The World Is Ending
Michael Moore and I agree, sort of. In response to a question from a libertarian student, he admits that corporatism is the problem, not capitalism.
Of course, his sensibility doesn’t last long. He quickly calls for pay restrictions and “democracy” in the workplace and can’t quite wrap his mind around the idea that big government is the problem. And, as usual, he looks at the past through rose-tinted glasses. He also doesn’t understand the concept of opportunity cost: the reason Europeans don’t mind big government is because they see the visible benefits of it—“free” healthcare and college—and miss the invisible costs—the full employment and booming economies they would otherwise have. What they riot over are the effects of big government. And when government is so big, riots and political protest are the only way to change things.
Still. Baby steps. Baby steps.
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having been to europe many times, and actually been in france and portugal during one of their infamous “riots” as you so candidly put it, i will say this. yes, they were protesting (a more accurate word) over what they felt were inequalities, usually in the workplace, and the formula to get the government’s attention… a peaceful protest; this is was civilized citizens do. after speaking with many of the people, they all appeared optimistic that their demands would be met, because.... they actually hold their government accountable for their actions (no matter which party is in power) and therefore hold the power in their government. the really problem with the government in our country, is not that it is too big or too small, but that the citizens it serves do not hold it accountable.
the biggest glaring example, are the lobbyist on the hill. lobbyist represent special interest groups, whose sole purpose is to influence government policy for their own interest. the fact that Americans, allow lobbying to take place in their government, is and indication that they are ok with a corrupt government. if you accept a corrupt government, then you are therefore responsible for the actions it takes.
similar to if you accept a broken health care system and are then screwed over by that same system. lol (i couldn’t resist)
Didn’t they torch hundreds of cars in Paris during those peaceful protests? From what I read, the kids were angry because they felt they were being discriminated against...something like the Watts riots.
I really don’t think the big problem is corporatism or capitalism. I think it’s fiat currency. That’s what allows the government to go on growing and growing, while our money (and consequently, or liberty) weakens.
the reason Europeans don’t mind big government is because they see the visible benefits of it—“free” healthcare and college—and miss the invisible costs—the full employment and booming economies they would otherwise have.
Not to get too shreiky about it, but do you really think that no one in Europe has realised that we pay taxes for our healthcare?
We have public healthcare in the UK becasue we deemed it something that we wanted the Government to look after - not becasue we ‘didn’t realise’ what we were doing.
Your posts are always pretty good Mike, but can you see how unbelievably arrogant this sounds?
I am not sure if he even knows what he says sometimes.
I think Mike might have some trouble seeing the factual realities.
I hate to burst your bubble, of course we in europe do see the visible benefits, and as someone else mentioned we are not blind to the much higher taxes we pay. That said, does it really matter that much to you if it’s a private company that takes (just an example figure) 10% of your income or the government?He also doesn’t understand the concept of opportunity cost: the reason Europeans don’t mind big government is because they see the visible benefits of it—“free” healthcare and college—and miss the invisible costs—the full employment and booming economies they would otherwise have.
And missing booming economy and full employment? Here in Denmark unemployment were in practice nil until the recession, a recession which by the way have hit Denmark a lot less harder than i.e. the US. And indeed the economy was booming big time, and todays “bad times” aren’t really as bad, and certainly nothing in comparison to the US’s.
The argument that some brings that big and strong government equals bad government is, to put it bluntly, ludicrous. But governments need to be held accountable, sadly too many politicians have lived in politics for too long, this is a global problem, not unique to any country. Unfortunately the US suffers greatly under this problem as they have a disproportionate amount of these people in power.
Yes MM makes some funny and/or silly blunders, but it’s a shame to hang solely on his blunders and totally miss the point he’s trying to bring across.
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A big part of Mikey’s problem, I think, is that he just doesn’t understand that the reason things were so good (relatively speaking) in the times he idealizes is largely due to the fact that the rest of the world had still to recover from WWII, or hadn’t been able to modernize yet. Kind of like how Britain was the world leader in industry in the mid-1800s, but by the time Germany started coming on-line, the UK was hampered by things like obsolete manufacturing capability. When the Japanese started rebuilding, they went with SOTA where we were often working with stuff from before the war.