[ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:26 PM, Stathis Papaioannou
<stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, but the point is corporations aim to maximise profits and bring
> about beneficial effects only incidentally, while government and other
> non-profit organisations have the beneficial effect as their primary
> aim

### Bwahahahah!

Man, this is the crux of our disagreement - attribution of noble
motives to politicians, ngo activists and all kinds of bureaucrats,
which you proclaim unselfconsciously while I find it preposterous. And
no matter how many times you see the opposite, it will always be
"incidental".

You need to consider that almost all humans are nice only to a limited
degree, subject to incentives present in their environment - they can
be pushed either to good or to evil quite far from their starting
positions. This is why businessmen in lawful countries tend to get
more honest with time, since contract law and the gain from return
customers reward honesty. And this is why politicians get more evil
the higher they claw their way up, since in a dirty fight (aka.
election, putsch, cabal) power goes to the ruthless, narcissistic
liars like Bush or Obama.

--------------------
 and incidentally may fail due to corruption or inefficiency. In
> the final analysis, we should have the system that does the most good,
> not the system that best fits a favoured ideology.

### So you proclaim yourself a consequentialist, right after excusing
government failures with "good intentions".

---------------

 That was the
> problem with communism: they refused to change even when it became
> obvious that the population was unhappy and the economy was falling
> further and further behind.

### They refused to change since for the most part they actually liked
shitting on everybody else, and only after a power struggle did they
go.

--------------------------

 I can see the same thing happening with a
> radical pro-free market regime holding on to ideology regardless of
> the effect it has on the people or the economy.

### It is impossible, since a "regime" is not free-market. A
free-market society by definition systematically eschews violence
which means that as soon as they lose their attachment to freedom and
non-violence (i.e. as soon as they go insane), their "free-market
regime" is gone and replaced by politics as usual.

Rafal


>
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
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>



-- 
Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD
Chief Clinical Officer,
Gencia Corporation
706 B Forest St.

Charlottesville, VA 22903

tel: (434) 295-4800

fax: (434) 295-4951



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