Ayn Rand Philosophy, Objectivism, Science, Self-interest

[CoccoBill]

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulated-market.asp

Can't find anywhere a statement saying that decentralization and unregulation are principles of free markets.

If it's not more powerful, then it's not effective oversight; if it's independent, then it's not done with government influence.

The analogy of the internal audit function applied to government assumes the angels I referenced earlier. That governing body will still have total and unchecked power. Who are the angels you trust to not abuse this?

In case you're not familiar with internal audits, it's just an independent body within the organization that audit the processes and practices of the company, and reports to the board. They actually have zero power within the organization, they just report what's happening based on predetermined criteria and metrics. That's oversight. No angels needed.

The revisionist history is astounding. The USSR was the greatest socialist experiment of all time. If you would like to discuss why this is the case, we can.

Even if something may be the "greatest" it doesn't make it great, or even half-assed.

https://chomsky.info/1986____/

I'm trying to provide insight learned from economics. The lesson often gets shortened to "greed is good." The lesson is that abundance and novelty arise from competition of peoples' greed in a free market.

I don't know, but I would wager that no economist argues that greed is universally good, just that it has beneficial properties within certain strictly defined economic scenarios. You seem to be ignoring all of the other scenarios and think greed is always and only positive.

You extolled the virtues of voting and democracy as a contrast to my point. I pointed out that my position involves so much more selection by the people of their environments that it could be described as voting/democracy on steroids.

I didn't say anything about the virtues of voting, I stated that the de facto way to have influence in a democracy, and lobbying is skewing that in favor of the wealthy. What you wrote was irrelevant to that.

The government is the too much power. Square this circle for me: on the one hand you acknowledge that some have more power than others, but on the other hand you declare that the solution is to give absolute power to somebody else.

If the things you have said previously are any indication, you think the answer is democracy. But that has been demonstrably as well as theoretically inadequate. How many bureaucrats have you voted for? None. How many times a decade do you vote? Possibly a few. What level of influence have you had on the laws passed? Virtually none.

The wealthy are gonna have more power than the others no matter what. I'd much rather have some checks and balances on what they can do, than not.

Isn't that like saying "I don't care if you're right; you're still wrong"?

Only in a world where more stuff is the only meaningful metric. I don't live in one.

They're not remotely similar. You have equated political power derived from having the biggest armies with the liberty of people to express a point.

Bribery and lobbying are not the same thing. There is a measure of overlap, which is where lobbying shows its problems. But they are by nature two entirely different things. One is a gift exchange and the other is education.

What do armies have to do with lobbying or corruption? In both cases political favors can be bought with money, only difference being in the USA it's legal. Like I said earlier, I'm using lobbying as an umbrella term for campaign finance, gifts to politicians, cronyism.

A government without lobbying would be a lolbad disaster because the policies would not reflect reality that much.

Sounds legit.

Politicians don't have enough money (and even if they did, it would be wrong for them to do so) to hire experts on every issue they legislate on. Lobbying is where they get it from. Lobbying is a significantly important attribute that gives the people (read: you) access to influence your government. That some people have greater influence is a problem, but that arises not from the existence of lobbying, but the existence of government power in that market.

Sounds peculiar. Over here at least politicians certainly don't hire experts, they are government officials that work for them. Of course some also use paid advisors. We don't have major problems with campaign financing and politicians at least most of the time work, not just raise funds and filibuster. I've told you many times before over the years, your notion of a governments may be badly skewed because of the one you have.

In general terms, yes. This is an integral element of the construction of prosperity. Hierarchy based on capital is awash in the natural world.

I said disproportionate.

Average citizens probably get more bang for their buck from lobbying than the rich do.

Average citizens don't have Super PACs.

Look at it this way: special treatment does exist and it's a problem, but it is also not the norm. That's not to say that it's not a serious systemic issue, just to say that people misdiagnose the problems in this area. The Kochs, for example, don't lobby for special treatment. Their agenda has always been to get government out of the lives of the people. Yet they have been demonized more than any other family in the western world in the last decade because multitudes of people get the wrong information.

I don't personally know what the Kochs ultimate goals are, and it doesn't matter. They shouldn't have the level of power they do no matter what they support.

Another lesson of economics is that this is not the case. There is no known mechanism that has provided anywhere close to the level of power and prosperity for the poor than free markets. This is not something economists disagree on. I suspect this should be right up your alley since you care deeply about engagement of the knowledge and understanding of science and expertise.

You said: "But you had a much more effective vote back before you constructed the tremendously greater power in the first place. Color me confused."
I said: "I only had a tremendously greater power in the first place if I happened to be wealthy."

I again don't see how what you said now is relevant to what we were talking about.

There shouldn't be, and yet there are. Why do you think there are?

I'm not arguing for the US government, I'm arguing for "a" government. We've only ever briefly touched on what I actually support. I've talked about outcomes, and I'm still not at all convinced free market is the silver bullet to everything, no matter how effectively it produces stuff.

We seem to be just going around in circles in the monster posts, and I don't feel you've provided any new info to me this time. I'll bail out.