Reddit reviews American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper

Politically conservative states receive more money because their populations are poorer than those of more liberal states.

Conservative politicians "believe" (contrary to most of the evidence) that "government is the problem" (Ronald Reagan).

For a more informed view, please read American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper (what I'm currently reading).

For a real world example, check out what's been going on in Kansas before and after Sam Brownback became governor.

This is a fantastic book defending the mixed economy. I'd classify this book as center-left. It praises the moderate Republicans of 1945-1980. And it's about how a strong public sector, working with the private sector, created the middle class after WWII.

And this book goes into how government investment in basic and applied research (the sort of research the is fundamental but not readily apparently profitable) led to our modern economy. Again, a center-left book.

Not gonna respond point by point (@ work), and I don't have the book in my hands, but the short response to this is that Smith and others were pre-capitalist figures. They simply weren't around to witness the birth of the mega corporation, the financialization of the economy, the rise of the 'shareholder revolution', etc. The kind of wealth and power that now exists was not comparable in 18th century England. It doesn't take much reading of their work to realize they would have detested these aspects of the modern economy. Do you really think classical figures like Smith, Locke, et al would be supportive of massive deregulation of derivatives and the shuffling around of collateralized debt obligations? Take a deep look at Paul Ryan's budgets and the GOP agenda and you'll see that these are the types of policies - the complete elimination of Dodd-Frank, for one - that arise from the modern conservative worldview, which has been extensively polluted by big money and corporate power over the past 40 years. None of this is to even mention the views that came out of the Enlightenment about science and reason. Smith would shudder at the anti-intellectual, anti-science worldview that now dominates the GOP, from Trump and Ryan on down.

I disagree with Chomsky about a lot, but he's actually very good on this topic, and is the one who inspired me to read Wealth of Nations and Moral Sentiments in the first place. You can find some of his thoughts here. Apologies if referencing this to you is "not how arguments work".

I don't understand your pedantry about pointing to Dark Money as a good resource. It takes 2 seconds to read a summary. She goes into scrupulous detail about how the ideas associated with classical liberalism like small government, liberty, etc have been twisted and distorted by big money interests to serve their own agenda. In short, clamoring about the hatred of "big" government is very convenient for people like the Koch brothers who don't want any watchful eyes on them as they pollute the environment and destroy the world.

Maybe we're speaking at cross-purposes to some degree, but my point is that Ryan can only be considered a classical liberal based on a very narrow and cartoonish version of that school of thought. To reduce it to "minimal government" and the "liberty of the individual" is to ignore the larger body of work that really constitutes classical liberalism. The term is now so devoid of all meaning (thanks to people like Rubin and others) that it's historic, pre-capitalist roots now mean nothing. If you actually know the history, it's sort of laughable to describe someone like Ryan like that in my view.

Some more great reads (again, sorry?) are American Amnesia, which dives into anti government ideology in more detail as well, and Saving Capitalism by Robert Reich, who writes about how the idea of a free market in today's economy is a myth.

edited for clarity

David Blatt is a great guy, I'm a big fan of the data collecting that OKpolicy does.

I think there is a good argument to be made for not subsidizing anything and everything (the technical word is willy-nilly) and probably to have subsidies with set end dates (that are sooner rather than later to encourage innovation.)

Who knows, I'll have to do more research into it.

Oh! Also, if you're interested, I went to the Budget Summit in January that OKPolicy hosted which had Paul Pierson as the keynote speaker who co-wrote a very amazing book called American Amnesia about government intervention in the economy that I clearly need to re-read because I feel like it addresses all of this and I've forgotten it

https://amazon.com/gp/product/1451667833/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I think I've identified our fundamental sticking point.

You believe that rolling back regulations, cutting back taxes, and scrutinizing companies less encourages competition. I think that it's not so simple.

For beer, yes. It's obviously worked, and even Cuomo is fighting for less regulation of ciders and wines in order to bring jobs to the finger lakes region. For simple commodities, deregulation (to a point of public safety) is very often a good thing.

But here's where we have a difference of opinion. Firms hate having to compete. They would much prefer to own the market and face no competition. So a firm that is sufficiently successful will undercut, buy out, and manipulate the market to cut out competition. It's natural. That has to happen in an unregulated free market. Part of competition is success and failure, and the ones who succeed are, by definition, gaining more control of the marketplace. They use this control of the marketplace to take part in anti-competitive practices and shut out new or smaller businesses. Look at Disney, Comcast, Cargill, Microsoft... Proof of that line of thinking is in the pudding. So, in my view, deregulation is anti-competitive in most cases.

If you can stand John Oliver's forced humor, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00wQYmvfhn4

Now here is a bit of circular logic that my point includes: When corporations get large enough, they are able to lobby government in order to put up legal barriers to entry for new businesses, and use governmental power to cement their positions and grow even more powerful. That's what happened with craft beer, and that's why deregulating works for that industry. Getting rid of nonsensical regulations that only serve one corporation's anti-competitive interests is not the partisan issue that we are discussing. It's incredibly obvious that these regulations should be thrown out.

But libertarianism doesn't solve the root of that issue. It prevents the regulations from legally cementing a monopoly, but it doesn't do anything to solve the other levers they have to stifle competition. It doesn't prevent them from bringing frivolous lawsuits against smaller competitors in an attempt to bury them under legal costs that the competition can't absorb. It doesn't prevent them from undercutting the price of their competition for just long enough to bankrupt the smaller, less adaptable firm. It doesn't prevent them from hiring out all of a rival firm's employees for just long enough to destroy that firm, then having a round of layoffs. It doesn't prevent massive corporate buy-outs that put an entire industry into the hands of a few different companies, many of which have the same people on their boards. These are the kind of anti-competitive actions that firms would love to be able to do, and that libertarianism cannot cope with. Making it harder or impossible for firms to do things like this are the types of regulations that I support - I don't have a blanket love of regulation for its own sake, just like you don't love all deregulation for its own sake.

To me, this isn't even a discussion anymore than arguing what color the sky is. A cursory overview of history shows that we regulated ourselves into prosperity. One of the best books I've read on it is called American Amnesia and I'd recommend at least reading the description. Don't forget that the most libertarian time in our nation's history was called the Guilded Age for a very good reason. Libertarianism gave us the roaring twenties just as much as it gave us the great depression. Government spending and regulations brought us out of that depression and we remember the fifties so fondly because of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Libertarian systems have failed before (for the reasons that I've outlined here) and there is no reason to think that it will be any different if we give it another try.

So back to the high-minded idealism of both of our arguments and getting out of the weeds of healthcare, etc... That is why I believe that libertarianism (even at its best) is an inherently flawed philosophy.

About Elon Musk:

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html

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The role of the state is a bit more complicated:

https://www.amazon.com/American-Amnesia-Government-America-Prosper/dp/1451667833

https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurial-State-Debunking-Private-Economics/dp/0857282522

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There’s a fantastic book on this exact topic I recommend: “American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper”.

There’s been a concerted effort for generations by business interest groups to promote propaganda denigrating public goods, services, and investments. America’s global leadership in public goods and services in the mid-century is what made America ever have an enviable middle class in the first place.

Turns out funding infrastructure and schools is actually good for the economy!