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Thread: Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy

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    Default Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy

    I recently read an article that you'd never guess was called "Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy." You can check out the full thing here: http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=3832. Since this is the internet nobody wants to read that whole thing, so I'll briefly state the points and summarize their meaning and see what people think.


    1. Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free.

    Explanation: No he's not talking about wanting to own slaves as he firmly believes everyone should be equal under the law. He is instead talking about people's "income and material wealth." Free people will earn different amounts of money from one another, and attempts to equalize everyone only hurts everyone and takes away freedom.


    2. What belongs to you, you tend to take care of; what belongs to no one or everyone, tends to fall into disrepair. (The last comma wasn't in the original, but it reads clearer when it's included).

    Explanation: He talks about Soviet Russia. "What was once the entrepreneur's factory became 'the people's factory,' and the people made do with goods so shoddy there was no market for them beyond the borders." This is a pretty intuitive concept that, in general, places/things someone privately owns are taken care of much better than something which nobody really owns (i.e. public properties).


    3. Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.

    Explanation: He speaks against policies that make a few people feel good now at the expense of hurting many tomorrow. These policies include almost everything that's made government bigger over the last century and policies of deficit spending. "We should remember that today is the tomorrow that yesterday's poor policymakers told us we could ignore." Quick-fixes should always be looked at with great skepticism.


    4. If you encourage something, you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it.

    Explanation: I cannot do this one justice with a summary as his presentation of it was near-perfect. Basically he's saying that if you tax the rich at a higher rate than everyone else, then you're discouraging people from becoming rich (at least in that country). Basically if you wanted to create wealth in a country by being an entrepreneur, would you want to do so where it was discouraged through higher taxes, or encouraged with lower taxes? People generally want to actually keep more of the money that they earn, so they go with lower taxes which is why Hong Kong has gone from extremely poor to ridiculously prosperous in a very short time (very technical terms I know, but the history speaks for itself if one must look it up).


    5. Nobody spends someone else's money as carefully as he spends his own.

    Explanation: When people spend their own money on themselves there is a direct and immediate benefit to the spender. People tend to be pretty careful with their own money, and tend to make good decisions much more often than poor ones. When people spend their own money on others, they are still likely to get a good deal, but they won't necessarily end up buying what the other person wants or needs.

    When you use someone else's money on yourself you'll likely get the right thing, but don't have a huge incentive to get the best deal. The last form of spending is exactly what government does, which is spend someone else's money on other people. This has the highest potential for waste, as the connection between the earner, the spender, and the recipient is the weakest.


    6. Government has nothing to give anybody except what it first takes from somebody, and a government that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you've got.

    Explanation: This is really self-explanatory. In his explanation he talks about how the "welfare state" is hardly more "than robbing Peter to pay Paul, after laundering and squandering much of Peter's wealth through an indifferent, costly bureaucracy. He goes on to explain that free and independent people don't look to the government for sustenance, but see it for its true intended purpose of protecting our liberties, confined to certain minimal functions that revolve around keeping the peace, maximizing everyone's opportunities and otherwise leaving us alone.


    7. Liberty makes all the difference in the world.

    Explanation: He says this is just another point to make the last six absolutely clear. Policymakers today too often give absolutely no thought to the general state of liberty when making new policies. If it feels good or sounds good they just do it. Liberty is absolutely the most important thing we need to protect, but things aren't often seen that way anymore.


    That pretty much sums it up. I highly suggest reading the linked essay for thorough explanations if you plan on arguing against any of the points since they all seem self-evident to me so I'm sure my explanations are lacking.
    Last edited by UnreasonablyReasonable; 01-16-2009 at 11:30 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable View Post
    2. What belongs to you, you tend to take care of; what belongs to no one or everyone, tends to fall into disrepair. (The last comma wasn't in the original, but it reads clearer when it's included).
    But is, in fact, incorrect.

    Also, I think the last part of your explanation of point one conflicts with all of point three.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    But is, in fact, incorrect.

    Also, I think the last part of your explanation of point one conflicts with all of point three.
    Could you explain how so to me? I can't see it.
    I hear the voices inside my head. They counsel me. They understand. They talk to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by djwolford View Post
    You know, when Tidus points out that you have failed at internetting, it's probably time to go ahead and off yourself.
    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pepsi View Post
    Could you explain how so to me? I can't see it.
    Seconded.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    But is, in fact, incorrect.

    Also, I think the last part of your explanation of point one conflicts with all of point three.
    Wait, nevermind I see it. I thought you said the explanation of point two at first. Sorry sir.
    I hear the voices inside my head. They counsel me. They understand. They talk to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by djwolford View Post
    You know, when Tidus points out that you have failed at internetting, it's probably time to go ahead and off yourself.
    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    pepsi reserves the right to tell cryptic to get out at any time

    it's in the CD charter

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pepsi View Post
    Wait, nevermind I see it. I thought you said the explanation of point two at first. Sorry sir.
    Could you please explain it to me then? I still don't see it.

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    Well, I'm no economist, so this isn't something I'll defend to my last breath, but it's something that seems true: attempts to equalise, as you put it, do inhibit freedom, but only in the short run. In the long and VERY long run, it creates an environment in which everyone has more freedom, instead of some people having lots of freedom and more people having very little or much less.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    Well, I'm no economist, so this isn't something I'll defend to my last breath, but it's something that seems true: attempts to equalise, as you put it, do inhibit freedom, but only in the short run. In the long and VERY long run, it creates an environment in which everyone has more freedom, instead of some people having lots of freedom and more people having very little or much less.
    How is that thought to work? How can everyone have more freedom than complete freedom (assuming you don't infringe on other people's freedoms), as is being advocated here?

    The attempts to equalize seem to work pretty well in the short-term, but they end up lowering everybody's well-being in the long run, and I'm not sure where the connection to more freedom fits in.

    Edit: I hope this post doesn't come off as rude/condescending as I didn't intend that. Upon reading it back again though I can see how it could be viewed that way.
    Last edited by UnreasonablyReasonable; 01-17-2009 at 12:53 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable View Post
    How is that thought to work? How can everyone have more freedom than complete freedom (assuming you don't infringe on other people's freedoms), as is being advocated here?

    The attempts to equalize seem to work pretty well in the short-term, but they end up lowering everybody's well-being in the long run, and I'm not sure where the connection to more freedom fits in.
    Who are you kidding? You don't have complete freedom in a capitalist society. There may or may not be any better system that gives us more freedom, but to say that anyone in any capitalist machine has complete freedom is a joke.

    EDIT: In the spirit of your last edit, it occurs to me I'm coming off really pretty hostile itt, when you are being nothing but good-spirited. My bad.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    Who are you kidding? You don't have complete freedom in a capitalist society. There may or may not be any better system that gives us more freedom, but to say that anyone in any capitalist machine has complete freedom is a joke.

    EDIT: In the spirit of your last edit, it occurs to me I'm coming off really pretty hostile itt, when you are being nothing but good-spirited. My bad.
    What do you mean by not having complete freedom in a capitalist society? What would be some examples of liberty that nobody would have? Or perhaps you mean only certain people are deprived of certain liberties, in which case who are they and what freedoms would they potentially be deprived of?

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    Quote Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable View Post
    What do you mean by not having complete freedom in a capitalist society? What would be some examples of liberty that nobody would have? Or perhaps you mean only certain people are deprived of certain liberties, in which case who are they and what freedoms would they potentially be deprived of?
    In order to answer you need to define complete freedom.
    Does America have complete freedom at the moment with the Patriot Act?
    Is complete freedom something taken directly from Mad Max?

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    I don't agree with you, Gwahir, but I will agree that point 3 seems to be tossed in because he is largely advocating as minimalist a government as possible.

    The basis of point 1 is that by attempting to equalize all incomes, you take away the freedom to earn more money than everyone else, as well as the freedom to earn less. In a system that is completely laissez-fare, incomes will be distributed more normally. Which side you agree with is really a fundamental personal belief and there's not really any discussion to be had between two people if one would prefer to be locked into the median and the other would like the chance to try his hand at making income above the median at the risk of falling below. I would guess that if the world were entirely rational, anyone falling below the median would support equalization and anyone falling above the median would support normalization.

    Point 3 addresses the core consideration of any decision anywhere and isn't limited just to government. It's simply a narrow-scope advocation of stakeholder management. I also agree with the author that a number of governments develop policy without a wide enough consideration for their stakeholders (businesses, of course, do this as well, but business are supposed to exit the market if they make bad decisions.)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Baltar View Post
    In order to answer you need to define complete freedom.
    Does America have complete freedom at the moment with the Patriot Act?
    Is complete freedom something taken directly from Mad Max?
    No, America does not have complete freedom at the moment with or without the patriot act (we'd certainly be freer without it). There are so many regulations right now, all of which (or at least most of which) are intended to do good, that impede freedoms. Even worse is that they often hurt more people than they help, and they are unseen victims. It's harder for news reporters to interview someone who decided not to start a business because they didn't have the resources to comply with some of the unnecessary regulations designed to protect consumers. So the point is that America certainly does not have complete freedom anywhere near where it used to, and with current ideologies I don't expect it to return anytime soon, especially since both democrats and republicans keep expanding the scope of government consistently regardless of any promises made.

    As far as Mad Max, I haven't seen the movie so I can't comment. My original post summed up what government would do in a society with complete freedom pretty well: "... see [government] for its true intended purpose of protecting our liberties, confined to certain minimal functions that revolve around keeping the peace, maximizing everyone's opportunities and otherwise leaving us alone."

    Basically people should be free to do what they want as long as they aren't harming others or stealing from them. So someone should be able to put whatever they want into their body, and do whatever else they'd like with it. When government tries to protect people from themselves (as in, protecting people from inflicting self-harm) then it's already too big and is outside of its original intended scope.

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