Already we can see the effects the One President’s Wise Programs — in this case, on science. Let no evil tongues tell you otherwise.
And people are asking, what the hell does the Spendulus money go to? Why spend $500 million on monitoring volcano activity? Now you know, you dummy.
8 comments:
CA- why would you complain about this, doesn't any of this money come to your lab? All the researchers I know love the government money.
Not to mention that even though my work depends on stolen money that doesn’t make the process of stealing money any more ethical. But mainly — had the grant process been private, the progress of research and technology development would be much greater.
lol, well at least your consistent.
Had the grant process been private, the progress of immediately useful science would develop much quicker, but the more basic science research would receive little funding. Everyone is quick to pour money into cancer research, but not into understanding things more removed from direct application.
Why do you think that? The same people that believe in fundamental research today will believe in the fundamental research tomorrow. There have always been people sponsoring research and art for their sake alone and not for some practical immediate benefit. (Although, as one article in a Science magazine suggests, over 80% of improvements of our everyday life come just from fundamental research.)
And if not — then it’s still no excuse to rob people and give their money even to a worthy cause. (And who determined that it’s worthy? I, for instance, would like money to be directed more towards Neuroscience than towards space exploration. I think all the Mars probes, etc., are useless.)
Remember, between a libertarian society and a socialist society, nothing changes about the people and their views regarding the needs and wants of the society. The same people that believed in helping the poor under the socialist society (even the socialist government would not be able to implement all its programs without the support of the people) still believe in helping the poor under the libertarian society.
They just do the charity not through the government, but through private foundations (and any private company or foundation always does a better job at anything than the government — by definition).
True, you're right, lots of people will donate to private organizations which will distribute the money in an intelligent manner, giving to fundamental sciences as well. Then you have people like David Geffen that want their money going "directly" to save lives- so 200 million straight to UCLA to build a brand new hospital in the richest neighborhood of California.
But I can see it working the way you say.
My point is: even if it worked less effectively than socialism, it would still be the only moral way to go. Otherwise, you are taking money from people by force and then deciding where that money will go, without asking people or seeing if they personally will benefit from it.
But the fact is: in libertarian society, everyone will be richer, because there will be more capital. Which will result in greater amount of donation to science, art and charity.
Paragraph 1- True
Paragraph 2- Perhaps
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