killermike wrote:
WhatTheFreak wrote:
How do you figure that either has been "quite successful"? Relative to what? At what cost? What hard evidence do you have?
Relative to health and education outcomes if we didn't have those programs in place. There is no "hard evidence" that can lead to subjective assessment like "This has been successful." But what we do have are higher levels of education and healthcare access than would otherwise exist if both were completely private.
In other words, you are just pulling this judgment out of thin air.
You have never seriously considered what "would otherwise exist" if these were private. You just assume the State provision of these things leads to better outcomes. You have never asked the question "If people could opt out of a paying the comparable amount of taxes and not send their children to public school or not use medicare, would these programs likely go bankrupt?"
If the choice to opt out of these State run social programs would eventually make them disappear, then it is clear they do not provide a better service than the private option. By definition, if you are forced to buy something, it is impossible to compare the true value of that product to another product that you buy voluntarily. Furthermore, chances are that the product you are forced to buy is inferior to the product that you would only buy through free choice, since the "forced product" has no incentive to retain it's quality or value. Case in point; public school.
So, you are assuming the State provided goods are superior because you have never taken the 2 minutes required to think through the incentive structure. And since the State provided good is already forced into the marketplace (by the threat of violence for anyone who doesn't pay their taxes), there is no way to fully account for how awful it is compared to the private alternative that would exist through voluntary exchange alone, including the charity organizations that would exist in the absence of the giant leech of State sucking us dry.
Wouldn't it be awesome if people saw the poor children who need education, or the poor seniors who need health care, and they decided to donate their own time and money, and urge others more wealthy than them to do the same? Instead, we have this system where most charitable urges get transformed into advocating for slimy politicians, and expanded State power, to take care of people that we are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves. We could give this money straight to poor people ourselves, and leave the giant leech of State out of it altogether. But people like power instead of actual virtue. So the State grows and squeezes out all freedom. Yay democracy!