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 skyth wrote:
Not really. The original product had that $10 of waste since there was a way to make it cheaper. If a process can be improved, that means that there is some sort of waste there. I never said that if you are making something for cost that there isn't waste in there, but that if you have profit there is a different sort of waste. There are forms of waste other than profit.

Again, if a government was always running a profit and building up cash reserves then people would be up in arms about how wasteful it is. They would want some of that 'profit' back in the form of lower taxes.

You've tried to define waste as anything short of maximum possible efficiency, including it seems all future efficiency and technological improvements. This means anything short of a future utopia of dyson spheres and replicators producing anything we want as we think the instant we think of it would be 99.99999% waste. It means no longer thinking of productivity in any kind of sensible way. 'Waste' can only be measured against existing capability, and improving that capability should be talked of in terms of improving capability, not reducing waste.

So again, think about if a worker himself came up with a new way of doing the process. The old system wasn't wasteful - it was the best way anyone knew at that time of doing the process. But now the process can be done $10 cheaper. The worker makes 10% more on every unit (11.11% for the pedants out there). This isn't waste. This is an improved process making the worker richer.

Then consider instead that the worker hires an engineer to figure out a way to do the process better. A deal is struck so that any gain is split evenly. The engineer figures out how to make the process 10% cheaper, and the worker makes 5% more out of every unit he makes, and the engineer takes 5% but has no further role in the process. Is the 5% to the worker waste? The 5% to the engineer?

Then consider the engineer sees the worker toiling away working in the old way. He sees how the process can be made 10% better. He says to the worker to come work for him, and he'll give him 5% more than he makes right now. This means the worker gets 5% more, and the engineer makes 5% profit. Is any of that now waste?

 LordofHats wrote:
I don't think the idea of "one world government" is particularly authoritarian, or libertarian. For example a global confederation could be highly libertarian, regulating little more than the basic parameters of economics and law. It could be highly authoritarian, dictating a moral or religious system.

Despite the often associated dooms day and conspiracy theories as a base concept its no different from any other government structure and what exactly it is depends on the underlying political theory on which it is founded. Of course that's just theory. In practical terms I don't see how you get a one world government lacking seriously overwhelming authoritarian measures. As similar as the people of the world are, the terms in which we engage that world are still too different for a practical global government to form.

Yeah, that's why I was asking if this was a theoretical example or not. A appreciate that both of your responses contemplate the real world obstacles and wish more of the discussion on these issues was as well thought out!

Continuing on this strand, I don't know that a unified government is even particularly desirable at this point. So far, large governments are struggling to deal effectively with their own issues. The benefit of a centralized governance would be consistency, but since none of the largest players seem to have the right answers, applying dysfunctional policies globally would be a net loss. Likewise, it seems that such a structure currently would likely exaggerate some of the biggest problems related to consolidation of wealth, power, and, perhaps ironically, exclusion.

I have no time for 'authoritarian - libertarian' scales. It's an absurd oversimplification that either puts 'it should be illegal to be LGBT' and 'it should be illegal to discriminate against LGBT people' in a uselessly broad sin bin for muh statists, or else puts 'it should be illegal to discriminate against LGBT people' and 'the state should permit being LGBT and also permit private businesses to discriminate against LGBT people' in a uselessly broad 'anything but Hitler and Stalin' group.

Put 'libertarian' in the middle between supremacism and social justice (inb4 edgelord channers), and you've got an axis that can distinguish between the distinct positions without setting up progressives and minarchists to get into loggerheads over 'no, YOU'RE the one aligned with the fascists'.