United States Politics Thread 46

[Raphael]

I agree with most of your post, zompist, but this part needs qualification:

Percentage without health insurance in the US-- 1940: 80%. 1960: 30%. 2024: 8%.

From what I've heard, for a long time, effectively no one in the US had health insurance, because the supposed health insurance companies were actually fraudulent enterprises that fraudulently claimed to sell health insurance policies, but, when people made claims under those health insurance policies, came up with reasons not to pay anything.

[rotting bones]

Norway relies on its oil, but the larger population centers need something like an actual empire to maintain their wealth: France has always had its colonial African backwater to exploit, the German economy got a boost when large numbers of poor Germans entered the country from East Germany, the US has exploited the large amounts of "free" land that it stole since the beginning, etc.

What a capitalist economy needs to grow is initial inefficiency to exploit. Once the system has been made "efficient", the whole thing falls apart. It's like current flowing as long as there's a difference in voltage, or water flowing downhill as long as there's a difference in height. This is why it always needs new markets to exploit. As long as it finds new sources of inefficiency, it can find a way to create new jobs and keep money cycling through the economy.

Before globalization, capitalist countries looked like Dickens novels. Europe's "good" period was already a part of early globalization. What the West did was export most of the proletariat to the ignoramuses of the Third World whose authoritarian tendencies make them putty in the hands of giant industrialists. The result on the global economy was the creation of a distributed empire. Then the wealth gap more or less solidified into a class hierarchy. Nowadays, fighting like hell only gets you to the top of the wealth bracket you were born into.

Capitalism makes "progress" by lowering standards to offer poor quality goods and services to lower wealth brackets. People should be mad about this, but they're not. They're mad now for a different reason. In the past, science was so weak that the business cycle could be written off as a natural disaster like hurricane season. Recently, advances in engineering have made it really obvious that we can do better.

What some people haven't figured out yet is that as long as you have capitalism, you will have a proletariat. In a capitalist economy, others working can always "take away your jobs", whether the workers are humans or machines, at home or abroad. If the US becomes autarkic, the migrants might stay away, but economic logic will invoke their spirit and make it inhabit US citizens. It is already starting to happen because of rising incomes in the countries that used to do the work. The root cause is the profit motive.

[rotting bones]

Note that I wrote most capitalist countries, not all of them. There is one fairly blatant outlier, of course, and unfortunately, most of the others are moving in the direction of that outlier.

The US is not just an outlier in its blatant disregard for the poor. Its cruel lack of regulations allows it to have a dynamic capitalist economy that creates enough jobs to absorb some of the migrants displaced by the West's insatiable hunger for raw materials, opiates, and substances that serve both purposes. Europe can't keep up with this.

[rotting bones]

Could a system where individual users pay for a network actually function? Sure, we have one in the US, and it's even run by for-profit companies; it's called "telephones." Imagine how unusable telephones would be if instead calls were paid for via ads. (Scammers and spammers are bad enough, but at least they have to pay for phone service too.)

Is putting a microtransaction on every http request meaningfully different from putting a toll booth on every road? The internet is a public service. There are also ways to make phone calls for free.

[zompist]

Could a system where individual users pay for a network actually function? Sure, we have one in the US, and it's even run by for-profit companies; it's called "telephones." Imagine how unusable telephones would be if instead calls were paid for via ads. (Scammers and spammers are bad enough, but at least they have to pay for phone service too.)

Is putting a microtransaction on every http request meaningfully different from putting a toll booth on every road?
The internet is a public service.

See, you've bought the techbro koolaid without realizing it-- "information wants to be free."

Information is not free. That's why the current system-- all the money going to techbros and other middlemen-- is destroying journalism, and retail, and eventually publishing. I like the hobbyist internet, I've been part of it for 30 years, but there's only so much content you're gonna get for free. Producing good stuff is a full time job.

If you want information distribution to be a public utility, like the mail, I'm all for it. If you want free information, all you get is Geocities forever.

[zompist]

I agree with most of your post, zompist, but this part needs qualification:

Percentage without health insurance in the US-- 1940: 80%. 1960: 30%. 2024: 8%.

From what I've heard, for a long time, effectively no one in the US had health insurance, because the supposed health insurance companies were actually fraudulent enterprises that fraudulently claimed to sell health insurance policies, but, when people made claims under those health insurance policies, came up with reasons not to pay anything.

Let's not exaggerate. US companies began providing health insurance after WWII, as a way of attracting workers. You don't attract workers by providing fraud. Like a lot of things, the system worked pretty well for decades.

At some point the profit maximizers came in, probably from those dens of iniquity, business schools. They saw claims as bad, so they tried to reduce them. This wasn't a huge problem in 1975; it was a huge problem by 2005. Obama's ACA did a lot to crack down on these abuses-- it wasn't just extending coverage.

[rotting bones]

See, you've bought the techbro koolaid without realizing it-- "information wants to be free."

Information is not free. That's why the current system-- all the money going to techbros and other middlemen-- is destroying journalism, and retail, and eventually publishing. I like the hobbyist internet, I've been part of it for 30 years, but there's only so much content you're gonna get for free. Producing good stuff is a full time job.

If you want information distribution to be a public utility, like the mail, I'm all for it. If you want free information, all you get is Geocities forever.

If information is not free, how can you possibly get an educated electorate? I learned almost everything I know for free on the internet, usually places like Project Gutenberg. If information is not free, should public libraries be shut down too? Should the system in the US, where people can't find out the details of the laws they can be punished for breaking, be expanded?

Journalism is shutting down because people must work to eat. Despite the fact that many people are passionate about journalism, they are not free to follow their passion. This was true even in the heyday of print journalism, when their bosses could tell journalists what to publish. Journalists should be supported for their work, free from external pressures. They can build their reputation for integrity on a free public forum, whether online or offline.

I have mentioned the details of the system I'm arguing for many times, so I won't repeat it here.

[zompist]

See, you've bought the techbro koolaid without realizing it-- "information wants to be free."

Information is not free. That's why the current system-- all the money going to techbros and other middlemen-- is destroying journalism, and retail, and eventually publishing. I like the hobbyist internet, I've been part of it for 30 years, but there's only so much content you're gonna get for free. Producing good stuff is a full time job.

If you want information distribution to be a public utility, like the mail, I'm all for it. If you want free information, all you get is Geocities forever.

If information is not free, how can you possibly get an educated electorate? I learned almost everything I know for free on the internet, usually places like Project Gutenberg. If information is not free, should public libraries be shut down too?

I.e. you learned from free sources that piggybacked on paid sources. All those books on Gutenberg were written and published by people who were paid for the work. Public libraries bought their books legally. Even Wikipedia has a policy where facts have to be attributed to paid sources. (I mean, an editor can cite an AI-written content farm, but someone else can and should object.)

Anyway, please retire the straw men. Did I say that libraries shouldn't exist? No, so don't make that shit up.

I have mentioned the details of the system I'm arguing for many times, so I won't repeat it here.

Good, don't be a crank and judge everyone by whether they support your untested utopia or not.

Note, you're objecting to my untested utopia, apparently on the grounds that paying artists instead of techbro middlemen is apparently bad. Maybe spend less time worrying that some internet guy's alternate-world system might commit the crime of letting artists make a living.

[rotting bones]

I.e. you learned from free sources that piggybacked on paid sources. All those books on Gutenberg were written and published by people who were paid for the work. Public libraries bought their books legally. Even Wikipedia has a policy where facts have to be attributed to paid sources. (I mean, an editor can cite an AI-written content farm, but someone will object.)

No one is arguing that authors should starve. The argument is that the poor shouldn't be charged for wanting to know basic facts. The community should be built up by supporting authors from public funds.

Anyway, please retire the straw men. Did I say that libraries shouldn't exist? No, so don't make that shit up.

Ok, so the internet can be free, and information can be free.

What are you arguing for, then? That there should be invisible microtransactions on some websites?

[zompist]

What are you arguing for, then? That there should be invisible microtransactions on some websites?

Do you know how the Internet operates? We already have that. The money goes from advertisers and investors into techbro pockets.

[rotting bones]

What are you arguing for, then? That there should be invisible microtransactions on some websites?

Do you know how the Internet operates? We already have that. The money goes from advertisers and investors into techbro pockets.

Good side: The money is paid by the wealthy.
Bad sides: The incentives of the information providers are distorted, etc, etc, etc.

Solution: Provide the support from a disinterested public fund as long as there is demand for it.

[zompist]

What are you arguing for, then? That there should be invisible microtransactions on some websites?

Do you know how the Internet operates? We already have that. The money goes from advertisers and investors into techbro pockets.

Good side: The money is paid by the wealthy.
Bad sides: The incentives of the information providers are distorted, etc, etc, etc.

Solution: Provide the support from a disinterested public fund as long as there is demand for it.

We've talked about your proposals before and I've made objections you never answered. But what does it matter? You have an untested utopia; so do I. I happen to prefer mine, but it's pointless arguing about how utopian either is, when the real problem is how untested both are.

(Though your point about the current system, "The money is paid by the wealthy", is interesting. You list it as a good side, but I'd argue it's not. It means the wealthy are the only stakeholders, which means it's designed for them and any benefits it provides the rest of us can be taken away at any time. Some things should be free, no question. But being free also distorts things: people tend not to care for things they get for free.)

[rotting bones]

We've talked about your proposals before and I've made objections you never answered. But what does it matter? You have an untested utopia; so do I. I happen to prefer mine, but it's pointless arguing about how utopian either is, when the real problem is how untested both are.

I remember that somewhat differently.

I'm basing it on the economic theories of Paul Cockshott's Classical Econophysics and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's political theories. Their theories are derived from papers based on empirical evidence.

Not that anything is definitive. There will be fatal problems in any system at this scale.

It means the wealthy are the only stakeholders, which means it's designed for them and any benefits it provides the rest of us can be taken away at any time.

I mentioned the distorted incentives separately. Again, I don't understand how you can get an informed electorate if the relevant information isn't free. Many people simply don't have the money to spare. It might be difficult to conceptualize how hard some people have it. Others might be afraid of spending too much, and isolate themselves.

I'm shocked. These sound like ultra-capitalist arguments, not even market socialist.

But being free also distorts things: people tend not to care for things they get for free.

If the microtransactions are invisible, does this still apply?

If you want mind games, let the free status expire after a while. FOMO.

[zompist]

I mentioned the distorted incentives separately. Again, I don't understand how you can get an informed electorate if the relevant information isn't free. Many people simply don't have the money to spare.

I don't understand what this objection is supposed to be. Do recipes, songs, conlangs, and video game reviews have to be free in order to have an informed electorate?

There are two sources of information that should be readily available, but cost money to produce: journalism and scientific papers. The current system is to fund these via rich men and advertisers, and universities in the case of the papers; and the current hot plan is to write them with spicy autocomplete. Both the journalism and the papers are gated with subscription fees as well-- just enough to add friction for the public but not enough to make users into stakeholders. Journal publishers manage somehow to make authors pay when an article is published.

My proposal is to pay the journalists and scientists instead. Why it raises your hackles to pay workers for their work, I don't really get; it sure isn't any kind of leftism. Of course, quite a few people in the real world are attempting to form publishing co-operatives for these groups, but there's a lot of inertia. The one good thing about capitalist greed is that eventually it provokes communities to create alternatives.

People have to pay for Internet access today. But as a data point, Nigeria has 218 million cell phones, in a population of 233 million. (The discrepancy is larger than it looks, as some people have multiple phones.) Nigerians are more likely to have a cell phone than access to a water source.

It does feel like you're making up fake gotchas. Did I say somewhere that poor people should be denied internet access, that no one can provide a website for free, or that the government shouldn't provide help with access costs? I did not. (I already said I was designing this for Almea, so you'll see the full plan eventually; I didn't give all the details.)

But being free also distorts things: people tend not to care for things they get for free.

If the microtransactions are invisible, does this still apply?

Getting people to care about public goods is a difficult problem. It should concern you deeply, since socialist systems greatly exacerbate the problem.

[Raphael]

Posting this here rather than in the "What are you reading [etc.]"-thread, because it might be related to the current ongoing discussion here:

I just finished Marc Levinson's An Extraordinary Time: The End of the Postwar Boom and the Return of the Ordinary Economy, which is an attempt at an economic history of the second half of the 20th century across the world's richer countries - the postwar boom, the end of that boom, and the aftermath of that end.

I'd say the book might, on the whole, be somewhat more politically to the Right, or to the Center, or at least less left-leaning, than the books on economic matters that I usually read, but not by much. For instance, Levinson's stance on Thatcher and Reagan seems to be something like "They did some good, but not nearly as much as their fans claim, and they also caused a lot of harm," which is still a good deal nicer than how I would put it.

Levinson's main idea seems to be that the postwar boom was caused by a very specific combination of circumstances, which simply couldn't last, and that therefore, attempts to extent or revive the boom were always doomed. More generally, he seems to argue that economic booms simply happen when they happen, and no one is able to cause them to happen, or to extent them when they happen.

The chapters on "Socialism's Last Stand" in 1980s France and Spain, and on the Reagan years in the USA, taken together, seem to assert that out of two very different approaches to economic policy, neither was able to deliver on its promises. In that context, Levinson describes the nationalizations in France during the first years of Mitterand's first term as President as a complete failure and disaster, which is worrying.

I like one quote from the part describing how Mitterand got himself elected President in the first place: "Despite his long history in French politics, he was able to establish himself as a maverick during the 1981 election campaign, announcing his opposition to capital punishment and refusing to rule out a role in his government for the Communists, who typically won 15 to 20 percent of the vote. The electorate, which overwhelmingly supported capital punishment and distrusted the Communists, was charmed."

One piece of data that I haven't seen in any more decidedly left-wing sources might partly explain the political shift to the Right in many places during the 1970s and 1980s: Levinson claims that during the decades leading up to that point, the share of the electorate who had to pay substantial parts of their income in taxes rose from "pretty small" to "quite a lot," partly because of rising state expenditures, partly because inflation moved more and more people into higher and higher tax brackets. Interesting, and a plausible explanation why people might have gotten into a tax rebellion mood.

[keenir]

I.e. you learned from free sources that piggybacked on paid sources. All those books on Gutenberg were written and published by people who were paid for the work. Public libraries bought their books legally. Even Wikipedia has a policy where facts have to be attributed to paid sources. (I mean, an editor can cite an AI-written content farm, but someone will object.)

No one is arguing that authors should starve. The argument is that the poor shouldn't be charged for wanting to know basic facts. The community should be built up by supporting authors from public funds.

A lot of people don't even like paying their regular taxes, and you're suggesting adding more taxes to pay for this? That ain't gonna go over well.

Anyway, please retire the straw men. Did I say that libraries shouldn't exist? No, so don't make that shit up.

Ok, so the internet can be free, and information can be free.

You mention both the internet and libraries as proof that information can and should be free...even public libraries have at least one hurdle you haven't considered: access. In order to have information be free to everyone in an electorate, should transportation also be free? Should libraries be open 24/7 so work hours don't limit access?

[zompist]

You mention both the internet and libraries as proof that information can and should be free...even public libraries have at least one hurdle you haven't considered: access. In order to have information be free to everyone in an electorate, should transportation also be free? Should libraries be open 24/7 so work hours don't limit access?

Is this supposed to be some sort of reductio ad absurdum? "Omigod, these commies think people should be able to read books! I'll show them, I'll ask if they should be able to do that at 3 a.m!!1!"

In my town-- maybe not yours?-- the library is open in the evening, and they let you take books out. So even if you hold a job (!) you can read books at 3 a.m. That noted commie Benjamin Franklin started a public library, with the same shocking practice, in 1790. Noted commie Andrew Carnegie helped build or fund 2,500 public libraries.

If you're actually serious about free public transit: like so many things, we could do it if we wanted to. Luxembourg does. So doesTalinn, Estonia, and a bunch of other cities. Buses are free in Kansas City MO.

The problem with funding public transit in the US is that people have the idea that it should pay for itself-- but the same people think that infrastructure for cars should just be provided for free to car owners. (Can't say the same of trucks, which actually pay a road use tax.)

[bradrn]

The problem with funding public transit in the US is that people have the idea that it should pay for itself-- but the same people think that infrastructure for cars should just be provided for free to car owners. (Can't say the same of trucks, which actually pay a road use tax.)

Wait, do toll roads not exist in the US?

(Not that a road use tax isn’t a good idea, mind you.)

[zompist]

Wait, do toll roads not exist in the US?

(Not that a road use tax isn’t a good idea, mind you.)

They do, but relatively rarely. The vast majority of the interstate system is free (and apparently most of the toll roads that exist were older than the interstates, and just incorporated into the system).

[bradrn]

Wait, do toll roads not exist in the US?

(Not that a road use tax isn’t a good idea, mind you.)

They do, but relatively rarely. The vast majority of the interstate system is free (and apparently most of the toll roads that exist were older than the interstates, and just incorporated into the system).

Ah. That sounds similar to here, where the major highways between cities are untolled.

On the other hand, you can generally expect most motorways within Sydney to be tolled in various ways (e.g. the Sydney Harbour Bridge has a one-way toll). I think Melbourne and Brisbane are similar. Looking up the other cities, I was surprised to see that none of them have any toll roads, although most of them are too small to have any major motorways in the first place.