Re: A few points for Lat...

Come on, man, this is the most basic and essential economic problem: limited resources vs. ever-increasing demand.

Limited, but not so limited that they cannot meet the demand. Iron Marxist is right in saying that we already produce enough to give a good quality of life to everyone on the planet. In this context, I see no need for a wealth cap, no matter where it is set.

Here is the dilemma: how can the wealthy continue to usurp more and more resources in a world where those resources are needed by more and more people (through sheer population growth alone)?

Because, again, there are enough resources for the whole of the population of the world, so there is no need for a wealth cap to redistribute whatever tops it. And we both are probably going to witness peak population in our lifetimes. Every country on earth has, today, a declining trend in population growth. Some countries are going to start to shrink this decade. Given that peak population, because of that, is likely to never hit 10 billion, we have enough resources for every human that ever will be. Today.

And I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the 'technology will extend resources indefinitely' argument. It's a complete and transparently obvious cop-out. I know you haven't made this argument; I'm just telling you ahead of time before you go there.

As you know, I am also a supporter of that argument, but it doesn't belong here. We are talking about the here and now and a short term future, not about our grandchildren.

I have yet to see any countries with big gov'ts collapse within my lifetime without some sustained and deliberate effort from without.

The Shah's Iran.

And even North Korea. Yes, she is under an American embargo. But so are Cuba and Syria and they both do much better than North Korea does - probably because they know they have to play the game by the rules, something the Kim dynasty has never been fond of doing.

Maybe not, but they're certainly more open to being taken over by dictators and crackpots who often destabilize not only their country but the entire region.

You are probably talking about development, not government size. Development stabilizes countries of all gov't sizes. AND regime types. Nominally Communist China and Vietnam are more stable now they're growing rich than 30 or 40 years ago when they weren't; but so is uber-kapitalist Singapore. So are nearly all of Latin America (of which only Cuba was Communist for any significant length of time) and poor Asia. So is most of Africa too. I dare not mention the Middle East because there are many confounding factors there, but I suspect their fast economic development also has made them internally resilient to change from within (apart from any other of the dozens hypotheses advanced).

You are also probably confusing "big" and "small" with "weak" and "strong". Singapore has a very small but very strong government. India and most of the petro-states (including Venezuela) tend to have a big but weak government. Most of Europe and the small Gulf states are both big and strong. The only examples I can think of that have both small and weak government are all from Latin America. The big-to-small continuum refers to how much of the country's GDP comes from the government or closely linked concepts, like how much of the GNI is returned as tax, or how much of the workforce are gov't employees or retirees. It says nothing about how that size is used, not used, or misused and abused. The strong-to-small continuum is how immune a government is against overthrowing or usurpation of functions. For most of its history, the country formerly known as Zaire had a very big government, yet also a very weak one - but for the sounds of it, you seem to think it had a small government?

OK, there is in principle nothing inherently "wrong" that a government is big. But big governments have a tendency to spend themselves out of trouble (impoverishing the population through inflation), use their size in clientelistic ways and stifle innovation and competitiveness (because they make more attractive a gov't job than other jobs). These tendencies need to be controlled. Small governments rarely have the power to do any of these, and even the incentives to try are weaker.

People bitch about big gov't intruding in their lives, but wait until they have to live like the third world. You can't have it both ways.

Like Switzerland, Singapore or Hong Kong?

Those are small governments. Ivory Coast is big but weak; not small.

But gov'ts should collect taxes, because, while it's nice that DWB works so well, let's not forget that people who are inclined to work for a charity already have a high probability of being moral individuals who want that NPO to work effectively.

That wasn't an argument against taxes. It was an argument against what taxes are used for. It makes no sense to use most of the taxed money for operative expense and little for the programs. We all would be better off if the IRS gave all the money to the different charities that already run what the government would want to do a program about.

people who are inclined to work for a charity already have a high probability of being moral individuals who want that NPO to work effectively. You cannot say that of people in general.

That argument would work better against big government.

If 80-90% (or even 70%) of the population volunteered for charity work, or if a similar percentage of those who could afford to do so contributed money to charities, I might have your faith in humanity's basic decency and agree that all these gov't rules and regs were unnecessary. But unfortunately, the great majority of people are selfish and greedy. If not forced to do so, they will not offer a helping hand to anyone but their own immediate circle of friends and family.

So, you have little faith in humanity, but you do have faith in lawmakers and bureaucrats? What are they, little green martians? BREAKING NEWS: They are selfish and greedy too!

Fascists were at least consistent in their mistrust of people (that is why they had relatively few qualms at killing) and mistrusted even each other - and also were willing to sacrifice themselves. But short of Fascism, all non-anarchist ideologies seem to mistrust a subset of humankind for perfectly valid reasons, yet trust another set blind to the fact that same reasons apply. Rich and poor are both selfish, greedy and petty; men and women are; every race are; every nationality are; every religion are - it's just that people tend to forgive their own and hate the Other, and, occasionally, make up whole ideologies on that.

No, I don't think government makes us worse - neither the governing nor the governed. I just think it gives chances for the governing to use their own bad qualities more than they would outside it.

Oh, by the way, neither do I think that the "starve the beast" method of small-government hawks is productive. It's super easy for any politician to lower taxes. But I will believe them when they use their pens in cutting expenditure - most choose, cowardly, to just run a bigger deficit and fuck tomorrow or to inflate so as to lower the debt in real terms. I think cutting expenditure should thus always go first than lower taxes - as much as I hate taxes.