From: Arlo Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Tue Jul 05 2005 - 17:36:52 BST
Platt,
> > [Arlo responds]
> > This is a very complicated reply. Let me try to tease it apart. I agree
> > that residents of the U.S. enjoy a greater degree of freedom (more-free)
> > than the residents of North Korea. However, the comparison in this case is
> > invalid, as the residents of NK are not simply victims of a greater degree
> > of "centralized economic planning". They are victims of a military
> > dictatorship that controls access to information, manipulates education,
> > and uses violence to assure obedience to very restrictive social behavior.
>
>Platt responds:
>
>Centralized economic planning by definition requires the use of state
>police powers to enforce its edicts. There's nothing voluntary about
>carrying out the plans. You obey the regulations issued by the central
>planners or your suffer the consequences -- fines and/or jail. So I don't
>think the comparison with communist countries is invalid.
>
It is indeed invalid, Platt. All nations employ police powers to enforce
its edicts, the US and NK or both examples of this. However, in NK the
police state goes far beyond enforcing the edicts of CEP edicts and
manipulates education, restricts access to and alters information, and is
used to enforce very rigid, very strict social behaviors.
Unless you are making the claim that the *only* difference between NK and
the US is its degree of CEP?
> > Again with Cuba, I'd agree that our citizens have greater access to
> > material goods, and partake in a stronger economy. However, as with NK, the
> > comparison is invalid. U.S. and global trade sanctions against Cuba have
> > done untold damage to both her economic infrastructure and amount of
> > consumer goods (both necessary and frivolous) available in her markets.
> > Thus, we can't do outright damage to a small, island economy with
> > politically-motivated trade barriers, and then claim that her failure is
> > due to "centralized economic planning".
>
>A typical "blame America" for all the world's ills. When Cuba sees the
>light of Pirsig's supremacy of the intellectual order over the social
>order by adopting democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press,
>freedom of assembly, freedom of travel and free markets, her fortunes will
>improve a thousand-fold without the need for central planning.
Are you suggesting that the trade barriers employed by the US and other
nations have not had any role in harming Cuba's economy?
> > A more valid example would be either comparing a time in the U.S. when
> > "central economic planning" (CEP) was either devoid or very minimal (such
> > as the late 1800s) to a time in our history with a greater amount of CEP,
> > and show how the majority of citizens were better off in one than the
> > other. And indicate what measures you are using to support such a claim.
>
>Hardly a more valid comparison due to all the technological and societal
>differences between then and now.
If you're establishing the proposition, Platt, that less CEP results in a
more-free, higher Quality society for the majority of citizens, then you'll
have to find examples that indicate this is so, whether historically or not.
To date, all you have suggested is that the lesser degree of CEP in the US
is responsible for our society being more free than NK. You do not believe
her military dictatorship has any bearing on this at all. You've also
suggested that a lesser degree of CEP has made us more-free than Cuba,
suggesting along the way that trade restrictions (against a tiny, island
economy) has had no bearing on the success or failure of that economy.
Is that an adequate sum so far?
Can you provide an example that is not a brutal military dictatorship, or a
tiny, island economy subjected to global trade barriers?
> > Or, if you prefer to use the last few years as your exemplar (which is odd,
> > I might add considering those blasted "liberals" have controlled everything
> > from the media to education to government for the past 50 years or so), can
> > you indicate which measures you'd use to show the majority of U.S. citizens
> > are better off than the majority of citizens in Germany, Denmark, Sweden or
> > Norway? Would you include percent living below poverty? Literacy rates?
> > Average income? Average completion level of education? Access to education?
> > Medical facilities? Crime? Taxation? Average vacation time? Which?
>
>Here are the measures I would use, borrowed from Dinesh D'Souza's book,
>"What So Great About America."
>
>Standard of living for the ordinary guy
>
>Respect for work and trade
>
>Social equality
>
>Active, long lifespan
>
>Future open to the young
>
>Equality of rights
>
>Minimum of religious and ethnic conflict
>
>Foreign policy devoted to liberation, not conquest
Can you show me statistics or measures that indicate that the US scores
higher on these marks than Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Japan? Or are you
just going on patriotic "gut instinct" that America is better than everyone
else in these measures?
Arlo
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