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Originally Posted by aceventura3
The economist I have studied the most is Milton Friedman, Nobel prize winner. I have not written anything here that he would not agree with.
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I could have guessed as much. Friedman's ideas are not without worth. Friedman's
ideals, however, are disagreeable by many.
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If you don't like my examples that is one thing - and I give examples because I suspect that some will resonate and some won't. Isn't that the point of giving examples?
Again, if you focus on trivial matters involving an example we get no where. In context, wealth can be created or wealth can be gained through the expense of others. There is a difference. I understood your post explaining why you did not want to address the difference and i wanted to clarify the difference by using an example. Perhaps it is not perfect, but the point is there if you want to see it.
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How am I focusing on trivial matters? I'm trying to see if you understand a fundamental fact about economics, which is where wealth comes from. This goes back to proto-capitalist Adam Smith.
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As I understand it the Canadian economy moves in sync with the US economy about 75% of the time. The income gap between Canadians and Americans is getting bigger in favor of America. In addition the Canadian birth rate is low putting more and more pressure on the country's ability to maintain social programs. If not for the booming oil and minerals industries Canada would not be in a strong position at all. The boom is very real and very beneficial, and it can easily mask underlying problems.
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If you look at overall figures on poverty, inequality, and the efficiency of Canada's social programs, we rank higher than most countries in the OCED. Although we have problems with growing poverty and inequality, these are recent problems and are likely reversible.
Also, despite a low birth rate, Canada's population growth rate is historically higher than the U.S. rate, possibly having to do with a more flexible immigration policy.
Finally, the oil and mineral boom is confined for the most part to two provinces. Canada is comprised of 10 provinces and 3 territories; our economy is more than about us being "hewers of wood and drawers of water," though that is our legacy. We're not all lumberjacks and curlers either. Have a look. The city I live in is considered the "economic engine" of Canada. Ontario is the most populous province. Toronto is over 1,600 miles away from Calgary, Alberta, the epicenter of the oil boom.
Energy exports account for less than 3% of our GDP. Overall, a small minority of Canadians are employed in the primary industries (including oil and minerals), and these industries in total only account for about 6% of GDP. The service sector? It accounts for over two thirds. (And I haven't even touched manufacturing.)
So your argument that if it weren't for oil and minerals that Canada wouldn't be in a good position at all is tenuous at best. You're going to have to explain it much better than that.
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"...at the mercy of the wealthy..."
That is at the core of our different points of view. If people can exercise free choice they would never be at anyone's "mercy". In the US big banks get billions of tax payer money in bailouts...and it is then the tax payers who are at the "mercy" of big banks...this is your preferred mixed system at work. Believe me, I can present such examples all day long - will you ever see the problems that are systemic in this "mixed" up system?
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People can exercise free choice in anarchy as well.
It's difficult to consider your free choice when you're being exploited by holders of capital when you have little to hold of your own.
But you're right, I suppose this is where our opinions differ. I find it difficult to address your position, since it's so radical. I view free-marketers with a similar difficulty as I view adamant communists. Compared to communists and free-marketers, I view socialists and Third-Way corporatists as moderates. It would be easier to address your point of view if it were less extreme and more in line with, say, the corporatist position. But, alas, that's not the case. You want society to have next to no governance outside of the market, as though the market is the purest and truest means to build a society.
Well, that's not going to work. Without reasonable regulation, the market does some pretty nasty things. Look at the history. It's not like Marx and Engels decided to do their thing because they were bored. If everything were so hunky-dory with capitalism running amok, they would have done something else probably—say, build a sewing thread empire or somesuch.
But no. Marxism was a resistance to a phenomenon, and that phenomenon happened to be capitalism at work with little to get in its way.
Do you truly wish to do away with decades of labour law? Safety regulations? Fair practice legislation? Obliterate it all? In the name of the market?
I find it hard to take. I would find your position more feasible if you were more concerned with making the economic environment more open, perhaps simply moving away from socialism from a business perspective. I would find it easier to address you if you were mostly concerned with bailouts, corporate tax rates, and unfair or heavy-handed regulatory practices. But as far as I can see, you want to get rid of it
all.
That, ace, is a radical position, and it's why I find it difficult to address, just why I'd find it as difficult to address an adamant communist arguing that America must have a revolution to make things better for all Americans.
I have little interest in radicalism.