From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Oct 02 2005 - 16:31:37 BST
Dear Wim,
> You wrote 24 Sep 9:54 -0400:
> "My problem is that government bureaucrats often treat people as if they
> were part of a group rather than as individuals, leading to all sorts of
> horrible consequences. I would think Europeans, of all groups, would
> understand the dangers of such 'groupthink', you know, 'Deutschland uber
> alles'." and "Yes." on my statement "So we agree on government (and taxes)
> being needed for [roads, dikes, courts, police, firemen, and soldiers]."
>
> So you better start solving your problem by electing a better government
> (maybe even one that changes the democratic rules, enabling a yet better
> government to be elected afterwards).
What rule changes would you suggest?
> From a Dutch point of view all bigger nations, not least the USA, exhibit
> unhealthy amounts of 'groupthink'. The text of your national anthem
> contains the same type of 'groupthink' as 'Deutschland über alles'
> ('Germany superior to everything else'): "the land of the free and the home
> of the brave"...
I agree, except in time of war a society must think in group terms to
successfully combat an invader.
>You
> denounce 'groupthink'. Devotion to a flag can hardly be called 'thinking'.
> A flag symbolizes the most primitive of ideas: "We must behave as one, no
> matter what".
I've deleted your interesting (and appreciated) description of the Dutch
national anthem for space. As for "primitive ideas," it may be necessary
to become primitive to defend against a primitive attack on one's
homeland.
> Anthems amount mainly to repeating empty words. Nazi's were
> no worse than Americans now in exploiting low quality 4th level patterns of
> value to maintain 3rd level patterns of value, even though their 3rd level
> patterns of value may have been worse. Flags and anthems all appeal to
> collective emotion rather than autonomous reason.
Agree. But not to distinguish between the 3rd level patterns of Nazi
Germany and the patterns of democratic nations is to ignore reality with
consequent disastrous results, e.g.,.Nazi occupation of Holland, France,
Denmark, Norway, etc.
> Oh by the way, I don't really see how your little problem with government
> bureaucracy and 'groupthink' relates to the point I was making: Even if you
> see humanity as only consisting of individuals, (so only individuals can
> build and maintain dikes) you can still distinguish between individuals
> acting or behaving in a coördinated or seemingly coördinated way and
> individuals who don't.
Yes. Corporations are a good example, or a symphony orchestra. But the
degree of the group's success will depend on the talents of the
individuals who comprise it.
> You even agreed that government coördination was
> necessary to build and maintain dikes. And what about bureaucracy in other
> big organizations? Bureaucracy is a function of concentration of power. It
> exists in all bigger organizations, regardless whether they relate to their
> outside world through markets, propagating ideas or 'policemen, soldiers
> and their guns'.
I'm sure you agree there's a world of difference between concentrations of
power in free markets and concentrations of power backed by guns -- the
difference between Haliburton and the KGB.
> I asked your opinion on the extent to which the relative inability of
> Americans to agree on things like balancing social security and higher
> average wealth or security/safety and freedom is due to your political
> system (type of democracy), your political culture (polarization, 'winner
> gets all' mentality) or both. You answered with: "There's a cultural war
> going on in this country between those who sanction biological values such
> as sex and drugs and those who support social values that attempt to
> control such vices. There's also a debate about the balance between
> security and freedom, but it pales in comparison to the former."
>
> So let me restate my question:
> To what extent is the habit of seeing a 'war' in every debate and
> (therefore) the relative inability to reach consensus due to the American
> political system (type of democracy), the American political culture
> (polarization, 'winner gets all' mentality) or both?
You seem to have problems with the American political system, but I'm not
sure exactly what problems with it you see. Perhaps you can explain. As
for "winner take all mentality" I'm not sure what you mean other than
perhaps you believe that compromise, wherein no one is fully satisfied,
has higher value than winning.
> You continued with:
> "Pork barrel spending refers to spending by politicians to bring home
> government benefits to their districts so they will get reelected. It's a
> form of bribery to garner votes. Subsidizing hotels or other business is
> justified as providing jobs and increasing the tax base."
>
> Pork barrel spending does not exist in the Netherlands, because Dutch
> politicians don't have an own district. They are put on a list by their
> party because of their relative ability to 'sell' the party's ideas. People
> vote on a party (or -to be fair- on its figurehead). The amount of votes
> determines how many from that list are elected. Politicians are not
> (re)elected because they are doing something for a specific constituency,
> but because they are successfully promoting certain ideas which people
> agree with. Of course parties support some people's interests against those
> of others (say: house owners against unemployed), but these are national
> categories and not local constituencies.
Given that Holland is about half the size in area as South Carolina, I'm
not surprised there's not a lot of competition to "bring home the bacon."
But, I'm happy to see that in your system competition still exists.
> You continued with:
> "Well, with unemployment in Europe running around 10 percent I wouldn't
> necessarily call big governments there successful."
>
> Unemployment figures in Europe differ widely between countries and are not
> necessarily correlated with big government. Even the inventor of the so
> called 'Adams curve' states that "big governments need not raise the
> unemployment rate". (see
> www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1997/B/199701478.html) And: employment
> is not the only measure of success of a government... What about the
> percentage of population in jail...?
Well, Luxemburg does have an unemployment rate of 4.4% and the Netherlands
is low at 4.7%. But the large EURO countries like Germany, Spain and
France are all around 10%, and the EURO average is 8.8% -- nearly double
that of the U.S. As for the percentage of population in jail, the factors
involved are so varied as to make comparisons meaningless without a
laundry list of specifics.
> You continued with:
> "I agree we need a way to make an international money system more easily
> available to the average guy. As of now, my local grocery won't accept
> Dutch money. That's why I favor an international gold standard."
>
> We were talking of (the value of) savings, weren't we? You can invest your
> savings in Dutch government bonds or in stocks of Dutch firms without much
> more fuss than investing them in USD bonds and stocks. No need for a gold
> standard for that purpose, I would say.
True. Hadn't considered that. What has been the Dutch inflation rate over
the past 50 years?
> Finally you asked:
> "Is LETS a barter system? Would it be feasible on a nation wide basis?"
>
> It is and it is, but only accessable to members. These members can live
> nationwide or over spread over the entire globe, if Local systems are
> linked. Some such links do already exist. See
> www.lets-linkup.com/080-All%20About%20LETS.htm for more information.
How do governments collect income taxes on the members' exchanges?
> You wrote 24 Sep 10:14 -0400:
> "My main point about money is that it allows perfect strangers to exchange
> goods and services as each determines the value for themselves, compared to
> a government forcing some people to provide goods and services to others.
> It's a matter of freedom vs. coercion. As for money buying happiness, my
> favorite quote on the subject is from Sophie Tucker. 'I've been rich and
> I've been poor. Believe me, rich is better.'"
> Governments need money too for taxing people and spending them. Money is
> needed in all types of economy except the 1st. Sure, other things being
> equal, being rich is better than being poor. The problem is that it is
> impossible for everyone to be rich. You can only be rich when others are
> poor.
I disagree. You are assuming there's only so much wealth to go around -- a
zero sum game where the amount of winnable goods is fixed. Economies are
not like that since new goods and services are constantly being created,
just as new oil reserves are constantly being found and tapped.
> A society in which the differences between rich and poor are
> smaller is better than one with a wide gap (other things being equal). And
> less difference compensates for some decrease in average wealth. How much,
> well, every society has to decide for itself, preferably democratically...
You would think offhand that a society in which there are no poor people
is better than one with poor people. But equalizing earnings by coercion
without regard for individual differences in contributions to social well-
being is a recipe for social disaster, as witness the history of communism
in the 20th century. When a country begins to punish it's most productive
citizens, it's eventual demise is virtually a certainty. As for a gap
between the rich and poor, who is to say when it is too wide other than by
a democratic vote? Unfortunately in America we have some judges who, in
dictatorial fashion, have taken it upon themselves to render such policy
decisions.
Best regards,
Platt
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