As stated before, I'm not an economist, but I wonder if growth solely
related to private investments? Or is the businees 'environment' also a
factor? The educational level of employees, infrastructure, strikes (or
lack thereof). All these have no influance?
I think having some sort of 'support system' increases the stability of a
society because there's no 'underclass' that has nothing to lose.
>As a result of this decreased long term growth, the welfare of the poor
>might look something like this:
//Snipped a good explaniation//
>Welfare is good for the poor in the short run, it is bad for everyone in
>the long run. Abandoning welfare is quite bad for the poor in the short
>run, but good for everyone in the long run.
OK, I can find no principal argument against that.
Then the problem becomes to quantify 'good-in-the-short-run' and
'bad-in-the-long-run'. Is the technical/economic progress gained in 5,10 or
50 years from now worth abandoning welfare now and letting a part of the
population slide down to extreme poverty, disease (or maybe starvation)?
Can we attach numbers to these values somehow? So how much technical
progress is a human life or human suffering worth these days?
Dan, I think you have cut to the core of the discussion, thanks.
Greetings,
Arjen
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Arjen Kamphuis | "Here Be Dragons", read the ancient maps
mountain@knoware.nl | in all the white spots that seemed large
enough to hold the fabled creatures.
let's go dragon hunting.
------------------------------------------
Visit
Transcedo, the Dutch Transhumanist site:
http:\\www.dse.nl\~transced