Can a third party candidate win?

[Eric the Green]

(07-06-2016, 06:52 PM)Drakus79 Wrote:

(07-06-2016, 10:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Libertarian Party ideology is too narrow and utopian. It pretends to be for liberty, but its principle purpose is to enable the rich to became ever-more powerful and thus squelch the liberty of the people through their economic power. Because without the state, some individuals do not voluntarily contribute their wealth to society nor limit their ambition and greed. Most people realize that the result of such policies, which have been pretty-much already-adopted these last 35 years, is rampant inequality, less-mobility, more poverty, and general economic decline. So therefore, the Libertarian Party can never be more than a fringe operation because it is doctrinaire, utopian, impractical, and in-fact very authoritarian by totally deferring to big business power. At this point, to vote for Gary Johnson, is essentially to vote to continue the current failing policies.

Do you really think the trend of the country has been towards smaller government?  Since the beginning of the 20th century the trend has been the opposite.  We have become more socialist not less.  Pretty much everyone lives off of government dole at this point.

Romney said 47% were. No I don't think so. The other way around; since Reagan government help has been cut way back. Social Security and Medicare were "socialist" and a good thing in my opinion, but they aren't doles. I don't think the trend has been toward smaller government, because although the Reaganoids talked the game, they spent more on the military and subsidies to big oil and other corporate swindles that they get rich from. But the trend since Reagan and even before has been to cut back on programs that actually help people, and although those programs are not "socialist" except in a watered-down way (not government owned and run enterprises), it is worse for the people to lose those programs.

Quote:I was talking to my cousin about voting libertarian this year. He's a pretty conservative guy and I thought I could convince him. But he was afraid Gary Johnson would cut too much government programs and he'd lose his job. I couldn't understand this because he works as an engineer in the private sector. But then he told me his company only has three clients, the federal, state or city governments. And the Federal government pays the best. It was no longer the case that private sector clients could afford their services. I remember the situation was the same when I worked for various companies in IBEW. Most private companies couldn't afford union jobs, so I'd spend most of my time benched waiting for that big government job.

I thought about it a bit more and realized that most of the people I knew who were able to support themselves comfortably relied heavily on the government in some way or another, even if it wasn’t outright a government job. The purely private sector industries, that rely primarily on the private market for their income, are struggling and most people just use those jobs as a temporary stepping stone for the higher paying government reliant jobs. I guess the one exception is working in banking, investment and finance. But these industries rely so heavily on central banking monetary policy that it’s hard to distinguish where private sector end and public sector begins. And combine this with the rise of an automated economy in which people’s jobs are increasingly being replaced by computers and you’ve got a significant lower class that also becomes reliant on a government safety net.

I doubt you could quote me actual stats that show that most people work for companies that contract with the government. But yes automation is putting people out of work. The safety net has not yet accomodated them, however. Increases in safety-net programs are blocked by libertarian Republicans. But the need to expand it will be increasingly inevitable.

Quote:This seems like new situation for this country, in which the backbone has always been the private sector, but now the government is the backbone. We really have been become more socialist than capitalist. The government itself traditionally made its money from taxation, but has increasingly relied on borrowing and quantitative easing (essentially printing more money). It seems like we’re heading towards a crash at some point, we can’t continue down this path indefinitely. But there are those who argue we can, as long as GDP remains high, continue with this monetary policy until the economy recovers. But will it if the private sector is gutted?

Maybe they’re right. Inflation hasn’t been too bad yet. Most of the money being created by all the QE hasn’t really been dispersed to the general population as of yet. Our lives aren’t so bad right now, but there’s definitely a strain, particularly within the working class that is suffering the most from this transition. Expanded welfare programs or a universal basic income will probably be necessary in the near future. The question is will it lead to the collapse of the dollar when all that government money is finally dispersed to the General population. Anyway, sorry for this long essay, but it bothers me that so few people actually think about the long term consequences of what the government is doing to the economy.

Some people do tend to worry about the debt and QE. The latter is basically over now, and it didn't result in inflation. It was the only program the Republicans could not stop to stimulate the economy, and it was the least effective program to do it. But I suppose it had some effect in helping to end the recession. I don't see much QE money being dispersed to the population beyond what it has already. The capitalists have appropriated most of it. Debt will become more of a problem if interest rates rise. But the economy can muddle along I think, since the deficit has fallen and the debt is not going up much now.

Quote:Don't get me wrong, capitalism has a slew of problems all its own, but socialism is far worse.  We've always had a mixed economy (a mixture of capitalism and socialism). Most countries do. But our country has always prided itself on being the center of capitalism. I don't think this has been the case for almost a century now. The USA has steadily become less capitalist and more socialist over the years. But yes, that also means that our country has become more of an oligarchy. Socialism tends towards oligarchy.

Your contention seems to be that this is so because most business is government contracting, but I see most of it as being still private, although a lot of it is supported by subsidies for things like the military, highways and cars. Even spending for infrastructure is down though; Republicans block it. Most of our economy is based on imports now, and outsourcing. The service sector has replaced much manufacturing. The oligarchy is not socialist, except to the extent that Republicans subsidize corporations.

Quote:I can't really say with hard data if we're more or less socialist than we were in the 50s, a period when we were prosperous, and some argue we were just as socialist, if not more socialist than we are today. It's true.  We did have a period of de-regulation in the 80s but government still grew in other ways during that time. But I think it's safe to say we are definitely are more socialist than we were before WWII, especially before FDR's new deal and if you want to go further back to the progressive era, especially the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the Central Banking polices that came along with it.

There's no going back to the 50s though, no matter how much Bernie Sanders supporters dream of it. Socialism only works really well in the beginning when businesses are first nationalized because the really talented people who were running the businesses when it was still competitive in the free market are still around. Once they have government money behind them and are working together with their competitors to achieve something collectively the results can be amazing. That's how NASA went to the moon. But there's usually a slow decay over time after that initial burst when the enthusiasm dries up and those people start to retire. The really innovative and competitive people go into different competitive industries that aren't as heavily regulated because they want the freedom to do what they want without anyone telling them what to do.

I think this is why you see so many people who should have been scientists going into finance and banking instead. There's just a lot more money in it, and, after the de-regulation of the 80s, it was a lot more attractive to entrepreneurs. Too much of science has become political, because they rely so much on government grants. There needs to be more incentive to bring inventive types back into the field of science. Science has become very bureaucratic, political, and dogmatic. In some ways it's almost a religion in itself. Thankfully, the field of computer science and technology is still very competitive, but I'm not sure how long that will last either if we keep going in this direction ...

Your view is interesting, but I just don't see it the same way. Deregulation did not end, and the public sector has shrivelled. The government hasn't done things like NASA, not because innovative people have left aerospace, but because the government is no longer allowed to do great things for the people and the country. There are no government activities today remotely comparable to the moon landing. Republicans don't allow this. Visionary collective schemes are not acceptable in the Reagan-Bush-Clinton era. Money for research into anti-biotics has dried up, which have made us more liable to epidemics. That's just one blatant example. I think too many people going into finance is grounds for re-regulating finance, not de-regulating science. Unregulated finance caused the great recession.

Mixed-economy socialism worked well in Europe for a while, and people were happy with it. Do you see it failing now in the heart of Europe and in the north and west of Europe, because innovation has been curtailed by government activity?