Welcome to the Free Talk Live bulletin board system!
This board is closed to new users and new posts.  Thank you to all our great mods and users over the years.  Details here.
185859 Posts in 9829 Topics by 1371 Members
Latest Member: cjt26
Home Help
+  The Free Talk Live BBS
|-+  Free Talk Live
| |-+  General
| | |-+  How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?  (Read 2041 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

civilchallenger

  • Guest
How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« on: April 08, 2010, 02:09:27 AM »

I will be writing a blog post on capitalism and would like opinion on how to determine capitalism & economic freedom on a scale of 0% to 100%. Ideas?
Logged

Osborne

  • Worshipful Grand Conspirator
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1241
    • View Profile
    • Sakal/CAI
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2010, 02:28:36 AM »

I bet you could come pretty close just by looking at average tax rate and average days in prison, as long as you came up with a way to capture the unseen cost of compliance.
Logged

Bill Brasky

  • Guest
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2010, 02:33:16 AM »

I will be writing a blog post on capitalism and would like opinion on how to determine capitalism & economic freedom on a scale of 0% to 100%. Ideas?

100% -  you can do anything you want with your money and labor, without third-party involvement, which would be economic freedom in capitalism.  Your profit is related to your effort, and excess earnings are passed through generations.  Your profit from previous generations success is hopefully used to build greater wealth.  

0%  -  you can't do anything with money, and work as you're told by the state, in return are given basic needs.  Everybody gets the same, from the lame to the most devoted scholars to the most necessary physicians.  Effort grinds to an immediate halt, since you will be given living necessities for minimal effort, it will become a game to expend zero effort.  Society collapses.  
Logged

civilchallenger

  • Guest
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2010, 02:44:21 AM »

I bet you could come pretty close just by looking at average tax rate and average days in prison, as long as you came up with a way to capture the unseen cost of compliance.

I think your on to something, but there is definitely a big difference between someone in prison for economic reasons than someone there for social reasons. I'd need to use countries that have the specific data by crime type.
Logged

civilchallenger

  • Guest
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2010, 02:49:30 AM »

I will be writing a blog post on capitalism and would like opinion on how to determine capitalism & economic freedom on a scale of 0% to 100%. Ideas?

100% -  you can do anything you want with your money and labor, without third-party involvement, which would be economic freedom in capitalism.  Your profit is related to your effort, and excess earnings are passed through generations.  Your profit from previous generations success is hopefully used to build greater wealth.  

0%  -  you can't do anything with money, and work as you're told by the state, in return are given basic needs.  Everybody gets the same, from the lame to the most devoted scholars to the most necessary physicians.  Effort grinds to an immediate halt, since you will be given living necessities for minimal effort, it will become a game to expend zero effort.  Society collapses.  

I'm not so sure it can be that simple. For example, isn't there more economic freedom in a country with multiple private health insurance options where you have to chose one by law compared to one government option? In both cases you don't have full control over how your own money is being spent.
Logged

Bill Brasky

  • Guest
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2010, 04:14:26 AM »

I will be writing a blog post on capitalism and would like opinion on how to determine capitalism & economic freedom on a scale of 0% to 100%. Ideas?

100% -  you can do anything you want with your money and labor, without third-party involvement, which would be economic freedom in capitalism.  Your profit is related to your effort, and excess earnings are passed through generations.  Your profit from previous generations success is hopefully used to build greater wealth.  

0%  -  you can't do anything with money, and work as you're told by the state, in return are given basic needs.  Everybody gets the same, from the lame to the most devoted scholars to the most necessary physicians.  Effort grinds to an immediate halt, since you will be given living necessities for minimal effort, it will become a game to expend zero effort.  Society collapses.  

I'm not so sure it can be that simple. For example, isn't there more economic freedom in a country with multiple private health insurance options where you have to chose one by law compared to one government option? In both cases you don't have full control over how your own money is being spent.

Theres obviously a big area between 100% and 0%

Those are the parameters.  I am sure it can be that simple. 

Your job is to understand the middle, which is not simple.  You didn't ask that question, and I wouldn't answer if you did - because you're now asking a very lazy explanation of the facts of life.

  Good luck with your essay. 



Logged

mikehz

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8033
    • View Profile
    • Day by Day
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2010, 08:43:05 AM »

Nolan chart.
Logged
"Force always attracts men of low morality." Albert Einstein

gibson042

  • Non-Aggression Principal since 2006
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 948
    • View Profile
    • gibson.mp
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #7 on: April 08, 2010, 09:08:33 AM »

Economic freedom seems easy to measure: government spending ÷ GDP (since, with the exception of pathetic Tax Me More funds, all government money is acquired coercively).
It's personal freedom that's more challenging to determine, because almost everyone eventually "chooses" to obey state dictates.

Logged
"WOOOOOP  WOOOOOP  WOOOOP EH EH EH EH HHHEEEOOOO HEEEOOOOO" —Rillion

Christy

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4
    • View Profile
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #8 on: April 08, 2010, 10:05:07 AM »

would it be fair to assume personal freedom would be measured by intelligence? sometimes the dumber you are, the more you get away with .... or the dumber you seem ;)
Logged

civilchallenger

  • Guest
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #9 on: April 08, 2010, 01:02:05 PM »

Economic freedom seems easy to measure: government spending ÷ GDP (since, with the exception of pathetic Tax Me More funds, all government money is acquired coercively).
It's personal freedom that's more challenging to determine, because almost everyone eventually "chooses" to obey state dictates.

[/url]

Would government spending as % of personal spending be even better? Or even government spending as % of personal income better yet? I'm throwing out those ideas because GDP is an measure of spending and people can be spending through debt... and of course you can pay down debts with more debt... you need personal income to do that. Therefore you'd be matching personal incomes with government spending... which is sort of a mismatch (since you're matching spending with income) but could make the most sense. The GDP to government spending measure definitely seems like a good one though.
Logged

gibson042

  • Non-Aggression Principal since 2006
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 948
    • View Profile
    • gibson.mp
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #10 on: April 08, 2010, 01:31:26 PM »

Would government spending as % of personal spending be even better? Or even government spending as % of personal income better yet? I'm throwing out those ideas because GDP is an measure of spending and people can be spending through debt... and of course you can pay down debts with more debt... you need personal income to do that. Therefore you'd be matching personal incomes with government spending... which is sort of a mismatch (since you're matching spending with income) but could make the most sense. The GDP to government spending measure definitely seems like a good one though.

The GDP formula with which I'm familiar includes government spending, which forces my proposed ratio into [0,1], where 0 represents no government spending ("anarchy"), 1 represents no private spending (complete totalitarianism), and everything in between represents corresponding levels of wealth extraction. The input numbers are widely published, making it easy to calculate for almost any scenario. I don't know enough economics to say whether other formulas would be more accurate, but I suspect that any differences would be dwarfed by the noise of estimation and fudging on the part of reporting agencies. And if so, my proposal is probably best just by ease of calculation.
Logged
"WOOOOOP  WOOOOOP  WOOOOP EH EH EH EH HHHEEEOOOO HEEEOOOOO" —Rillion

BobRobertson

  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 929
    • View Profile
Re: How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?
« Reply #11 on: April 08, 2010, 02:08:41 PM »

Just read Mises.org daily articles for a couple of years, and you will have all the information you need.
Logged
"I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it."
-- Thomas Jefferson, April 26th 1820
Pages: [1]   Go Up
+  The Free Talk Live BBS
|-+  Free Talk Live
| |-+  General
| | |-+  How do you measure capitalism? Economic freedom?

// ]]>

Page created in 0.021 seconds with 32 queries.