It’s probably because I live in a country where those things are already done, but I think healthcare are poverty relief are state responsibilities too, within limits. It is better for the country as a whole, for example, if everybody is as healthy as possible. Because our healthcare is mostly paid for by the government, no one has to worry about things like health insurance when changing jobs so the workforce is more dynamic. It also encourages people to get issues dealt with early. The government invests in things like early detection e.g. universal breast cancer screening, free stop smoking programmes etc which long-term reduce the cost of healthcare and make the population healthier. Depending on your income, the most you have to pay to have a prescription filled is $5, and it’s free for people on low incomes, so people get the drugs they need. We spend a lot less than the US does on healthcare, but our average lifespan is longer, we have a lower infant mortality rate, children in NZ are more likely to survive than those in the US if they have cancer even if they are very poor etc. Here, if the government makes bad policy decisions in relation to health, they lose the election.

The Tory government in the UK is making some bad decisions in relation to the NHS (National Health Service), which is similar to ours. They’re getting away with it because the major opposition (Labour) is riven by internal strife at the moment and are in no position to win an election, but that won’t last. Once Labour sorts themselves out, the Conservatives will be out on their ear because of under-funding on the NHS to make privatization look more attractive. Then the Conservative government will have to either change or lose power. We have a centre-right government which in the past has gutted the health system and been booted out as a result. They’re being very careful to maintain a high quality service at the moment. They’re in their third term, so it’ll be easy to lose an election just because people are sick of them and everyone knows the opposition is pretty reliable when it comes to health.

I get though that if you’ve never lived somewhere that has a single-payer health system it might be hard to see the benefits. It’s something I’ve been meaning to write about for some time.

The problem with a lot of privatized services is lack of oversight.

I agree with your last post.
There are services that are generally -but not always- better left to the state, not to private initiatives IMMO. Things like education, justice, policing, infrastructure (roads, water) , public health, environment and some more. Others are more contentious, such as eg. health care (barring clear public health issues) and poverty relief/charity.
As default, privatized services should not get tax breaks, since they are supposed to do ‘better’ on a profit basis. They should be taxed according to their profit.

Fair point. It is confusing. We were run almost completely separately even then. We didn’t pay taxes to Britain, or receive benefits or anything like that. However, until quite recently, people could still turn to the British Supreme Court once they had run out of legal options in NZ. So there were anachronisms, but it wasn’t like we were a state of Britain or anything. In WWI we fought separately as the NZ Expeditionary Force, but we were ultimately under British control. It was a bit confusing, and the apron strings were constantly gradually loosening. It wasn’t the same situation as when the US broke with Britain. When Britain entered the European Common Market they abandoned us in many ways – they had been the main market of our exports until then. One of the arguments of the Brexiters is that Britain should be cooperating economically with NZ who has always been on the same side militarily, and not Germany who they fought against in two world wars.

If that is so then I will stand corrected, but in my defense I relied on the web site of your Dept. of Internal Affairs (Te Tari Taiwhenua) which states: “Prior to 1949 there were no New Zealand citizens. People born or naturalised in New Zealand were British subjects, a status common to the peoples of the United Kingdom and the British Empire.”

http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Services-Citizenship-Celebrating-60-Years-of-New-Zealand-Citizenship

It is not better to keep the state separate from schools imo. One of the issues in parts of the US is, for example, schools in areas where the dominant religions are fundamentalist and so evolution isn’t taught properly or at all. There also has to be some oversight of the education system to make sure that all children get a fair go, especially those whose parents can’t or won’t make an effort. Charter schools for example are not all they’re cracked up to be. Some are good and should be an option, but others are shocking and children need to be protected from them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_htSPGAY7I

No Trump is no libertarian – I certainly agree there. In fact he wants more government than Republicans usually do. There are even things he’s said I agree with, though most Republicans don’t (e.g. when he talked about free healthcare for all).

The people are not best served imo either if the government does not intervene strategically in the economy. It is necessary to maintain a strong economy. Relying strictly on market forces results in stagflation (see Germany between the wars), mass unemployment (as in Great Depression) and other negative consequences. Those extremes can be avoided by judicious interference of a central bank adjusting things like interest rates, money supply etc depending on the circumstances.

As for Trump and tax, there’s a difference between avoiding and evading tax. I know there is no evidence he has done anything wrong in that instance, and I’m not accusing him of anything. However, I think he should at least provide his tax returns for those years that aren’t being audited.

Also, it always seems to me that the US tax system is worse than most in the way it’s set up. So many laws have bits attached to make special interests happy in order to get people to vote for them, and those laws benefit the rich for no reason other than that they are rich. That just doesn’t happen in most OECD countries. And why are Big Oil, Big Sugar, and many others still getting tax breaks? Big Sugar, for example, has an appalling record for the way it treats its workers overseas. Some are little more than slaves. The companies don’t need the support – politicians on both sides need their money for their political campaigns.

We were part of the British Empire, not British subjects. Not the same thing. Women here could vote in 1893, as you know, but British women couldn’t until 1928.

@nicky: Not to quibble, but the inhabitants of New Zealand at that time were British subjects, and if anything enjoyed less autonomy than the citizenry of any one of those four sovereign states.

I’d agree that anybody whose sole interest is how much money they personally get to keep is selfish. Of course, that is a ridiculous misrepresentation of the Libertarian position, or the position of anyone who believes that the common good is best served by limiting political meddling in the economy and society.

No one questions the value of education, or the need to provide for those who are unable to provide for themselves. It does not follow that the state must own and operate schools, or insinuate itself into the classroom. Indeed we’d be far better off observing strict separation of school and state. Nor does it necessarily follow that the state is better at caring for the needy than are private initiatives.

“Government” doesn’t build roads or ports or do anything at all without the resources that We the People give it. Trump is no libertarian by any stretch of the imagination, but to the extent he may seek to minimize his own personal tax bill under the law, that makes him no different from Obama, Clinton, and every other taxpayer of every persuasion.

I reject your comment about Republicans, but we’re not discussing them — rather, the supporters of the Libertarian Party candidate and libertarians generally.

That latter paragraph is really pertinent, methinks. It is the kind of (subconscious?) hypocrisy that makes politics such a dreadful activity. Of course, it goes both ways, how could we expect otherwise?

I stand corrected 1893, not 1899.
Wyoming and -to my great surprise- Utah (polygynic state, at least at that time) , Colorado and Idaho should be recommended. But they are not ‘national states’ (although I fully take your point about numbers).
I’m sure there might be some ancient villages here and there that had women voting too.

Point is that hereditary constitutional (powerless) monarchy is not that bad a system.
I’m sure the British *are* afraid to boot out the queen, you could get Farage or Johnson as (powerful) head of state (a bit like the USA is risking a Trump), a fearful prospect.

Note also that Switzerland, considered one of the more democratic states in this world, was *extremely* late re female voting rights (somewhere late in the 1960’s, IIRC).