From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Mon Sep 12 2005 - 06:48:27 BST
Dear Platt,
You wrote 11 Sep 9:02 -0400:
"A collective is a concept and can do nothing. Individuals like you, me,
members of our families, neighbors, etc. etc. are physical and do
everything."
And you used that to brush aside my argument that only collectives can build
and maintain dikes.
Both 'collective' and 'individual' are concepts that refer to real,
physically effective entities. 'Individual' refers to a single entity,
'collective' to a number of them that act in a coördinated way.
In other words: individuals can only build and maintain dikes when acting as
a group and in coördination.
You continued:
"Governments subsidize all sorts of private projects [by private
enterprises]."
Exactly. Collective financing by everyone benefitting from such projects
needs to be organized by governments. Private enterprises cannot collect
fees from everyone being protected by certain types of projects. That's what
governments are for.
We agree about the need to be critical about the size of government (lest
governments self-justify protection against invented or exaggerated risks)
and the objective need for a a bigger government in the Netherlands than in
the USA for protection against the water.
You continued:
"As for US vs. Netherlands regarding infringements on privacy and freedom of
movement, I look at taxes as the degree to which government 'interferes' in
the private sector. By that measure, the Netherlands wins hands down with a
tax rate as a percentage of GNP at 41.1 vs. the US at 29.6."
Taxes as percentage of GDP are only a measure of relative size of government
and private sector, not of interference of one into the other. To the extent
that governments only collect money to spend it on investments on protective
or other infrastructure, schools, hospitals, armies etc., build and and
maintained by private enterprises, the private sector is actually
benefitting from this government role. The private sector benefitting from a
strong government using its coordinating capacity for the right purposes
(e.g. not infringing on privacy and freedoms) is exactly the historic reason
for the relative succes of now rich vs. poor nations. 'Big' and 'strong' is
not automatically the same, of course. Strength and quality of government
(i.e. government capacity used for the right purposes) also depend on the
quality of decision making processes.
You continued:
"A debatable point."
Sure. Otherwise I wouldn't have raised it in our debate. What exactly is the
point you want to debate, what is your alternative position and what are
your arguments for it?
NB: part of the paragraph you referred to was a question.
You continued:
"Considering the size of their welfare programs, I would argue that
Europeans have substituted government for God in seeking security."
Regarding security in the sense of freedom from want, yes, sure. Don't you
think that's a good substitution? Dutch government organized welfare
programs actually are direct descendants of Churh organized welfare programs
that kept poor people dependent on the elites of religious communities.
Until the mid-20th century one had to be a properly behaving poor guy and
visit church with some regularity to be able to live on charity. Church
attendance and membership have dropped considerably since. Are you sure you
think this a regrettable development?
I don't think low quality 4th level patterns of value (in this case
religious systems of thought) should maintain themselves by taking on 3rd
level roles (i.e. organizing distribution of wealth) and making people
economically dependent on subscribing to them.
You continued:
"Yes, individuals in government like the mayor of New Orleans and the
governor of Louisiana are responsible [for evacuation plans and informing
citizens about them]. They failed miserably, and those
who depended on them suffered accordingly."
If I'm well informed one should add institutions like FEMA (or the
individuals heading them). So the institutions apparently were not well
enough designed to keep these individuals sharp. Too bad for American
democracy.
You ended with:
"I'm saying it's the responsibility of individuals in government to plan for
disasters AND to inform the citizens of those plans so that every individual
citizen has a better shot at surviving. I'm also saying every
individual citizen should take it upon herself to prepare a survival plan
in case individuals in government fail to do their jobs, as happened in New
Orleans."
That still seems to ignore responsibility for disaster prevention. If
collective survival plans are more efficient in the case of certain (badly
prevented) disasters, aren't they preferable? Even if every individual would
maintain a car or keep a reserve of money for a bus ticket to be able to
leave the area immediately in case of emergency, the government would still
be responsible for big enough roads and a public transport system with
enough capacity. And individual prevention against flooding (dikes around
every plot of land???) is so wildly inefficient to be madmess.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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