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It is not relevant how much first-hand experience I have to know that free markets do not exist in Africa much at all. Those African nations don't have the money to pay their workers more money. You can raise the rates all you want, but raising rates on such a small monetary base wont do much. As such, there is so much more to economic freedom than tax rates. If you think tax rates alone are representative of the size of government, you are sorely mistaken. I suggest looking into the index of economic freedom here. You will notice that Africa is the lowest scoring region.How much first-hand experience do you have in third-world nations? The corruption is there because the governments are small enough to drown in a bathtub. When you pay policemen a mere pittance, how do you think they're going to find enough money to feed their families? When you pay low-level government functionaries a pittance, again, how do you think they're going to get the money to feed their families? And as these people slowly move up the ladder, they carry that tradition of corruption with them...and it spreads and perpetuates through the society as a whole.
If you want a nation with a low level of corruption, you MUST, repeat MUST pay your government workers well enough so that the naturally-more-honest ones won't be forced to engage in corruption just to feed their families. And that, sir, requires higher tax rates.
Yet they are still more economically free than the United States. According to the Freedom Index, Australia is the 3rd freest economy in the world, Switzerland the 5th, and Canada the 6th. The US is 10th.FYI, the economies of Australia, Switzerland, and Canada are quite regulated - try opening a business in any of them. What's different is that their governments are strong enough to ensure a level playing field, which enables the companies that function better to have a better chance to succeed.
It is not relevant how much first-hand experience I have to know that free markets do not exist in Africa much at all. Those African nations don't have the money to pay their workers more money. You can raise the rates all you want, but raising rates on such a small monetary base wont do much. As such, there is so much more to economic freedom than tax rates. If you think tax rates alone are representative of the size of government, you are sorely mistaken. I suggest looking into the index of economic freedom here. You will notice that Africa is the lowest scoring region.
Have you even looked into African tax rates? I did a quick google search, and found this wiki article. I noticed that the tax rates actually seemed relatively high in some African nations. Regardless, taxation alone cannot indicate the extent to which an economy is free.
Yet they are still more economically free than the United States. According to the Freedom Index, Australia is the 3rd freest economy in the world, Switzerland the 5th, and Canada the 6th. The US is 10th.
Compare Australia and the United States, it is apparent that Australia has significantly more rule of law, open markets, and limited government. The only place where Australia has less of an advantage is regulatory freedom, notably labor freedom and to a lesser extent business freedom. Yet even in that category its monetary system is closer to a free market.
It appears your argument is based on the assertion that wealthy countries are socialist and poor countries are free-market oriented. This assertion is not based in current reality, as the opposite is true. In addition, it is obvious by looking at history that companies that operated on free market principles generated far more wealth than those that did not. The United States was for a long time to most free-market oriented country in the world, and grew tremendously as a result. Your assertion is based on ideology with no basis in actual real-world realities.
Like I asked the other guy, how much first-hand experience do you have in third-world nations? If you go there, you find that in most (but not all) cases, business can do pretty much what they want because they own the government. The government is nowhere near powerful enough to enforce regulations throughout the nation, and often not even within the nation's capital. That's something else the small-government crowd doesn't get: a strong government is your ONLY - repeat, ONLY - protection against the vagaries of Big Business. When business screws you over big time, who do you turn to? The only thing you can turn to is to the government via the courts or the politicians. Even the press can't help you if the government isn't weak enough to hold Big Business to account for what it does wrong.
Yet they are still more economically free than the United States. According to the Freedom Index, Australia is the 3rd freest economy in the world, Switzerland the 5th, and Canada the 6th. The US is 10th.
One of the key tenants of libertarian ideology is the strength and importance of property rights. What kills the enforcement of property rights? Poorly designed laws and corruption. "Big Business" as you put it is able to do what they want there as much BECAUSE of the government as despite it. Also, there is a huge difference between a place poorly enforcing or having a poorly designed property rights legal frame work or labor rights and someone being low regulation. By low regulation, I am refering to barriers to free trade and barriers to entrepreneurial activity. Take Nigeria for example: The requirements to get the permits required to open a business cost FOUR TIMES the average income. They have a 10.6% trade tariff. They have "One of the world’s least efficient property registration systems makes acquiring and maintaining rights to real property difficult". This is what allows the businesses to have their way there. They have no competition from start ups and less from importation DUE TO their legal framework, not in spite of it. See.. you and I are completely at odds on what it means to be economically free. No one has every asserted that we wanted laissez fare capitalism. We want less impedance to free trade and less impedance to start and maintain businesses. Regulation when it allows for the appropriate and efficient maintenance of property rights is THE central tenant to the libertarian economic identity. And I again will ask.. how on earth are you going to install a more powerful government and pay its officials more when your country is >50% impoverished?
Their economic "freedom" is the result of "big" government which can protect workers and small businesses.
And since there has never been a truly "free market" economy, no corporation has ever operated on free market principle. Corporations work within the system they find themselves in, not some mythical system that has never existed.
One of the key tenants of libertarian ideology is the strength and importance of property rights. What kills the enforcement of property rights? Poorly designed laws and corruption. "Big Business" as you put it is able to do what they want there as much BECAUSE of the government as despite it. Also, there is a huge difference between a place poorly enforcing or having a poorly designed property rights legal frame work or labor rights and someone being low regulation. By low regulation, I am refering to barriers to free trade and barriers to entrepreneurial activity. Take Nigeria for example: The requirements to get the permits required to open a business cost FOUR TIMES the average income. They have a 10.6% trade tariff. They have "One of the world’s least efficient property registration systems makes acquiring and maintaining rights to real property difficult". This is what allows the businesses to have their way there. They have no competition from start ups and less from importation DUE TO their legal framework, not in spite of it. See.. you and I are completely at odds on what it means to be economically free. No one has every asserted that we wanted laissez fare capitalism. We want less impedance to free trade and less impedance to start and maintain businesses. Regulation when it allows for the appropriate and efficient maintenance of property rights is THE central tenant to the libertarian economic identity. And I again will ask.. how on earth are you going to install a more powerful government and pay its officials more when your country is >50% impoverished?
Whatever you may think, most people (not all, of course, but most) who work in government actually believe they are there to serve the people - they actually believe it is their duty. Police, teachers, firefighters, the military, and all those who work with them - most who work in these areas believe in things like duty and service...and even honor. These words MEAN something to them. Those in business, however, are not there to serve or protect you - they're there to make money, and those who believe that the profit motive somehow results in less corruption really have a lot to learn about people.
Corporations are the opposite of a free market and only exist because of the corruption of government.
Those that "Run" the government however work solely for wealth and power. They serve their corporate masters in all affairs.
Corporations are the opposite of a free market and only exist because of the corruption of government.
Which would require that George Washington worked solely for wealth and power. So too, must have Lincoln and Jefferson and Adams and Hamilton. And Teddy Roosevelt must really have had something secret up his sleeve when he took on the robber barons, when if he'd only been their friend, they would have bankrolled his reelection.
In other words, guy, just because someone has ambition does not mean that they are devoid of the desire to do what is best for the people. Read up on the Gracchi brothers of ancient Rome sometime. They were wildly popular with the plebians because they were doing that which made the lives of the plebians better. In order to do so, they had to be elected to positions of power - and in order to do that, they had to have a high level of ambition...but again, the fact that they had ambition doesn't mean that they didn't care about the people. And they both paid for their support of the plebians with their lives.
You're all over the map with your lumpen populism. Nothing wrong with corporations as long as they regulated for the public good. But conservative ideology has poisoned that well.
Corruption of government did not start with Washington, nice strawman though.
Didn't say it did, did I? Just because problem 'A' didn't start with someone doesn't negate the issue with the problem. Nice try to build a strawman by accusing the other guy of building a strawman, though.
But to get back to the question, do you maintain that Washington and the Founding Fathers and Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt - and the assassinated Gracchi brothers of ancient Rome - were all ONLY after wealth and power? I'd really like to hear your answer.
Unfortunately you have your head so far .... that you lack the ability to comprehend the reality of the situation. The Wealth of super rich and their corporations have colluded with government to the point they are now inseparable. You still think Obamacare was a win for the people. It was a well constructed conspiracy to legislate the people's tax dollars into the banks of big corporate Insurance and Medical / Pharmaceutical industry. If the GOP had passed similar legislation whereby the people were forced by law to purchase goods and services from Big Oil you would have been furious.
Unfortunately you have your head so far .... that you lack the ability to comprehend the reality of the situation. The Wealth of super rich and their corporations have colluded with government to the point they are now inseparable. You still think Obamacare was a win for the people. It was a well constructed conspiracy to legislate the people's tax dollars into the banks of big corporate Insurance and Medical / Pharmaceutical industry. If the GOP had passed similar legislation whereby the people were forced by law to purchase goods and services from Big Oil you would have been furious.
Didn't say it did, did I? Just because problem 'A' didn't start with someone doesn't negate the issue with the problem. Nice try to build a strawman by accusing the other guy of building a strawman, though.
But to get back to the question, do you maintain that Washington and the Founding Fathers and Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt - and the assassinated Gracchi brothers of ancient Rome - were all ONLY after wealth and power? I'd really like to hear your answer.
If you'd do something different and ask progressives like him (and me), you'll likely find out that we progressives did NOT want that warmed-over Republican idea called 'Obamacare'. We wanted - and still want - universal health care like (UHC) that which gives the populations of almost all non-OPEC first-world nations longer average life expectancies at a FAR lower cost than what we have had before or after the advent of Obamacare.
But why did we support Obamacare? Because of "the art of the possible". Obamacare's the proverbial bird in the hand as opposed to the two birds in the bush that UHC is...so we got what was politically possible to get, rather than refusing it because we wanted something that was - no thanks to the nation's conservatives - politically impossible.
Yeah, because conservatives have blocked regulation of campaign funding and other measures that prevent the rich from influencing public discourse.
But you're FOR that, so your argument, such as it is, is totally disingenuous, as usual. It's all you got. But it is mildly amusing when tea partiers pretend not to be shilling for the rich.
Plenty of misleading generic left winv talking points in that mess.
I'll address one, the high marginal tax rates of the 50s era.
The author of the Op should do just a bit of research before posting misleading data.
A very small fraction of a fraction of Americans actually paid that.
Because only a very small fraction made a million $ or more a year. We need to bring back the million and up income bracket. CEO salaries are out of wack
Give it a rest you supported it because suddenly it was a liberal agenda, the was no other reason.
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