I love the theory of a really effective government that can produce things that are consistently better than private corporations. But that’s just never been my experience. In fact, it feels like the bigger a government gets the worst it operates. So how would you imagine a government that produces all the products and services for a society better than a free market?
Just look at most developed countries in Europe and you will find government operated services that are much better than what the free market came up with the in the US. Namely health services and transportation for instance. Postal services as well.
I just did a week long trip in the USA and all the National Parks were a joy to visit. I actually thought about and commented that it would be a totally different experience, read worse, if those things were privatized.
Honestly the whole argument that private entities are run better is bullshit. There’s nothing stopping any government from hiring the same managers and you just eliminated a certain % that would be the middle men. And now the main objective isn’t profit at all costs, so it will very easily be a better service for us, the consumers.
There is nothing stopping them, but there is nothing motivating them to hire competent people either. From my experience, every single time, they hire “friends”. “Friends” with no expertise or skill.
That does not mean every single thing can be run better privately. Emergency services, healthcare, utilities, mass transit, … There are areas that for one reason or another are better being government run (in spite of the mismanagement), but they are relatively few.
It seems like a majority of these countries have a much smaller population and economy. It’s a good point though. It makes me think we could achieve it, but it would require effort at the level of state government rather than federal. But that has its own problems. Do you agree? If not, why not? Do you feel like a massive government can effectively implement this? How? Feels like any massive organization gets shittier… I regularly feel like massive corps just forget about some products. E.X.: Google canceling almost every service they run. Microsoft’s websites being basically broken. Etc…
It’s true that countries in Europe are more akin to states in the US but while there are difficulties scaling up there are also benefits. And in the end everything is divided anyway. It’s not just done in one centralized place.
The EU has done some meaningful things, though it’s mostly laws and not so much services. I’d argue that it had a much more difficult job also.
But there’s the private vs non private debate and the small vs big debate
What comes to mind is like Russia, Venezuela, China, or North Korea. Maybe something could be learned from the Chinese economy, but it feels like a lot of the successful parts are free market based. What am I missing?
You’re missing the smaller players. Cuba saw a really increased standard of living, I think, so has vietnam, so did burkina faso and the DRC before both of their governments got dunked on by the CIA. The larger players are more obvious because the CIA isn’t able to meddle with them as much, which means they can get away with much more, but they’re still not usually the best example.
The rapid increase in standards of living in china didn’t come about as a result of free market intervention, but mostly as a result of the rapid upscaling of a command economy and industrialization in their earlier years. Same for the soviet union. In fact, the biggest downscale in standard of living in the soviet union as I understand it came about after it’s collapse, at the hands of vampires like thatcher and reagen getting buddy buddy with big gorbo, while their economy got chopped up for parts. They were pretty fucked by that point anyways though. The biggest problem with those economies, outside of their goofery, is mostly stuff that we’ve solved in the intervening years since their latent demise with computers. Probably there’s also an argument to be made that monopolies like walmart have realistically solved most of those problems and already operate as a command economy as noted in the book “The People’s Republic of Walmart”, though you could probably make that argument about a lot of different sectors of the economy.
But then I also see a pretty big divide between autocratic, authoritarian controls that centralize power, and more democratized controls, and mostly the argument for socializing goods like housing comes from the probably correct instinct that the average person can exercise more democratic control over their local government than they can any given business, even small scale. Nobody would want a walmart controlled by the government if they made like the same quality of shit and served the exact same function, you know? I dunno I’m sure some .ml freak will be along here to support my arguments with more hard evidence. Any day now. Aaaaany day now.
Here in Sweden we have publicly owned housing. Each municipality has its own company that acts as a landlord. The main issue is queue times, but that could honestly be solved quite easily if the government decided to prioritise housing. They don’t, however, and instead opt to try and privatise it, leading to private landlords that have driven up the prices and cost of living, while slowly eking out the life of the publicly owned housing.
We need to look to history for insights into what works, and what doesn’t. In my humble opinion, some form of socialism is the obvious answer. We must move past the minority ruling over the majority. For the sake of humanity, and the Earth, a new system must be implemented. This system doesn’t have to look like China, the Soviet system, or even any socialist system of the past. The key is recognizing that change is inevitable, and necessary. But that change must be decided by the masses, not the select few.
I love the theory of a really effective government that can produce things that are consistently better than private corporations. But that’s just never been my experience. In fact, it feels like the bigger a government gets the worst it operates. So how would you imagine a government that produces all the products and services for a society better than a free market?
Just look at most developed countries in Europe and you will find government operated services that are much better than what the free market came up with the in the US. Namely health services and transportation for instance. Postal services as well.
I just did a week long trip in the USA and all the National Parks were a joy to visit. I actually thought about and commented that it would be a totally different experience, read worse, if those things were privatized.
Honestly the whole argument that private entities are run better is bullshit. There’s nothing stopping any government from hiring the same managers and you just eliminated a certain % that would be the middle men. And now the main objective isn’t profit at all costs, so it will very easily be a better service for us, the consumers.
There is nothing stopping them, but there is nothing motivating them to hire competent people either. From my experience, every single time, they hire “friends”. “Friends” with no expertise or skill.
That does not mean every single thing can be run better privately. Emergency services, healthcare, utilities, mass transit, … There are areas that for one reason or another are better being government run (in spite of the mismanagement), but they are relatively few.
It seems like a majority of these countries have a much smaller population and economy. It’s a good point though. It makes me think we could achieve it, but it would require effort at the level of state government rather than federal. But that has its own problems. Do you agree? If not, why not? Do you feel like a massive government can effectively implement this? How? Feels like any massive organization gets shittier… I regularly feel like massive corps just forget about some products. E.X.: Google canceling almost every service they run. Microsoft’s websites being basically broken. Etc…
It’s true that countries in Europe are more akin to states in the US but while there are difficulties scaling up there are also benefits. And in the end everything is divided anyway. It’s not just done in one centralized place.
The EU has done some meaningful things, though it’s mostly laws and not so much services. I’d argue that it had a much more difficult job also.
But there’s the private vs non private debate and the small vs big debate
“Free” market is for TVs and stuff, government is for living, like housing, heat, water etc.
Any government
these guys are trying to topple.
What comes to mind is like Russia, Venezuela, China, or North Korea. Maybe something could be learned from the Chinese economy, but it feels like a lot of the successful parts are free market based. What am I missing?
You’re missing the smaller players. Cuba saw a really increased standard of living, I think, so has vietnam, so did burkina faso and the DRC before both of their governments got dunked on by the CIA. The larger players are more obvious because the CIA isn’t able to meddle with them as much, which means they can get away with much more, but they’re still not usually the best example.
The rapid increase in standards of living in china didn’t come about as a result of free market intervention, but mostly as a result of the rapid upscaling of a command economy and industrialization in their earlier years. Same for the soviet union. In fact, the biggest downscale in standard of living in the soviet union as I understand it came about after it’s collapse, at the hands of vampires like thatcher and reagen getting buddy buddy with big gorbo, while their economy got chopped up for parts. They were pretty fucked by that point anyways though. The biggest problem with those economies, outside of their goofery, is mostly stuff that we’ve solved in the intervening years since their latent demise with computers. Probably there’s also an argument to be made that monopolies like walmart have realistically solved most of those problems and already operate as a command economy as noted in the book “The People’s Republic of Walmart”, though you could probably make that argument about a lot of different sectors of the economy.
But then I also see a pretty big divide between autocratic, authoritarian controls that centralize power, and more democratized controls, and mostly the argument for socializing goods like housing comes from the probably correct instinct that the average person can exercise more democratic control over their local government than they can any given business, even small scale. Nobody would want a walmart controlled by the government if they made like the same quality of shit and served the exact same function, you know? I dunno I’m sure some .ml freak will be along here to support my arguments with more hard evidence. Any day now. Aaaaany day now.
Here in Sweden we have publicly owned housing. Each municipality has its own company that acts as a landlord. The main issue is queue times, but that could honestly be solved quite easily if the government decided to prioritise housing. They don’t, however, and instead opt to try and privatise it, leading to private landlords that have driven up the prices and cost of living, while slowly eking out the life of the publicly owned housing.
We need to look to history for insights into what works, and what doesn’t. In my humble opinion, some form of socialism is the obvious answer. We must move past the minority ruling over the majority. For the sake of humanity, and the Earth, a new system must be implemented. This system doesn’t have to look like China, the Soviet system, or even any socialist system of the past. The key is recognizing that change is inevitable, and necessary. But that change must be decided by the masses, not the select few.
Yeah, Venezuela tried that and it didn’t work at all.