Frank wrote on Mar 19
th, 2024 at 10:50am:
thegreatdivide wrote on Mar 19
th, 2024 at 9:12am:
Frank wrote on Mar 18
th, 2024 at 10:58am:
thegreatdivide wrote on Mar 18
th, 2024 at 9:58am:
Frank wrote on Mar 16
th, 2024 at 9:15am:
thegreatdivide wrote on Mar 16
th, 2024 at 7:35am:
Frank wrote on Mar 15
th, 2024 at 3:13pm:
So who decides what the community needs, if not the invisible hand?
TGD: Er...politicians (whether elected, or in a consensus meritocracy).
Quote:How do you get consensus (agreement with) if not by some election, ie SHOWING, EXPRESSING agreement with?
The important thing - to bring you back on topic - is to acknowledge that politicians decide what the community needs, not the invisible hand.
...whether the community expresses it by a 50% + 1 vote, as in a democracy, or by consensus of chosen officials, as in China.
Huge difference.
Yes, but that is beside the point, namely:
Q: "who decides what the community needs, if not the invisible hand?"
A: politicians intervening in the 'invisible hand'.
It matters hugely whether the politicians have the mandate - not just the power - or not to make decisions for everyone.
Why?
Pollies - whether by election or consensus -
must intervene in the self-interested 'invisible hand', for the sake of the wider public.
And a consensus based on the proposition that shared prosperity is more important than the outcomes from unbridled competition alone (via 'the invisible hand'), is obviously better for everyone.
Competition is not unabridged anywhere except p pieces like Haiti.
Competition is unbridled in pure 'invisible hand' markets, by definition (the outcome of all the self-interested players in the market)
Such markets need intervention by policicans - to the degree determined by the pollies.
Quote:Common prosperity is a slogan with little content.
No, it means shared prosperity, ie no systemic unemployment and entrenched poverty.
Quote: Welfare safety net is a better, more meaningful expression. Australia and Western Europe already has it to a much greater degree than China.
google
"People in households relying on JobSeeker were $269 per week below the poverty line, and people in households relying on parenting payment were $246 per week below the poverty line.22 Mar 2023Hence NOT shared prosperity in Oz (and you are blind to the people sleeping in city streets).
Quote:Mandate matters because a society, a country is about its people, not about its government. The people's consent to be governed is the mandate, reviewed periodically.
Government is necessary to avoid chaos ...and hopefully, to engender shared prosperity. In productive societies poverty is a political choice, not an economic law.
Quote:Niall Ferguson is a deluded 'natural individual rights' ideologue.