"'I remember Anson Guthrie remarking once that when he was young, Sweden was what he called a nanny state, but it got rid of that and nowadays people there are more free than in most countries..." (p. 189)
I know that this seems obvious to some people but to me it is a non sequitur. People are less free if the state provides some of their needs and more free if it does not? For example, I would be freer than I am now if I were obliged to pay for the medical treatment provided free at the point of delivery by the British National Health Service? When I was unemployed, I would have been freer if I had received no Unemployment Benefit? I would be freer if I had to pay to borrow books that, in my experience, have always been lent freely by the Public Library? I am freer if I have to pay to enter museums or art galleries? University students are freer because they now receive loans instead of grants? I would be freer without my Pensioner's free bus pass? Refugees are free if they are offered no material help? And so on.
31 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But the ultimate endpoint of depending on the state to provide for our needs is the despair and ennui seen by so many who subsisted on Citizens Credit in stories like "Quixote and the Windmill." However hard and difficult it can be, there is more pride and self respect among people who got by on means other than permanent welfare. So I mostly agree with Anson Guthrie.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
So we should not go to that ultimate endpoint or let necessary, helpful welfare become permanent, demoralizing welfare.
Paul.
I still ask how an unemployed man without benefits is freer than the same man with them.
My own take is that self-support is an obligation of adulthood. So is saving, when you can; so is avoiding obligations (like children) that you can't reliably sustain.
Community aid in that is justified if the person in question -can't- work, due to some disability, or if there is no work (of any kind) available, though in the latter case work (along the lines of FRD's CCC program) should be provided.
If there is work available, and you can do it, then you got a free choice: work or starve.
That's up to you and as the saying goes, "on you". Nobody owes you a thing and that's what you'll get, in an ideal world.
More generally, humans evolved with an aversion to effort, because unnecessary expenditure of effort is contra-survival. The environment would -compel- effort, soon enough, in the circumstances of our remote ancestors. You had to chase antelope and grub up roots and move camp, or you'd all die.
In the very different circumstances of modern life, other means are required to get idle sods off their backsides.
I see the main question as "Why do we have a chaotic system that throws people out of work?" rather than "Do some of those who are currently not working not want to work?" But it is all more complicated than any one mind can cope with.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: But welfare ALWAYS seem to become exactly that, permanent, corrupting, burdensome, and demoralizing.
I see the unemployed man WITH welfare as being no more free than the one without. In fact, the former would be less free because he has to do the bidding of the state to get those benefits.
Exactly HOW is free enterprise economics chaotic? People don't so much lose jobs as not having the knowledge or skills needed for them. And people with the gumption can acquire those skills/knowledge.
I agree a REAL economy "...is all more complicated than any one mind can cope with." And the genius of a free enterprise system, when it is allowed to function, is that you don't NEED any single mind or group of minds to try managing the whole thing. No need for a giant, crushing bureaucracy, no need for police state coercing to make a socialist system somehow work.
Mr. Stirling: I agree! SOME aid for those who really do need it is desirable. And if a person is able to work but refuses, well we don't own him anything. And St. Paul would agree as well. He famously declared that if a man won't work he should not eat.
And, ever since 1978, when I realized that so called Social Security was a joke and a Ponzi scam, I have been trying to save and invest. Stocks, an IRA, and savings. So I can hope to have something to fall back on when no longer working.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
How is free enterprise chaotic? Look at the state of the world! Pursuit of profit is destroying the environment and is not moving to save it.
I will be busy elsewhere today, as recently.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree! For example, if it was allowed to function, free enterprise would find alternatives for fossil fuels, such as nuclear energy. And is esp. likely to do so in space, via a space based solar power system. No blundering, incompetent gov't can claim as much!
Ad astra! Sean
I would point out that Tesla is the entity successfully promoting electric vehicles, bulk energy storage, mass production of solar roofs, etc.
It wasn't private enterprise that drained the Aral sea and left Bitterfeld a swamp of toxic chemicals. And is right now burning every pound of strip-mined coal it can lay its hands on.
In 2019, the air-pollution sensors on the roof of the American embassy in Beijing broke -- they hadn't been designed to handle the levels they were getting.
(The Chinese have cunningly managed to combine the worst features of Stalinism and robber-baron capitalism in one toxic bundle.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree with what you said about Elon Musk and Tesla. I would add, however, that electrically powered vehicles will need to be recharged via coal, oil, or natural gas power plants. So such things don't really seem to make that much of a difference.
But, you did explain that Musk is working on such things partly because of how useful electrically vehicles will be on Luna and Mars. Something I approve of!
Correct. Blundering SOCIALIST gov'ts ruined the Aral Sea and now large parts of China. Yes, China managed to merge the worst aspects of Stalinism with those of late 19th century robber baron entrepreneurs.
I also remembered Lenin's obsession with heavy industry and dams for generating electricity!
Ad astra! Sean
Mr Stirling,
You are right about the Chinese. Some of us call Stalinism "state capitalism."
The market economy is unplanned, uncoordinated and unpredictable. It involves anarchy of production, duplication, overproduction and waste. To reply (if anyone does) that the market has to be that way is to reply that it has to be chaotic. I think that "chaotic" is a reasonable description.
I really have been busy elsewhere today and it is getting too late to add new posts.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm sorry, but "state capitalism" simply doesn't make sense. Any economy which the state at least tries to control is simply not a system where where it's the actions of vast numbers of people, freely deciding what to buy, sell, offer their services, or make, drives the economy. That is free enterprise. "State capitalism" is simply another form of socialism.
I disagree that a genuine free enterprise system "involves anarchy of production, duplication, overproduction and waste. To use a very simple example, I favor the use of Old Spice deodorant, but there are many other brands. You might argue that only one kind or brand of deodorant should be manufactured, to avoid that alleged duplication, overproduction, waste. I reply that the different deodorant makers are simply catering to the wishes of deodorant users who favor different kinds of deodorants of varying qualities being sold at different price ranges.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
"State capitalism" because state bureaucrats exploited workers in order to compete militarily against the US.
Another meaning of "socialism" is workers' control, not bureaucratic control.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I simply don't believe "state capitalism" to be an accurate term for what you described, which is more correctly called a "command economy." And I think that latter term is what many writers prefer to use. Because it is less confusing.
And you simply CAN'T have socialism, a COMMAND economy, without a giant bureaucracy and secret police coercing. Those things are inevitable if you are going to have the state trying to run an economy in detail. So called "workers' control" inevitably means political control, control by the state, whatever name you want to plaster on it.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course you don't! I think I have described the Stalinist state economy accurately even if we disagree about the label for it: internal exploitation and external competition, the latter in the form of nuclear stockpiling which bankrupted the USSR and which they should never have embarked on even though the US had nuclear weapons.
We will have to see whether workers' democracy and cooperative production for need can be built. One thing is certain: if it is implemented anywhere, then it will immediately be denounced and sabotaged by powerful enemies so its supporters will have to defend it. Conflict will continue but we already live in a world of continual conflict in any case.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I still disagree. Soviet aggressiveness did not start with Stalin, he merely built on what LENIN had started. The first Soviet dictator used force, after all, to drag back under his rule many parts of the former Tsarist empire which had broken away. Esp. Ukraine, the Caucasus, Russian Central Asia, etc.
And the only way "workers cooperatives" can possibly succeed is by not using the state or falling under state control. The problem all economies have to solve is determining how much to make or offer. Free enterprise economics uses price signals from the markets for that. And so called workers cooperatives will have to do that as well. If not controlled by the state, that is fine with me, they will simply become another part of a free enterprise system.
Legally speaking, "cooperatives" will have to organize themselves as corporations. With its members becoming stock owners.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Cooperative economies might be able to trade with free enterprise ones if they were able to negotiate peace as against continued hostilities but there would continue to be stresses and strains between two fundamentally different forms of society.
Paul.
Paul: market economies are chaotic... and that's a -good- thing. Because to a large extent the -world- is chaotic.
This is because the future is unpredictable, hence planning based on a single model of the future will always be faulty, often grossly so.
Even worse, it has no mechanism for self-correction; hence the Aral Sea.
The market plays the same role in economics that evolution does vs. a vs. genes: it filters out non-viable methods an approaches, via bankruptcy, which is the equivalent of extinction, the prospect now facing established rocket companies.
Furthermore, a functional capitalist economy welcomes change because it rewards "disruption".
Any collectively controlled system will, as pre-capitalist ones did, actively suppress disruptive change, because such change always harms established interests (often including large numbers of ordinary people).
The costs are now, the benefits in the future, and the function of the disruptive entrepreneur is to push the change through and overcome resistance.
Capitalism is the enemy of stability; it's inherently self-revolutionizing. It never rests.
As Marx put it, under capitalism "All that is sacred is profaned, all that was stable melts into air."
This is, incidentally, one reason why capitalists are bad managers of a capitalist society at the political level.
Most of them don't like disruptive change any more than other people do. Only a minority are disruptors; more are the managers and inheritors of -past- disruptors. Ford and Carnegie were disruptors; their successors just wanted a quiet life while they raked in the bucks.
Hence people like Boeing (and the United Launch Alliance) would have strangled SpaceX in its cradle, using their government connections, if they could have.
Mostly they didn't because Musk was too clever for them.
And because they underestimated him for too long due to lack of imagination -- by the time they woke up to the fact that his stuff was actually going to -work-, it was too late.
Sean: no, EV's can be powered by renewables, which are now actually cheaper than fossil-fuel plants in most places.
The problem with renewables is that their supply of power is periodic, rather than continuous -- sometimes the wind doesn't blow, and it's dark half the day. Many uses for power require 24/7 availability, though some don't -- synthetic methane production, for example, which Musk intends to phase in as the Starship program accelerates, and also to use on Mars for fuel for return trips to Earth and for visits to the outer solar system (asteroid mining, frex).
However, this uneven production is a solvable problem now rapidly being solved, via Tesla and others production of grid-level batteries to store energy cheaply.
The cost of grid storage has dropped by over 85% in the past 10 years; 14% in the past year alone, and the trend is accelerating.
To charge a Tesla, a solar roof and a PowerWall storage battery will do nicely -- it's what I intend to get fairly soon.
The solar charges the powerwall, and the powerwall charges the car.
Incidentally, Tesla has applied to sell electricity directly in Texas, buying it in off-peak hours (a lot of that from wind farms or solar arrays) and then metering it out at peak demand periods. They'll start with two giant battery arrays, in the multi-hundred-megawatt range.
Incidentally, synthesized methane is made taking carbon from the atmosphere, so it's carbon-neutral when you burn it.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Mr. Stirling has responded far more ably to your comments than I could have. I would only add that a "cooperative economy" CANNOT exist separately from a free enterprise system--because both, if they don't betray their natures are themselves cooperative. The competitive part would simply force them both to stay on their toes and be efficient.
Mr. Stirling: Many thanks for your corrective comments. I had not realized Musk and Tesla had made such dramatic advances not only in space technology bout also in making renewables PRACTICAL.
I'm glad I had 5,000 dollars from my IRA invested in Tesla last year!
Ad astra! Sean
I agree about the dynamism of capitalism. That must be preserved, whatever else we do in future, if we have a future.
Kaor, Paul!
Good. We agree on that much. I would argue that kind of dynamism is only possible in a free enterprise economy acting within the legal and political framework of a limited state (in whatever form it takes).
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I hope for a culture and an educational system that will encourage and fully develop the potential of every individual, all that untapped creativity, talent and inventiveness. I think that the part of the economy that addresses basic needs can be planned but beyond that there should be unlimited scope for discovery, invention and innovation. Mature individuals in a high tech civilization should no longer need to be coerced or regulated by a state. Police and armies should become redundant. Research and resources could then be diverted away from means of destruction. (Meanwhile, of course, the world is heading in the opposite direction.)
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I still have to largely disagree. Because "planning" has so often NOT worked. A partial exception would be "planning" to cope with disasters like floods, earthquakes, asteroid strikes, etc., by having supplies of certain basic resources stockpiled, just in case.
And I no longer believe in having gov'ts, at any level, run schools. Not after the catastrophic mess politicians and their masters in the teachers (sic) unions have made of public schools (in the US sense) made of them during the past half century and more.
And I emphatically disagree with your lingering hope of somehow abolishing the state! I believe humans will always be so flawed and prone to violence that some kind of state will be needed to keep order and maintain the peace. And armies will become (somewhat) redundant only if some kind of world gov't is established. I see nothing like the Solar Commonwealth, a World Federation, or a Terran Empire arising any time soon!
I recently reread A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS. The careful detail in which Anderson described the society and gov't of Dennitza makes me think the system seen there is the best humans can hope for, in any REALISTIC sense.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course you disagree but it is at least helpful to clarify our ideas a bit further rather than just to exchange abstract terms ending in "-ism" while assuming that we all understand those words in one precise way.
What are the ultimate potentials both of humanity and of technology? We are only just beginning and, as sf people, we need to question, speculate and take a very long view.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Such as my dissatisfaction with "state capitalism," which I consider confusing. Of course I agree on the need for defining terms.
I agree as well on the desirability of questioning, speculating, taking the long view, etc. With the caveat that I continue to QUESTION or be skeptical of the more Utopian hopes you or others might have.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
"State capitalism" is confusing until explained. In fact, I read another meaning for it and now cannot remember what that was! But, IF you see exploitation and competition as the two features of capitalism and IF you see that, under Stalinism, state bureaucrats both exploit and compete, then it makes sense. (I know that you don't agree with this. I am just trying to clarify what the view is.)
It is "socialism" that is used on the assumption that everyone described as socialist wants nothing but a bureaucratic dictatorship. And "communism" simply altered, if not reversed, its meaning over time.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I understand your defining of "state capitalism," despite me continuing to find it unsatisfactory.
I also object to using the loaded word "exploitation," despite me agreeing it does have, as well, neutral meanings. In a free enterprise economy resources of all kinds are "exploited" when new uses for them are found. Silica was useless until researchers and entrepreneurs discovered how useful it would be for computers and computerized devices.
I still argue it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a socialist system, a system in which the state "plans" what is going to be made, without a crushing, dictatorial bureaucratic regime. BECAUSE that is exactly what we have seen in the real world. Nor do I expect that to change.
A basic, inevitable flaw of socialism is that such a system cannot know, ahead of time, what to produce, in what quantity, and sold at what prices. So, we see giant bureaucracies laboriously amassing, as we saw in the USSR, huge masses of often inadequate date in desperate efforts to figure out how many cars, tractors, or pairs of shoes to make. No, I dismiss socialism!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I agree. "Exploitation" is loaded, has at least two meanings, needs to be used clearly and was used here only as a convenient short-hand in a summary of something else.
I will try not to respond to and perpetuate arguments that we have had more than once before!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
For which I apologize!
Ad astra! Sean
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