579,

"If Abbott gets defeated at the party ballot there will have to be a federal election."

Says who?
And why?

If we persist in having a constantly growing population then there will never be enough money to cover the costs of all the necessary infrastructure.

JKJ: Doesn't it make sense to suppose that if governments have provided infrastructure in the past on the basis of the research and advice of the public service that the same might apply for today? In a similar way, perhaps, that businesses engage in in depth market research - rather than just interpreting signals based on the scale of consumption? Before privatisation and so called 'Public Private Partnerships' it had always been this way. You ask me to prove it. Decades of prior history illustrate the case.

579; Of course constitutionally the Libs wouldn't need to go to an election should Abbott be deposed. Though its interesting to note the Liberals own approach to that question in their constant agitation for a new election throughout the entire of Gillard's term. That was on the basis of Labor's mistruths on the carbon tax. Dare I say Abbott's lie was more serious. Gillard had the mitigating circumstance of not being prepared in advance for a hung parliament.

Aidan
"What about the resources freed up by the productivity increase the infrastructure brings? Don't they count for anything?"

Yes they do. The question remains, how to count them. How do we know whether government is providing too much, too little, or just the right amount? Ultimately, how do we rationally account for the human satisfactions foregone?

If the assumption was available that governmental provision of capital goods produces a net benefit compared to what would otherwise have obtained, then if we vested *all* productive capital in government, we'd end up with the most physically productive society.

No? Not prepared to defend that proposition? Then the question becomes, by what rational criterion to distinguish between the governmental provision that provides a net benefit, from the governmental provision that doesn't, which is where you entered the discussion.

Nothing you or Tristan has said has advanced the discussion beyond that point. You're just assuming what's in issue = circularity.

Tristan
"Doesn't it make sense to suppose that if governments have provided infrastructure in the past on the basis of the research and advice of the public service that the same might apply for today?"

1. Notice how you didn't provide the rational criterion in question?
2. Notice how you just *repeated* your *assumption*, just like I predicted?

So your argument is only "Government provides optimum allocation of resources because government provides optimum allocation of resources." = gibberish.

All I'd have to do is repeat the argument back at you substituting private for public = irrational, and by your own standard you must concede the argument.

"In a similar way, perhaps, that businesses engage in in depth market research - rather than just interpreting signals based on the scale of consumption?"

Businesses do it on the basis of profit and loss, which is what you're opposed to, remember? If it could be done on that basis, there'd be no need for governmental provision, would there?

Let me see if I can explain it another way.

Suppose the government builds a railway out into the middle of the Great Sandy Desert.

Is that infrastructure? Yes.

But is it putting society’s scarce resources to the use of satisfying the most urgent and important social wants? No.

We can figure this out just by common sense, i.e. intuition.

But we can also figure it out by a rational method. We can do the thought experiment of what would happen if you put your money into a private concern, and they did it. They’d make losses, wouldn’t they? The *ratio* of losses to profit would be greater. From this we know two things
a) you wouldn’t do it because you’d lose money, and
b) you’d lose money because society in general is telling you, through the price mechanism “Don’t use society’s scarce resources to build a railway out into the middle of the Great Sandy Desert, because we have more urgent and important wants to be satisfied with the same resources, and you’re wasting them.”

Okay, now to the problem at hand. If the only reason for getting government to do something, is so that the decision-making won’t be made on the basis of profit, then it’ll be made on the basis of losses, and we’re back to the Great Sandy Desert example.

But if it’s okay to do it on the basis of losses, then
a) the supply will never be able to satisfy the demand,
b) the demand for more and more and more of society’s scarce resources to be taken by government will be open-ended and unsatisfiable
c) you will be, and are, unable to distinguish government takings that are beneficial, from those that are unjust, wasteful, destructive and stupid,
d) I want government to pay for the “infrastructure” of artificial surf breaks, and the “essential services” of bare-breasted dancing girls. Since you have no rational criterion for what services merit governmental provision, there’s no reason why I , or anyone else should have one either. Socialism is just selfish destructionism parading as the public good.

JKJ: Public finance is more efficient as a consequence of superior credit ratings.

Public provision has the benefit of not needing to account for dividends to private shareholders. That means the savings can be passed on to the economy as a whole.

You say I'm opposed to profit etc. Let's be clear. I support a role for market signals in the current economy. I believe there are some things market players currently do better. I believe there is a role for competition - which can help drive quality and innovation.

But oligopoly, collusion, built in obsolescence etc are factors as well.

Chinese state owned corporations operate quite effectively in the global market for instance. Its the market context rather than the private context which is the progressive driving force...

Though in order to work there needs to be relatively free trade.

That's not to say the private transnationals disappear from the scale. Their innovations are too important to take a course of autarky - and cut ourselves off from the world economy...

That would probably go without saying... But you are trying to portray me as some kind of 'absolute statist'.

That's simply not true - as my emphasis on consumers and producers co-operatives also shows...