how about this

[JosephTheLibertarian]

Public schools competing with private school. No regulations. Public health competing with private health, no regulations. Government currency competing with other currency (either government, or private). no monopoly over money. So if the US government screws up the USD, the market switches to a better one. Competing currencies. No, I'm not endorsing this lol I don't support big government. But I was wondering; what if you have big government, but no intervention in the economy? No regulation? What do you think the end result would be?

thanks.

[OptionsTrader]

You cannot have big government without intervention, and that is the point.

[JosephTheLibertarian]

You cannot have big government without intervention, and that is the point.

Why not?

[MRoCkEd]

because the bigger the government gets, the more it intervenes

[FrankRep]

...

[JosephTheLibertarian]

because the bigger the government gets, the more it intervenes

but what if it just does not?

[seapilot]

Public schools can not compete with Private schools. Public schools have to be subsidized by taxing profits from people that send thier childern to the Private schools. Taxes in that scenario would be the intervention by Big Government. Nobody wants to be paying to subsidize the competition.

The problem would be that BIG government would wither up and be greatly reduced in the competition scenarios. Maybe thats what we would want anyway.

[JosephTheLibertarian]

Public schools can not compete with Private schools. Public schools have to be subsidized by taxing profits from people that send thier childern to the Private schools. Taxes in that scenario would be the intervention by Big Government. Nobody wants to be paying to subsidize the competition.

The problem would be that BIG government would wither up and be greatly reduced in the competition scenarios. Maybe thats what we would want anyway.

I do not support big government ;) It's a question about WHAT IF the government remains BIG, but it does not regulate the economy, so it would be forced to compete with it on all fronts.

But wouldn't the high taxes just make people drop the USD?

[Banana]

The problem as I see it is that with taxation, it isn't exactly a opt-in thing which we need to have to make it truly free between public and private. Vouchers is half-assed way of this because it's basically tax you first, then pay you back after you show that you chose private options.

Now, if we had taxation applied only to those who actually use the public services, rather than just taxing based on something else (where you live, or where you buy or whatever), we would be closer to having a choice between public and private services... except that it's no longer a taxation and just another corporation that's publicly held.



Now I'm wondering why nobody implemented that idea.... there had to be a reason....

[JosephTheLibertarian]

I don't support vouchers. Vouchers meddle with the market imo. Milton Friedman supported a voucher system for education, but he didn't challenged the SYSTEM (as far as I know). Milton just wanted for the people the ability to opt out of public education.

[MRoCkEd]

So what characterizes a government as "big" as opposed to "small" if intervention is set aside?

[JosephTheLibertarian]

So what characterizes a government as "big" as opposed to "small" if intervention is set aside?

small government - police, courts, military

big government - police, courts, military, public education, welfare, socialized healthcare, subsidies (though that's more of an economic issue) on and on

I think it's rather easy to characterize. Anyway, just was something I was wondering, I don't think big government is effective and I don't think politicians would remain uncorrupted with a big government like that. They will be lobbied by corporate lobbyists so that they pass favorable regulations for them, then they can consolidate market share without any competition.

[Banana]

The thing about government, to me at least, is that it rely on taxation for the revenues. This is simply not available to anyone else, even a publicly held corporation. The thing about taxation is that it breaks the relationship of price to supply/demand as it becomes indirect and everything is thrown out of whack.

In order for it to be tax, it'd have to be applied to everyone whether they actually receive the service or not. Otherwise, it's just a fee for service, which is something that anyone else can do as well. Therefore, it would be impossible to have a free choice between a service funded by tax and service funded by fees.

What I just don't understand is why nobody thought of this in first time. Part of me suspects it's because everyone thinks that if it's taxed, it's cheaper because other people have to pay for it, so it works out in favor of those who wants public service. Therefore, voters will want the services they need to be subsidized by everyone else. This is how we ended up with entitlements that was not there before.


Basically, my point was that if you (Joseph) got what you wanted, this is actually no longer a "big government" but more like "privatized government" WRT the public services.


There is one way, though to have both. Mind you, I wouldn't endorse this system but only wanted to throw this out as an example how we could have both. In Australia, their health care is basically universal so it's funded by taxpayers everywhere in the country. But see, instead of setting the price, the government merely prints a schedule of price they will pay out for a certain services. Australians who go to doctors who accepts "bulk services" have it for free. But if they had money and chose to see a more high-quality doctor, they can invest in a private insurance to pay for fees above the schedule paid by the government. Basically, on-the-top plan. In areas where medicine is more exotic and young (e.g. plastic surgeon), it is routine for surgeons to charge above the schedule, and thus necessitating a private insurance for those who can afford it but everyone is guaranteed a basic level of health care.

[Fox McCloud]

If this ideal situation worked, and the government wouldn't try to crush the private sector with laws, etc....

then the private sector, IMHO, would slaughter the public sector....the only exception would probably be the currency....I have a feeling it'd end up being a stalemate between a 100% gold-backed private currency and a 100% gold-backed government currency...though, I do believe that the government would have a bit of an advantage, overall in this one.

Besides that, though, the private sector would slaughter the public one.