Outside national borders? Where? There is no place in the world not claimed by a state of some kind or else protected by international treaties. Even in Somalia, which was nominally anarchist for a while, the UN has been rabidly attempting to impose a state for the past 20 years. Also, again, you often get taxed if you leave a country with your assets, so this isn't a solution.
Are you actually of the opinion that Somalia is better off without a government and the UN trying to make a government there is a bad thing?
Certainly, it was significantly better off than it was back when it had a government in '91. A lot of Somalia's problems can be traced to the UN funding (secular) warlords in support of a state, which caused (rival or Islamist) warlords to band together against them. At least some areas of even southern Somalia were quite improved in between the fights between those two groups.
Wow, you have an example of propping up a government monopoly from 1851. Got anything more relevant to the world we live in today?
Got any example of proper competitors to the US postal service? FedEx, etc are not postal companies by the way, so they wouldn't count.
But since, you asked,
there's always the monopoly on the creation of currency. Keep in mind, none of these "Liberty Dollars" at all resembled US Dollars, so its not like they could practically be considered counterfeit.
A big part of "Letter Mail Co"'s success was that it only offered services in the most lucrative of markets - a few large cities on the East Coast, whereas US Post is obliged to offer delivery for the same stamp price throughout the country. Letter Mail Co driving US Post out of business in those big cities would drive prices up everywhere else. See how they'd go if they were forced to build and staff their own post offices in every village, town and city across the country.
So the government isn't a monopoly, except when it has to compete with more efficient rivals? You're actually incorrect as to the effects of competition on cost, by the way; prior to the ALMC, the cost of stamps had been rising steadily. After it became a competitor, the cost of stamps actually dropped. Not to mention the fact that the USPS should have at least been capable of matching the ALMC's service and cost in the big cities since it's funded by tax dollars and doesn't actually need to make a profit.
And of course, any profit by a publicly owned company replaces taxes. A drop in revenue could lead to taxes rising, a hidden cost in privatizing a service. Look at Singapore, 14% tax, 60% Government ownership. They could privatize everything, but taxes would have to rise to compensate.
Only if the government is unable to even compete with the private companies in the first place. If the USPS actually makes a profit of, say, 10%, then in a normal company this would mean they already covered operating costs. For the USPS, that means that the tax rate for mail should be 0%, because the cost of mailing already covers the expenses and the surplus is deposited in the treasury. If the USPS is actually running a deficit, that means that they need to improve efficiency in some way, just like a company that's in the red.
Yes, you could argue that the government is held back by its having to do somewhat unprofitable things to cover everyone, but there isn't much evidence that that's the case.
People being educated pays dividends for more than just the person with kids. Business's take for granted that they'll have literate 18 year olds to hire for minimum wage.
If you think literacy is bad in the United States, one of the countries with the highest literacy in the world, due in no small part to public education, think about living in a country with poor public school access, where literacy is 49% rather than 99%
Everyone benefits from education, even if you're not the direct person being educated.
Funny enough, literacy today is actually
lower then it was before public schooling. Countries with poor public school access also usually have poor public schools, so it isn't like increasing access to the public schools in those places would significantly improve literacy.
Author
Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread (Read 1291614 times)