IdleRich
IdleRich
Good word but should be ideologgorrhea no? If you're gonna nick it might as well get it right.Quote:
"Originally Posted by nomadologist
ideologgorhea"
"Stealing this at some point!"
Good word but should be ideologgorrhea no? If you're gonna nick it might as well get it right.Quote:
"Originally Posted by nomadologist
ideologgorhea"
"Stealing this at some point!"
What you are ignoring here (and I'm surprised given your interest in economics) is the fact that, while anyone can technically/legally run for office in the U.S., only a privileged elite can afford to do so, and within that elite, there is a subset of the even-more-elite who both have the wealth necessary to fund a political career AND the sort of social clout, historical political ties, and association with certain key institutions (ivy league schools, socialite circles and clubs, etc.) that are necessary to make running for any sort of office on the state or national level worth the money you'd spend doing it. Of course, this same superelite tends to be one-in-the-same thing as the "ruling class" elite that owns all of our major industries. These are the people the stock market sets its financial watch to.
There is no "ceteris paribus" when you talk about the people who run for office in the U.S. For every Rudy Giuliani, you have 15 Bloombergs. The "selectorate" isn't really "selecting" their candidates, they're just choosing among the superelites who bothered running that term.
Two questions from an economics n00b:
1) in what way are we measuring/defining 'efficiency', in the sense it's used here?
2) what's an 'anti-market' when it's at home?
Good word but should be ideologgorrhea no? If you're gonna nick it might as well get it right.
D'oh."No, it's actually "ideologorrhea"."
Tell it to Bueno de Mesquita -- my point was simply that there are less people ("idiots") in a government than in "the market", i.e. there is more chance that the market will be able to arrive at better solutions more readily because although both are populated with idiots, there's more of them in the market. If you want to get the Complete Works, then you need a lot of monkeys, surely. Ok?
D'oh.
In fact, should probably "ideologorrhoea"
Good word but should be ideologgorrhea no? If you're gonna nick it might as well get it right.
That may have been your point, but it's not exactly what you said.
And no, I don't think there are fewer idiots in government than there are in the market (per volume). Quite the opposite. I think some of the stupidest people I've ever met are members of the superelite from which our candidates spring fully formed.
I don't think the math here makes any sense--because there are fewer people in government that means there must be fewer idiots in gov than in the general population. In terms of literal number, yes, but giving a few idiots that much power ends up having far more of an effect on the population at large than the powerless idiots are able to have.
My first impression on reading about this was actually more along the lines of the State becoming more and more like just another corporation on the global market. Sovereign wealth funds as really just a further step down the complete hegemony of global corporate capitalism, rather than move in a different direction. Now governments are only another large corporation among many.i'd be interested in vimothy's take on sovereign wealth funds, and the stake that such funds have recently acquired in distressed wall street banks (the heights of capitalism)
could it be that western-style capitalism is being hi-jacked (eclipsed) by the return of the State, in particular the Chinese State?
I also believe that the average person isn't an idiot, and given the opportunity to vote for someone whose policy decisions were intelligent and not already-bought by special interest groups they would do so.
Idiot or not, I think it's probably fair to say that the average person is probably spectacularly misinformed about a lot of things - surely you'd agree on this? It's certainly the case over here and I can't see it being much better in the US.
My first impression on reading about this was actually more along the lines of the State becoming more and more like just another corporation on the global market. Sovereign wealth funds as really just a further step down the complete hegemony of global corporate capitalism, rather than move in a different direction. Now governments are only another large corporation among many.
But that's only my rather uninformed first take on it. Worth starting a thread on, i think.
The point is that America, the most "neo liberal" of all the advanced capitalist societies, is hell-bent on self-destruction. Hopelessly corrupt and without any inkling of the common good . . . . Per Hegel, what this country needs is an Enlightened State