[_andromeda_]

I too hope that this is a joke, '...created the information superhighway'.

I blame the education system for this kind of thinking. It is so heavily influenced by big government to the point that many people have come to believe that demagogues actually have a role in the advancement of civilization. These folks (demagogues) really should get real jobs. They are mostly good at production of words instead of production of goods & services or like Hans-Herman Hoppe likes to say, "Government specializes in the production of 'bads'". I'd like to recommend his book - Democracy, The god that failed.

[ethbro]

See below and the wiki article for context, but I wouldn't be so quick to downplay the critical role funding takes.

Or, in Gore's own words, "That's how it has worked in America. Government has supplied the initial flicker -- and individuals and companies have provided the creativity and innovation that kindled that spark into a blaze of progress and productivity that's the envy of the world."

[_andromeda_]

>"That's how it has worked in America. Government has supplied the initial flicker"

That's not how it worked when America had the most growth. In the late 19th century, when there was less government intervention, America saw the most rapid rate of economic growth. I don't want to get into a debate about who led to the emergence of the great depression but I strongly believe that it was due to government involvement in the economic affairs of America.

That aside, when you talk about funding, there are two things that emerge;

1. You believe that that is the only way to get funding for revolutionary projects. Government is not the only way to do this. Read on IBMs/GEs research labs and you'll see what private research labs can accomplish.

2. That government has money. Government has no money. They only have money in so far as you and I allow them to take our hard earned money in form of taxes. You have to get out of the mindset that demagogues and bureaucrats actually do valuable work. They only get in the way of productive people in a bid to placate non-producers thereby granting themselves power and undue privilege once in office.

As a side note; The 20th century was the most murderous period that humanity has gone through. Why? Governments comprised of demagogues made terrible decisions after convincing the demos that they can make the best decisions on their behalf.

At least during the aristocratic periods, it was well known that wars were the affairs of Kings and that the common folk were not going to tolerate anyone who would force war upon them. Moreover, you couldn't be conscripted; the only people who went to war were the soldiers paid by the King out of his pocket. You may say that king still taxed people but at least it was just one parasite who had very low taxes as opposed to today when it is many many corrupt parasites with very high taxes.

[mr_overalls]

> They only get in the way of productive people in a bid to placate non-producers thereby granting themselves power and undue privilege once in office.

Oh boy. Anti-government extremists like yourself love to grandstand about the merits of unfettered capitalism without understanding that government creates the conditions for market capitalism to exist.

There would be no property rights without the police, legal contracts without the courts, no medium of exchange without the Treasury. Governments provide minimal standards of worker safety, public health, and public education - all of which are necessary for a productive workforce.

Additionally, government is one of the only entities that can correct negative externalities (i.e., side effects of business, the classic example being air pollution).

Your position is ignorant of both economics and history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age

[_andromeda_]

Do you value your liberty? I bet you do and you just don't realize you've been slowly but surely losing it.

I would venture that the only extremism, so to speak, that exists is in how government has increased in both its size and ineffectiveness. When you have a combination of the two aforementioned features, then things inevitably get worse.

> Oh boy. Anti-government extremists like yourself love to grandstand about the merits of unfettered capitalism without understanding that government creates the conditions for market capitalism to exist.

> There would be no property rights without the police, legal contracts without the courts, no medium of exchange without the Treasury. Governments provide minimal standards of worker safety, public health, and public education - all of which are necessary for a productive workforce.

Just because monkeys can ride bikes doesn't mean that only monkeys can ride bikes. Due to government's inherent inefficiencies and its tendency to grow and encompass ever more aspects of life, two things happen; you lose your liberty and it becomes very expensive to sustain government.

I really don't see how you can't see that government really is bad for you and that there's always a better way. I don't like the fact that as the human race we've resigned ourselves to thinking that we can innovate/disrupt most other things except for governance. When I hear statements like, 'democracy is the worst form of government except for all others', I cringe. Here's an idea, how about less or where possible, no government. These demagogues and bureaucrats really aren't as important as you think they are.

Let John Galt be. Let the markets be. Obama and the rest of them have no place dictating how innovation and businesses should be run.

[ethbro]

You have some valid points in critiquing government, but you're doing them a severe disservice by the way you present them. Context-appropriate facts, not rhetoric.

> In the late 19th century, when there was less government intervention, America saw the most rapid rate of economic growth.

The late 19th century of American history featured a large number of one-time-only economic improvements and wholescale pillaging of large amounts of natural resources.

The completion of a transcontinental railroad (completed 1869 with government sponsorship via the Pacific Railroad Acts), Pennsylvania oil rush (1870s), the settling and harvesting of the West (1850-1900), and implementation of manufacturing economies of scale on the back of the new rail system.

Additionally, unrestrained consolidation of competition into cooperative trusts gave rise to monopolies that Theodore Roosevelt spent considerable political capital resolving in the early 20th century via lawsuits under the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). See Northern Securities Co. v. United States (1903) and Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States (1911).

[_andromeda_]

>You have some valid points in critiquing government, but you're doing them a severe disservice by the way you present them. Context-appropriate facts, not rhetoric.

I think you just don't like that I'm right about this. If I'm making a valid argument, should it matter that I'm presenting it in a manner that is inconsistent with some form of political correctness?

>Additionally, unrestrained consolidation of competition into cooperative trusts gave rise to monopolies that Theodore Roosevelt spent considerable political capital resolving in the early 20th century via lawsuits under the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890). See Northern Securities Co. v. United States (1903) and Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States (1911).

No one is saying that monopolies are good. In fact, one could argue that they aren't very capitalistic (capitalism requires that there's voluntary exchange and when you as a consumer have only one option to choose a basic necessity from, then that looks more like the very opposite of voluntary exchange).

As a side note, it is however curious that when you bring up these facts that sort of demonize the likes of Morgan, the fact that he single-handedly led the financing of the bail out of America during the economic crises of 1907 and 1893 never comes up. In 1893, the then President, Cleveland, borrowed $65 million in gold from J.P. Morgan to support the gold standard thus ending the panic.