Govt Dependency will end in Chaos

I agree with this in principle, but typical solutions proposed by the right are not workable for a number of reasons: a) they are almost always revolutionary, no evolutionary. Your typical soapbox speeches by GOP start with "I will eliminate...". There is no guarantee that such drastic changes will produce better result than status quo; b) too many sacred cows - changes have to be systemic, focusing on a small part (for example PBS or some politically unpopular Department) will have hardly any net effect. If your elected officials are not speaking about cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Corporate Subsidies and Defense (all of them), then they are bullshitting you and are not serious about budget.


Still, I think log-term we will have to completely rework governance. Industrial Age is all but ended, we are now entering Information Age. Automation and early efforts into AI make more and more typical employment areas irrelevant. We are withing 5 years of eliminating Tier 1 Customer Support, we can now automate most of the manufacturing and are getting to the point where robots are cheaper than Third-World sweatshop labor. I predict that within 20 years we will need less workers than today all while maintaining or exceeding historical productivity and GDP growth. Implications of this prediction is that unemployment is here to stay, simply because society does not need that many workers. Sure, bright and educated will always be in demand but not everyone in the society is capable of it. So what going to happen when only PhDs with 120+ IQ are employable? More importantly, what kind societal pressure would all these unemployed put on the system, especially if they are abandoned by the government? I can see return of religious wars, riots, walled cities...

The only logical conclusion that many of you going to hate is that Welfare State is the future's mode of operation. As society's efficiency increases, and population increases there is ever-increasing need to maintain social contract to avoid complete breakdown.

Well, I think Ron Paul and even myself would agree with your first paragraph. Ron gets asked about all sorts of things "like" PBS etc often, he always says more or less: " Well, it probably wasnt intended in the Constitution but its really so inconsequential that its not really what we need to be focused on right now". And then goes back to talking about cutting defense, foreign aid and corporate welfare.


As to your second paragraph, both Paul and myself would disagree - because we both have a fundamentally view of economics and human action.

At least as long as Govt stays out of peoples way enough that people are still *able to do things, without being harassed. While more heavy industry will surely become automated, you are only thinking in subtractive terms. The free market has long found ways to create new employment. Four hundred years ago, most of the population was stuck in the agriculture field. Automation and improved processes changed that, and a lot of those jobs went away.

Even though robots and AI will be able to do more, there will still be plenty of things robots and AI cannot do, or do well. Still , things are changing. I think the new tech makes it more imperative than any time in history that a philosophical stand against large govt needs to be taken. We are at a point, where if we do not check the size of govt now, soon govt will be able to control all facets of society in a mostly automated and extremely totalitarian way.

I brought it up before, but here it is again. Increased productivity due to automation is reality today, soon automation multiplier will be big enough that couple system integration engineers will be able to out-produce 200-workers typical union shop of the last century.

What we do at this point is important, but not for the reasons you stated. Current trend is that all this increased productivity is get channeled into corporate profit. Engineers are not get paid more, they simply have jobs that allow them to live at a level of foreman from the example above. Investor class get disproportionate benefits from increasing productivity, while working class gets all the societal burden of the change. I don't understand how could you not see such outcome as problematic. Society, social contract, is that everyone has equal opportunity to partake in fruits of their labor, only some don't labor at all, and others have no opportunity whatsoever.

Possible future outcomes
A. Market is energized by new tech that countines to advance.
B. War, is used to reduce the population.
C. Mankind makes a full stride effort to expand beyond Earth, and moves to inhabit all areas of the Solar System.
D. With the centralization of power into the hands of the Feds, a class of people will start performing domestic terriosts acts. For example Weather Underground.

The first question we should be asking, is why the investor class as such reaps the benefits while the engineer does not. More "regulation" is not an answer here, leaving aside whether regulation is the "solution" for the moment - in this context I mean it is not the "answer" because I am talking about the actual factors that create the condition. In other words, we need to separate the "answer" to the question regarding the origins of the problem from the "solution" to the problem. So while more regulation may be a "solution" - I think first the answer to the question of why the status quo exists in the first place needs to be thoroughly understood.

I see the inability of people to prosper without the aid of "investor" classes , at least on a macro scale, as the result of said classes rigging the govt system. Not in terms of lack of opportunity, but in terms of govt interference. The interference comes in many shapes and sizes, from anti competitive regulations and laws (and no this is not an indictment against *all* regulations or laws) that are clearly designed to favor the connected, to subsidies and loans to the connected, to no-bid contracts, and so on and so forth.


Without coming to a concrete understanding of how the dynamics actually operate - I see no chance of proactively engineering a solution that is workable, let alone just or equitable. Other than simply withdrawing the level of interference.

Hayek propositioned that doing it is an utter impossibility, due to the scale of the contributing factors involved. He maintained that interference by govt was at best bumbling, and at worst cynical. (Note a couple of things here to keep this discussion on track - 1) Austrian economists do not actually argue for no regulation. Dumping toxic stuff in rivers for example should be illegal. But there are different types of regulation. -- 2) Hayek in particular advocated a social safety net. He did not think that there should be no social safety net, and in the same vein neither do I. )

I remain open to the possibility that Hayek might have been wrong - but it is going to take a plan that understands and accounts for *all* contributing factors and addresses *all* possible outcomes and side affects, at least as far as *all* can be ascertained.

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Secondly, I think you are missing the point regarding what I said in my earlier post. I think this highlights the fundamentally different way we view things. I am quite aware of the state of automation, and have a keen interest. I do not disagree with your general assessment.

Where we differ is in 2 key places.

The first being that as I said, you are being entirely subtractive. You assume that lost jobs mean that there can be no upsurge or replacements. Human nature tends to drive people to find new things to do. Much like the agricultural revolution, the information revolution might well show us for example (as long as cronyist govt does not prevent it) that new types of activities are profitable now that base manufactured materials costs are so low and labor so easy to come by. People find new ways to prosper, and build on what has come before. You often cannot tell what is going to happen, but in free societies something *always* happens.

People who got put out of work went to the cities to work in the heavy factory, eating the mass produced food they didnt have to make anymore. People who got put out of work in a heavy factory, went to an assembly line, using the refined materials that were now more efficiently made and machined to assemble more complex parts. And so on and so forth.

There are always ways to provide value, and people seek ways to find value. I just do not see half the population as having nothing to do, just because machines mass manufacture things on a larger scale. Plus that type of automation will probably be a net benefit for the USA, as the types of labor most significantly impacted will be developing world labor.

Plus there are many things that machines will not be able to do, at least anytime soon. And there are probably things we should never allow machines to do - but thats a different topic altogether.

A new form of radical centrist politics...conomic growth

I think this is part of human condition, you can't talk about elimination here, rather lessening impact of corruption. As to regulation, you have to balance the need to diminish plutocracy vs. controlling direct destructive behavior. Idea of a corporation and maximizing of profits above all forces society down regulation path, corporation social construct completely lacks internal controls and can only operate "for greater good" within rigid regulatory framework.

I don't think this system could be fixed from within, with less (or more) regulation, but only by decoupling it from political system. For example criminalizing lobbying, forbidding corporate and anonymous political contributions, and setting and enforcing personal contribution maximums will result in much better elected government capable of creating rational policy that leads to reasonable regulation. If this is not enough, then direct representation is within our technological reach.



Interesting. Where you see a utopia driven by intellectual pursuits, I see dystopia of 99% living in the slums and 1% taking conspicuous consumption to new unprecedented levels. If all the wealth (and power) concentrated in 1%, who and more importantly with what money, are going to pay for all these new and novel activities. We already see RIAA and the likes creating various Mikey Mouse laws to control flow of entertainment, imagine if this is taken to a whole new level with a control over all flow of information!

Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time.

Open up your wallet till you have just enough to make it from paycheck to paycheck, then you can come back here and preach about ineguality.

Well you are correct in saying that corruption will never go away totally, and I never meant to imply as much in such absolute terms.

I think a major difference between us here, is the use of prior restraint. Perhaps in some instances with particularly volatile/harmful materials, such as toxic sludge - prior restraint may be applicible and the sludge should be controlled and accounted for throughout its lifecycle. But in general, I think overuse of prior restraint is harmful - people should only be prosecuted if they commit a real harm.

In other words, if you need to have enough capital to hire three teams of lawyers, compliance consultants and accountants to cover your ass just to set up and perform a simple business function without going to jail... you are reinforcing the paradigm of the ruling investor class / 1%. This is why your general philosophy doesnt seem to make much sense to me much of the time. You say we need to free up the power of the rest of the populace, from the top elite classes. Ok - I am with you there. But at least the way you word your solutions seems to want to implement processes that actually reinforce and institutionalize the power of said classes.

Or in other words, I think you advocate a level of control that the general public is incapable of following and managing properly. Rather, I think laws and regulations should focus on particular pain points and be very clear, limited, and focused.

Dump toxic waste? Ok goto jail. Commit Fraud? Ok, same. And there are plenty of other things of course that should be prohibited and enforced. But we should also be careful not to go overboard.

Finally, I do not think that operating "for the greater good" should be something required or expected of people of corporations. It just so happens, that when people or corporations act to create economic value without violating the natural rights of others in the process- that the "greater good" just happens to benefit. But expecting people to live for others is something I think is wrong. Live for yourself, govt should be there as a collective means to protect rights - not force one person or groups opinions on morality on the rest. That is how conflict get started in the first place. Over any significant timescale, no govt manages that level of involvement in society with equanimity. Once you start down that path, societal inequality and upheaval become inevitable.



I am with you for your first sentence. Decoupling business success from govt is absolutely needed. Though I think your solution is mostly too complicated to work in real terms.

I agree that political contributions should absolutely not be anonymous. While I do not think that free speech should be prohibited, including the ability of wealthy people to buy as many advertisements spreading their opinion as they wish - free speech and anonymous political donations are not the same thing.

I also agree that corporate contributions are not kosher. The money should first pass into the hands of individuals, and the donations of said individuals disclosed when they are in excess of a certain amount.

One thing though that I cannot agree with, is your concept of direct representation. I disagree that we have the technology to safely pull it off, and I also do not think that popular sovereignty is good governance. Pure democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Republicanism (as in the concept, not the modern political party) is the only way to go - with representation + strict Constitutional rules limiting govt and protecting basic rights. Where we have gone wrong, is not due to any lack of direct representation but rather the erosion of our Constitutional protection over time via sophistry, wordplay, and a general attitude that popular or mob will is of greater importance than the protections the Founders tried to bestow upon us.



Well, I wouldnt overstate what type of utopia you think I see. For the record utopia is impossible, I was simply pointing out that people do not stop working or finding ways to create value simply because the old ways of doing things change. So I think your doom and gloom scenario of hordes of useless people due to factory jobs continuing to go away is overstated. Historically,

Now as far as the RIAA... you are certainly onto something. The difference, is I see your "progressive" agenda as having created that reality and continuing to encourage those practices.

This is exactly the type of laws and regulation that I fear and am opposed to. Govt control over the flow of information is certainly something we need to avoid at almost any cost.

We both agree that clear-cut cases of causing harm (e.g. toxic sludge dumping) have to be regulated. I suggest we call this ‘basic level of regulation’ and I want to try to better define it.

Unambiguous: We could start by identifying areas (e.g. direct environmental damage, outright financial fraud) that we would both agree require regulation and regulation is fairly clear-case and unambiguous. If we were to compile extensive list of all such cases and compared to the list of all existing regulation it would be easy to see that our list (unambiguous regulation that we agree on) is tiny minority of all regulation, it also not a complete list of all regulation we agree on. This is where I’d draw ‘basic level of regulation’ line if we are interested in generalizing our discussion past our present company.

Not-so-clear: We then can identify other areas (e.g. food labeling, minors & smoking) that while we agree on, are far from being clear-case or non-controversial. Out of this list some of this regulation requires expert opinion and/or scientific consensus, and we chose to defer to such opinions.

Controversial: By far largest segment of regulation would be at least somewhat controversial. We might disagree, form informed or ideological opinion and/or later change our minds about it. One examples of such controversial regulation would be net neutrality.

Harmful legislature: Last but not least, we can find some regulation that we both oppose. I specifically list this point to inform you that I have revised my earlier stance on “more regulation is always good”. I now acknowledge that harm of bad regulation can be greater than even uncontrolled corporate irresponsibility.



Now that I categorized all types of legislature, identified sections that most would agree with, let us try to determine the level of regulation that is needed to effectively govern.

Immediate conclusions are:

a. ‘Basic level of regulation’ is not sufficient, this can be demonstrated by finding examples of not-so-clear regulation that we agree on.

b. ‘Harmful legislature’ exists

c. ‘Not-so-clear’ and ‘Controversial’ segments do not have clear functional distinction.

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Free market dictating corporate behavior via supply/demand implies rational and informed consumer. In post-industrial economy, access to information is/coupled with wealth. I think idea that anything less that "pain points" will get resolved via market forces is flawed, because it is based on assumption of perfectly informed actors. More accurate functional description is that low-information consumer actions are driven by information-gatekeepers (see FOX News). Good example of disinformation wars in consumer behavior is smoking/anti-smoking regulation, tobacco companies actively employed disinformation to prevent consumers of making educated decisions about tobacco use. My argument is that without heavy regulation a lot of consumer-driven economy will turn into FUD wars.

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"Greater good" (this can include operating in self interest, as long as you do not harm) should be used as a standard because this is the only way to ensure society overall moves ahead. If results of your activity are net-loss for society (e.g. sub prime mortgage securitization) then not only you are harming overall progress, you are offloading risks for your activity on others. Especially in a 'less regulation' environment you describe you cannot assume that all injured parties will be able to seek full redress. If not everyone is made whole, then harmful activity can become profitable.

On the first part -

I think you are on to something. Something I think is probably important, is to make functional distinctions between different types of regulation.

Some rules of thumb I go by when trying to determine if a regulation is good or not are:

1) Can the proposed regulation be applied, at least in principle, universally. Enforcement needs to be uniform and equal, if a regulation is written as such that any enforcement by definition will be arbitrary then its no good. Or in other words, is it generally enforceable?

A hypothetical example would be a law or regulation that prohibited adultery and made it a criminal offense punishable by jail time. (technically in some places I think it is, in theory)

Going by general statistics I have seen, it is something more or less half of married people have committed. So if the anti-adultery provisions were enforced, that would be a massive chunk of the populace that would end up imprisoned. In reality, enforcing it universally would be impossible... in this instance its too common... so enforcement would then therefore be by definition arbitrary. In reality, the people jailed would tend to be poor minorities without legal resources or political ties.

So this is a hypothetical example of a bad law/regulation.

2) Is the wording of law/regulation specific enough that it can be applied only to the intended targets. Bureaucrats in charge of enforcement get good performance reviews for exercising their function. Whether they can exercise their function depends entirely on the written legal wording, the intent matters not at all. So care needs to be taken that the wording is such that the target is explicitly identified to prevent unaccountable govt asshats from abusing it to justify promotions and larger budgets.

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There are plenty of other things that need to be considered of course, but those two I think are very important.


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Your second part raises an interesting point. I am not convinced that wealth = access to information at this point, I think the key differentiation is a simple desire to know. That being said, it is actually fairly immaterial to the discussion.

I think the core concept here is really this: how far should a greater authority (such as govt) intervene to "protect people from themselves", if at all - and if so, who get to be the "decider".

Now, I am sure there are plenty of instances we could agree on in regards to the fact that a corporate entity was spreading disinformation - such as the tobacco industry for example. But even with that, what about all the instances that we , or others, do not agree on? In the end, it all boils down to someones opinion carrying more weight than someone elses opinion... and someone having their life micromanaged by someone of greater authority.

So in the end... who should be responsible for someones life and well-being? The individual, or a greater authority? Obviously you know my stance on this. The definition of being free, is being free to make your own decisions regarding your life - even if someone else thinks its a wrong or incorrect decision.

Not to mention I hardly trust any greater authority to ever truly have my best interests in mind. History has shown that greater authorities typically dont, and even if they do - lack the understanding to successfully look out for said interests.

I think we are better off by simply having laws against knowingly making false claims about a product (fraud) and letting the most egregious cases play out in the legal system, as opposed to trying to create a use case for intrusive govt for preventing every conceivable instance where a person may remain willfully ignorant and do something dumb.

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In regards to your third section....

I think we really need to quantify what "greater good" actually means.

See, when someone says "greater good" I tend to think of the two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. I think or Aztecs sacrificing someone to appease an angry god so the rest can have prosperity. (keeping in mind the intent not the objective reality of course, in which I severely doubt sacrificing people had any effect on anything other than the general level of fear among the populace and head count) Something like slavery also comes to mind, where the minority is forced into labor for "the greater good".

Now, I doubt this is what you are intentionally proposing. But I dont really know what you *are proposing.

You also mention progress... progress towards what, specifically? I find things like a general sense of "betterness" are not particularly good metrics to anchor policy making to.

As for privatized gains and socialized losses.... well obviously I find that completely abhorrent. But I think thats really a side-issue here, that is the type of thing that happens in a broken system. The question at hand, is *how to create a system that is not broken.

But if "greater good" is something to be used as a standard, then it needs to be clear and quantified in absolute terms.