Maggie's Farm

David Warren's essay is intriguing mainly because it's entirely subjective. He says that development did improve things, but "not for the better."

Then his description of Thailand implies that what happened there is "capitalism" when in fact it was something very different which is often confused with capitalism.

Here are some questions he should ask:
1. Was he pushing true capitalism and free markets or some synthetic version which would mimic its effects while maintaining the status quo?
2. Was it so wrong to fire someone who wasn't adding value? That in itself isn't the crime he makes it out to be. That person may add value elsewhere, why hang on to him if he isn't adding there? I'm not saying let's run out and remove everybody who isn't adding value to life, but a company has to pay attention to these things. It's not brutal, it's the reason we all (should) try to stay as current as we possibly can. I left a job after a single day when I realized I couldn't give the company what it wanted. I refused pay for that day I spent there. I also told them they were overstaffed and could do more with less. Perhaps that fellow had felt the same way.
3. Who is he to judge if what happened there isn't better? Maybe he should ask some of the people whose lives have improved because of the progress. Pastoral tranquility is a wonderful thing to me, living my life in an office. But to many people it's a life of drudgery. While the image of a tranquil, rice-paddy filled Thailand fills my mind with a deep wish for the past to be restored, I also realize that my desire to return to 1950's America or maybe even 1890's America is a bit...odd. I live a much better life now than I would have then. I am willing to believe the same feeling exists for many Thai people. I could be wrong, but if I am, it would mainly be a cultural issue rather than one of general living standards.

The past is rarely what we thought it was. We tend to focus on what was good about it and ignore the bad. In contrast, as we look at our modern state of affairs, we tend to overwhelmingly focus on what is bad and seemingly 'getting worse' rather than what is good.

Basically, his article is "Times change and I don't like how they are changing and I did some things that I didn't like doing."

Get in line. We've all done things we didn't like doing, and times ain't gonna stop changing. Dylan assured us of that.

Government can't provide a 'good' without taking it from someone else first. This is not a multiplier of good - it's just a transferral of good.

"I want my benefits" will translate to taxing the wealthy and giving it to others. The deadweight loss of this will be ignored. Victory for 'good' will be declared.

"I want my right to buy a cake" will translate to a law telling the baker his/her beliefs are worthless and meaningless, and the cake must be baked. The loss of rights by the baker will be discarded but the 'good' gained via access to cake will be declared the moral victory.

There is no single example of a multiplier of good from extended government. In a limited government, the role of protecting rights will yield the opportunity to be an enhancement to the possibility of a multiplication of 'good' - but it will not be the purveyor of the multiplier itself.

Two issues with this.
First - limited government assumes some things are provided. Such as defense. So I didn't say it shouldn't engage in transferrals. It should do so in as limited a fashion as possible.


Second - defense is not a multiplier of 'good'. It's simply an insurance policy. You've transferred your wealth, you haven't created a multiplier. Defense is a classic example of Bastiat's broken window fallacy. You'd be wealthier without it - but you consider it a necessity, even though it makes you less wealthy. Remember, you may want a strong army (I know I do), but there are others who would rather not have to spend on military at all. So, in taxing them to support the military you want, you force them to pay for what you want, not what they want. You have taken from them and given them nothing of value (to them) in return.
Transferral, and not a multiplier.

Another point worth making is that the 'multiplier' which is discussed in Economics is, really, network effects. It's interesting that much of the groundwork for this was done by a fellow who died only the other day, Lloyd Shapley. In a extremely small way, his work can be described as "the whole is worth more than the sum of its parts." A single phone isn't worth much, but a series of networked phones is worth an astounding amount. The whole of the network is where the value was created, rather than the individual part.

Government can't do that. Government doesn't create networks, it actually destroys them or devalues them. Government can be part of a network, but only insofar as it positions itself, through force or coercion, as part of it by taking from other parts of the network.

A major node in a network isn't the creation of network effects. Sorry, you lose. Nice try - come back when you have real value.

No it isn't. You perceive it as such.
But I won't argue with you. You're just a troll without much value most of the time. You really just don't understand government.

It can only transfer. It cannot create.

All the government did that was transfer tax revenue (or bond revenue which is paid with future taxes) and gave it to the private sector for something which was deemed a 'good'.

Given the growing status of the private space industry today, you cannot logically argue that this was best handled by the government. You have illogically supposed that taking money that would have otherwise made a citizen better off, and transferring it to a program to put monkeys and men in space was an improvement in that citizen's situation. Great entertainment, and some really cool stuff (like teflon) was created. But those creations would most likely have been discovered anyway without the government transferral of funds.

Sorry, you're clutching a straws with that one. They did not create the space industry. A private person (Robert Goddard) did.

The Duke Lacrosse case - what a miscarriage that whole thing was, and Duke has yet to truly pay for it. Yes, they "paid" out quite a bit of money. But the reputation of its staff and faculty still remains one of a top-notch academic institution. Of course, many universities have engaged similar incidents which have degraded the value of their positions, and few have suffered (UVA, for example, or even recently Missouri).

But one thing caught my eye. The discussion about the harm the boys will have to deal with for the rest of their lives.

Yes, it was horrible and psychologically scarring, I suppose (never having gone through it, I can only imagine). I'm sure their reputations suffered somewhat. But I say only somewhat for a single reason.

I worked for a year with one of those young men. He was a very nice person. Undoubtedly humbled and chastised by his ordeal. I don't know what he was like prior to the case. He may have been the same quiet, unassuming, nice kid that I worked with. Something tells me possibly not, mainly because he always seemed to struggle to say the right thing. But I could have read too much into that. He wound up leaving for a very nice job. When he told me what the job was I realized he wasn't going to have a rough life.

He had gone through a very difficult situation. He deserved whatever compensation he may have received, as did his compatriots. He deserved every benefit of the doubt when he entered the workforce. I can say from my time with him that I thought him a conscientious worker.

I'm not sure what the status of the others may be, I didn't work with them. But I knew (because my town is a big lacrosse town) one other player on the team that year. He wasn't one of the boys in the case. He, too, is a nice kid. He has to deal with that ordeal, too, because even though he wasn't part of the case, he was on the team. You can't mention Duke lacrosse without someone saying something about it....usually not understanding the details of what happened. Many people still think they did something wrong.

I know the stigma follows them, I've seen it. One senior manager I work with was unaware the young fellow was part of the case, and when she found out, she felt he should be let go. She didn't know the details. That's something all the players will have to deal with as they go through life.

The only thing they did 'wrong' was put themselves at risk by hiring the strippers in the first place. That isn't a crime, though. But learning to be careful is part of the maturation process. It was an unnecessary and unneeded risk, particularly when you're a lacrosse player. Lacrosse players have a reputation for reckless behavior.

But he is doing well enough, as is the other young fellow I know. Certainly both are better off than I was when I was their age.

Lots of candidates lay out a plan and then don't follow it. I sincerely believe Trump is no different. Given that Trump is only a recent (as early as August 2015, Trump was still commenting he was a "liberal" on healthcare) convert to a freer market approach, I have a feeling he'd stick with the status quo.

The status quo, in DC, is clearly accepting universal healthcare as inevitable.

Trump is nothing if not malleable. He is, most definitely, for sale to the highest bidder on any given item. Insurers are earning more under Obamacare - why would they want to go back to more competition? My guess is he'd be bought and sold on this issue when the time comes. He won't overturn Obamacare.

The idea that he's his own man is outrageous. People are voting for him because they are anti-establishment and think he can't be purchased because he has money. Meanwhile, he admits to purchasing the establishment and has always been able to be purchased, somehow (that's how you get to slap his name on your condominium complex, after all).