According to the Benedum outbuilding department of free advice; any % you claim or any number that comes off the top of your head is as any other % or number. Whose going to know the difference anyway as long as you can keep a straight face.
When Dr. Lester Thurow retires from MIT and takes over down at Rattlesnake sometime next year all of this will become very clear.
X
Max Sawicky wrote:
> >
> > Has anyone on the list debated libertarians? What kinds of arguments
> > should we expect to encounter from the other participants? What kinds of
> > arguments do libertarians have problems with. Any references to studies
> > articles or books would be helpful. Especially regarding privatization
> > or government intervention vs libertarian style free markets. I also
>
> My best short, quick answer is there are two basic vulnerabilities:
>
> one is that the L argument against government is diseconomical; most
> anything government abandons can and will be done in some fashion by the
> private sector, but the outcome will often be unsatisfactory. This goes to
> the idea of public goods in economics (see any textbook on public finance).
>
> two is an argument usefully recapitulated in Bruce Ackerman's Stakeholder
> Society. There is no meaningful freedom in a context of gross inequality.
> the whole bit about the poor and the rich having the same right to sleep
> under bridges. Every runner doesn't begin at the same starting line.
>
> I've debated Cato types quite often but on relatively wonky policy matters.
> We typically don't get much into first principles. I also work on
> privatization, but that's also a bit of a diversion, since true libertarians
> are not much taken with contracting out and all the many other halfway
> houses between government and totally private (i.e., vouchers, franchising,
> public enterprises, regulated utilities, etc.). A good general piece on
> privatization is Paul Starr's report for EPI (http://epinet.org). A good
> book along the same lines is Robert Kuttner's Everything For Sale.
>
> The L's used to enjoy contrasting the socialist countries lurch away from
> central planning versus the U.S., but the bloom is clearly off this rose,
> particularly in Russia. Less spectacular but more relevant to the U.S. is
> the panoply of problems in public enterprise privatization in the U.K.
> Another common contrast re: the U.S. and Europe hinges on their higher
> unemployment rates, about which "Beware the U.S. Model," an EPI book, is
> useful rebuttal material.
>
> mbs
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