Jan 11, 2019
Welcome to Finance and Fury the Furious Friday edition. This is
part 6 in the series, the second last episode of the series. So
this is 2 more than expected in the series, which I guess is good
for me. To do the last subject justice, I have broken it into 2
episodes otherwise it is just too much information all at once.
When we started the series:
How lucky we are lucky to live here and now. Today I want to
start winding things up, break down what system got us here and why
it works
Core question behind why there are political fights.
Different people’s beliefs in what part of progress the
government should have
- Also, people have different solutions to different problems
- Socialism: Government solves all problems. Whereas in Anarchy:
No Government to solve problems
- I don’t think either is good. Already gone through why on
Socialism, I don’t like people starving or having no freedom
- Government policy is meant to help, but ends up hurting: China
in 1958, they killed all the sparrows to spare their consumption of
grain so more people could eat. As a result, locus swarms emerged
because there were no sparrows naturally keeping order, and 30m
people starved between 1959 – 1961. This was as a result of 70%
government policy. Regardless of if the policy was in place to
improve, it did the exact opposite.
- Anarchy would end up devolving into a narco-capitalism or
corporatocracy. E.g. Escobar or Jeff Bezos. Starts with freedom,
but maybe too much. It develops to a point where they get drug
kingpins or mega-wealthy people ruling. But they would be new,
possibly those who own food, water, would become wealthy and paper
money would mean nothing, and the resources become valuable
- Eventually go back to feudalism where we have lords of water
and wheat
- Need to look for something in between these: What is the best
option?
- What is a governmental system meant to do? Solve problems! Some
simple problems are:
- Protection of the population: Military/States and borders to
reduce predation
- Violence: Laws and people to enforce them
- What problems (or needs) do we have? Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs
- Physical needs met: food, water, warmth
- Safety needs: shelter, further warmth and rest, (public housing
for $100 p.w) also protection: police and law enforcement
- I know that those who favour a ‘social democracy’ mean well. It
can work, for a while until the money runs out. And it always does.
Spending always has to increase and if an economic crash happens it
becomes a very fragile system.
- But what about the rest of our needs beyond physical and
safety? Can the government provide the rest?
- Removed need for community and belongingness (social). Living
in apartments, you don’t need anyone else if something goes wrong.
However, with farmers in the outback, they may live kilometres away
but they know each other in case something goes wrong.
- Little left to get esteem in for individual achievements, as
asking for things and not earning them doesn’t give much
satisfaction
- Self-actualisation through development, creativity, and
happiness. Further discussed in the next episode.
- Can never achieve self-actualisation when people are always
looking down the pyramid at safety and physical needs. But just for
more of it, better food, shelter, and security
- This process will be different for everyone because we have
differences in what makes us happy
- We all have different solutions to every problem. So does
outsourcing problems to the government work?
- Typical cycle: Problem identified (what is a problem for some,
isn’t for others)
- The problem is identified by some groups, sometimes these are
government bodies who are funded to find problems
- This is the issue with group reform
- We all want the classical progressive dream: A good education,
a safe environment and workplace, and healthcare needs met
Who provides it is the thing that has changed:
How did it use to work? Where did it work the best?
Classical liberalism: Go through a few points that apply today
which are more relevant
- Liberty as the primary political value, within reason. Freedom
for the individual is the goal
- Rule of Law; non-aggression principle, but they still need to
be enforced. But when using spying as an enforcement tool, it is a
total loss of freedom of privacy
- Individualism is looking after the ultimate minority. It's
these individuals that form groups. So you’re able to improve
groups from individualism
- Free Markets: Economic exchange should be left to voluntary
activity between individuals. That is why private property is
necessary, first and foremost. We need private property to be able
to do that. History shows us that leaving things to free markets
rather than government planning or organisation increases
prosperity, reduces poverty, increases jobs, and provides goods
that people want to buy
- Taxation, regulation, restrictions: Having superannuation
contribution caps, and increasing the retirement age gives a boost
to the government, at a cost to you
- What is at the core of this? Freedom works. What is one way to
know if freedoms lead to wealth?
- Proof? GDP per capital purchasing power parity up against
economic freedom
- Government Expenditure to GDP has no effect on improving score.
The last 5 countries are: 2 socialist, and 3 dictatorships
- Bail in bill, on the 14/2/18 it got passed. It’s about the
government not bailing out distressed institutions, like in the GFC
using tax payer’s money. Sounds good? Allows APRA to step in and
run distressed banks, then use the creditors of the bank to bail
itself out, which are asset holders or maybe depositors. If so, may
just spark bank runs.
- I need to do a deep dive into this and do an episode in the
future about going through the legislation
- What do we see now? Speech laws, on a quest for tolerance you
become intolerant
- Toleration: Toleration is the belief that one should not
interfere with things on which one disapproves. It’s a question of
having certain moral principles (“I think this action is wrong”),
but I will not try and force my opinions. For example through the
government to stop the things I disapprove of.
- Scepticism about power: The individual is the best judge of
their own interests, and not to be forced into it
- Limited Government: The government is needed: Law, Peace, and
Infrastructure. Government intervention levels: Classical liberals
argued for what they called a minimal state, limited to the
following functions:
- A government to protect individual rights and
to provide services that cannot be provided in a free market.
- A common national defence to provide protection against foreign
invaders.
- Laws to provide protection for citizens from wrongs committed
against them by other citizens, which included protection of
private property, enforcement of contracts and common law.
- Building and maintaining public institutions.
- Public works that included a stable currency, standard weights
and measures, and infrastructure
- Building and upkeep of roads, canals, harbors, railways,
communications and postal services
What does this all provide?
Let’s go back to Maslow’s needs, it doesn’t meet many needs
beyond security and the framework for freedom to meet your needs
how you want. But rights extend further today than what they did
over history
- Lot of good work from the 1200s with Magna Carta, then in the
1600s with the Bill of Rights in England, then in the 1700s the US
get their own, then Jefferson helps France with their own rights.
- What were they all based on? John Locke and the natural rights
of man, freedoms from rules and oppression
- Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or
customs of any particular culture or government, and so are
universal and inalienable (they cannot be given or taken away
by human laws).
- Life, Liberty (freedom), property (private ownership)
- Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a
given legal system (they can be modified, repealed, and
restrained by human laws).
- Natural and legal rights: Require Legal Rights to uphold
natural rights or ‘right to have rights’
- Not all rights are made equal. There are negative and positive
right. Oblige either action (positive rights) or inaction (negative
rights)
- Negative rights: are the first generation of rights. Positive
rights: second and third generation rights. These were a new
thing
- Negative rights: Civil and political rightslike freedom of
speech, life, private property, freedom from violent
crime, freedom of religion, habeas corpus or a fair
trial, and freedom from slavery were not enough
- Introduce positive right: Theright to be subjected to an
action or another person or group;
- Positive rights permit or oblige action. You have to do
something, compared to not doing something with negative
rights
- Food, housing, public
education, employment, national
security, military, health care, social
security, internet access, and a minimum standard of
living
- These frequently conflict and it's carrying out positive rights
often infringe upon negative rights.
- The positive right of social welfare = government needs to
provide services.
- Funding of social welfare = increasing state expenditures which
requires raising taxes = infringe upon the negative right of
private property
- The right not to have their money taken away from them,
positive rights are generally harder to justify and require more
complex ethical substantiation than negative rights.
- Rights differ on political orientation. Positive rights such as
a "right to medical care" are emphasised more often by left-leaning
thinkers, while right-leaning thinkers place more emphasis on
negative rights such as the "right to a fair trial"
Equality
Often bound to the meaning of "rights" and depends on one's
political orientation as to the definition of equality
- Right (Libertarians); Free market for equality of opportunity,
fair rules for all, but leads to unequal outcomes.
- Left (socialists); Identify equality by equality of
outcome, as there is fairness when people have equal amounts of
goods and services, and therefore think that people have a right to
equal portions. Like economic assistance and housing
- See the issue? Freedom versus ‘fairness’ or negative verse
positive rights. One requires taxes, which cancels out negative
rights (private property and keeping what you earn)
- As freedoms are reduced, average individual wealth declines
over time. As shown by the freedom index.
This is where ‘One Government to Rule them all’ fails.
Individuals have different problems, removing freedoms from all to
solve a small group’s problem can be very harmful in more ways than
one.
Asking one powerful entity to solve all of your problems has
been done throughout history in different forms time and time
again. In medieval times the church was the state
- “God Wills It”. Watch movies about the Crusades and The Last
Kingdom. There is no free choice. Which is what monarchs taught (no
separation between church and state). It was to keep people
subverted, God wills that the king rules, that their lives are all
pre-planned out
- There can be no pursuit of happiness if you never make a
choice. Authority is always telling you what to do.
- Thinking about the government as an entity that will solve all
problems, is a modern-day determinist view. Determinism is the
doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately
determined by causes regarded as external to the will
- Implies that individual human beings have no free will and
cannot be held morally responsible for their actions or
circumstances
- The only way to make things equal is through some powerful
entity to help those who had a worse roll of the dice
- To have the power of a god to click your fingers and make
things fair. And you need a lot of power/authority.
Final issues with authority:
Anything with authority/powerful entity to provide everything
for you:
- Is corruptible (simple), absolute power corrupts absolutely
- "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself
become the villain." – Harvey Dent
- The more power they have, the more they are fought over
- Political power: some of the population are addicted to power.
Regardless of who has it, like the church as an example
- Only one religious war going on right now. Is it a coincidence
that there is no separation of church and state within that
religion? Those nations with absolute power over the population
constantly have issues where people will fight for the absolute
control, as its been set up that controllers of the country have
absolute power.
- Removes accountability to individuals. As seen through the
Milgram experiments, where he demonstrated that people will kill if
told to by authority
- Increasing shocks to wrong questions
- Participants thought it was for the greater good, and that the
scientist would take responsibility.
- That’s why you see war atrocities with any form of
authoritarian government. For example, the Nazi guards were
probably decent people before the war but during the war, they did
terrible things.
- Causes population ‘behavioural sink’. It would be nice to have
everything taken care of for us. But, what does this do?
- Mouse Utopia: Every need met (threats, food, etc) and within 2
years the population was dead. In one experiment that could have
housed 3840 mice
- Only ever reached 2200 as highest population. Population turns
in on itself and split up
- Males/females started fighting,
- Beautiful ones: were a group of mice who took themselves off
and spent all the time grooming and not mating at all
- Not overpopulation like originally thought, giving the mice
something to do (purpose) prolonged experiments
- When all your needs are lavishly met, one creates struggle for
a purpose to live. That explains the real housewives TV series.
Where all their fights and problems are self-made, because what
else are they wanting for. compared to a kid in Africa, all these
issues seem trivial
- This comes back to that concept again of the “pursuit of
happiness”. Always making choices on what action will add to our
well-being (make us happy)
- Choices is the pursuit of happiness. But the results of choices
are not all equal. Some momentary pleasures (impulses) lead to pain
(not happiness)
- Learning from these choices, means you avoid those that caused
pain, and keep trying new things
- Foresight, where you can recall past experiences. Where we
learn to postpone immediate gratification and see what choices are
really in our interest. Thus, learning self-control based on
experience is essential to happiness.
- Part of moving up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as well
- Locke talked about the continuous process of choosing as a part
of human beings’ unchangeable nature. Choices about what we believe
gives us well-being
- Our right to make these choices is inalienable, and, unless our
actions attack the rights of others, it is wrong for the government
to interfere.
- What happens when the money runs out? House of cards falls down
- Becomes very fragile. Very much so here, we are in a position
not too self-sufficient and need to give the government more power.
Which would make the situation worse.
Counterbalance:
Don’t know if it would work or not. My view is that it is better
for people to figure out the best way to help themselves (and have
the tools to do so) Which is why this show exists.
The government cannot solve your problems. They can provide
small band-aids solutions. Generally the majority of
Australians agree.
- Trust in government/politicians is at the lowest level since
1993. Only 5% of Australians trust the government,
- 74% exhibit a critical perspective,
- 25% trust government ministers and satisfaction with democracy
in Australia is now at its lowest level since 1996
The original question of the series was what should the
government be in charge of? The world has changed. So there are
more elements involved, but we will cover these off in the final
next episode. Like, what the government does really well and what
they don’t do so well throughout history.
Thanks for listening to this episode guys, if you want to get
into contact go over to the contact page here.
Resources:
Trusting the government: https://theconversation.com/nowfor-the-big-question-who-do-you-trust-to-run-the-country-58723
Solution to money in politics: https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/908-Who-s-in-the-room-Access-and-influence-in-Australian-politics.pdf