The Business of Government is to Promote Happiness or Business?

[georgephillip]

Whether it's real or not doesn't make it "defense." That's just word gaming.

If it's real, it poses an grave threat to every human on the planet, in varying degrees. Kissinger said something to the effect if you control oil you control countries, and if you control food, you control people. Climate change could affect food and water distribution in ways that would require the state to ensure fair distribution of both.

 

[georgephillip]

he OP is nonsense. The rational purpose of government is to enforce a rule of law so that people can be free and left alone to pursue their own lives. What makes one person happy may make another person miserable. Happiness is personal, not public policy.

Public policy and collective goods are justifications for government that go beyond your narrow rule of law:
"While a market system may allow self-interested to create and allocate many goods optimally, there exists a class of 'collective' - or 'public goods' that are not produced adequately in a market system.

"These collective goods are goods that all individuals want but for whose production it is often not individually rational for people voluntarily to do their part to secure a collectively rational outcome.

"The state can step in and force us all to contribute toward the production of these goods, and we can all thereby be made better off. There are actually many different opinions when it comes to this topic."

Justification for the state - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[georgephillip]

What is the OP's definition of "promote"?

"Chapter VII
OF HUMAN ACTIONS IN GENERAL


"VII.1
I. The business of government is to promote the happiness of the society, by punishing and rewarding."

Jeremy Bentham An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Chapter VII Library of Economics and Liberty

 

[kaz]

Whether it's real or not doesn't make it "defense." That's just word gaming.

If it's real, it poses an grave threat to every human on the planet, in varying degrees. Kissinger said something to the effect if you control oil you control countries, and if you control food, you control people. Climate change could affect food and water distribution in ways that would require the state to ensure fair distribution of both.

Again to call it "defense" is pure word gaming, they meant physical protection. If you said that was defense they would have thought you were an idiot.

And there is no proof it's real, and there is lots that it isn't. Even my liberal bed wetting sister with a PhD in theoretical statistics admits that they don't have nearly the data to call global warming fact. We actually agree on this issue, no proof, but we would like to take prudent steps regardless.

The Democrats though use "global warming" to justify socialism which in no way does anything to address global warming.

 

[LogikAndReazon]

"Promote the general welfare".....

Your constitutionally guranteed right to a totalitarian communist utopia and MEANING !

 

[georgephillip]

Again to call it "defense" is pure word gaming, they meant physical protection. If you said that was defense they would have thought you were an idiot.

They would have thought both of us were idiots if we tried to explain USMB to them as well. If global warming poses a physical threat to the commons, does government have an obligation to intercede?

"WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Monday released a report asserting decisively that climate change poses an immediate threat to national security, with increased risks from terrorism, infectious disease, global poverty and food shortages. It also predicted rising demand for military disaster responses as extreme weather creates more global humanitarian crises."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/u...-presents-immediate-security-threat.html?_r=0

 

[LogikAndReazon]

Third World shitholes need our tax dollars now, before its too late !!!!!!

 

[bripat9643]

For Jeremy Bentham the answer was happiness which he defined as the overall happiness created for everyone affected by an action.
"I. The business of government is to promote the happiness of the society, by punishing and rewarding. That part of its business which consists in punishing, is more particularly the subject of penal law. In proportion as an act tends to disturb that happiness, in proportion as the tendency of it is pernicious, will be the demand it creates for punishment. What happiness consists of we have already seen: enjoyment of pleasures, security from pains."
Jeremy Bentham An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Chapter VII Library of Economics and Liberty

The business of government is to do neither. It should simply keep its nose out of everyone's business. It's job is to protect us from predators, foreign and domestic, and to resolve disputes via the court system. That's all it's supposed to do.

 

[bripat9643]

"The Business of Government is to Promote Happiness or Business?"

Neither.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

liberals believe that "promote the general welfare" means take care of everyone from birth to death, except unborn children that is.

No they don't

They believe in helping people who need help

Not really. They believe in making someone else do it, not doing it themselves.

 

[bripat9643]

he OP is nonsense. The rational purpose of government is to enforce a rule of law so that people can be free and left alone to pursue their own lives. What makes one person happy may make another person miserable. Happiness is personal, not public policy.

Public policy and collective goods are justifications for government that go beyond your narrow rule of law:
"While a market system may allow self-interested to create and allocate many goods optimally, there exists a class of 'collective' - or 'public goods' that are not produced adequately in a market system.

"These collective goods are goods that all individuals want but for whose production it is often not individually rational for people voluntarily to do their part to secure a collectively rational outcome.

That's total bullshit. There are no such goods.

"The state can step in and force us all to contribute toward the production of these goods, and we can all thereby be made better off. There are actually many different opinions when it comes to this topic."

Justification for the state - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

The state has no such moral authority.

 

[bripat9643]

What is the OP's definition of "promote"?

"Chapter VII
OF HUMAN ACTIONS IN GENERAL


"VII.1
I. The business of government is to promote the happiness of the society, by punishing and rewarding."

Jeremy Bentham An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Chapter VII Library of Economics and Liberty

Utilitarianism has been thoroughly discredited because you can use it to justify virtually anything. The Nazis could have used to justify exterminating the Jews.

 

[Steinlight]

Capital should serve the people, people shouldn't serve capital, just increasing GDP should not be the goal in of itself. Obviously sound economic policy should be a concern of the government, and policy should be centered on serving the national interest. As far as happiness, absolutely, part of the role of government is being proper stewards of society by providing order and continuity and maintaining/growing social capital. Increased prosperity is good of course, but not all "economic" growth is, and can in some cases be very anti-social and erode social capital. Economic "growth" that erodes social capital and fractures society should be mitigated. Examples of this would be for example curbing immigration. While it may improve profit margins for some, and perhaps increase GDP, it lowers the wages of labor and forces more onto the social safety net, it also drains that safety net. Another example would be commercial development or large scale resource extraction on natural preserves, lowering quality of life for many for the monetary gain of some. Another example would be a local community having zoning ordinances prevent large scale development in their area to prevent overcrowing. I think all these are examples where should come in to curb the excesses of capitalism. Usury is a last and final example, it creates wealth disparity and unsustainable debt while enriching, lowering the overall standard of living while creating a financial oligarchy. However, I would at the same time things like high and burdensome taxation that discourage investment, job creation, and the formation of independent wealth. Another example would shifting towards a workfare as opposed to a welfare system and standing against large scale nationalization of industry.

Perhaps it is too much to hope that we get beyond dogmatic capitalism and dogmatic socialism.

 

[georgephillip]

The business of government is to do neither. It should simply keep its nose out of everyone's business. It's job is to protect us from predators, foreign and domestic, and to resolve disputes via the court system. That's all it's supposed to d

That would be true if markets were natural like land and labor, but they are not; they would not even exist in their present state without government to maintain the rules and conditions that allow for their efficient operation.

 

[bripat9643]

The business of government is to do neither. It should simply keep its nose out of everyone's business. It's job is to protect us from predators, foreign and domestic, and to resolve disputes via the court system. That's all it's supposed to d

That would be true if markets were natural like land and labor, but they are not; they would not even exist in their present state without government to maintain the rules and conditions that allow for their efficient operation.

While it's true they wouldn't exist "in their present state," they would still exist. Markets existed long before government ever existed. Stone age man imported flint from as far from Greece as Great Britain.

Markets are actually quite natural because it's natural for men to trade for what they need rather than making everything themselves.

 

[georgephillip]

Utilitarianism has been thoroughly discredited because you can use it to justify virtually anything. The Nazis could have used to justify exterminating the Jews.

Except it hasn't been thoroughly discredited any more than free markets have been rendered useless by free riders.

 

[percysunshine]

.

Reality check. Lines for diapers and toilet paper in the Socialist paradise of Venezuela...

In shortages-hit Venezuela lining up becomes a profession Reuters

 

[bripat9643]

Utilitarianism has been thoroughly discredited because you can use it to justify virtually anything. The Nazis could have used to justify exterminating the Jews.

Except it hasn't been thoroughly discredited any more than free markets have been rendered useless by free riders.

Wrong. The free rider problem can be eliminated simply by changing your business model. What service or product do you believe suffers from the free rider problem?

 

[georgephillip]

Markets are actually quite natural because it's natural for men to trade for what they need rather than making everything themselves.

All true. Primitive markets predated capitalism, but capitalism wouldn't exist without government and its regulations.

 

[bripat9643]

Markets are actually quite natural because it's natural for men to trade for what they need rather than making everything themselves.

All true. Primitive markets predated capitalism, but capitalism wouldn't exist without government and its regulations.

Those markets were no more "primitive" than the markets that existed after the state came into being. Markets develop over time, whether they are state controlled and manipulated or not.

 

[georgephillip]

Markets are actually quite natural because it's natural for men to trade for what they need rather than making everything themselves

Are bond markets an example of a natural phenomena?