Thank you for waiting. I apologize for the delay.
You wrote:
There is no such thing as “intervention”
Yes there most definitely is.
You wrote
It is absurd for people to apply the label to things like
the minimum wage,
labor rights,
environmental protection, and
net neutrality
while never using it to describe intellectual property,
foreclosures,
debt collection,
enforcement of arbitration clauses, enforcement of non-disclosure agreements,
enforcement of non-compete clauses, and
land covenants.
I hope you don’t mind me putting your post into a vertical list.
Except for intellectual property the second part of your list describes law enforcement. Two free people freely agree to do something. One of them renegues. Making a deal then reneguing on it is fraud. It is the same fraud as if he made the deal intending to break it once he got his part.
A: "Give me $100 and I’ll give you my watch.
B: “Okay, here’s the $100.”
A: “A I changed my mind. I’ll keep your money and I’ll keep the watch.”
As to the first part if your list it’s kinda all over the board, not 100% incorrect per se, but a poor representation of what the various economic conservatives are referring to when we say intervention.
Intervention is primarily used to describe taxing, spending, borrowing and “buying back” bonds.
I want you to picture the end of Communisn in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Collective farms are broken up, government enterprises (like factories and mines) are intermittently privatized etc…
That process began on The Merriest Christmas Ever . . . . Dec 25, 1991.
Everything, will being privatized. The markets will once again be free!
.
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Fast forward 38 years, almost half a century to the USA today. How much does the government intervene in the free market?
The Federal Government owns (national
forests etc.,) 28% of all the land in the United States. Add in land owned by states and municipalities and the combined gov’t owns over 40% of the US. Federal lands - Wikipedia
US federal debt us $19 trillion, plus there are $10 trillion in state and local debt and unfunded pension liabilities. http://www.usdebtclock.org/
I forget how the denominated is calculated, but by one measure total goverment debt is ~40% of all the money saved and invested by Americans. (The “crowding out effect” : “Ya coulda created jobs, opened a steel mill or a pizza shop but instead, you invested in government bonds”).
17% of the US workforce is employed by the government. Gov't. Employment Ranges From 38% in D.C. to 12% in Ohio
That number does not include private contractors such as road crews working for private construction companies, engineering firms who upgrade navy ships etc…
That’s
40% of all the land,
35% of all the spending,
40% of all the capital and
17% of the workforce.
Apparently “capitalist economy” means 60% capitalist, 40% government.
THAT is intervention.
.
.
.
Footnote:
Did anyone ever chant “40% is not enough?”
The US government mandates health insurance be employer provided and the plans must meet certain heavy-handed criteria. Healthcare is 18% of the U.S. economy.
Fine, just take 18% of the 60% ya left us.
That’s curious because the MPAA and the RIAA would definitely call the enforcement of the intellectual property law enforcement. Who was Kim Dotcom arrested by for copyright infringement if not law enforcement
Nope. The distinction is completely arbitrary. All those things in the first list are or would be laws and the enforcement of them is therefore law enforcement.
Let’s take environmental protection. There is absolutely no case that could be made that would explain why environmental protection is “intervention” while stopping efforts by environmental extremists to protect the environmemt is not.
If animal rights are considered “regulation” by some libertarians I’ve seen, then why shouldn’t their property rights be considered regulation, too? Like I said, it’s arbitrary.
And why should the government intervene to enforce promises? People should be responsible for themselves instead of looking to daddy government to hold their hand.
That’s fine. My point is that the it’s a nonsense word, like “robot” or “relative morality”.
And why should the government intervene to enforce promises? People should be responsible for themselves instead of looking to daddy government to hold their hand.
Yeah well in my early 30s the drug dealers and gangsters I knew had no need for cops and courts. They handled disputes on their own.
Tax-paying civilians thought cops and courts were both good ideas.
That’s fine. My point is that the it’s a nonsense word, like “robot” or “relative morality”.
[/quote]
Well the “thing” is making the ceteteus paribus assumption one could count any one of the following:
more saving = bigger economy
more borrowing = bigger economy
more aggreg demand = bigger economy
more corporate profits = bigger economy
more money on the sideline= bigger economy,
more private spending = bigger economy
more gov’t spending = bigger economy
etc… etc…
Eons ago economists started using using “aggregate demand,” (which includes both private and gov’t spending) as the single most frequently used indicator.
Thus if gov’t increaes taxes and buys $400 toilet seats the economy grows. If it pays $500 for those same toilet seats, the economy grows even more.
Services count too.
If it pays you $500 to dig holes and pays me $500 to fill them up again the economy grows twice as fast.
In short, the more seed corn we eat the better the economy. Saving seeds to plant next year is, on paper, a terrible thing to do.
BOTH PARTIES use this factoid to tout their programs as “growing the economy.”
So long as some of the money the gov’t diverts money from any category into aggregate demand,
wars grow the economy, and welfare grows the economy.
As a result both parties continue to pass spending packages requiring us to eat the seed corn.
As to the second part of my butchered post. We had been discussing a tangent which focused on things line Austrian economics.
To that discussion I add:
Well the “thing" is that given the ceterus paribus assumption, any and all of the following definitions are accurate.
more saving = bigger economy
more borrowing = bigger economy
more aggregate demand = bigger economy
more corporate profits = bigger economy
more money on the sideline= bigger economy,
etc… etc…
Eons ago economists started using using “aggregate demand,” (which includes both private and gov’t spending) as the “indicator of choice.”
Sadly, “aggregate demand” includes false phony fraudulent demand artificially created by government simply to cook the books and “grow” the economy.
If gov’t buys $400 toilet seats the economy grows. If it instead pays $500 for those toilet seats, the economy grows even more. sarcastically: “YAY CONGRESS!”
Services count too.
If the gov’t pays you $500 to dig holes and pays me $500 to fill them up again the economy grows twice as fast. sarcastically: O YAY O YAY THOSE ECONOMIC WIZARDS.
In short, the more seed corn we eat the better the economy. Saving seeds to plant next year is, on paper, a terrible thing to do.
BOTH PARTIES use this factoid to endorse terrible programs (wars and such) which, on paper, “grow the economy.”
That wasn’t the alternative I had in mind. I was saying repeal contract law. I’ve heard the same response that I’ve gave from Republicans and people in favor of “deregulation” when the subject is something like data privacy laws, making arbitration unenforceable (true deregulation), laws that ban taking people’s photos without their permission, or labor rights.
This doesn’t do anything to show that “intervention” is a coherent concept with non-arbitrary qualifications.
If you put it that way, then almost no one believes that. It’s always far more restricted than that.
I think it’s perfectly conceivable that war can make a society wealthier in certain circumstances.
It’s misleading to talk about “government” in many cases where the subject should actually be the content of the law. When you do this, it’s easy to see that talking of “government meddling” with markets ceases to make sense in many situations.
“Jimmy Carter is a rich rural southern farmer businessman who owned a plantation. Can you picture him getting the Dems nomination?”
Nope, particularly in cities like Boston, where insults of the wealthy are common, yet most just can’t figure out that the politicians & policies they elected have helped benefit them.
These people are very anti Christian and have pejorative attitudes about the southeastern U S, so no. He’d be another failed candidate.
But back to topic, God bless Jimmy and his wife Rosalyn for their work after the White House years.
Yes there most definitely is.