"Big picture economically, America is the richest large country in the world on a per capita basis."
Doesn't matter one bit to the left because the wealth is not distributed exactly equally. Idiotic Keynesian doctrine has blinded more than half the country to the fact that something must be produced before it can be "distributed", and wit…
"Big picture economically, America is the richest large country in the world on a per capita basis."
Doesn't matter one bit to the left because the wealth is not distributed exactly equally. Idiotic Keynesian doctrine has blinded more than half the country to the fact that something must be produced before it can be "distributed", and without incentives it doesn't get produced. They basically don't understand humanity, and set rules based on how they WISH people behaved, rather than how they actually do.
Also: "...American liberals operate with a scarcity mindset and need to switch to an Abundance Agenda." This is exactly backwards. The left actually thinks material abundance happens of its own accord, and financial incentives are unnecessary to get people to produce. Human history says the exact opposite. Its a scarcity mindset that gets people off their butts and working. If people believe the golden goose will always and everywhere be producing without a profit motive, that's the beginning of the end for capitalism.
It’s like the UBI lunacy. The government takes $20,000 from me to pay someone else?
My next move is to demand $80,000 from my employer because:
1. I’ve been screwed by the government and
2. I actually go to work after having busted my ass to get where I am. I absolutely will bring in more money than someone who is paid for breathing and nothing more.
In the end the UBI will buy what a nickel buys today: little to nothing
It seems obvious to me that if USA had no profit-driven parts of healthcare in the past 100 years, we would DEFINITELY have far cheaper healthcare today. That's because we wouldn't be paying for 99% of procedures and medications that did not get invented. Now maybe that'd be a net positive in terms of pharmaceuticals. But MRI and CT scan imaging are amazing diagnostic tools. But when the imaging reveals something that can be fixed it leads to expensive surgical or pharma interventions. There's immense waste and greed is US healthcare, but I find it hard to argue that the valuable discoveries could be made at any comparable pace without the incentives. Then again, maybe we wouldn't know any better? We'd die of routine infections just like we die of routine heart disease today.
"I don't want to eliminate the profit motive for anything except basic human needs."
OK. Then all human needs EXCEPT these will be fulfilled. How are "basic" needs any different from any other, and who says they are? Certainly not the people who work to fill them. For example, you would likely say that doctors have some of the most "humanitarian" motives on earth, yet they are some of the most highly compensated people in society. Their skills are highly valued. If they're not highly compensated, their skills disappear. And if you were somehow able to FORCE people to endure many years of training and then compensated them less than the market will bear, you would soon have a shortage of qualified doctors. If you STILL forced them to work as doctors, you'd have nothing more than slaves to your idealized version of humanity. Look at all the historical evidence. Capitalism and the profit motive have not only provided an abundance of technological wonders, but satisfied basic needs more successfully than any other system in history. Work WITH human nature rather than against it.
The profit motive, with competition, produces quality. What is provided for free is usually worth what it costs. Suppose you have to design a medical system to provide care for 330 million people. You have a choice of 10,000 altruistic well-meaning alumni of Doctor Without Borders who just want to help people, or 10,000,000 capitalist professionals who want get rich. Which would be better able to meet the population's needs?
Or, compare conditions at your local public charity clinic with the best private hospital. You think you are going to give everyone health care like the rich folks get, but really you are going to drag everything to the bottom and deny quality care to anyone.
From CRT perspective, I expect all 3rd world countries to reject any help from white DWB, POC only appropriate to the country in question. On the serious note, they personally are ready to work for free, but where do you think all those supplies - meds, equipment and so on - are coming from? Business which earns enough may handle donating and sharing, not one living day-to-day.
And how do you suppose you'll attract good doctors to practice after having spent 10 years or more after high school paying for a quality education and training?
You made the point excellently but it would have been stronger without the last line. Not being scolding - I've done far worse in my time here. It just was such a brilliantly done retort. She's clearly not stupid. Let her figure it out.
Who defines the worth of anyone’s labor at this moment?
Who do you want to define everyone’s worth?
No one is going to agree on that number so who forces everyone to accept X?
The poorest American lives an incredibly easy life compared to the poorest American in 1900. The richest humans throughout human history would be pea green with envy at the lifestyles of the average American today.
I see what you’re saying but it’s a very myopic view of the situation.
I am reminded of an old film I saw of George Bernard Shaw, a Fabian socialist, arguing that every year all members of society should have to go before a Board and defend their value to society. After all, he said, why should society provide you benefits if your worth can’t be argued? It was shocking to watch him so dispassionately argue this point, and I had to wonder, who decides who is on this Board? Who decides the standards?
We cannot trust a Board, or the government to make such decisions. The free market is not perfect. We pay LeBron bezillions but EMTs way less. But the alternative is way worse.
It feels good to say EMTs and single mothers should have the lifestyles of neurosurgeons and CEOs. Not the responsibilities or daily tasks of neurosurgeons or CEOs, just the lifestyles.
Real life isn’t kind to feeling. Thinking is much more productive.
I’m guessing this individual is young and hasn’t yet moved from feeling to thinking about major issues like economic problems.
How many people are employed by people on your list? I am not defending Zuckerberg or Dorsey specifically, but people who invent companies, hire and pay a lot of employees, deserve more pay than those who never sign the front of a paycheck. When we stop valuing people who do this, we will collapse as a society.
who decides if a person is "contributing to society" and how much that contribution is worth? My cousin's son with autism brings an awful lot of joy into the world, but he'll never have a job or earn a living. What about him? What about artists, writers, singers, dancers? It's a little more complicated than distributing wealth based on contribution.
You lost me on "I think." Because you exposed the great fallacy in your world view. Value would be determined by the "collective" and not by the market. That's an economic construct that's failed miserably whenever it's been tried.
I think EMT's, home health aides, the people who pick our food, devoted single moms, preschool teachers, childcare workers, firemen, construction workers, people who deliver EVERYTHING we buy online, garbage collectors, grocery store clerks, and all essential workers deserve to be paid enough to afford safe dignified housing and healthcare.
In other words, everybody EXCEPT the innovators, pioneers, risk takers, inventors, entrepreneurs, visionaries, ..........
"Big picture economically, America is the richest large country in the world on a per capita basis."
Doesn't matter one bit to the left because the wealth is not distributed exactly equally. Idiotic Keynesian doctrine has blinded more than half the country to the fact that something must be produced before it can be "distributed", and without incentives it doesn't get produced. They basically don't understand humanity, and set rules based on how they WISH people behaved, rather than how they actually do.
Also: "...American liberals operate with a scarcity mindset and need to switch to an Abundance Agenda." This is exactly backwards. The left actually thinks material abundance happens of its own accord, and financial incentives are unnecessary to get people to produce. Human history says the exact opposite. Its a scarcity mindset that gets people off their butts and working. If people believe the golden goose will always and everywhere be producing without a profit motive, that's the beginning of the end for capitalism.
It’s like the UBI lunacy. The government takes $20,000 from me to pay someone else?
My next move is to demand $80,000 from my employer because:
1. I’ve been screwed by the government and
2. I actually go to work after having busted my ass to get where I am. I absolutely will bring in more money than someone who is paid for breathing and nothing more.
In the end the UBI will buy what a nickel buys today: little to nothing
It seems obvious to me that if USA had no profit-driven parts of healthcare in the past 100 years, we would DEFINITELY have far cheaper healthcare today. That's because we wouldn't be paying for 99% of procedures and medications that did not get invented. Now maybe that'd be a net positive in terms of pharmaceuticals. But MRI and CT scan imaging are amazing diagnostic tools. But when the imaging reveals something that can be fixed it leads to expensive surgical or pharma interventions. There's immense waste and greed is US healthcare, but I find it hard to argue that the valuable discoveries could be made at any comparable pace without the incentives. Then again, maybe we wouldn't know any better? We'd die of routine infections just like we die of routine heart disease today.
"I don't want to eliminate the profit motive for anything except basic human needs."
OK. Then all human needs EXCEPT these will be fulfilled. How are "basic" needs any different from any other, and who says they are? Certainly not the people who work to fill them. For example, you would likely say that doctors have some of the most "humanitarian" motives on earth, yet they are some of the most highly compensated people in society. Their skills are highly valued. If they're not highly compensated, their skills disappear. And if you were somehow able to FORCE people to endure many years of training and then compensated them less than the market will bear, you would soon have a shortage of qualified doctors. If you STILL forced them to work as doctors, you'd have nothing more than slaves to your idealized version of humanity. Look at all the historical evidence. Capitalism and the profit motive have not only provided an abundance of technological wonders, but satisfied basic needs more successfully than any other system in history. Work WITH human nature rather than against it.
So you take the work of one group without just compensation to give their labor to another group that believes they’re owed.
Makes zero sense to me.
The profit motive, with competition, produces quality. What is provided for free is usually worth what it costs. Suppose you have to design a medical system to provide care for 330 million people. You have a choice of 10,000 altruistic well-meaning alumni of Doctor Without Borders who just want to help people, or 10,000,000 capitalist professionals who want get rich. Which would be better able to meet the population's needs?
Or, compare conditions at your local public charity clinic with the best private hospital. You think you are going to give everyone health care like the rich folks get, but really you are going to drag everything to the bottom and deny quality care to anyone.
From CRT perspective, I expect all 3rd world countries to reject any help from white DWB, POC only appropriate to the country in question. On the serious note, they personally are ready to work for free, but where do you think all those supplies - meds, equipment and so on - are coming from? Business which earns enough may handle donating and sharing, not one living day-to-day.
If I didn't know better, your latter result seems to be the goal right now.
And how do you suppose you'll attract good doctors to practice after having spent 10 years or more after high school paying for a quality education and training?
“Can you imagine a profit based fire department?”
—————————————
Yes. It would work fine.
If there was a federal fire department we would all be on fire right now.
KD...plus, all we have now is Joe with his little Hoser. We need a big hose, aloha Trumty.
You made the point excellently but it would have been stronger without the last line. Not being scolding - I've done far worse in my time here. It just was such a brilliantly done retort. She's clearly not stupid. Let her figure it out.
Who defines the worth of anyone’s labor at this moment?
Who do you want to define everyone’s worth?
No one is going to agree on that number so who forces everyone to accept X?
The poorest American lives an incredibly easy life compared to the poorest American in 1900. The richest humans throughout human history would be pea green with envy at the lifestyles of the average American today.
I see what you’re saying but it’s a very myopic view of the situation.
I am reminded of an old film I saw of George Bernard Shaw, a Fabian socialist, arguing that every year all members of society should have to go before a Board and defend their value to society. After all, he said, why should society provide you benefits if your worth can’t be argued? It was shocking to watch him so dispassionately argue this point, and I had to wonder, who decides who is on this Board? Who decides the standards?
We cannot trust a Board, or the government to make such decisions. The free market is not perfect. We pay LeBron bezillions but EMTs way less. But the alternative is way worse.
It feels good to say EMTs and single mothers should have the lifestyles of neurosurgeons and CEOs. Not the responsibilities or daily tasks of neurosurgeons or CEOs, just the lifestyles.
Real life isn’t kind to feeling. Thinking is much more productive.
I’m guessing this individual is young and hasn’t yet moved from feeling to thinking about major issues like economic problems.
How many people are employed by people on your list? I am not defending Zuckerberg or Dorsey specifically, but people who invent companies, hire and pay a lot of employees, deserve more pay than those who never sign the front of a paycheck. When we stop valuing people who do this, we will collapse as a society.
who decides if a person is "contributing to society" and how much that contribution is worth? My cousin's son with autism brings an awful lot of joy into the world, but he'll never have a job or earn a living. What about him? What about artists, writers, singers, dancers? It's a little more complicated than distributing wealth based on contribution.
You lost me on "I think." Because you exposed the great fallacy in your world view. Value would be determined by the "collective" and not by the market. That's an economic construct that's failed miserably whenever it's been tried.
I think EMT's, home health aides, the people who pick our food, devoted single moms, preschool teachers, childcare workers, firemen, construction workers, people who deliver EVERYTHING we buy online, garbage collectors, grocery store clerks, and all essential workers deserve to be paid enough to afford safe dignified housing and healthcare.
In other words, everybody EXCEPT the innovators, pioneers, risk takers, inventors, entrepreneurs, visionaries, ..........