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The government produces goods which it sells (either full or limited-but-exclusive-nationalization-of-specific industries), or hyperinflation all day everyday, or do what some ancient civilizations did and require 'taxation' in the form of labortime (levies). The last one generally isn't a good idea today, considering the degree of specialisation in modern industrial economies.
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Sep 22, 2016 14:40
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Infinite Karma posted:Why does nationalization of industries have to be "exclusive" for governments to participate? The government could manufacture anything from generic drugs, to housing, to aluminum cans, and sell them at profitable rates, without preventing private companies from doing the same thing. Sure, most governments aren't set up with the correct bureaucracies to have for-profit arms, but isn't that a solvable problem?
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Sep 23, 2016 05:50
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Really though a lot of these schemes, in fact all of them short of full communism, are functionally equivalent to a government running on either a flat tax (inflation) or sales tax (limited-nationalization). Both are really regressive because they're going to hit the poor hardest - simply staying alive has a fixed cost to it, and basic amenities are harder to cut back on than luxuries (a smartphone + internet access is essentially mandatory for getting a job in developed countries), ie- money is a good with marginal utility. Since government is necessary so long as capitalism cannot deal with the problem of the commons (it can't and never will), if we're asking people to sacrifice for the common good, then it's only fair that we ask for a proportional sacrifice of utility from each person. Ergo, short of full communism, progressive income taxation is the better outcome here. tl;dr Shut your ugly loving mouth and loving pay your taxes. rear end in a top hat. rudatron fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Sep 23, 2016 |
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Sep 23, 2016 17:59
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Lenders will compensate by rising interest rates under an inflation-based scheme, and an expansion of the money supply is an effective 'tax' against all existing currency holders by whoever is printing the money - it is a transfer of value. Similarly, dividends from securities is the return from an investment of capital into a company, at the time of the stock offering, the majority of which is probably going to end up being reinvested into other stocks. Spending that money on 'the commons', whatever that happens, isn't going to provide a return, so the 'government as massive shareholder' is going to dwindle in wealth over time. To compensate for that, the amount you 'skim' from the top is going to have to be much, much larger than the similar unburdened private sector, ergo you will be out-competed. If we compare that to the situation today, it means that the running of the government services is compensated by consumers of specific products - like I said, it's effectively a sales tax. I'm making no assumption of private companies being magically more efficient than government projects, I'm not stupid enough to be a free-marketeer. Though economies of scale and network effects may mean that, functionally, you wouldn't have to ever implement that exclusivity, but in the fantastic world of the frictionless sphere in a perfect vacuum, such a legal restriction would have to apply. It might work if you simply made all network-based services government-owned only, so water + sewage, postage, electricity, telecom, public/mass transit, maybe even all logistics companies if we're being generous. That would leave all the individual manufacturing, retail, consulting as having to be private. Primary production is 50/50, it being strongly location dependents means you can get away with nationalization without having to worry about competition, but you're also competing with goods on the world market, which is currently why countries like Venezuela are in trouble, since the fall in oil prices. rudatron fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Sep 24, 2016 |
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Sep 24, 2016 08:57
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