The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)

#101

Post by zo1 » Sun, Jul 17, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #98

zo1 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" The problem with you libertarians is that everything you say works with spherical objects in a frictionless vacuum, so to speak. But the real world isn't such a place. Outside your idealistic worldview everything collapses. " Remind me again how big the death-toll from government wars is? Or perhaps simply how badly it is failing at taking care of the sick, the poor, and the needy in almost every single 1st world c…

>Or perhaps simply how badly it is failing at taking care of the sick, the poor, and the needy in almost every single 1st world country? That's quite a bold claim to make. I'm afraid I can't quite see what you mean by that. What I can see is that the countries with the most regulation and state "babysitting", as you like to call it, are the ones best placed in any poverty, development, health or well-being index. I r…

I count it as failed if the government is spending money from the budget on unnecessary items while any social problem is still unresolved. That includes homelessness, poverty, health-care for the poor/needy/elderly, etc. Same goes for crime, road-fatalities, and a multitude of other things we expect of the government. These should be largely solved problems by now, especially with the technology available these days.

Either way, yes you are most likely statistically right. Spending on healthcare, poverty, and disabled individuals probably directly correlates with their well-being. You were presenting a case against a hypothetical ideal, and claiming it would not be able to fix social problems in a non-idealized setting. The counter-claim to that is that those very same things are not resolved in a society almost-exclusively run by state-governments, either. Whether 1st world or otherwise.

Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)

#102

Post by yummyfajitas » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 5:04 AM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #99

yummyfajitas wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. How does it fail in reality? Please be specific.

Precisely because of what I said: people aren't 100% rational beings with full information. People, especially in third world, war-torn, poverty-ravaged countries don't have the power to make the "best decision" in to a libertarian free-market approach as you suggest. Some things aren't solved by capitalistic competition.

Again, what bad decision will they make regarding charter cities due to being irrational? Why do you think that Hondurans will make choices so terrible w.r.t. charter cities that they should be forbidden from having that choice?

Similarly, because Hondurans are irrational, should they also be forbidden from entering Mexico and the US? Similarly, Brexit is good because Europeans and Brits might irrationally make the wrong choice on where to live?

Pointing out that people are irrational is not a magic argument against all policies that sound "too libertarian" to you. You still need to actually make an argument (presumably using irrationality as an underlying premise), which you haven't.

Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)

#103

Post by aminok » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:52 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #54

CPLX wrote: post #2

Shorter version: Create corporatist deregulated cities in corrupt third world countries and assume that rather than enriching multinationals via lax oversight the project will make poor people less poor. Hard to see what could go wrong with that plan.

That's not what he's proposing at all. There is a whole paragraph in the article about how Romer is not a libertarian and recognizes the importance of rules. But some rules are good and some are bad. The electric utility example is a good one: price controls are very popular in third world countries, but just about the worst way to meet whatever objective you want. Getting the government out of the way can also help…

Which just sounds like the author trying to make the proposal palatable to non-libertarians (or more precisely, ideological opponents of libertarians) by framing Romer's views as anti-libertarians. Rules are absolutely important to libertarians.

Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)

#104

Post by CPLX » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 11:18 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #66

CPLX wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This already went wrong. We are commenting on an older article. He actually got a chance to try this project and it failed pretty resoundingly. I eagerly await your "no true Scotsman" response.

No, he didn't. Honduras cancelled the project.

Ah yes, and there it is.

"The problem with [obviously unworkable governing system] is of course that it's never been given a proper chance!"

Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)

#105

Post by yummyfajitas » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 11:38 AM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #104

yummyfajitas wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he didn't. Honduras cancelled the project.

Ah yes, and there it is. "The problem with [obviously unworkable governing system] is of course that it's never been given a proper chance!"

So basically, any project which politics cancels can then be assumed to be completely unworkable? Basic income can now be rejected since the Swiss considered it then rejected it? Ok.

Incidentally charter city like policies have been tried. Hong Kong. Singapore. Gurgaon. But I guess all the successes should be ignored because Honduras cancelled their project.

Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)

#106

Post by tim333 » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 12:15 PM UTC

auganov wrote: post #97

tim333 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I chatted to some educated Afghanis and they thought the period of greatest peace and prosperity in their life times was the Russian occupation which the US went to some effort to end. I sometimes wonder if western policies to bring democracy to Islamic areas by bombing them really do much good. We could perhaps just bribe the dictators to up their human rights a bit. Syria is an ongoing case where there remain optio…

Yea the big problem with "opening up" the colonization game is you'll have people fighting over who's the colonizer (tho it's still sort of happening anyways). No doubt Russia might have been decent for them. Pretty sure he'll back off from that after getting briefed [possibly by Israel if internally won't be enough]. I'd assume the same for Trump if he wins. Operation Orchard [0] is a good example that Assad's nasti…

We'll see. The UK doesn't have much power in the region compared to the US, Turkey, Iran, Israel et al so what Boris thinks probably won't affect things much. Still a US, Turkey, Assad Putin deal could probably bring some sort of peace and we could still bomb Assad if he tries to get nukes.

Re: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty (2010)

#107

Post by kybernetikos » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #20

tacostakohashi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a good point. To put it another way, Romer focusses heavily on the system of rules in place, and that is no doubt import in attracting migrants and capital investment, but what about defense? Nobody is going to want to build factories, ports, and the like, unless they are well defended. The reason Hong Kong worked well wasn't merely the system of rules, it was also the presence and backing of the British military…

And the British civil service, which regardless of what you think about colonialism have a deserved reputation as one of the most efficient and least corrupt administrative organizations in history.

Interestingly the modern British civil service was based on the Chinese system.