Response to Public Theologian 2
Public Theologian responded to my response (3/2/05). Here is the next round.
I very much disagree. It is true that capitalism is not a mechanism for the creation of equality. However, should equality be the ulitmate goal of public policy? If technological innovation and greater productivity lead to more goods and services at lower prices, is not everyone better off, despite levels of inequality? (The CDC just reported that life expectancy in the United States is the highest that it has ever been. Is that not a sign that living standards in this relatively capitalist society of ours remain high?)
In terms of access to health care, I suggest that the problem stems not from a lack of even more public funding but rather, over-regulation. Specifically, I refer to Duke University's Christopher J. Conover, who argues that the over-regulation of health care "places a net burden on [American] society of $169.1 billion annually" and that "health care regulations induce approximately 22,205 deaths annually." If we want more health care, then we should deregulate the industry and allow care providers (suppliers) to meet the demands of patients (consumers).
Finally, the plight of the poor is not exacerbated by the market but rather, by inefficient and corrupt governments. Case in point: farmers in the developing world are not harmed by the free market but by European and American subsidies to domestic agricultural interests, subsidies that erode poor farmers' ability to sell their products on the global stage. In this example (among others), a freer market would help to "amerliorate the plight of the marginal."
posted by Kevin O'Donovan @ 23:54
1 comments
1 Comments:
My 2 cents:
From my perspective, the ultimate goal of a socioeconomic order should not be equality or growth (which I believe are at loggerheads) but sufficiency. This necessarily involves tradeoffs. Poverty rates and life expectancy are certainly higher in Western Europe and other advanced socialist economies than the US, which would seem to justify their economic order. But economic growth rates are significantly lower. For example, France has per capita income roughly equivalent to Mississippi, and the gap between France and the US is widening. At some point in the future, will the growth of the US pull its poor up to a point where poverty rates are below those of France? Perhaps. If so, does that mean we are sacrificing sufficiency for people today to provide it for people tomorrow?
Unfortunately, sufficiency is a subjective concept. The Soviet Union provided sufficiency for all, and ultimately, because the economy atrophied, provided sufficiency for none. As standards of living rose in the West, what once was considered sufficient became poor. Does promising people enough mean promising future generations nothing? Perhaps.
Finally, I think the health care systems of every country are fundamentally broken but broken in different ways. My personal take is that no country has created a system that uses the best of the free market and the best of government authority to provide the best care for the most people as efficiently as possible. The US and the socialist economies just fall down on different sides of that.
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