Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Montague]

Right, now I'm confused. What laws would constitute good economic freedom and what laws would constitute poor economic freedom? Is it about the ability for corporations or individuals to set up their own businesses and how they should regulate it? Do minimum wage and environmental laws affect economic freedom?

Well basically. Things like ease of starting and disbanding a business, property rights, government overhead and associated taxes, ect.

http://www.heritage.org/index/faq

The source I linked measures it by a list of criteria in all sorts of categories and explains them in depth, some are more valid then others in my opinion and it does factor in how protectionist their foreign trade policies are. Yes, it also assigns penalties for labor laws and minimum wages and whatnot. It not weighted heavily in their calculation, though.

It's hard to say what's accurate or not because it's using an ill-defined metric created by fiscal conservatives in order to promote their own agenda. It's not that it's "wrong", it's that it just plain isn't trustworthy.

*shrug* So long as you take it with a grain of salt, it seems like an accurate enough assessment to me. It has definitions there somewhere. Hopefully fiscal conservatives would know what they are talking about when it comes to gauging economic freedom.

[RedKing]

Yeah, I have to laugh at the notion that China is somehow economically oppressive. The number of self-made millionaires and even billionaires there is staggering. Jack Ma is the quintessential self-made man in China. The system is only oppressive for those who don't know how to navigate it (like foreigners).

And you'll pardon me if I take a grain of salt salt lick with the Heritage Foundation as a source.

[G-Flex]

*shrug* So long as you take it with a grain of salt, it seems like an accurate enough assessment to me. It has definitions there somewhere. Hopefully fiscal conservatives would know what they are talking about when it comes to gauging economic freedom.

You're not taking it with a grain of salt. You're looking at an index of figures, the meaning of which is unclear to you, and saying they're "accurate enough" based either on your own prejudices or other information, rendering the index useless.

Yeah, I have to laugh at the notion that China is somehow economically oppressive. The number of self-made millionaires and even billionaires there is staggering. Jack Ma is the quintessential self-made man in China. The system is only oppressive for those who don't know how to navigate it (like foreigners).

And you'll pardon me if I take a grain of salt salt lick with the Heritage Foundation as a source.

China is a little complicated in that regard. They're oppressive and seem to like companies get away with damn near anything.

[RedKing]

China is a little complicated in that regard. They're oppressive and seem to like companies get away with damn near anything.

They can be oppressive in the protectionist requirements (like requiring a certain percentage ownership by the state for publicly traded companies, or requiring all companies in China have Chinese owners), and there is a lot of red tape. But most of the red tape gets bypassed with bribes and favors.

Yeah, I know...it's not exactly economic freedom to have that level of corruption.
But the point is that if you know how to game the system, it's actually incredibly easy to be an entrepeneur in China.
If you're a foreigner, you find a local partner to put their name on all the official documents. If you need a license from the local mayor/governor/whatever and you don't feel like waiting for five years, you find out if any of your friends know a guy who knows a guy who knows an official's brother-in-law, etc. Or you take them out for a really nice dinner and send their kids gifts for their birthday. Hey, suddenly you get your permit. That's just how it works there (and in a lot of other places around the world).

[OwlEpicurus]

The thing that jumped out at me immediately when I looked at that index:  Singapore.  It's #2 on the list.  It is definitely prosperous.  Of course, the government there will execute you if you're caught with drugs, and the the Economist ranked it #82 in terms of democracy out of 162 countries.  It fares slightly better on the HDI, coming in at #27.

In contrast, Norway, ranked #1 in the Economist's 2010 Democracy Index and in the 2011 HDI, is ranked #40 in the Heritage Foundation's rankings.  I think I'd rather live in Norway.

A few other oddly ranked countries:

                 Heritage     Economist       HDI
Bahrain:      12             122               42
Mauritius:    8               24                77
Qatar:        25              137              37
France:       67             31                 20
Venezuela*: 174            96                73

All three of these rankings tell you something about what living in a country would be like.  They seem to agree on which countries are generally bad places to live and which ones are generally good, but it gets messier once you start comparing the countries in the upper halves of each list.  Considering that most arguments about government's place in the economy is less, say, "United States vs. Zimbabwe" and more "United States vs. Norway," this will cause significant problems.

*Regardless of your position on Chavez, that is a large difference between the rankings.

(I really should get back to my homework now.)

Edit:  How did I post by accident?

[mainiac]

They can be oppressive in the protectionist requirements (like requiring a certain percentage ownership by the state for publicly traded companies, or requiring all companies in China have Chinese owners), and there is a lot of red tape. But most of the red tape gets bypassed with bribes and favors.

My uncle has doing legal work on a string of hundred million dollar real estate deals in china for the past few years and he gave me his take on the Chinese legal system a few months back.  Chinese people think of lawyers like witch doctors because they can make the law say whatever they want.  But it's actually really easy to get Chinese laws to say whatever you want because it's much more vaguely written then American law or laws in other places.  But it's only going to stand up in court if your company has "influence" with the local officials.  This influence is gathered exactly the way you would expect, favors and various backchannel bribes.  The maximum punishment for taking bribes is death but the only officials that get punished are those that have already screwed up and lost their positions.  It's not so much a punishment as a coup-de-grace.

My uncle has however spent his entire career talking about how horrible legal work is (as he grew steadily richer) and telling everyone younger then him to never get into it so YMMV.

[Deadmeat1471]

HAhahahahaha!

Polluting industries aren't gonna limit themselves. That cuts into profit margins. It almost seems like Ron Paul supporters are living in a fairy land.

This is exactly my experience with RP supporters. Cut away regulation and the private sector will cure poverty, the environment, healthcare and everything else. Magically.

I want to hear from a RP supporter, whats their reaction to being looked at like this. I don't want a response like LOL THE MAIN STREAM IS CRUSHING OUR DREAMS MAAANNNNN

I want a real response to try and defend the allegations by (it seems) everyone that RP lives in the land of the fairies, a place with no standing in the real world. I say this not as a Republican voter, not even as an Obama lover, but as a British onlooker onto american politics.

*Focus of the ridicule is on his ideas about the free market magically healing all ills.
I agree with his foreign policy and other such things, but the free market crap which is the main part of his campaign and ideology is just insanely naive to me.

I'd say they are on to something. Countries with greater economic freedom are the most prosperous ones. They also tend to have better human rights records, greater standard of living (even for the poor) and greater individual freedom. It correlates almost perfectly.

Consider that most abuse is done directly or indirectly by the government interfering with the economy. Try naming a monopoly that arose without the help or support of a government, for example.

http://www.heritage.org/index/default
Look at the list and think about which countries you'd rather live in.

Of course, RP and friends are proposing something absurdly extreme. Not even Hong Kong is completely without regulation or totally 100% free market. There is a balance here, though it peaks toward greater economic freedom, I don't think going retarded with it is going to help things. There is a very black and white type of thinking with extreme ideology and that's basically how it boils down. If a little bit is good then a lot more must be better.

Prosperity yes, but at the expense of the poor, IE most of the nation. Unregulated capitalism works for better prosperity nearly always, but its morally abhorant to pursue profit at the expense of everything else.
Even in a capitalist society, the poor are considered to deserve some state intervention.

RP's ideas are a step towards 19th century catastrophy, not ideas that are 'onto something'.
A step back is indeed, not a step forward.

[RedKing]

They can be oppressive in the protectionist requirements (like requiring a certain percentage ownership by the state for publicly traded companies, or requiring all companies in China have Chinese owners), and there is a lot of red tape. But most of the red tape gets bypassed with bribes and favors.

My uncle has doing legal work on a string of hundred million dollar real estate deals in china for the past few years and he gave me his take on the Chinese legal system a few months back.  Chinese people think of lawyers like witch doctors because they can make the law say whatever they want.  But it's actually really easy to get Chinese laws to say whatever you want because it's much more vaguely written then American law or laws in other places.  But it's only going to stand up in court if your company has "influence" with the local officials.  This influence is gathered exactly the way you would expect, favors and various backchannel bribes.  The maximum punishment for taking bribes is death but the only officials that get punished are those that have already screwed up and lost their positions.  It's not so much a punishment as a coup-de-grace.

My uncle has however spent his entire career talking about how horrible legal work is (as he grew steadily richer) and telling everyone younger then him to never get into it so YMMV.

Nah, that sounds about right. The Chinese legal system has a long history of being arbitrary and subject to the whim of the local official (watch any good kung-fu movie, and one of the villains will typically be a corrupt local magistrate/governor who abuses his power). There's also an old tradition of treating the plaintiff as harshly as the defendant, to discourage people from actually using the courts, because doing so meant somebody lower down the hierarchy wasn't doing their job keeping the peace. It's kind of like a parent who gets tired of hearing their kids fight all the time, so they punish all the kids equally, without really investigating who was at fault.

Local corruption/lack of sufficient oversight is really, IMHO, the biggest obstacle to China's future as a megapower. It becomes nightmarish for Beijing to implement any kind of reforms because they're dependent on the local bureaucracy doing its job. For a "totalitarian", centralized authoritarian state, China actually has a great deal of trouble keeping a billion people in line. Which is why they overlook so many violations of laws, as long as it doesn't genuinely threaten stability. The Great Firewall is there, and tens of millions of people bypass it on a daily basis without repercussions. Environmental laws, health laws, worker protection laws, traffic laws....they're all openly flouted and the only time they really crack down on violators is when:

A. Somebody gets a reformist streak and decides to make a personal crusade of it.
B. The end result is either embarrassing to the country and/or threatens social stability.

Otherwise, it's just not worth the effort. Hell, I remember being in a taxi and the taxi driver cut off a cop in traffic on the highway. The cop flashed his lights and yelled something at him on the loudspeaker, and the taxi driver just grunted, leaned out his window and yelled back a couple of expletives and kept on driving. The cop didn't pull him over, because to do so on one of Shanghai's main elevated highways would have created a traffic snarl that would have affected literally MILLIONS of people. It wasn't worth it. That was an eye-opening moment for me (and also part of why I find this notion that China is so massively oppressive to be amusing)

[Montague]

Prosperity yes, but at the expense of the poor, IE most of the nation. Unregulated capitalism works for better prosperity nearly always, but its morally abhorant to pursue profit at the expense of everything else.
Even in a capitalist society, the poor are considered to deserve some state intervention.

RP's ideas are a step towards 19th century catastrophy, not ideas that are 'onto something'.
A step back is indeed, not a step forward.

That's the popular perception, anyways. Thing is, the poor do comparitively well in highly capitalistic societies, since there are that many more jobs and oppurtunity available, then in more heavily centralized economic systems. Poor people in the USA have cable TVs, automobiles, houses with electricity, running water, heat, ect. Not so much in less capitalistic societies.

I'd also point out that a government welfare state that helps out the poor isn't always incompatitble with free markets. Switzerland, for example.

[Deadmeat1471]

Prosperity yes, but at the expense of the poor, IE most of the nation. Unregulated capitalism works for better prosperity nearly always, but its morally abhorant to pursue profit at the expense of everything else.
Even in a capitalist society, the poor are considered to deserve some state intervention.

RP's ideas are a step towards 19th century catastrophy, not ideas that are 'onto something'.
A step back is indeed, not a step forward.

That's the popular perception, anyways. Thing is, the poor do comparitively well in highly capitalistic societies, since there are that many more jobs and oppurtunity available, then in more heavily centralized economic systems. Poor people in the USA have cable TVs, automobiles, houses with electricity, running water, heat, ect. Not so much in less capitalistic societies.

I'd also point out that a government welfare state that helps out the poor isn't always incompatitble with free markets. Switzerland, for example.

Jobs would be more forthcoming, yes, healthcare, equality, unemployment support, education, environmental issues, pensions, job security etc etc all would tailored towards the rich, the poor would get no subsidy and you have a 19th century system again.

Protip to ron paulists: The Private market cannot deal with a social net, it infact works upon the idea that there would be no need for a social net because the Ron Paul fairyworld would be so awesome and successful there would be no sick, unemployed, poorly paid, homeless, etc etc.
A social net is always needed, the private market can only deal with job creation, it cannot even eliminate unemployment, let alone everything else.

Britain has a free market and a good social net, free healthcare etc. Yeah it costs alot, but the USA is in more debt than we are, and we support our population, so.... err.... I consider that a refutal of the 'private market fixes all' idea.

[Montague]

Jobs would be more forthcoming, yes, healthcare, equality, unemployment support, education, environmental issues, pensions, job security etc etc all would tailored towards the rich, the poor would get no subsidy and you have a 19th century system again.

Protip to ron paulists: The Private market cannot deal with a social net, it infact works upon the idea that there would be no need for a social net because the Ron Paul fairyworld would be so awesome and successful there would be no sick, unemployed, poorly paid, homeless, etc etc.
A social net is always needed, the private market can only deal with job creation, it cannot even eliminate unemployment, let alone everything else.

They like to imagine private charities would take over for the government. I'd point out, that most social safety net programs actually bring a net increase of tax revenue for a government. Some programs are helpful but really only cost a trival amount of money to impliment. Unemployment and especially food-stamp programs are highly cost effective. (Social security and pensions, not so much)

But naturally, Ron Paul's sort of ideology isn't going to compromise on the basis of pragmatism or utility or anything. It's all about the principle of the matter. 'People are only going to be entitled to what they've earned themselves, no more, no less.'

[mainiac]

That was an eye-opening moment for me (and also part of why I find this notion that China is so massively oppressive to be amusing)

Ironically, I left China with the impression that it's what libertarianism in action would look like.  All you have to do is look at the sidewalks covered in parked cars and the people squeezing around them.

That is assuming your libertarian world has sidewalks.

[Tofu]

I'm sorry it I'm a little off topic, regarding what's currently being discussed, but I'm just
curious as to what your opinion is on something that is entirely related to the coming election.
I don't really get into a lot of politics, simply because I don't know a lot about it, to be honest.
Though, I did see a youtube video lately, and it kind of caught my attention;
It talks about how all the candidates for the newest election are religious,they're all Christian,
all but one are republican, all but two  does not support separation of church and state, and
5 of the candidates are creationists. Those 5 are also for discrimination for religious reasons,
and they also want abortion illegal in all situations. Well, Bachman is out, so I guess only 4 out
 of 7 remain, but that's besides the point. Now I'm not trying to push a certain agenda or
something (hell, I don't even live in the US) but it just seems off to me how people that are
supposed to lead one of the most powerful countries in the world don't "believe" in science.

Do you think this is ok? What do you think of this?
Again, just want an opinion or something from someone more well versed in this than I. Thanks in advance.
(if there's something wrong with the post I'll just delete it or something)

[Montague]

That was an eye-opening moment for me (and also part of why I find this notion that China is so massively oppressive to be amusing)

Ironically, I left China with the impression that it's what libertarianism in action would look like.  All you have to do is look at the sidewalks covered in parked cars and the people squeezing around them.

That is assuming your libertarian world has sidewalks.

It's not really fair to compare something like China that has widescale corruption and abuse from the government with a system designed to minimize the ability of the state to do such things.

Although I imagine people would park haphazardly on the sidewalks and everywhere else in libertarianland due to the complete lack of zoning laws or city ordiances and relative scarcity of public parking.

-snip-

Honestly, I don't place a lot of weight on what religious belief a candiate professes to have. It's them playing politics, it's a selling point for voters who care about such a thing but in reality I imagine half of them don't believe a word of their adopted religion and it has little or no influence on their governing.

I generally look at how zealous they approach their religion is and how much it influences their politics, if they advocate laws against abortion or think creationism or prayer needs to exist in public schools. Then I know they are bat-shit insane and don't need to be in a position of power.

[PTTG??]

Honestly, I kinda want Libertarianland to exist. I just don't want to live in it.