worrywort, on 18 June 2012 - 03:44 AM, said:
The voting with your dollar argument doesn't sway me. People "vote" against their best interests all the time, in the booth and with their money. Nickelback have a multi-platinum album, Benny Hinn is a multi-millionaire faith healer, and Strom Thurmond existed. BTW, maybe Nickelback would still be a success without Clear Channel, but they certainly wouldn't have the advantage of total radio dominance that propelled them there through sheer repetition. The radio industry should be to the record industry what the free press is to the government, but instead it's their Pravda. Trust-busting and collusion-deterring are very much in the interest of the people, and capitalism requires that non-commercial referee. Laissez-faire capitalism ISN'T capitalism, by the nature of the beast.
As far as the USPS goes, it's dirt cheap, picks up and delivers to the vast majority of households (and in fact USPS has contracts with FedEX and UPS because they have much harder times delivering in rural areas, and they absolutely will not deliver to PO Boxes at all -- I think the last figure I read was that USPS handles ~30% of their packages at some point their delivery). I'm not suggesting it's perfect, or that it will or should last forever, but I certainly prefer it -- warts and all -- to its private counterparts, since its bottom line isn't merely profit, and I'd ultimately rather see it improved than scrapped.
A free press (and by extension media) enforced by law is a grotesque contradiction in terms. A state regulated media - how is that NOT a stage controlled media? You make it sound
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Trust-busting and collusion-deterring are very much in the interest of the people, and capitalism requires that non-commercial referee.
like the government has no skin in the game of radio, like they're just this wonderful unbiased referee.
Re USPS. There is a myth that there are certain things that only the government can do, because no one in the private sector can or would want to do it. The USPS is one of those myths. The idea that a private company could not do what the USPS does is a claim that requires some proof. Currently yes, this is the case, but that is because the government has made it illegal to compete (price-wise) with the post office. The thing is, a business has to answer to customers, investors and if they do not provide the product that customers want and bring a return to investors, competition will come along and wipe it out. The government doesn't have to worry about this. There is no relationship between product and payment, so the government doesn't need to worry about getting paid. It doesn't have to worry about competition, because it has banned it. MONOPOLY is the word for that. The government doesn't need to impress investors to raise cash, all they have to do is raise taxes "for the public interest" and/or print money (which erodes the value of the money you have in your pocket).
This analogy is from Professor Murray Rothbard: If the government had a monopoly on shoe manufacture and sale, and had been providing shoes for everyone from tax revenues, then anyone who proposed that shoe production be privatized would get the same reaction as the idea of privatizing the post office.
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"How could you? You are opposed to the public, to the poor people wearing shoes! And who would supply shoes to the public if the government got out of the business? How many shows would be available in each city and town? How would the shoe firm be capitalized? What material would they use? What would be the pricing arrangements? Wouldn't regulation of the shoe industry be needed to see to it the product is sound? And who would supply the poor with shoes?"
The governments mythology is so predominant, most people really do believe that if the government has been providing a monopolized service no one else could or would want to do it, unless they charged an exhorbitant price.
You’ve never heard of the Silanda? … It’s the ship that made the Warren of Telas run in less than 12 parsecs.