Myth 15: Government Run or Funded Programs Don't Work
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Myth 15: Government Run or Funded Programs Don't Work
To comment on this video, go to: http://beingism.org/community/?q=node/13 It’s hard to believe that someone might try to argue this point in seriousness, but it is made with surprising frequency by ‘free market fundamentalists.’ Notably, is possible to point to innumerable instances where businesses and corporations have failed, but this does not seem to persuade libertarians that these institutions cannot function. That government is sometimes ineffective or that it is often used for unethical purposes is not in dispute. Indeed, poor governmental systems are exceptionally common. Contrary to what some libertarians seem to imagine, socialists as a rule do not automatically favor any form of collective intervention regardless of costs or benefits. There are many, many more forms of undesirable government intervention than there are beneficial forms. By the same token, the number of possible socialist governments is so vast as to be totally uncountable; many more than the number of possible libertarian governments. The number of possible governments decreases on the road to anarchy the closer we get to anarcho-capitalism (or even laissez-faire). However, claiming that individual instances of government ineffectiveness means that government programs cannot work is like saying that because there are innumerable nonfunctional variations on the engine of an automobile, it is impossible to produce different kinds of functional engines. Like most imaginable attempts at engine design, most socialist systems aren’t functional ones, and should be opposed with the same fervor libertarianism should be opposed. When government is ineffective, we have grounds for changing and improving it in ways supported by research, not eliminating it or reducing to an ineffective size, thereby allowing people of fewer means to go without, for example, health care, education, or clean air. http://www.beingism.org
YouTube | November 16, 2008
