Economic Freedom and Living Standards or, Canada's Looking Better All the Time

This new vid, from the Koch Institute, argues that economic freedom is central to human flourishing and that the U.S. is losing its economic freedom due to runaway spending and regulation. 

Chock full of good info and comparisons (including the depressing continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations so far when it comes to bad fiscal policy). For more info, check out this site.

Comments

[White Indian]

freedom is central to human flourishing

Officer, am I free to gambol about forest and plain?

[dbcooper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXw6znXPfy4

[The Gamboler]

Why agriculture? In retrospect, it seems odd that it has taken archaeologists and paleontologists so long to begin answering this essential question of human history. What we are today?civilized, city-bound, overpopulated, literate, organized, wealthy, poor, diseased, conquered, and conquerors?is all rooted in the domestication of plants and animals. The advent of farming re-formed humanity. In fact, the question "Why agriculture?" is so vital, lies so close to the core of our being that it probably cannot be asked or answered with complete honesty. Better to settle for calming explanations of the sort Stephen Jay Gould calls "just-so stories."

In this case, the core of such stories is the assumption that agriculture was better for us. Its surplus of food allowed the leisure and specialization that made civilization. Its bounty settled, refined, and educated us, freed us from the nasty, mean, brutish, and short existence that was the state of nature, freed us from hunting and gathering. Yet when we think about agriculture, and some people have thought intently about it, the pat story glosses over a fundamental point. This just-so story had to have sprung from the imagination of someone who never hoed a row of corn or rose with the sun for a lifetime of milking cows. Gamboling about plain and forest, hunting and living off the land is fun. Farming is not. That's all one needs to know to begin a rethinking of the issue. The fundamental question was properly phrased by Colin Tudge of the London School of Economics: "The real problem, then, is not to explain why some people were slow to adopt agriculture but why anybody took it up at all."

~Richard Manning
Against the Grain

[Episiarch]

SAMERECTAL

[RedBlue]

TEAM SAMERECTAL!!

[Dolphin]

Gambol is one of those words that you can't help but love. It sort of pushes most of Pasty Native American's posts into so-bad-they're good territory, sort of like Raul Julia in Street Fighter.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Oh, definitely. That and the random capitalization makes White Indian perhaps one of the most masterful trolls to grace the pages of Reason.

[London School of Economics]

Please, WI, don't confuse vulgar American libertarians with real economic quotes by Colin Tudge of the London School of Economics.

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. Mt. 7:6

[H man]

"The real problem, then, is not to explain why some people were slow to adopt agriculture but why anybody took it up at all."

Indeed. At some point a bunch of hunter gathers made the choice to give up gamboling and start farming.

[Enclosure Acts]

a bunch of hunter gathers made the choice to give up gamboling and start farming

Wrong. A few did. (Look up "emergent elite" in anthropological journals.)

Everybody else was forced.

The culture of civilization is like an aggressive cancer in the body -- invasive and occupational and genocidal.

[xenia onatopp]

Clearly a speciesist speaking. Consider: hunting and gathering humans and some individual grey wolves collaborated in the domestication of said wolves, resulting in the evolution of the domestic dog, a species with which we have a fairly symbiotic relationship. Part of what dogs gave humans was the initial ability to herd, and thus domesticate, other larger animals.

That means no dogs = no agriculture. Don't like agriculture? I say blame the wolves and leave us humans the fuck alone.

[KPres]

"Wrong. A few did. (Look up "emergent elite" in anthropological journals.)

Everybody else was forced."

And what is it about agriculture that gave this "emergent elite" enough power to control those masses of hunter-gatherers?

I have an idea...

"...Its surplus of food allowed the leisure and specialization that made civilization. Its bounty settled, refined, and educated us, freed us from the nasty, mean, brutish, and short existence that was the state of nature, freed us from hunting and gathering."

[Pip]

Barium-Stool Indian Alert!

[JoJo Zeke]

South Park: Obama's Made U.S. 'So Shitty' Mexicans Are All Going Back Home

[Lost_In_Translation]

Who needs a fence when you've got Obama?

[Fences]

As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Douche Public Confessional]

"My father... touched me. A whole LOT." ~ White Indian

[yonemoto]

s/LOT/[LOT]

[yonemoto]

s/LOT/[LOT]

[Timon19]

s/LOT/\[LOT\]

[yonemoto]

Depends on the language.

[Episode Quote]

"When we asked Obama to stop illegal immigrants, we didn't mean to make the U.S. so shitty they wouldn't want to come here anymore!"

Heh. 😉

[Privation Property Expert]

Negative, Indian.

Capitalism enforces heavy regulation of the earth's surface. It draws lines and keeps people from moving about freely to hunt and gather as they have for hundred of thousands of years.

[Episiarch]

SAMERECTAL

[The Beast of Property]

It is the lash of hunger which compels the poor man to submit. In order to live he must sell - "voluntarily" sell - himself every day and hour to the "beast of property." ~Johann Most, The Beast of Property

[KPres]

"It is the lash of hunger which compels the poor man to submit."

Correct. Now what's your point?

See, it's also the lash of hunger which compels some to save a portion of their income to put toward the development of capital goods, and those capital goods are the only thing that has propelled the large numbers of people out of the aforementioned poverty that they lived in for thousands of years.

Now, we could go back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, where the lash of hunger which compels the poor man (aka ALL men) to submit.

Or we could switch to Communism, where the threat of government imprisonment is what compels poor men (aka, ALL men) to submit.

[A penny for your thoughts]

Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail. ~Abraham Lincoln

[Episiarch]

SAMERECTAL

[Doktor Kapitalism]

I think there be no conflict in these between rational men. Indeed, I believe property and human rights to be derived from the same basic source, the Right of Life.

Or: false dichotomy.

[KPres]

Yep. The slavery Lincoln was bemoaning was an infraction of "human rights" exactly because it was an infraction of the slaves property rights.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Lower than Canada? I think we can all agree you can't get lower than that.

And yes, we could do away with all that regulation, and it would mean much lower unemployment, but only because all the workers would be dying at the hand of unrestrained employers, who would simply then hire and train replacement workers and subsequently kill them. Honestly, do people think before putting these videos together?

[PantsFan]

Canada should see some of the strongest rates of growth compared with its G7 peers this year and next.

Although the outlook for growth has darkened in common with other major markets, its healthy banking sector and commodity-driven economy should give it an edge, with growth of around 2.2 percent seen this year and 2.4 percent in 2012.

http://www.reuters.com/article.....CA20111013

[Tim]

" the Koch Institute"
Heh.

[Koch Dominator]

Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors it entails. ~Emma Goldman

[Tim]

Emma didn't understand Koch.

[KPres]

Ad-hominem: The only type of argument that can be made with one word.

[jtuf]

The Times was right, Obama is the new FDR.

[Audrey the Liberal]

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

[rts]

Speaking as a Canadian let me just say...

it sure doesn't *feel* economically free 'round here. Especially when I look at the withholding on my paycheque.

[yonemoto]

it's economically free if you are a huge corporation like COQUE INDUSTRIE (of Quebec, of course), but Canadia sure loves oppressing the wage-earners. The US is freer for indivdual paychecks but both subsidizes its crony corporations and shackles the hell out of the ones it doesn't like.

[Torontonian]

In Ontario, my marginal income tax rate is 46.41%. (Combined federal and provincial.)

Then if I want to spend any of whatever cash remains, I get to pay a 13% sales tax.

Therefore, I have to earn $210.86 of pre-tax income, to enjoy $100 of post-tax spending power.

[bski]

Not much different from California actually.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

It's relative. Galt's Gulch still isn't anywhere.

[dhanson]

Where do you live? Try moving to Alberta. We have a flat income tax, no provincial sales tax, and we're the most economically free region in North America.

Of course, if you live in Quebec that's another story.

[Mad Scientist]

But, but those evil capitalists would just enslave us all if it weren't for the benevolent government! We clearly just need to put the right people in charge!

[Jean Jacques Rousseau]

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody." ~Jean Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

[Mad Scientist]

Oh, I COMPLETELY agree, white injun! Why, when those pilgrims came and stole all that land from all those indians, that was perfectly OK because no one really owned it anyway. Owning things is bad!

[Pip]

Hey Dipshit, I know you claim to have read Charles Eastman, but you sure didn't understand what he wrote. If a Dakota killed someone (murder) most likely they would be banished from the tribe to live as an outcast. If they were caught in another's teepee stealing, they would often be put to death. Clearly they believed in ownership rights and the sanctity of private property.

[PipShit Slayer]

I've never spoken against legitimate private property that has been recognized by humans for tens of thousands of years.

I do speak against what I call PRIVATION PROPERTY.

Legitimate property is stuff you need to survive.

Illegitimate property is abstract ownership of so much that it causes deprivation to others.

Even Adam Smith recognized the difference:

As soon as the land of any country has all become PRIVATE PROPERTY, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

~Adam Smith
Wealth of Nations

Attorney Jeff Vail explains well too:

When one steps back and examines the notion of "owning" something, the abstraction becomes readily apparent. Ownership represents nothing more than a power-relationship?the ability to control. The tribal institution of "Ownership by use" on the other hand, suggests simply that one can only "own" those things that they put to immediate, direct and personal use to meet basic needs?and not more. A society crosses the memetic Rubicon when it accepts the abstraction that ownership can extend beyond the exclusive needs of one individual for survival. Abstract ownership begins when society accepts a claim of symbolic control of something without the requirement of immediate, direct and personal use. Hierarchy, at any level, requires this excess, abstract ownership?it represents the symbolic capital that forms the foundation of all stratification.

~Jeff Vail
A Theory of Power
source: The Right to Property http://rewild.info/anthropik/2.....-property/

Take another incompetent swing, Pip.

[Cytotoxic]

SAMERECTAL

[pmains]

Why would Pip need to take another swing? You're doing fine at obliterating your own arguments.

[KPres]

"Legitimate property is stuff you need to survive."

Great. See in White Indian's utopia, everybody can only have the most basic goods needed for survival and no more. This is to correct the issue where a small portion of us only have the most basic goods needed for survival and no more.

[KPres]

"Ownership represents nothing more than a power-relationship?the ability to control."

Correct. All relationships are power-relationships.

[KPres]

"Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all"

OK.

Now who's going to manage this "earth that belongs to us all"?

[Ingersoll]

Few rich men own their property; the property owns them. ~Robert Ingersoll, speech, New York, 29 October 1896

[Mad Scientist]

Wait, you mean now people are enslaved by things? Goodness! We should just do away with all things!

[Libertantrum]

Wait, you mean now drinking too much water intoxicates and can cause death? Goodness! We should just do away with all water!

[kilroy]

Hong Kong is looking pretty sweet in that chart.

[Mad Scientist]

I've often wondered about that. Hong Kong seems to come out on the top of every list I've seen of economic freedom for the last several years. How's it rate as far as free speech or gun rights or what-have-you?

[JD]

For most civil liberties, I think Hong Kong is pretty good since one of the stipulations for rejoining China was they be left alone.

As far as gun rights, they are about what you'd expect from a densely populated area of Asia formerly ruled by the UK--ie virtually non-existent.

[Mad Scientist]

Sigh. I guess I'll keep saving up to emigrate to Mars then.

[Concerned Citizen]

Plus you have Ricky, Julian, Bubbles, Mr. Leahy, and Randy running around up there.

[PantsFan]

I see you are familiar our Members of Parliament.

[Greg]

Even Bubbles would have been smart enough not to be vacationing in Vegas during the campaign I think

[Shmenge]

Get your ass to Mars

[Gojira]

@ Mad Scientist:

They also have a hellacious organized crime problem. It got so bad for awhile (not sure about now) that my wife's family left to move to the States in the early 90s, because the freaking Triads were hanging around all the schools recruiting kids to be drug mules. Literally that is the reason they up and moved here.

The pollution is really, really bad, also. To the point that a recent survey indicated a large number of people who can afford to move have contemplated doing so.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl.....c-11886612

[Mad Scientist]

I think I prefer the non-government criminals, but with the crowding and the pollution....seems like Mars is still the best bet.

[Aresen]

With 7 million people in 426 square miles, I think I will settle for my shredded paycheque and more elbow room.

And, as a Canadian, I think I prefer our neighbours over Hong Kong's neighbours.

[Pro Libertate]

Aw, thanks. We love you, too.

[kilroy]

Good point. I moved out of Atlanta for more room. I'm not sure I could take the crowds in HK.

I guess I'll have to wait and go seasteading.

[Joe M]

ignore... ignore... ignore...

[Adam Smith vs. Libertarians]

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

~Adam Smith
Wealth of Nations

[Privation Property]

Even Adam Smith recognized that Fibertarians are Selfish Takers, and PRIVation property ruins a society.

We are the 99%.
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

[Marshall Gill]

Nothing is more funny than when someone takes a part of a quote and turns it into something it is not.

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the licence to gather them; and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of commodities makes a third component part.

[09] The real value of all the different component parts of price, it must be observed, is measured by the quantity of labour which they can, each of them, purchase or command. Labour measures the value not only of that part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which resolves itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into profit.

This is about how prices are determined, NOT about how private property is the scourge of Mankind.

Seriously, as a part of the Agri-City-State, you should definitely off yourself, do the planet a favor, remove a little human stupidity from the gene pool.

[no such thing as rights]

do the planet a favor, remove a little human stupidity from the gene pool

Your type will do that soon enough.

Thesis #25: Civilization reduces quality of life.
Thesis #26: Collapse is inevitable.
Thesis #27: Collapse increases quality of life.
http://rewild.info/anthropik/thirty/

[KPres]

"This is about how prices are determined..."

Plus, it's interesting that White Indian quotes Adam Smith on the one issue that he was so demonstrably wrong on that even Marxists have abandoned it....the Labor Theory of Value.

[COMMENTARIATS]

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.

[juan hundred dollah bill]

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first. ~Ben Franklin

[Torontonian]

"You can't believe every quote you read on the Internet".
- Plato

[xenia onatopp]

"And if he didn't say it then it must have been me!"
-Mark Twain
-Abraham Lincoln
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
-Oscar Wilde
-H.L. Mencken
-Samuel Johnson

[Voltaire]

Hey, not so fast bitches!

[George Washington]

What am I, chopped liver?

[SugarFree]

You argue with the dumbshit trolls and it generates page hits. Page hits are are the basis for ad rates.

As long as anyone is talking to the trolls, in any way, even just to call them the lackwitted moron fuckshits that they are, there is an incentive to not ban them. If they are just raving to themselves, unchallenged, that's when they will ban them, not before.

[Episiarch]

It's ironic that reason and H&R-hating trolls generate revenue that helps keep the blog going.

Thanks, rectal! Keep up the good work!

[PantsFan]

It's spreading like cancer

Occupy Canada rallies spread in economic 'awakening'

Charlottetown college student Marlee Cameron, for one, feels the grassroots movement to bring "structural change to P.E.I." is so important that she has sent her message to the media.
"I just don't understand why in a country where we have so much, there are so many people who have to choose between having a roof over their head or eating," Cameron says in a news release that adds the Charlottetown event is 2-4 p.m. in the park adjacent to Province House.
Katie Harris, a doctoral student who has recently moved back to P.E.I. and is also involved in the Occupy P.E.I. movement, adds: "We want to come together to say that in a world of such wealth, there is no need for such economic disparity. There is no need for so many people to go without."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/.....tests.html

[Aresen]

PEI is a Province that is totally on the Federal Government tit.

Not only does it get large transfer payments ("Equalization Payments") from the Feds, but its largest employer (6000 people out of a TOTAL POPULATION of 100,000) is Canada Revenue Agency's GST processing center in Summerside.

[kilroy]

Thanks for that info. I can't say I'm surprised.

[PantsFan]

I learned that a candidate for the new "Island Party" in the PEI elections last month offered to trade potatoes to Cuba for Doctors.

[MJ]

It's like kudzu, but not as pleasing to the eye.

[kilroy]

Or nose.

[Tim]

Canada will never equal, let alone surpass our greatness until they learn to invade every fucking place on the fucking map.

They should buy them some drones too.

[Occupy Reason]

We are the 99&.

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

~Adam Smith
Wealth of Nations

[Adam Smith]

Yeah, I was wrong about the Labor Theory of Value. I admit it. Diminishing Marginal Utility explains a much broader set of phenomenon.

[P Brooks]

Louder!

[Pro Libertate]

I've heard lefties totally not get Smith before, mistaking some commentary on morals with his entire economic program (which was most assuredly about minimal government intervention). It's interesting how easily they get confused by economics.

[Smith's Plain Words]

You're the confused one who doesn't understand economics, nor Adam Smith.

[Democracy Now!]

What is this "economics" of which you speak?

[Occupy Reason]

We are the...about 13%, but damned if that will stop us from speaking as if we have been chosen to represent 99% of the country. We would claim 100%, but that wouldn't leave anyone to demonize, and then people might actually look into our ideas. Government is the answer to everything!

[Hierarchy]

I supposed you never heard of the L Curve.

http://www.lcurve.org/

The L-Curve: Income Distribution of the U.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woIkIph5xcU

[Paul]

I have heard of the L-curve. It's that curve that gets L-ier the more regulation, government price controls and concentrated the power becomes in the hands of bureaucrats. With the overzealous regulation in the mix, pretty soon the only people who can afford to play are the gazillionaires. All the money tends to rush in to the areas where power is connected to government.

I wonder if there's a solution to this conundrum?

[Hierarchy]

Abandon the agricultural city-STATE (civilization)?

Or are you one of those STATISTS, Paul?

[KPres]

That L-curve is interesting. What we need, then, is for government to take over all that excess income at the right end of the curve, then it can be controlled at the whim of intellectual elitists, without that pesky invisible hand forcing capitalists to spend the money in ways that satisfy consumer demand (or lose access to it).

[WE NEED GOVERNMENT]

WE NEED GOVERNMENT to protect privation property. ~Libertarian Statists

[Paul]

what about our claymation property?

[Colonel_Angus]

http://www.heritage.org/index/topten

Still think U.S. should be 6 on this one with all the rest maintaining the same order. Canadian government sucks. Nothing but protectionism and paternalism in that turd.

[Paul]

This new vid, from the Koch Institute

What. The. Fuck. Ok, Fox News. Thanks for the propaganda video. For a Magazine called "Reason".

Dregulation!

Externalities!

[HITLER!]

What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.

[David E. Gallaher/Ruthless]

Understand Canada is handy for escaping to, but... less bad?
I think I'll need something a little stronger to convince the Little Woman.
How 'bout them Costa Ricans??

[JMW]

I was waiting for the narrator to say "if you are pregnant or may become pregnant" or "if you have X, Y and Z, this drug may be for you".

Seriously it's the exact same speaking tone used in prime-time drug commercials.

[Jamie Kelly]

White Prairie Nigger: Take a course in ... well, just take a course.

[R C Dean]

Enough is enough.

As a presumptive commenterer, and one who is generally tolerant of trolls, I am officially asking Reason to drop the banhammer on White Indian in all his odious guises.

Comment thread after comment thread has drowned under his unstoppable pixelated diarrhea.

Cry havoc, and let slip the squirrelz!

[dhanson]

Canada IS better now - if you pick the right province. Alberta is one of the most economically free regions in North America, according to the Fraser Institute. In 2007, the last year of data, only Texas and Delaware were more free than Alberta. I'll bet we've passed both of them since.

The rest of Canada, not so much.

But Canada's freedom ranking compared to the U.S. is now improving with every passing year. You guys have Barry in the White House and his minions sticking their noses into the economy wherever they can, while in Canada we're keeping the size of government down and lowering taxes. The size of the U.S. government passed Canada's last year, and the gap is growing.

If you guys actually paid for your spending instead of borrowing it, your taxes would be significantly higher than ours, and Canada would look even better. Of course, one way or another you will be paying back all that borrowing, and when you start doing that, expect Canada to really look good.

Read more about it in the Fraser Institute's North American Freedom report here: http://www.freetheworld.com/ef.....ion-CA.pdf