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Originally Posted by JJRousseau
I dunno about the big guy , but I wonder if I am. Unencumbered flow of capital is one of the sides of libertarianism that I appreciate - to a point.
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I added both health care and all levels of government spending (federal, provincial/state and municipal/county).
CIA world factbook just does federal government. This is misleading, because different nations distribute government functions to different levels.
The reason why they add up the same is that the USA uses something like 7.6% of their GDP on private health-care spending, while Canada only spends 2.6%.
I got the numbers from all over the place. Most of Canada's numbers came from statscan.
Here is one set of numbers:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/govt01b.htm
(government expendatures summed)
I used CIA for GDP's (probably should have used statscan). I forgot where I got the health care numbers -- I think Canada was 10% of GDP total spending, USA was 14% to 15%, then I subtracted the amount of Canadian spending accounted for by statcan, and found the US percentage?
Note that all this is is a percentage of GDP. It ignores the difference in per-capita GDP of Canada and the USA (USA has 20% to 30% higher GDP per capita, I think).
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Agreed but does that make it moral? If you take this line of reasoning to it's ludicrous end, is it not the question; "Do you kill one person to save 20?" Tho' I understand that if you do not accept the concept of property, the moral question is not as difficult.
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I accept the concept of property. It is a concept that is useful. I am just not willing to consider it to be on the same level as life. It's value to me is derived from the effects of giving property rights, not in and of itself.
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Yes but that's not what I mean. You are speaking of the role of a democratic government. I am speaking of the motives of those specific people and the body corporate that makes up the government. THe cynical side of me thinks that they are motivated not to maximize the good of their electorate but simply to get re-elected - as an end to itself. Or more specifically to increase their personal wealth and influence.
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Capitalists are not motivated to do service and provide goods for others. They don't have to be -- the system is designed (imprefectly) so that the best way of "benefiting" themselves is "benefiting" others the best.
The two things about economics are
1> Incentives work
2> There is no such thing as a free lunch
If our system provides incentives for those in power to seek the greatest good of the greatest number, even if people in power aren't altruistic, if they "fall" for the incentives they will generate the greatest good for the greatest number. These incentives aren't perfect, so it doesn't always work.
People do go into government because they want to matter. And, anyone who kept playing the economic game after they have a few million clean and clear is either an idiot or isn't playing to increase their standard of living. They are playing the game because they enjoy the game.
You "win" at government by having a name that echos through history. Becoming a millionare via corrupt government dealings -- there isn't all that much point, there are easier ways to get rich (another use for capitalism!)
But really, I don't much care why the PM is doing the greatest good for the greatest. Or why capitalists spend hours and hours and tonnes of effort keeping the economy running. I care that they do it. The falicy of caring unduely why people do things is one of the flaws of communism -- just because capital is managing the economy for it's own benefit, doesn't mean you can't hoodwink them into managing the economy for the benefit of all, even if they don't give a crap.
I believe in the exploitation of capitalists. =)
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Amen! Spoken like a true libertarian. 
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I don't want to play the high stakes game that libertarians would turn the economy into.
It would reward better economy players, and punish (possibly unto death) people who play the economy poorly. Which is cute and all, but something I'd be tempted to take up arms to oppose. The game of capitalist market economics is a game -- a very real game -- but the rules of it aren't the one holy truth. They raise a tool -- a useful tool, don't get me wrong -- to the status of diety.
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But your belief about property is interesting. Many libertarians belief that the right to property is itself a hiderance to liberty. However, my first thought to you is: If you don't own property how to you guarantee the ability to benefit from it. Which is to say, if I don't own the car in my driveway, what is to stop someone else from taking it?
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I don't deny the concept of property exists. I don't deny it is useful. It might be useful to tell you that you own your car, and set up a system to defend that ownership against other claimants. You will probably be willing to do a hell of alot of work for other people in exchange for 'owning your car', and you'll probably be made happy by 'owning your car'.
If ownership is justified, have ownership.
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Agree with the benefits but not with the word "only" Where do you put olympics, cbc, golf courses, etc. I'm not saying that some of these things don't have value, but that the gov't spends beyond what is necessary.
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They fall under the catagory of cheap, small expendatures in some cases.
Canadian government expendatures (all 3 levels, totaled, values rounded randomly (from above link))
Social: 121 bil
Health: 89 bil
Education: 69 bil
Debt: 50 bil
Industry: 19 bil
Culture/Rec: 12 bil
Environ: 11 bil
Foreign: 5 bil
Housing: 4 bil
Labour/Immigration/Employment: 3 bill
Regional: 2 bil
Research: 2 bil
Other: 2 bil
The total of everything in italics is 60 billion. The total of everything in bold is 329 billion. The lower stuff is miscilanious expenses compared to the top stuff.
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Not sure I understand that.
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The price problem?
You are trying to decide if you should make a Bobnut or a Janewutz.
The Bobnut requires 5 Grots, 2 kilos of Futzle and 5 hours of work from Chuck.
The Janewutz requires 13 Shlutz, 5 oz of Reedoo, 3 hours of work from Sally and 2 hours of work from Vinnie.
Which do you do? I mean, I could list the things that Reedoo, Sally, Vinnie, Shlutz, Grots, Chuck and Futzle could do if you didn't use them to make Janewutz's and Bobnut's, and then explain what each of the other things was useful for, etc. The size of this problem would grow and grow, eventually encompassing every decision every person in the world could make, every resource, and every consequence. It is a hard problem to solve perfectly.
But, if you have "prices" for all of the above, you can answer that question. Add up the prices of the input, and compare them to the prices of the output. If price of input < price of output, then it is 'worth' it to do it.
The price problem is assigning a numerical value to every resource, such that simply adding up the numbers of the resources consumed by making a new resource, you can decide if it is worth making the new resource.
The price problem (namely, what is the price of each resource) is an important problem, whose solution (even approximate solutions!) is very valueable. A Free Market is one way of solving this problem.