On 27/06/06 19:44 +0100, Ashish Gulhati wrote: > > On 27-Jun-06, at 6:24 PM, Devdas Bhagat wrote: > > >Funny. The Canadians I correspond with say otherwise. > > http://www.liberty-page.com/issues/healthcare/socialized.html#canada > > It's so bad, in fact, that there are plenty of Canadian health tourists > in India. India actually has fairly functional private health-care. > http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513741 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared http://www.pnrec.org/2001papers/DaigneaultLajoie.pdf
Wouldn't one critical measure of health care include the number of people who have access to that resource? > >Mumbai transport isn't exactly controlled > >out of existence. It just happens to be very well served by the > >government > >owned and run bus and train services. > > For very dubious values of "well"! Care to show me better working mass transit in India which scales up to those levels? > > Providing subsidized goods at low cost is one way to coercively destroy > market competition. I'm sure market competition in mass transit is > highly > controlled in other ways as well, such as requirements for licensing, > permits, guarantees, etc., if not outright outlawed. > Care to show me alternative, working transport systems which were not substantially funded/owned by the government and which have not been set up with cheap funds and labour looted from an empire? > >>The first WAN was created with almost zero funding by a single > >>individual. > >> > >So why didn't individuals actually create it in the first place? > >It took > >government funding for quite some time > > The researchers who created the 'Net protocols probably figured that > since DARPA was there holding out free cash, why not take it? They > would have done it anyway, but it was nice to get some free cash too. > > Incidentally, BBS networks were entirely created by private individuals, > with no government funding, and were in many ways way ahead of the > Internet. The first open-access online communities existed on BBSes, > and not the Internet. Most community-oriented Internet sites today are > modeled on the good ol' BBS. > > >Oh good. I want to have global warming growth stopped, and reduced to > >the levels of a century ago. Care to show me _how_ that would be > >achieved by private industry (at least the first part). > > If enough people are convinced of the existence and urgency of global > warming, you can pressure companies through market forces (buying > environmentally conscious products in preference to the other kind, for > example) to work towards addressing the issue. > What happens when the market is too slow? Or not enough of the market adopts? What happens when destroying a common resource is cheaper than conserving it, or utilising it better? Or if you want to argue for pure market forces, what would happen if copyright was abolished? How much literature would come into existence, and then get to the public? > If not enough people are convinced, maybe more convincing is necessary? Or maybe economic intervention? Or something else which drives up the costs to the polluter instead of everyone else? Given a choice between private transport (car/motorcycle/scooter) against public transport (bus/train), which would you choose? Benefits to the individual are obviously highest when they own and control their own private means of transport. However, the benefit to society is when mass transit is used, in terms of roadspace used, pollution and time savings for large numbers of commuters). However, this total gain results in a net loss of convinience to every individual private transport user. > Maybe the claims of global warming are unscientific and highly > politicized? > Maybe the opposition to science is from large amounts of money? > If there is incontrovertible proof of cause and effects, and proof of > an imminent > threat to your welfare, the issue can be addressed legally just as any > other threat to individual rights is, in court, by arbitration, etc. > (This last > can also be provided very well by private means). > What if incontrovertible proof involves testing to destruction (as it appears to be in todays economic climate)? > >I am not arguing that the government should do everything. But for > >a lot > >of things, the government is actually better than the short term > >profit > >driven private industry. As Eugen said, this is particularly true when > >unpopular but necessary things have to be done. > > Who determines these things are "necessary"? By what authority? Popular > opinion? But you just said these things were also "unpopular"? :-) > Reasonable judgement, which considers social costs, as opposed to purely individual costs? Any calculation which fails to consider those costs leads directly to a tragedy of the commons. See the above transport example. (OT: Perhaps the government should start charging vehicles by net land area covered rather than engine sizes. If your car is 10'x6' in size, you will be taxed for roadspace usage of 12'x8' at peak land rates in the area of registration/common usage. So the average Banglorean would pay about 4 million INR/year for a vehicle of that size. Sounds reasonable to me :)). > Capitalism doesn't only subsume "profit driven industry", but also ANY > voluntary association of human beings, including charities, co- > operatives, > non-profit organizations, and philanthropic organizations. As long as > there's no coercion involved, any of these entities is free, under Any form of government intervention is coercion (the threat is losing money and/or freedom). > capitalism, to initiate steps to work towards "unpopular" but long-term > worthy goals, without imposing its will on others who may not share > their views. > > In fact, the entire origin of this thread is the philanthropic > activities of > so-called short-term profit-driven capitalists, such as Bill Gates and > Warren Buffet, who with their profit-driven capital are in a position to > (and have actually committed to) invest more cash in long-term goals > like world health than any government has. > > Capitalism is not only about short-term profit-driven industry. It is > about > voluntary associations, and individual rights. > > >Your argument fails to make the point that private enterprises do not > >engage in non-profitable operations. Even if the cost to society is > >higher than the cost of engaging in such practices. > > See above. > > >Drugs to control diseases are more profitable than cures. Drugs to > >control obesity are more valuable than drugs to cure malaria. > >Viarga is > >even more valuable :). > > And your point is? Fine wines are more profitable per bottle than beer. > In a capitalist society, however, both are produced in sufficient > quantities > to meet any arbitrary level of demand. Just because Viagra is produced > does not mean cures for malaria will not be. Competition in the market > means a diversity of interests and approaches towards every problem. > However, if the market is essentially demanding an ever increasing growth in profits, then your argument does not hold good. > >>or posturing and overly expensive ventures of dubious > >>worth, such as NASA space programs. > > > >than a commercial one. Would you have invested in going to the moon 40 > >years ago? > > Can you prove that this actually happened? Can you point out any > valuable R&D that justified the purported expense? Or was it precisely a > "posturing and overly expensive venture of dubious worth", as I > described NASA projects above? http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html > > >How many private organisations would have borne the risk > >alone, or as a consortium? > > Just as the government invented powered flight because private > organizations could not bear the risk, right? > If you notice, it was hobbyists who pushed flight to its limits. Not corporations. Space is slightly more expensive, not too many multi-millionaires who want to play around with technology. Also keep in mind that the initial planes didn't do much. It wasn't until WWII that the airplane became significantly commercially important. > Private space initiatives are already making NASA look precisely like > the bureaucratic deadweight it is, and has been all this time. And how many of those are using results derived from NASA's experiments? And how much of NASAs problems stem from the fact that its administrators are trying to run it like a for-profit corporation? Devdas Bhagat
