Knight1979 said:
Point taken. Maybe I'm naive but I've tried to picture a world in which everything we do is subject to the private sector. Every road is a toll road. Any resource imaginable including air can be bought and sold. No public education. Anything and everything can be sponsored or subject to advertising. Instead of government regulations on corporations there is just a market price attached towards the action, that's where information comes in......corporations manipulating environmental conditions so they can operate cheaply for example........is that what you want?
What about public health and safety? Private health and safety would operate in areas that would be more profitable right? (IE: where the residents can pay for it). So for the poorer neighborhoods they wouldn't have fire houses, police stations or hospitals.
-Well, Roads are built by Government.
-Air being bought and sold? lol, that is a very good imagination you have there. Honestly :) . Could you tell me how that would work tho? :D
- Education ,and Healthcare for that matter, are difficult whichever party, or political background you have. National Healthcare is something I think is unavoidable. Even if it wastes shedloads of money, is over-run by bureaucracy/ineptness resulting in a very poor standard of quality for what is paid for it, I think it is something Government can provide (I didnt think so a couple of years ago tho).
Education. My issue with education is the National Curriculum. Its akin to having the Government take over the News. Imagine reading a Government Newspaper or TV channel!. What you learn in schools obviously molds you, to a large degree. I dont feel too comfortable with no choice if I don't approve of the education set by a small bunch of politicians in the capital. Its a toughy. I will say tho, that if there was no Public Education, Private Education would be alot cheaper. However, I can see the potential problems with wholesale Private Schools.
As for your last point. i could counter that by saying, those people who are richer are less likely to need health and safety (by safety I take it you mean police? - which of course would be a Government job anyway - as would the army).
I don't profess to know all the answers, but one thing I'd like to point out is these "evil corporations" arnt devils who have come from another dimension. Alot of them are people like you and me. I could start up a business, it doesnt mean I suddenly become evil ..... tho , of course nowadays starting up, and keeping a small business profitable, is the hardest it has ever been with all the regulations, alot of which are absurd. I go back to the "good intentions" phrase on this aswell. Alot of supposed "Anti-Corporation" laws and regulations that have been passed actually work in favour of the Corporations. Since only the large Corporations can easily afford to comply with all the regulations it stifles competition. Small up and coming businesses just simply cannot afford to run with the regulations. Believe it or not, Corporations have been known to lobby for regulations - and I suspect that it is far more common than we know.
I honestly dont think a small Government, freedom orientated country would be as massively different/"scary" as you think. Advertisements etc are already all over the place and we all managed to get a decent deal on our PC's without the Government's help. Just imagine if the Government made the PC's. They'd be shit, late AND more expensive. Ford didn't make his cars under the direction of the Government, and most people can get cars. Look at the mess our Government makes with Public Transport.
Gonna jump in bed now, but I'll leave you with this little ditty:
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
Winston Churchill.
