Yeah, I think anyone can agree that if teachers would get rewarded more for working better, then that's a good thing.

The problem with it, though, is that "better" is a lot more subjective when it comes to human interaction than something as straightforward as a regular manufactured product like cereals or cars, that's why people see a difference. For example, if a teacher in a wealthy area can teach students more effectively than a teacher in a poor area, simply because of class culture and things like that- should the teacher in the poor area be screwed by the system even more and paid less for "not succeeding enough", despite not being in a fair environment to succeed in the first place? That's obviously just one small example, but there are plenty of hypothetical situations where the ultra-free market might not actually mean anything good.

The argument for state-funded services instead of free-market private ones comes from the idea that when profit is the only motivator, businesses can become exploitative of the system. Businesses can unethically increase profit by exploiting workers, polluting the environment, as well as other practices like unfair monopolization of the market due to the power that a large business has (see Amazon in the book market, Nestlé with water, probably any huge business has some examples of this). You also have a problem of some state-funded services being required despite being unprofitable, like cheap public transport in areas that wouldn't be able to afford tickets at "competitive market prices". Welfare is also of course necessary for anyone who is unable to earn enough money to survive on their own, like the elderly, or people who are incredibly ill, etc. Letting those people fall into poverty isn't a good thing in most people's eyes.

I think the benefits of the free market can exist, but they should never be looked at in isolation, but rather as part of a larger argument- it's dangerous to look at any ideology seriously without considering any downsides and simply concluding that it would lead to a utopia.

I've never heard anyone describe the free market as a utopia, that's just a strawman; just a better system. The common argument against economic liberalism is about exploitation and such things like that, but no one claimed that it would never happen to a degree; the fallacy is however to think that corruption and exploitation is somehow less common under an economy under strong centralised controls. I would argue that exploitation is much worse under a system in which those who are corruptible have much more control and influence over the economy than would otherwise be the case - and indeed the system is designed for lobbyists and special interest groups to take advantage of the system for their own selfish gain, which is something quite demonstrable in our current system.

So what is difficult about judging the standards of a teacher or school? It's very easy, just look at the results of students from that school, the reputation it has, and look at some of the lectures online of a teacher to see what they're like. Little fundamental difference from judging the quality of an automobile or breakfast cereal and I don't understand your criticism. Concerning how much teachers are paid, you seem to be under the impression that there is some arbitrating body deciding the salary of teachers like it's a public system. This isn't the case and the salary of a teacher would be more dependent on the consumer's perception of how much the teacher's services are worth like it is with anything in the market. And opening up schooling to competition doesn't just have an effect on teacher's salaries, it also drives down prices and increases the effectiveness of teaching country-wide as more effective teaching methods are created and emulated - because parents have a choice and send their kids to the best schools possible - way more than reforming the curriculum for the 1000th time or common core ever would or does. In effect it creates an better environment for every student, even poorer communities which the Left claim to be so concerned about.


I have heard pretty much every Left-wing hypothesis in the book about why strong government interference in the economy is necessary, however I have yet to hear a convincing argument or see a an actual example. These hypothesises often fall flat on their faces when you look at historical and contemporary examples.
For example looking into your claim about this Nestle CEO, you actually realise that what he is talking about is regulating all sources of water "for the environment". This would necessitate a strong monopoly of power, in other words the government, to pull off. Because if you think about it for two seconds you realise that monopolising every or nearly every source of water without coercive action is a ridiculous and impossible concept. And that is what he is talking about, he is talking about using the vehicle of the government to regulate water even from people who have their own private wells or rainwater tanks.

And I really don't see what the point is about Amazon, I have heard a lot of people complain about them having a high market share, but what exactly is the problem with this? I like buying books of Amazon because they are very cheap; this goes against the central idea against monopolies which is that they can artificially inflate prices and are bad for the consumer. What is really happening is simply economy of scale; these big companies can offer a cheaper service and thus out compete smaller competitors. There is nothing wrong with this and it's good for the consumer. And one thing to note is that an economy of scale can quickly turn into a diseconomy of scale, in which upsizing creates more inefficiencies because of administrative costs and problems. I can buy books of amazon, and I can also go to my local bookstore, which is more expensive but it's very popular nonetheless because people enjoy that experience of shopping at a bookstore. I fail to see any problems with these oft demonised corporations simply because they can outcompete other businesses because they can offer cheaper prices.


And what are these public services that are apparently so important yet apparently no one would pay for them unless they are forced to by the government? I can think of Aus Post, something that barely anyone uses for mail and taxpayers have to pay the 4.6 million dollar salary of the CEO. It's nothing more than a form of corporate welfare which sustains inefficient companies that would fail or at least have to be optimised without this funding. Buses are expensive? Says who? How much do you think the fare has to be to cover the cost of fuel, maintenance, and the salary of a relatively unskilled worker in a bus carrying two dozen people? Literally anyone with some driving skill could take out a loan and start doing their own bus route, in the absence of bus driver unions, public transport services, or having to jump through 1000 arbitrary hoops of red tape forcing would-be entrepreneurs out of the market. It makes no logical sense that it would be expensive.
The thing with these public companies like public bus services is they are inefficient, they don't have to worry about making a profit, or putting it another way, not running a deficit, so there is no incentive for them to optimise their service anywhere near the level of a private company. Well you might argue, "if they were for profit, they wouldn't run through poor areas that don't generate much revenue!". Well, besides the fact that that argument is dangerously similar to that in the dystopian universe of Atlas Shrugged in which trains of Taggart Transcontinental had to go through poor, desolate areas instead of the industrious oil fields for "public good", you can't even really justify this in terms of "helping the poor". If a bus has to run an inefficient route then that cost is passed directly to the taxpayer: the taxpayers, the businesses have to pay higher taxes and subsequently that cost is passed off in increased cost of products, lower wages and less employees et cetera, stuff that will directly hurt poor people and it makes it harder for people trying to get into the middle class. So the typical context that these scenarios are put in in which it is stated that we will just "tax the rich" to pay for these things is no valid excuse.

And welfare? None of those things you mentioned cannot be done be private charity rather than welfare. And as I've explained before, charity is much more efficient: 70% of welfare money goes on administrative costs, while this is less than 30% for private charity. And charity is actually much better at helping people get out of poverty, while welfare creates a trap where in some cases people would need to earn much more than the minimum wage working a full time job just to break even with the benefits they could get on welfare. In effect, it penalises people for getting out of welfare. And it is said that the biggest cost of welfare isn't even the financial cost, but the human cost.


So, you come from a somewhat centrist angle, but I don't automatically consider the mainstream as correct and neither do I take accusations of being a radical as an insult. The mainstream political climate 50 years ago would be considered radical today and so it will be in 50 years from now. So I don't see our current political climate as the zenith of political or philosophical theory, and I don't feel any need to accept this recent trend of socialism as a necessary element in our society when it doesn't hold up under sceptical scrutiny.

Tiny response since I just got back from work- I mentioned the word "utopia" since railey just made the suggestion that under a totally free market, things naturally spiral towards that state, which is true if only the most positive outcomes happen.

My reference to Nestlé and Amazon were two specific ones that I think you misunderstood. Nestlé buys up water sources wherever it can, which deprives areas of clean water piped to them. You should be able to find examples of this fairly easily. Another point I wasn't mentioning was their use of child labour in developing countries though, which without regulation is something that is pretty much encouraged in a totally free market, since it maximises profits when the company has a monopoly on the area (they can pay inhumanely low wages in third-world countries since there's no competition for wages). As for Amazon, they're known for making rather unfair deals with publishers due to their monopoly on the market, but I don't know enough of the specifics to go deeper into that.

Public transport in rural areas, like trains and buses, can indeed be a net loss- but they're necessary for society, so those services are still offered despite being unprofitable. I imagine taxpayers are okay with paying for this, since they can empathise with people who aren't as well off and don't want them to get fucked over more just for being poor, y'know?

holy fuckin shit

having super strict firearm laws in US is mandatory at this point (or even just doing it JAP style and banning it altogether)

"protecting myself" argument cannot be justified in any way shape or form

One guy shot someone? BAN ALL GUNS! Think of the Children!

Yeah, one anecdotal example and emotional appeal really isn't convincing anyone.

You get stuff like this all the time + the average number of incidents caused by guns is way too high. We don't need rocket science to come to conclusion that USA has way too many psychos who own dangerous weapon. The country has an estimated 283 mil. guns in civilian hands and an average of 30k people dying due to this. No need to do the math, it's way too much. inb4 i am aware that it can't magically drop down crime rate to 1-2%, but it would definitely be helpful imo.

Things like this are starting to get shared on social medias, and all around. What's next? Twitch livestream of school shooting? Every other day we get to witness sick shit like this and it's getting worse and worse.

its a relatively outdated graph, but you get the point

I saw the video and it made me shudder.

I mean, I'm usually not affected by events like that as much as other people, but watching the video for myself and seeing the reaction of the old man, a man who had nothing to do with the killer and was minding his own business collecting cans on Easter Sunday of all dates, have to be the victim of something as senseless as this. RIP, really.

"Gun violence have been increasing". This is also after the number of guns on the market has increased drastically.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... -edges-up/

In a country with around 500,000,000 guns, there are approximately 30 gun homicides a day. That includes justified homicides used in self defence. So lets compare that to smoking deaths every day which is 1,315, and you're telling me it's a problem?



Lets compare other countries, murder rate to guns per 100 people:

Murder rate | guns per 100 people

USA: 5.22 | 112.6

Venezuela: 47.21 | 10.7

Switzerland: 0.72 | 45.7

Sweden: 0.89 | 31.6

United Kingdom: 1.57 | 6.6

Brazil: 21.97 | 8

China: 1.21 | 4.9



See the correlation? Because I don't. If anything it's inverse. Do you see how silly the claim is that introducing gun laws that will take guns out of the hands of responsible citizens and keep it in the hands of criminals will actually help anything? So stop jumping on the bandwagon and trying to reduce people's liberties every time you see a highly publicized public shooting. Go on liveleak and you can see 1000x more of that stuff in countries that have strict gun control.

Also worth noting that as shown in the first link, black people commit the vast majority of gun homicides, usually against other black people. That's why comparing the USA to white homogenous European countries does nothing to prove that lack of gun control in the causation of gun homicide.

guys, my comment was satirizing B1rd's unrealistic faith in the positive forces of the free market.

Also lol at your murder rate and guns per 100 people argument:
You're once again seeing this as a one-dimensional problem.

You wouldn't even think for a second that there could be multiple factors, and that removing guns could possibly be benefitial if used in combination with other things, but maybe not on its own?

we're talking about reality here, not some closed off heavily controlled lab-experiment. Do you honestly think that there are no confounding factors that completely nullify this poor attempt of an argument?

stupid

DaddyCoolVipper wrote:

Tiny response since I just got back from work- I mentioned the word "utopia" since railey just made the suggestion that under a totally free market, things naturally spiral towards that state, which is true if only the most positive outcomes happen.

My reference to Nestlé and Amazon were two specific ones that I think you misunderstood. Nestlé buys up water sources wherever it can, which deprives areas of clean water piped to them. You should be able to find examples of this fairly easily. Another point I wasn't mentioning was their use of child labour in developing countries though, which without regulation is something that is pretty much encouraged in a totally free market, since it maximises profits when the company has a monopoly on the area (they can pay inhumanely low wages in third-world countries since there's no competition for wages). As for Amazon, they're known for making rather unfair deals with publishers due to their monopoly on the market, but I don't know enough of the specifics to go deeper into that.

Public transport in rural areas, like trains and buses, can indeed be a net loss- but they're necessary for society, so those services are still offered despite being unprofitable. I imagine taxpayers are okay with paying for this, since they can empathise with people who aren't as well off and don't want them to get fucked over more just for being poor, y'know?

I don't know a lot about Nestle and Amazon, it'd take a lot of knowledge of the context to make accurate assessments of the situations and theorise about the possible free-market solutions and mechanism, right now I'm more just pointing out the superiority of a more liberal economy compared to a socialist one.

Though I actually just watched a video of talk of the Nestle CEO, he didn't say anything unreasonable at all, unlike what the hysterical Left-wing news sources seem to make out when I search the topic. He just said that water is a resource that should be privatised and have a have a market value like any foodstuff, and that way people wouldn't waste in among other things. He also made some other good points, the only thing I disagree with is about GMOs. Of course all the comments are like THIS IS THE FACE OF PURE EVIL CAPITALIZM. Lol, this generation.





So, what exactly is stopping private transport from running to rural areas? Let's assume kids from a rural community are taking a bus to a town 100 miles away, assuming the cost per mile is around $1, a rough estimate from here, and the bus is running close to capacity at around 40 kids the average fare then would be around $3 per commute. There's not really any situation that truly necessity these expensive and inefficient public services, unless you do what some people do which is to start coming up with even more absurd and unlikely "what if" scenarios".

The public sector actually creates a lot more problems than people realise. this video does a good job of showing how much public employees of even basic and unskilled labour jobs like trash collectors are overpayed, and how the extremely generous retirement benefits can bankrupt whole states. However I don't think that the biggest cost is the monetary cost, but like I was saying, the cost to these unfortunate kids who have to go through the public schooling system which suffer from lack of competition and a system which favours the schools and teachers rather than students. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG8w9PcA-ig

I've been to both public and private schools, and I genuinely think my life would have turned out much better if I had stayed at the private school. It was much greater than the public ones.

Now, this child labour thing is a common topic but there isn't much understanding of it. The Left looks at sweatshops and child labour and they think the solution is simply regulation, that these evil corporations are exploiting the poor workers and if only there were regulation everything would be fixed, and that the strongarm of the state is the solution to everything. Obviously this oversimplified way of thinking doesn't actually fix the problem, which is the poverty in that area, along with corrupt governments and things along those lines.

The reason that child labour exists is due to economic reasons; is our rich Western society it makes much more sense to send children to school so they can grow up and become professionals rather than employing them in unskilled labour jobs which they are very poor at. and which adults can do a lot better. It's a net gain for society. However in these poor third world regions they don't have that luxury and children will work as soon as they can just to survive, whether on a farm or in a factory. Leftists don't realise this any when they stop the sweatshops they are preventing these extremely poor people from choosing the best option they have, and I have heard stories where this has happened and the children have been forced into prostitution or they have died. So instead, these are the people that could benefit from capitalism and industrialization more than anything.

BTW, I didn't understand what you said about free markets spiraling towards the state, and positive outcomes or whatever.

Railey2 wrote:

guys, my comment was satirizing B1rd's unrealistic faith in the positive forces of the free market.

Also lol at your murder rate and guns per 100 people argument:
You're once again seeing this as a one-dimensional problem.

You wouldn't even think for a second that there could be multiple factors, and that removing guns could possibly be benefitial if used in combination with other things, but maybe not on its own?

we're talking about reality here, not some closed off heavily controlled lab-experiment. Do you honestly think that there are no confounding factors that completely nullify this poor attempt of an argument?

stupid

Goddamnit Railey, don't ruin the fun. I enjoy watching our edgy Tasmanian boy discuss stuff that makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever in the real world.

What part of my argument doesn't make sense in the real world.

If I pointed it out, we'd start yet another branch of this discussion that will lead into nowhere, so I'll avoid pointing it out, but trust me, parts of it are wholly speculative and don't stand up to practices in the real world.

Anyways, I like your choice of books, but I have to add that as someone who is studying the field and has read the book, you don't want to read it if you want to find out something meaningful about the economics. I'm referring to "Economics in one lesson" here.
If your point is to read it only to be able to argue with some poor guy who doesn't know the first thing about the field, yeah, get it, but otherwise don't, as it places emphasis on some incredibly complex things that on the surface look simple and logical, but really need deeper analysis to argue about, so the book won't help you learn anything past the very, VERY basics and in that case you might as well just go on Google and read up on it instead. Not only that, but there are some serious fucking exaggerations in that book with which I cannot agree at all, so take it with a pinch of salt.

I'm looking forward to hearing your opinion once you read it.

B1rd wrote:

Now, this child labour thing is a common topic but there isn't much understanding of it. The Left looks at sweatshops and child labour and they think the solution is simply regulation, that these evil corporations are exploiting the poor workers and if only there were regulation everything would be fixed, and that the strongarm of the state is the solution to everything. Obviously this oversimplified way of thinking doesn't actually fix the problem, which is the poverty in that area, along with corrupt governments and things along those lines.

why not try for both?

*gasp*


Your text reads like you believe rights for workers aren't doing anything, anywhere.

I don't know much about it but I've had it recommended by quite a few people. It's the first one I'll read so I'll tell you my opinion.

interrupts to tell aurani to eat my ass

Hika wrote:

interrupts to tell aurani to eat my ass

I seem to have failed in my mission to avoid being noticed by you.

Senpai always notices you.

Also I'm waiting for my birthday present pls send

I have 3 birthdays to take care of this month, so it's a bad time for Hika to start noticing me.

insomnia sure is fun. haven't slept in 2 days. guess i have time to watch the lord of the rings trilogy in one go, so that's p cool.

hi hika whats ur adress. i have money and feel like spending, i'll send you a small gift because why not.

Send yourself gladi.

Still haven't met you after like fifty years.

yea thats because theres an ocean in the way

bad

dead

bad

play mania

bad

Hika wrote:

interrupts to tell aurani to eat my ass

peep 👀

ummm choof is u good

ye

ei tee tee

B1rd: 1
Britbongs and Europoors: zero

B1rd wrote:

B1rd: 1
Britbongs and Europoors: zero

Xd

Oh look it's choof

bad

Play my putaria dump you chump

yay corn

bad

I normally don't even look at ITT2. Where is this political and edgy debate everybody were killing themselves over for?