Solo Practice Neurosurgeon speaks out on The Trouble with "Single-Payer Healthcare"

[anthony]

jts, I think you've made some good points, but I doubt "most" people would be "fabulously wealthy" in a free market. This has a utopian premise that there couldn't be scarcity, but only and always, plenty. If most people were so rich, then everyone would become quickly poor as prices would rise accordingly. Although wealth is not zero-sum (as you write) the increase in wealth is always within limits - not hyperbolic or regular. I'm not an expert on economics though.

I envisage a true laissez-faire society as one in which it might actually be more difficult to become supremely wealthy(?) but almost impossible for one to be impoverished, since one would have to completely renounce any always-available work, altogether- to stay destitute.

You are right on the money about charity and goodwill. Nothing loosens up purse strings better than choosing for yourself: perceiving your own values, deciding WHOM you want (if you want) to help out. Charitable donation is a highly selfish endeavour which bureaucrats should never touch.

[jts]

It doesn't matter that there is a limit to amount of wealth possible in a free market. You would have twice as much food of the highest quality as you are physically capable of eating (which is more than is good for you). It wouldn't matter that the amount of food is finite. You would live in perhaps a mansion, well designed and well built. It wouldn't matter that the size of your mansion is finite. You would have such an abundance of goods and services, and they would be so easy to acquire and maintain that you wouldn't think in terms of how to make a living. You would take all that for granted. You would be at a higher level in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. What is the highest level? Self actualization or whatever.

We make money (acquire goods and services) in order to live. We (most of us) don't live in order to make money (acquire goods and services). At a low level of wealth such as most of the world a thousand years ago, people are interested in survival, keeping body and soul together, and life is "brutal, nasty, short", and the main thing is acquiring the means of living. At a high level of wealth, the means of living is taken for granted and the main thing is living.

About prices:

With an abundance of goods and services, prices would go down. This is simple economics. In a super affluent society, some goods and services would be happily given away free.

3D printer --> ?? --> ?? --> Star Trek replicator?

With some super advanced version of the 3D printer, some goods would be very low priced and even free. The 3D printer itself would be low priced and maybe free because it could print its own parts. It probably would be a standard appliance in every home. This 3D printer (which probably would be too technologically advanced to call a printer) would probably be plugged into your computer or have a computer attached to it. Then you could access thousands or even millions of patterns (or whatever they would be called) and you could select what you want and modify them (color, size, etc.) and 3D print what you want, and you would do that instead of going to a store to buy things. If you did go to a store to buy things, the store probably would have a few 3D printers and print stuff for you instead of stocking things on shelves. In this way, stores could be smaller and at the same time offer you more options than what could be stocked on the shelves. But why go to a store when you have a 3D printer at home?

Disclaimer:

Whatever utopias I invent are limited to my imagination. Other people, probably most with better imagination than I have, can add to that. The reality would be far better than I can imagine and far better than any one person can imagine.

[Derek McGowan]

I'm glad you brought that up jts because it is the basis for my book in which we get rid of all use of money. The novel takes 150 years but in the end, the inhabitants of the world all have household replicators and access to unlimited and free fusion power. Then it becomes a choice as to if a society wants to give up money, as scarcity (when it comes to items needed for survival) has been eliminated

But without those advances, I still don't see how your initial points work. I'm having a hard time envisioning how everyone would have twice the amount of food and how it would be almost impossible to be poor? I don't see how opportunities would be increased to that extent

[jts]

I'm glad you brought that up jts because it is the basis for my book in which we get rid of all use of money. The novel takes 150 years but in the end, the inhabitants of the world all have household replicators and access to unlimited and free fusion power. Then it becomes a choice as to if a society wants to give up money, as scarcity (when it comes to items needed for survival) has been eliminated

But without those advances, I still don't see how your initial points work. I'm having a hard time envisioning how everyone would have twice the amount of food and how it would be almost impossible to be poor? I don't see how opportunities would be increased to that extent

About "having a hard time envisioning":

Imagine a conversation in 1813, 200 years ago. Someone says: I'm having a hard time envisioning computers and 1T hard drives and ultra high speed internet and nearly free access to hundreds of millions of websites. In 1813 probably nobody could imagine those things. But those things happened, in spite of the economy not being fully free.

Pull the stops. Fully unleash human creativity. Expect spectacular results beyond what anyone can imagine.

[Selene]

Pull the stops. Fully unleash human creativity. Expect spectacular results beyond what anyone can imagine.

And this is news?

Sorry jts, that is not a critique, it is an acknowledgement.

A...