|
|
 Originally Posted by oskar
Banana, if you knew what Bill Gates thinks about taxation, you'd get an aneurysm.
That system works if you look at people like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Shuttleworth, but it's not universally true that people who come to great wealth are going to put money into humanitarian aid.
I made the Bill Gates point in the context of the idea that there is so much prosperity that there are no jobs. Not everybody is kind-hearted or philanthropic. In a world with so much efficiency and so much prosperity that nobody can even work, any amount of philanthropy would be more than enough to make that a better off world than if it was less efficient and people had to work. But it's whatever, I don't think revisiting this will yield much so you can respond and I'll listen and leave it at that.
The people who built it got paid, but that's where it ends. Compare that to taxing the fuck out of that guy and putting the money into humanitarian aid for the region and education.
So the people get money for doing nothing? Wouldn't that reinforce their desire to do nothing while encouraging them to do more nothing and get more subisides for their more nothing? I get how this sounds too cynical to be real, yet that is how these things go down in practice. And it makes sense in theory. What that theory also says is that getting people to earn money will have the opposite effect than the above by making them want to earn and even earn more.
So, what does that mean? It means that welfare with strings attached is a better idea than with no strings attached. In general, people agree with that. But wait, you have to compare the gains of that with the cost of creating and maintaining the system. And we know that the costs are worse when done through taxation than when done competitively, so doesn't that give us our answer?
People are a resource, right? If you have more people with a higher education and practical skills, that has to be good for the economy.
Depends on what it costs to get that. If the costs are low enough, yeah it's good. How do we get the lowest costs?
We should keep in mind that a lot of what is being proposed with aid is along the lines of "people are not doing what we think they should, so let's help them so they will do what we think they should." Let me illustrate this with an anecdote. One of my good friends grew up as a missionary in Africa. He spent a tremendous amount of time there, like half of his childhood and teenage life and he ALWAYS talked about how much he loved it there. He now teaches English in Korea. Back when he was making the moves to start teaching English in Korea I asked him why he wanted to go to Korea instead of Africa since he loves Africa so much. He essentially told me that teaching in Africa is a nightmare because the native population despises education. In general, they actively believe education to be a negative thing and that subverting education (like cheating) is a virtue, according to his substantial experience. Is spending more on education gonna change that? Are people who do not like education going to start liking it when the Cultured Saviors show up to change the Unwashed Barbarians, or is it more likely that the shithole education system they already have derives from their negative values about education?
The one thing I'm curious about is... you guys want welfare completely gone, right? So what would happen to people who currently rely on welfare? And let's cut that down to the those who are not gaming the system but genuinely cannot be employed. There has to be at least one, right?
That's a great question. Before I respond to it, let's step back for a second.
Lots of words have been said on this board on the topic of government and markets. My position has always been based on only this one foundation: it is better to have a competitive system decide rather than a monopoly decide. I've always thought people who need help should be helped. What I propose is that using a competitive system rather than a monopoly is a more effective way to do that. So, here is what I believe:
Results are better when individuals, families, and communities make the decisions relevant to them than for a tax-based government to make their decisions for them. This is better because the former functions like a competitive market and the latter functions like a monopoly. That is better because economic theory teaches that competitive markets more effectively increase quantity and decrease price while also increasing quality. This theory, while used in markets of goods and services with money, applies just the same to any system where people have preferences and resources are allocated.
So, here's my answer to your very good question that needs to be answered.
What amount of money greater than what people would freely choose to give to those they think need it should the government tax and give to people the government thinks need it? My guess is that when people think upon this question, the answer is inevitably zero. If it is greater than zero then that means that somebody thinks the government that is supposed to represent the people should technically NOT represent the people. So, we can move past this, because we know the government should tax and spend zero percent more on welfare than the people think the government should.
That leaves us with an x amount of money that people think should go to welfare. So then the question is are we better off in aggregate if the government spends that as the government sees fit or if the individuals spend it as the individuals see fit. A superficial view says no we are not better off because that implies that each individual thinks that the government knows better than the individual does about the individual's preferences. A more in depth view looks to economic theory IMO, which says that results will be better if competitive rather than if non-competitive.
|
Reply With Quote
