Government also spends a lot of money on things that people would not spend money on given any choice. But that's another story.
It's very difficult to see how a free market system would handle a service once the government had dropped into it like an 800 lb. gorilla.
Step one for the statists is to convince the population that a particular service is a "right," that it should not cost anything. Of course, since nothing is really free, that just means you're forcing someone else to pay for it.
Once that's established, government "free" services come into the market, and paid services get forced out. Few companies now offer the kind of pensions my elderly relatives used to get from companies, intended to provide income and care through retirement. Why bother? The government will do it. You can't even buy real comprehensive health insurance for an elderly person any more. Just Medicare supplements.
The only thing that allows private competition to government services to survive at all, like private schools, is that the government version typically sucks.
Liberals seem to be a lot happier with everyone being forced to drive a Yugo than with the horrible idea that some people might be able to afford better cars than others. They never notice that in a free society with a lot of choices, somehow the cheapest cars are still a hell of a lot better than the Yugos. Think about that for a while.
"pro-choice" applies to education, too.
Off Topic » in reply to Only when businesses decide the market served by the government agencies isn't worth going after.
True enough, but that also works two ways...
The whole thread (42 posts)
- Poverty in England
- Well, I read it and now I have a headache
- Welfare cultures
- Your ideologically driven thread
- If you fix a problem, what happens to a bureaucracy whose life depends on the existence of that problem?
- Circular Logic
- Welfare cultures
- Dubyuh will show a thing or two to those commie ingrates (n/t)
- Well, I read it and now I have a headache