What is the government's role in the economy?

[idlisambar]

Which most closely corresponds with your view...

1 "Laissez Faire": The government role should be minimal; the market is the best arbiter of economic outcomes. Government intervention distorts the market and leads to inefficiency. People could learn a thing or two by reading Hayek.

2 "Referee": Capitalism is a great system but it has to have rules, and a government presence is required to ensure fair play and some responsibility to ensure citizens have an opportunity to succeed. The government also has a role in correcting situations in which negative externalities exist, such as discouraging pollution or overfishing. Otherwise, the government should not generally be concerned with economic outcomes.

3 "Safety Net": Society has a responsibility to meet the basic needs of its members. Extreme poverty is not tolerable in an advanced industrialized society such as our own, and the government has a responsibility to eliminate it. The government should be concerned with the health and welfare of its citizens, and it should create conditions for a prosperous society, but it should not try to exert too much influence over the workings of firms and individuals other than to ensure fair play. The U.S. could learn a thing or two from Norway and Sweden.

4 "CEO": The government should actively advance the economic welfare of the state; the configuration of industry should not be trusted to the market alone, but should be guided by the government to ensure the interests of the nation and its citizens are advanced. Capital is too valuable to the state to be left in the hands of capitalists -- it should be directed toward strategic industries. The welfare of the capitalist should not be at the expense of the worker or the state. However, the government hand should be applied only indirectly so that the system operates semi-autonomously. The U.S. could learn a thing or two from Japan and South Korea.

5 "Command": Resources should be controlled and distributed by the state according to the ideals of equality and fairness. Prices and salaries should be set by the government to ensure that there is no excess privilege or abject poverty. Firms should be state-controlled. There are lessons to be learned from the Soviet system.

[applegrove]

1. Enableling the middle class & democracy.

[idlisambar]

2. What's the best way to enable a middle class? nt

[Massacure]

3. Provide basic necessities. Food, shelter, utilities, and healthcare.

[applegrove]

4. Good information. Good information applied to the rule of law.

Transparency. The markets don't work unless they are transparent. Governments should regulate areas where markets don't produce to meet human needs. That means some form of universal health care. They already intervene in the markets to give pharma monopoly power on new drugs for a few years. That means regulations of the food industry so they don't put addictive elements in their food. If so - they should be labeled. Or government programs to educate people about eating.

Good information means that educated peers should be regulating themselves in the profession. Not somebody else.

Good information. Instead of bad. Instead of policy based on politics.

Good information.

[unlawflcombatnt]

5. Referee or Safety Net

I'd really like to cast my vote on both of these. The safety net, and the wellbeing citizens, helps capitalism and increases economic growth. Corporate profits do not equal economic "growth." Assuming that it does hurts our economy.

Someone has to be able to buy the goods we produce and the services we provide. Increased consumer income increases that ability. Corporate profits do not. Producing more goods than consumers can purchase does no good whatsoever. Increasing profits beyond that what is necessary for capital investment does not "grow" our economy. It shrinks it. That's money that could have gone to consumers to increase demand for production, and create new investment opportunities for that capital.

Providing retirement security, such as Social Security, is not only moral and humane. It helps the economy. That income is spent on consumer goods. It increases demand for production. It increases demand for the labor to provide that production. It increases worker wages and income. It helps provide the demand necessary to keep our industries afloat. Everyone benefits from this income security, both business and consumers alike.

unlawflcombatnt

[idlisambar]

6. kick

For more opinions.

:kick: