alt Hacker NewsOkay: it’s obviously inefficient for some people to collect profit on essential services where competition is meaningless. That money should be going to improving the service for all, or paying the workers better, or ideally both. It would be more efficient to collectively organise food, shelter, healthcare, and other natural monopolies. Market competition can be for non-essentials where some inefficiency is acceptable.
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You seem to think "efficiency" is the issue.
No. The issue is that there is an almost unlimited demand for healthcare.
That is true regardless of capitalism or marxism or whateverism you believe is the right answer.
Avoiding talking about money: it is easy to see the underlying issue of how should we balance a doctor's lifetime versus patients' needs versus the businesses that ultimately pay tax for it all.
We have public healthcare in New Zealand (a huge percentage of our economy is run by our government - almost socialist). Here we restrict healthcare by waitlists, beaurocracy, and other tricks. It mostly works, but the nurses that I know give too much, and are flaming out.
Meanwhile I've done the dirty boring capitalist work of bringing in overseas income to pay for our beautiful services, and I've reached my personal limit of balancing working harder versus gaining extra income (for myself and my government). I'm taxed at a demotivating rate. There's fuck all respect for being the guy bringing in the bacon to the country. I get to look forward to being treated like a boomer in a few years.
I love kumbayaa political beliefs, but not when I'm the donkey.
No its not 'obviously inefficient'. And just asserting competition is 'meaningless' isn't actually an argument.
Neither food, nor shelter, nor healthcare are natural monopolies. As evidence by the fact that non of them are remotely monopolistic in places where there are no restrictions. Monopolies in these sectors are created and enforced by the state. Unless you are using a completely different definition from all economists.
Ironically major shops sell stables such as rice below price or at basically 0 margin, just to get people into the store where they might buy something of higher margin.