> Can you give me one example of government wealth creation?
I think that's the wrong question, and a loaded one at that. It is probably more objective to think about government's role in providing a stable foundation for the private sector to produce wealth. There are countless examples of that, such as a reliable and just regulatory framework within which to operate, negotating treaties for international trade, creating infrastructure that lead to incredible wealth creation (think the internet), to name just a tiny few.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what has the Rom-- government ever done for us?
At best, government and civilization is a chicken-and-egg relationship, where you could perhaps argue that anywhere civilization occurs, a government does as well. I doubt that's even provably true anyway.
But the idea that a government first forms and then bestows upon us the gift of civilization would be incorrect. I suppose you're being flippant since you didn't bother to justify that comment.
If we wanted to do this properly, we would have to look at opportunity costs, and see what that money / resources could have done otherwise.
To give a related example: war often leads to innovation. In our current universe, the second world war lead to digital computers.
However, IBM (and others) were already hard at work improving their computing devices and would have landed at electronic, digital computers sooner or later, too. Without spending something like ~50% of world GDP nor killings tens of millions of people.
For another really egregious example: have a look at manned space exploration. Specifically the International Space Station. Google said its total costs were about 150 billion USD. Compare '20 Breakthroughs from 20 Years of Science aboard the International Space Station' https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/iss...
That least is pretty meagre. They even have to cite spending money by itself as a 'breakthrough'. Almost all of their 'breakthroughs' could have been done for cheaper with unmanned space flight (and most of them are useless and irrelevant anyway.)
They could have left those 150 billion USD with the taxpayer, and private industry would have surely used them better.
andsoitis|2 years ago
I think that's the wrong question, and a loaded one at that. It is probably more objective to think about government's role in providing a stable foundation for the private sector to produce wealth. There are countless examples of that, such as a reliable and just regulatory framework within which to operate, negotating treaties for international trade, creating infrastructure that lead to incredible wealth creation (think the internet), to name just a tiny few.
altcognito|2 years ago
cercatrova|2 years ago
tjrgergw|2 years ago
I don't know, roads?
eru|2 years ago
devoutsalsa|2 years ago
brvsft|2 years ago
But the idea that a government first forms and then bestows upon us the gift of civilization would be incorrect. I suppose you're being flippant since you didn't bother to justify that comment.
ncallaway|2 years ago
tekla|2 years ago
eru|2 years ago
To give a related example: war often leads to innovation. In our current universe, the second world war lead to digital computers.
However, IBM (and others) were already hard at work improving their computing devices and would have landed at electronic, digital computers sooner or later, too. Without spending something like ~50% of world GDP nor killings tens of millions of people.
For another really egregious example: have a look at manned space exploration. Specifically the International Space Station. Google said its total costs were about 150 billion USD. Compare '20 Breakthroughs from 20 Years of Science aboard the International Space Station' https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/iss...
That least is pretty meagre. They even have to cite spending money by itself as a 'breakthrough'. Almost all of their 'breakthroughs' could have been done for cheaper with unmanned space flight (and most of them are useless and irrelevant anyway.)
They could have left those 150 billion USD with the taxpayer, and private industry would have surely used them better.
mensetmanusman|2 years ago
supertrope|2 years ago
FollowingTheDao|2 years ago
dkqmduems|2 years ago