which is why eventually Hitler was invited to become Chancellor in 1933, and the rest as they say is history.

The problem would be that even if de Tocqueville had written it, it has been by-passed by history, because what the US experience has shown, is that the democracy that was founded in 1776 has changed and been responsive to the needs and demands of American citizens -the most obvious reforms that have been made, in the form of Constituional amendments, mean that the democracy that was founded in slavery, eventually abolished it; the democracy that denied women equal rights subsequently gave those rights to them; the democracy that gave businesses the right to operate free from the law, observed the creation of monopolies that inhibited free enterprise, and passed the anti-trust laws to prevent this happening; the democracy that denied people the right to drink alcohol later restored that right; the democracy that failed to limit the number of terms a President could serve, realised with FDR that one man could be President for a very long time, so imposed a limit on terms, and so on.

Basically, the libertarians are sore because they don't have the popular vote, be it in the UK or the USA, which is why 'the people' are ridiculed as 'sheeple' as if the majority were so poorly educated, so ignorant of what is in their best interests that they send in the clowns every 4-5 years and get shafted as a result. It is up to the people to make democracy work, but it is worth it because the alternative is either dictatorship or anarchy.

Incidentally, while it is true there are people on the left who have been banker-bashing for years, I am sure you are aware that 'the Bankers' are a core group of the privileged few derided by conspiracy theorists who believe we are controlled by the Beast, the Oligarchs, the Bilderberg Group, the Bohemian Grove, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Knights of Malta (who have observer status at the UN of course), the Priory of Sion, and so on.

[trish]

You want to control and direct me for my own good?

No, I want the people to regulate the market for their own good.

...who is to control and direct you...? And who they?

The people. You know, those people that government is of, by and for. We regulate together.

[hippifried]

hippifried, "Yeah, because that happens every single time, just like when... Uh... Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot. It's never happened. Never mind. Just another bullshit statement in quotes. "

You haven't heard about what been happening recently in certain of the PIIGS countries, then?

Sure I have. But that's a corporate power play & has nothing to do with your lame quote. Just like everybody else, they were doing ok until the bank panic stopped up revenue streams. Now the same semi-anonymous money changers who created the artificial panic, & hold vast amounts of bonds, are demanding full payments they know can't be made because of their shenanigans. Austerity programs are just a ploy to lower wages, & have never been a benefit to anyone except debt holders who end up taking real property in lieu of shuffled numbers. Talk about coercion...

[hippifried]

Stavros, "...of course the more extreme libertarians claim that we do not live in a democracy, that the parties are all the same [indeed, they bicker over who is best-suited to running the status quo, which is the flip side to my question last night: what do the self-styled progressives and social democrats and assorted socialists on this thread think we should be voting about, if it's all settled and people like me should just shut up and go away?], the results are fixed, the decisions are made by the bankers [come on, that's more of a leftie trope], the Rothschilds and so on."

That's not Libertarians. Those are John Birchers. All that lunatic conspiracy crap comes straight from the two "None dare call it..." books that form the backbone of the anti-communist group that made Ayn Rand seem pink. Pointing left with everything you see that seems whacky doesn't work.

[hippifried]

An unregulated free market cannot exist as a permanent form of economy. Individual businesses will form coalitions to edge out their competitors. Coalitions of coalitions will edge out even more competitors until the entire world and the people in it will be the property of handful of the greediest and wealthiest powers. The market will no longer be free, but ruled by these massive conglomerations. Wealth and power do not radiate wealth and power away from themselves, but rather, like massive black holes they coalesce and spin around each other. In a mad attempt to grab the last raw material and score the last profit these last swollen giants will swallow the world.

There's a term for when government goes out of its way to aid in that outcome. It's called "fascism".

[Odelay]

Here's the problem with Ayn Rand, as I see it...

Her heroes are extremely gifted entrepreneurs who revolutionize some industry, who subsequently aren't appreciated enough, and who then go to extreme lengths to withdraw their works and talent from society, presumably leaving society in worse shape.

John Galt and his merry men (and women) of gifted inventors and thinkers, withdraw to a remote shangri-la type place in Atlas Shrugged. Howard Roark, in Fountainhead, quits as the most unique architect in the world and on the way out blows up one of the buildings that bastardized his design. Rand glorifies these titans of capitalism.

So her long fictional pieces are paeans to capitalism, itself. Some would say in line with Adam Smith and the classicists, but I'd argue closer to Friedman and the neo-classicists. Except for one thing...

Even Friedman would laugh at the idea that removing geniuses from society would have any hugely significant impact on society. The invisible hand is the invisible hand. Classical economic theory, if anything, is a rejection of the whole Philosopher King theory that emerged out of the Renaissance, that emphasized that one great man, or one group of great men, is all that is needed to advance society. Adam Smith and his disciples refute that by claiming that if there is a demand for products or services, and there is capital available for fulfilling that demand, that some enterprising person will pursue that opportunity in the spirit of self-interest or profit.

So I laugh when I read post-election pieces by various tin pot entrepreneurs who claim that they're withdrawing from the market or firing half their employees. All they're doing is creating a new demand opportunity for someone else to fill.

The heroic withdrawal actions of Rand's characters mean practically nothing in her glorious tributes to capitalism, as capitalism has been understood around the world and through the centuries.

I feel a little bit sorry for those business owners who are now Going Galt, because they obviously don't understand the markets of which they revere.

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As for coercion grafted atop our system of capitalism, I can imagine how that might be upsetting to certain libertarians. My guess is that there is some society, somewhere on the planet, where capitalism can be practiced with less coercion. Maybe Australia or Singapore, I really don't know. These are just examples I'm throwing out here. But it seems to me that if the American system of capitalism becomes too oppressive for some citizen entrepreneurs, that these people have options.