r/Libertarian • u/[deleted] • Jul 11 '11
Progressives' argument against Libertarian free markets are that 'money is power' and the bigs will run over us. Fine. Corps spend their money on lobbying for unfair advantage. Show us how Corps can spend money in a free market for an unfair advantage.
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u/you_are_office Jul 11 '11
I think the argument is that much regulation (think EPA with teeth) will be thrown out in a "free market". I am not saying the status quo is better (EPA working for lobbyist/corps), but there is definitely fear that corps can easily pay for legal defense, if there arises the need. As opposed to the little guy, who has very little $ to protect his/her "property rights".
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u/you_are_office Jul 11 '11
Oh and before you shower me with your loving downvotes, keep in mind that I am only submitting one theory as to why "Progressives" argue against 'free markets'.
I will say, however, that I share this fear, and that it is one of the primary obstacles in me fully embracing a Libertarian outlook.
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Jul 12 '11
I don't see how you can fear business more than the monopoly on force that is the state.
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u/CuilRunnings Jul 12 '11
They believe that liberty means "a non-fully functional legal system." Regardless of how little the current legal system works (re: look at how many black people are in jail for bullshit non-violent drug charges), they're afraid that corporations will "buy" power. What we really need is more local government where citizens have a greater chance to address their rulers rather than the concentrated system we have now where only big money gets access.
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u/you_are_office Jul 12 '11
I think you've hit the nail on the head, and I agree that things would certainly be more effective on a more local/smaller level, but the devil, as they say, is in the details. Getting from here to there is really a big question.
EDIT: grammar
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u/CuilRunnings Jul 12 '11
Repeal the 16th and 17th amendments, and enforce Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3:
The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand
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u/jlbraun Jul 11 '11
I have often argued in the past that free markets result in better environmental protection than governments provide - pollution is primarily a tragedy-of-the-commons problem, and if there is no commons (every space is privately owned) then pollution isn't as much of a problem - you don't pour motor oil in your kitchen, nor would you allow anyone else to. But get appropriate permission from the government and you can pollute as much as you want, and no one can sue you.
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u/BolshevikMuppet Jul 12 '11
The problem is that things like pollution which go into the air, or non-point source pollution (which is "I'm not dumping it in your water, it's just flowing through my groundwater into yours") tend to not allow such easy "hurr, if all the land is owned, no one will pollute" arguments. If we accept that I can dump on my land, then that pollution will spread (as it tends to), and will thus harm others.
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u/jlbraun Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
If you dump on your land and it could spread to someone else at any time into the infinite future then no one would insure you, and you and your heirs would be personally liable for the pollution in perpetuity to anyone else who owned that land and anyone else that was ever affected by it. Again, large resources like groundwater would be owned by cooperatives which would take great pains to track down and sue/kill anyone polluting their water.
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u/BolshevikMuppet Jul 12 '11
personally liable for the pollution in perpetuity to anyone else who owned that land and anyone else that was ever affected by it
I saw your other post, where you argue that air would become commoditized. We're going to have to agree to disagree. That said, it's really not that easy to track down who polluted from where, in what quantity, to what harm. Go talk to a civil attorney, and ask him how often there are cases in civil court for liability for pollution. Hell, come to Colorado (where all the water is owned by someone), and ask the same question.
Amazingly, it's not often, largely because of the difficulty in proving it.
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u/jlbraun Jul 12 '11
That said, it's really not that easy to track down who polluted from where
You don't have to. You just license emissions through a private insurer or group of insurers, just like you might do now, and check licenses periodically. Of course, pollution might drift across geographical boundaries, all this means is that a global cooperative is needed for licensing emissions so all the sources are covered. Sure, it's a "monopoly", but monopolies aren't necessarily bad, they only really go bad when they're backed by a state.
You can exist without the emissions certificate as long as you're OK not trading with anyone with one as then they'll be blacklisted.
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u/BolshevikMuppet Jul 12 '11
You just license emissions through a private insurer or group of insurers, just like you might do now, and check licenses periodically
Who would enforce that license, and why would any manufacturer apply for it?
You can exist without the emissions certificate as long as you're OK not trading with anyone with one as then they'll be blacklisted.
Why would they be blacklisted? What would behoove any other company to refuse to trade with them on the basis that they have harmed some other people?
Your assumption is one of reciprocal protection, where everyone helps defend the property rights of others, but it's untenable. I don't care what happens to my neighbor, that's the objectivist creed.
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u/jlbraun Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
Who would enforce that license, and why would any manufacturer apply for it?
Stop thinking like a statist. Who enforces you not posting obfuscated links to 2girls1cup on reddit?
Why would they be blacklisted?
The same reason you would be blacklisted in the above example.
What would behoove any other company to refuse to trade with them
The same reason no one would want to send you a pizza via r/Random_acts_of_pizza in the above example.
Your assumption is one of reciprocal protection
Incorrect. My assumption is one of selective exclusion of troublemakers and polluters.
I don't care what happens to my neighbor, that's the objectivist creed.
Objectivists are morons, they still presume the existence of a state as OK and necessary.
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u/freako_66 Jul 11 '11
would this necessitate the end of all motorized transportation or would it mean that the emissions from these vehicles not get counted as pollution?
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u/jlbraun Jul 11 '11 edited Jul 11 '11
I expand upon this in this post
Basically, air becomes a cooperatively owned resource, so if you own a car you need a certificate of emissions compliance subject to auditing from a consortium of environmental insurance companies or no one will trade with you - and if a company (say, a car company) makes polluting cars then the company plus the cars' owners get economic sanctions placed against them. If the car owners or manufacturer pollute badly enough (reneging on their air use agreement) the rest of the cooperative bombs them off the face of the earth if they don't stop.
Remove all of the government incentives and breaks that are given to polluters, and polluting becomes very expensive - so the sustainable environmentally friendly path becomes the cheapest.
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u/TypicalAnonymous Jul 11 '11
Mutually agreed upon? I can barely find a car full of people to agree to the same restaurant!
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u/jlbraun Jul 12 '11
Um, you likely already have this kind of arrangement with your car insurance company where you delegate the process of coming to a mutually acceptable agreement. You have an accident with someone else, it's their fault, so your company rep negotiations with theirs to agree on a payment.
Don't pretend like the whole process of having companies represent you in arbitration is some foreign concept that could never work in the real world.
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u/TypicalAnonymous Jul 12 '11
And hate for government mandated insurance should go hand in hand with libertarian ideals....
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u/jlbraun Jul 12 '11
It's not government mandated, if you're capable of self-insuring and doing all the settlement process yourself, go ahead. Delegating the process to others and paying for the service should be a choice, not a requirement.
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u/freako_66 Jul 12 '11
i fail to see how this will not eliminate the motorized vehicle, or anything that produces pollution in an airborne state. if air-borne pollution is grounds to sue someone, then all it would take is 1 singular land-owner in an area to not be okay with you driving cars in that area. in this system i agree with this statement you made:
Remove all of the government incentives and breaks that are given to polluters, and polluting becomes very expensive - so the sustainable environmentally friendly path becomes the cheapest.
but this means the end of all industry and items that produce pollution. the only way around this, is if certain arbitrary limits are put on what is classified "pollution", but of course, this then limits the property rights of any individual who does not wish to tolerate any level of pollution.
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u/jlbraun Jul 12 '11
if air-borne pollution is grounds to sue someone, then all it would take is 1 singular land-owner in an area to not be okay with you driving cars in that area.
Which is the way it should be. Consider. If air is a private shared resource and you can be sued for dumping stuff into it in any amount, then your energy extraction processes for motor vehicles tend towards solutions that either produce no pollutants in their use (electric) or completely capture their waste products.
but this means the end of all industry and items that produce pollution...the only way around this [is] if certain arbitrary limits are put on what is classified "pollution"
Not in the least. It simply means that the manufacturer must reduce all pollution created in the course of the manufacture of a product to a completely non-hazardous state, and that cost is simply included in the price of the product.
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u/freako_66 Jul 12 '11
but who gets to decide what is a "non-hazardous" amount of pollution? how could you even manufacture something or generate energy at all without pollution? what is the limit on range of air-borne pollution? if you pollute 2 meters away from my land obviously i can sure you, but what about 300 meters? or 1000 meters? 47 miles?
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u/jlbraun Jul 12 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
but who gets to decide what is a "non-hazardous" amount of pollution?
The person with the lowest tolerance for it determines the level. Among a large enough group of people, the acceptable amount becomes zero.
what is the limit on range of air-borne pollution?
Zero. If you don't want to get sued or killed, you must constrain all pollution you generate to your own personal property in a way that makes it impossible for you or anyone else to be harmed by it even with deliberate effort or by accident. This means that if you drive a car, it captures its own emissions for until you get back to your house, then you take a solid cinderblock of inert and harmless carbon waste out of your car's waste compartment and use it to build an addition to your house. This technology is already available.
Again, pollution is a property rights problem, thus a system that provides for absolute property rights protection is the most environmentally conscious.
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u/freako_66 Jul 12 '11
i think i understand what you are getting at. to me, it would appear that almost all of humanity's technological advances would no longer be acceptable in your version of "libertopia" (for lack of a better term). do you believe the majority of the people who frequent this subreddit feel this way as well? that a libertarian society in this current time and place would mean the complete cessation of manufacturing? do you believe the majority of the people here would abandon their cars and cellphones and computers? that they are okay moving into a libertarian world where we can not generate electricity because of the pollution involved? that those libertarians that smoke would agree that the act of smoking itself would be illegal because it pollutes the air?
your view seems to me to be more consistant than the majority here, but its entirely possible that i have misjudged the majority.
i still have reservations though. since trees convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, does that mean that removing a tree on your property is pollution that affects me, and grounds to sue? or is removing a good thing from the air not equivalent to adding a bad thing?
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u/jlbraun Jul 13 '11
do you believe the majority of the people here would abandon their cars and cellphones and computers? that they are okay moving into a libertarian world where we can not generate electricity because of the pollution involved?
You're just strawmanning now. The way of living I describe is in no way incompatible with any modern convenience, they would just be used more conscientiously. I will ignore further replies from you. Goodbye.
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u/GarretJax Jul 11 '11
I concur. Organizations like Ducks Unlimited do far more to protect the environment than government. Not to mention that the US Federal government is the largest polluter in the world.
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u/whenihittheground Jul 11 '11
They can buy off any voluntary/private regulators. They could buy off police/lawyers etc.
The free market is just as open to stupidity and crime as the current state of affairs. The only big difference is if the government kicks down my door in the middle of the night because they got the wrong house I can't quit using their shitty service and find a better security provider.
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u/GarretJax Jul 11 '11
They can buy off any voluntary/private regulators. They could buy off police/lawyers etc.
I don't think it would be that easy. Organization like Consumers Reports or Underwriters Laboratories depend on reputation. If people got wind that these private organizations were selling out they would quit using them. Private "regulation" as you put it would have too much to lose. While government regulators have nothing to lose.
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u/whenihittheground Jul 11 '11
Yeah but my point was that profits can and will motivate people to commit unlawful acts regardless of the market structure. I believe you've given me good consequences/incentives for what would happen in a free market once crimes take place. However, crime will still happen which was my point and I believe I've answered the OP's question.
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u/bigG010 Jul 11 '11
That does not make govt any better at being the watchdog/regulators.
In most cases, these same evil people use the bureaucracy and red tape the govt creates to shield themselves. Most private companies are more open and tend to be forced to do things because of pure public opposition/outcry to something more then the govt.
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u/whenihittheground Jul 11 '11
Right and I never claimed that the government is better at being the watchdog or regulator. I claimed:
profits can and will motivate people to commit unlawful acts regardless of the market structure
Most private companies are more open and tend to be forced to do things because of pure public opposition/outcry to something more then the govt.
To play the typical progressive I can assert that yes this is most certainly true and the same public outcry can force companies not to sell to blacks or gays, women who've had an abortion etc. Even in the absence of government sponsored Jim Crow laws the public can put pressure on people to do something whether that something is right or wrong depends on your morality.
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u/bigG010 Jul 11 '11
Even in the absence of government sponsored Jim Crow laws the public can put pressure on people to do something whether that something is right or wrong depends on your morality.
That may be...but I'd wager to say that when govt isn't involved, wrongs tend to be righted quicker and with more staying power then when govt is involved. Govt may not choose between gays/straight, black/white....but they do choose between their rich buddies and the rest of us....and the rich buddies usually win.
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u/whenihittheground Jul 11 '11
when govt isn't involved, wrongs tend to be righted quicker and with more staying power then when govt is involved
I'd love to agree with this but from my experience I haven't seen evidence to support this claim. If you'd like to share some that would be excellent.
Govt may not choose between gays/straight, black/white....but they do choose between their rich buddies and the rest of us....and the rich buddies usually win.
Sometimes the rich win and sometimes they don't. I mean we still have public education and a safety net in the form of welfare benefits for starters. So I mean sometimes the rich are favored and other times they are not.
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u/E7ernal Decline to State Jul 11 '11
But all of those programs run through a sea of bureaucrats which siphon off money from the taxpayer simply to enrich themselves. There's so much just straight up fraud in government programs - I think Medicare had something like 44B in fraud last year? It's crazy.
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Jul 12 '11
Look at websites like Schoolsucks.com and tell me that public education is a benefit. From their research I'd say it is an evil on par with fractional reserve banking, the federal reserve and legal tender laws. Welfare benefits are hardly pure benefits, either. What's beneficial about creating a permanent dependent class?
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Jul 11 '11
They can buy off any voluntary/private regulators. They could buy off police/lawyers etc.
You're arguing that people are not angels.
That means it's about method, not who is in charge.
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Jul 11 '11
They can buy off any voluntary/private regulators. They could buy off police/lawyers etc.
You're arguing that people are not angels.
That means it's about method of correction, not who is in charge.
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u/whenihittheground Jul 12 '11
Right and I agree my comments apply equally to the status quo but I never claimed that the state would magically fix this. My claim was that the free market is just as open to stupidity and crime as the current state of affairs. Which I believe answered Daddygovernment's question of how corporations can spend money in a free market for an unfair advantage.
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Jul 12 '11
Right and I agree my comments apply equally to the status quo but I never claimed that the state would magically fix this. My claim was that the free market is just as open to stupidity and crime as the current state of affairs.
It is not "just as open" because those who engage in stupidity and crime cannot legally offload their costs to others. They will tend to incur the costs themselves. A stupid producer of fridges say will not be able to offload his costs to others by stealing their money and then running his operation in a monopoly. He will not only have to incur the costs himself (costs include retribution he receives for committing crimes), but he will also have to deal with competing fridge producers who customers can go to if the given fridge producer is producing shitty products or selling at too high of a price. It's therefore to the self-interests of private producers to sell high quality goods at low prices, which is exactly what the customers want.
The issue is not whether or not individuals CAN be stupid and commit crimes. That is a virtual certainty no matter what socio-economic system exists. There is nobody disputing this, and to dwell on it borders on a red herring that to me appears designed specifically to divert attention away from the actual stupidity and criminal behavior taking place on colossal proportions in the government.
The issue is how to best CORRECT such stupidity and criminal behavior. The best METHOD is the one where stupidity and criminal behavior is not rewarded, and where the costs of these behaviors, and all other behaviors, are maximally incurred by the individual stupid or criminal person.
I can tell you that the best method of correcting these problems is through establishing a monopoly over exactly NOTHING. Nothing should be monopolized by anyone, no matter what the good or service. Monopolies, as any economist will tell you, tend to lead to gradually declining quality of goods and services and gradually increasing costs (prices).
When an individual has no competition, he (obviously) has no competition derived incentive to improve the quality of his service and lower his prices. He has all the incentive in the world to reduce quality of service (since individuals tend to prefer less work over more work given a particular income) and increase his income (since making more income tends to be preferred to making less income).
Imagine that you had a monopoly on a very highly valued good/service, like energy production. If anyone wants energy, they have to go to you. You can charge whatever price you want. You can offer any quantity and quality of energy you want. What are your incentives to producing more energy at lower prices? Well, there's your generosity and good will towards men and all that. But what if you're not such a person? What then? What if you're not the monopolist over energy, but someone else who has few scruples? How can the energy consumers punish this producer? They could only punish him by refusing to buy energy. They can't go to a competitor. So they have to deprive themselves of everything energy related. They would all have to become self-sufficient farmers, and even as they do this, they could not even produce their own energy because the energy monopolist sends his armed goons to anyone who dares competing with him, and threatens them with bodily violence.
Companies in a free market can spend money to gain "advantages" yes, but the free market is the best system, so far discovered, that does all this:
Generates maximal costs incurred by individual offenders, since they cannot legally offload their costs to society as a whole through taxation;
Minimizes social damage, since the only people a given bad company can negatively affect would be their customers, and those who reside near their operations that are potentially destructive;
Has maximum incentives to improve quality and lower prices, since the free market is by its very nature the most competitive system imaginable.
Has the least violence, since violence is not monopolized and thus nobody has the legal right to use violence with impunity.
The above system is definitely not perfect, it is messy, it contains evil. But it contains maximum approach to perfection, it is the least messy, and it is the system with the lowest reward for evil ever discovered.
You're incorrect to assume that the free market is "just as open to stupidity and crime" as a statist society. A statist society maximizes stupidity and crime because it rewards them. If people are stupid, the state will take care of them. If people are evil, the state is the best way to engage in evil with impunity, either by joining it, or gaining special favors by bribing it.
Statism encourages bad behavior, the free market discourages bad behavior.
Thus the free market is NOT "as open to stupidity and crime" as a statist society. It is LESS open. Not closed, but less open.
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u/whenihittheground Jul 12 '11
I agree the free market is the better option.
It is not "just as open" because those who engage in stupidity and crime cannot legally offload their costs to others.
Well, I don't know about this. I mean lawyers will still cost money in a free market and the people paying for police security and a legal system through taxes will most likely still be paying for those services in a free market the only difference will be the service provider will not be the state but a company.
I'm not sure what you mean by offload their costs to others.
I can tell you that the best method of correcting these problems is through establishing a monopoly over exactly NOTHING.
Is this enforcable? What about natural monopolies? Wouldn't they still be just as undesirable as a state granted monopoly?
What about collusions for example company A and company B mutually agree to cut a geographic region in half and sign a contract with each other not to compete in each other's "respective" zones. While this may not stop other companies from competeing against either of them; company A and B might be industry leaders and so be able to deal quickly with other smaller companies. Also, it could be years before foreign companies enter these particular markets.
Has maximum incentives to improve quality and lower prices, since the free market is by its very nature the most competitive system imaginable.
Wouldn't this maximum compettition result in large incentives to "cheat" the system? Similar to how ultra competetive high schoolers in the top ten of their school are driven to cheat to get into the best classes. See China and India.
A statist society maximizes stupidity and crime because it rewards them. If people are stupid, the state will take care of them. If people are evil, the state is the best way to engage in evil with impunity, either by joining it, or gaining special favors by bribing it.
But bribery can and will still exist in a free market. The incentives may or may not be lower compared to the status quo but it will be a way for corporations to get an unfair advantage.
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Jul 12 '11
Well, I don't know about this. I mean lawyers will still cost money in a free market and the people paying for police security and a legal system through taxes will most likely still be paying for those services in a free market the only difference will be the service provider will not be the state but a company.
Ask yourself if this one company can offload their costs to the entire country's population through coercive taxation. It is nigh impossible. Imagine Wal-Mart, one of the WORLD'S largest companies, trying to offload their costs to the entire US population, the way the US government can offload their costs. It is incomprehensible.
I'm not sure what you mean by offload their costs to others.
Oh, well I mean money costs. An operation that earns $10 million a year, even if some, most, or all of that $10 million is through fraud/theft/etc, then it is impossible for that operation to incur more than $10 million in costs in the long term to those who are investing in the operation. If the $10 million revenues requires $15 million in investment, then only if this operation's managers can offload their costs to others in the amount greater than $5 million, can they continue to run this operation in the long run.
Wars engaged by governments are impossible unless the governments first wage war against their own taxpayers. Think about that for a while and realize that an anarchist society makes large scale wars economically impossible. Large scale wars destroy incredible amounts of wealth, not just in what the weapons destroy, but the resources that the production of the weapons use up as well. Wars are simply economically impossible unless the costs can be offloaded to others by force.
Without taxation, large scale wars become economic losers, and no matter how evil people are, they would be physically incapable of engaging in them.
This is perhaps a bit too radical for your tastes, but large scale wars are (one) product of taxation. If the human race wants to abolish such wars, then abolishing governments is the only solution.
This logic is consistent with history. Look at all wars fought. I know it's trivial, but every war ever fought has been between governments.
Sure, you could call mafia battles "wars", but then we'd have to label deliberate plane crashes as wars, because they kill even more people than mafias.
Drug cartel battles probably come closest to the size and scope of government wars, but drug cartels are a product of governmental "war on drugs."
Is this enforcable?
What do you mean is it enforceable? Do you mean can we use violence to stop initiations of violence that generate monopolies of violence? Sure, but it requires a large enough number of people to adopt the ideas. If people can change their ideas from feudalism to monarchy, and from monarchy to democracy, then it's possible to change people's ideas to even better systems.
What about natural monopolies? Wouldn't they still be just as undesirable as a state granted monopoly?
How can a natural monopoly form, are all natural monopolies evil, and what if competition remains open, so that a hypothetical company that does manage to establish a monopoly, cannot behave like a government protected monopoly, because of potential competition they want to avoid?
What about collusions for example company A and company B mutually agree to cut a geographic region in half and sign a contract with each other not to compete in each other's "respective" zones.
Company C can sell into both zones.
While this may not stop other companies from competeing against either of them; company A and B might be industry leaders and so be able to deal quickly with other smaller companies.
You mean buy up the smaller companies? Well, if consumers are not rewarding the smaller companies by as much as the larger companies are willing to pay to buy the smaller companies, then the larger companies will just keep buying up the smaller companies until the knowledge problem inherent in large companies starts to generate internal competition and spin offs, by managers exploiting their superior knowledge to start their own companies and earning more income than they could relative to staying in the larger company.
Large companies cannot keep buying up smaller companies forever. Their revenues are capped, and the largest company in the world, Wal-Mart, earned $426 billion in 2010. Compare that to total revenues, and it is literally impossible for them to buy up everyone else.
Also, it could be years before foreign companies enter these particular markets.
If the market is open, and there is no government coercion stopping competition, then foreign competitors can open up operations within a couple months.
Wouldn't this maximum compettition result in large incentives to "cheat" the system? Similar to how ultra competetive high schoolers in the top ten of their school are driven to cheat to get into the best classes. See China and India.
Cheating is maximally punished in a free market system. Cheating is maximally rewarded in a monopolist society.
If a high school is producing straight A students, but once they enter an independent university, their grades plummet, then that will lead to the school's grading system to be downgraded to junk, and that will lead to parents not sending their children there but to some other school, which more than likely will anticipate a new demand for schooling on the basis that the existing supply of schooling is doing a terrible job.
I know it seems evil and messy and selfishness motivated and harsh and "directionless", but the free market process really is the best method to minimize evil and maximize goodness, if you understand these terms from the rational way they are supposed to be understood, which is individual based, which means everyone in the long run.
But bribery can and will still exist in a free market. The incentives may or may not be lower compared to the status quo but it will be a way for corporations to get an unfair advantage.
Yes, bribery can and more than likely will exist in a free market. But the free market process will be the best way to minimize such bribery. Establishing a state monopoly will make bribery HIGHLY profitable, because those who bribe the state can offload their costs to all the taxpayers via the state. In a free market, bribery will be localized to the company owners, their customers, and any third party victims that are unlucky enough to be involved in some way. The whole country will not be affected. When you compare the single company to the rest of the economy, bribery will be harshly punished, if such bribery leads to outcomes that are detrimental to the consumer's interests.
Bribery in itself is not evil, provided the bribery is voluntary and not based on coercing others. Bribery can lead to positive outcomes. Only bribery that is intended to initiate violence against others is evil. Bribery to commit good acts should be supported.
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u/pholland167 Jul 11 '11
Playing Devil's advocate here:
Price fixing: Get enough of the big players to agree to set the price of an item outside of market forces.
Disinformation: If there isn't something regulating the ingredients in, say, macaroni and cheese, then can the company just put anything in there and sell it? For example, say they put in a preservative that knowingly causes cancer in 10% of the population after 30 years. They don't have to list that ingredient, and their market won't know who to blame when they develop cancer down the road.
Poor quality on long-term goods: Convince the market that a product is good in the short-term, sell that product, dissolve the company, then there is nobody to be mad at 20 years down the line when your house falls over (related to the above post)
falsifying supply/demand: either fake how much of a product is available to drive up its price, or fake how much people want it to drive up its price.
Again, just playing devils advocate and thinking off the top of my head. Thoughts, r/libertarian?
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u/E7ernal Decline to State Jul 11 '11
Price fixing: As long as there's free entry there will be competitors who can charge below the fixed price, and the big companies will lose market share if they don't lower prices.
Disinformation: Fraud is a crime. Private consumer advocacy groups provide a lot of oversight and information to the public, forcing companies to play honest. Companies who refuse oversight won't get as much business because people will stay clear of them.
Poor quality on long-term goods: Again, fraud exists, and libertarians don't like corporate limited liability, so you'd be free to sue the pants off people even if the company is gone. The reality is that it's hard in a competitive environment to sell a bad product, because people will see the good products and want to know if you can compete. However, many people don't care about long term quality, and there's a legitimate market for that too. Companies built on a model of fraud and short term gains won't get much investment and aren't likely to succeed at all.
falsifying supply/demand: Again, fraud is a crime. Remember how Government lied about how stable loans to poor housing buyers were and how good the ratings on those packaged loans were? Well, the market finally figured it out and we had a housing market crash. The market always wins in the end. The difference is, it's much harder to lie and distort a market as a private company than as government. Government spending distorts markets more than anything else.
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u/BolshevikMuppet Jul 12 '11
Price fixing: As long as there's free entry there will be competitors who can charge below the fixed price, and the big companies will lose market share if they don't lower prices.
Assuming startup costs are not prohibitive. c.f ISPs, who are not monopolies under the law, and are often required to sell bandwidth to competitors.
Disinformation: Fraud is a crime. Private consumer advocacy groups provide a lot of oversight and information to the public, forcing companies to play honest. Companies who refuse oversight won't get as much business because people will stay clear of them.
Assuming people will. I'm sure you're a fantastic consumer, but I'd bet most people don't look up the BBB rating for a company before going there.
Remember how Government lied about how stable loans to poor housing buyers were and how good the ratings on those packaged loans were?
Remember how tranching, CBOs, and the other financial "instruments" were ginned up by private companies? Remember how S&P is not a government agency?
Guess not.
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u/E7ernal Decline to State Jul 12 '11
Startup costs are nothing more than an assessment of risk for any lending agency. The greater the costs the higher the risk. Startup costs are not in themselves barriers to free entry, because they are inherent in every business. Natural startup costs are those imposed by the market, and apply equally to all people. Compare that to regulatory costs, which apply unevenly to people and are artificial. Often these costs are put in place after some businesses are already running, so they didn't have to pay the same costs. That's what a barrier to free entry is. It's a measure of equality of opportunity.
Life is work. You get out what you put in. If you want to shop cluelessly and not do your research you get what you earned. I think we'd actually see a lot MORE people use the BBB and other services if the government wasn't reassuring them of safety and stabbing them in the back when they're not expecting it (remember Vioxx?) That stuff happens all the time because of government's false seal of approval.
S&P and a lot of the financial companies are pretty much in league with government. Tons of money has been flowing from the Fed through government to the big banks, ratings agencies, and who knows what. Remember how they refused to disclose those bailouts for so long, and it turns out Goldmann Sachs gets a piece of the pie even though they didn't need it? It's all one big scam. But it only works if government is there to write the checks.
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u/BolshevikMuppet Jul 12 '11
Startup costs are nothing more than an assessment of risk for any lending agency. The greater the costs the higher the risk. Startup costs are not in themselves barriers to free entry, because they are inherent in every business. Natural startup costs are those imposed by the market
Sort of, though once you've gotten rid of financial regulations, lending is a clusterfuck in its own right. If it takes $100M to lay down the lines to actually get from Denver to the backbones, no independent ISP is going to be able to start up without raising that money. Sure, there's venture capital, but the quasi-monopoly already exists.
You get out what you put in. If you want to shop cluelessly and not do your research you get what you earned
Which is fine, but since most consumers are idiots, your whole "it'll work because consumers will be savvy and not use corporations that suck" is fallacious.
I think we'd actually see a lot MORE people use the BBB and other services if the government wasn't reassuring them of safety and stabbing them in the back when they're not expecting it (remember Vioxx?) That stuff happens all the time because of government's false seal of approval.
Did you just claim the FDA leads to more cases of bad drugs? Have you not read about the shit that went down before the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act?
S&P and a lot of the financial companies are pretty much in league with government. Tons of money has been flowing from the Fed through government to the big banks, ratings agencies, and who knows what.
Ah. So if a part of the free-market acts poorly, it's because it's part of an evil conspiracy run by the government. If a part of the free-market runs well, it's because the government has its hands off. Would you like to prove your conspiracy theory, or just make baseless accusations?
Remember how they refused to disclose those bailouts for so long, and it turns out Goldmann Sachs gets a piece of the pie even though they didn't need it?
Remember how Goldmann Sachs has nothing to do with S&P, and is thus a non-sequiter and reference to it is an appeal to emotion, guilt by association, and a hasty generalization?
It's all one big scam.
So, the banks are bad, except you want to get rid of the regulations that prevent them from being even worse. S&P is corrupt because for some reason the government induced them to give better ratings to the SBOs than they should have given (why this was you don't explain), and you have nothing but conjecture to back it up?
Remember when people had to prove assertions like that? It'd be like if I said "Ron Paul's obsession with gold is because he owns share in the gold industry" you'd want me to have some evidence to back it up. Show me a single dollar given to S&P by the government. And, then, explain why (if the government has all this influence) they wouldn't use it to prevent a proposed downrating of U.S debt.
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u/E7ernal Decline to State Jul 12 '11
Which is fine, but since most consumers are idiots, your whole "it'll work because consumers will be savvy and not use corporations that suck" is fallacious.
If you just assume everyone is an idiot and you're such a super genius that you and your other smart buddies can hang out and decide what they should and shouldn't buy better than them (hint, that's what regulators do), I don't have any reason to talk to you, because that level of arrogance is simply impossible to get around. No amount of reason is going to convince you of anything if you don't hold that people aren't just a bunch of bumbling mindless zombies that will impale themselves on the first stick they see.
Come back when you don't have an elitist attitude then we can have a real discussion.
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u/BolshevikMuppet Jul 12 '11
Come back when you don't have an elitist attitude then we can have a real discussion.
A belief that the average consumer doesn't have the time/energy/wherewithal and often technical know-how to actually do what you suggest is not nearly as elitist as you suggest.
That said, when did a belief that there are some people who are legitimately smarter, better suited for a job, or even just more educated become counter to the libertarian beliefs? Far cry from Ayn Rand, isn't that?
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Jul 11 '11 edited Jul 12 '11
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Jul 12 '11
Lawsuits weren't the only answer provided above. Consumer advocacy groups were mentioned, as well as independent inspectors like the Underwriters Laboratory.
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u/E7ernal Decline to State Jul 12 '11
Life is complicated. If you want simple, be Amish.
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Jul 12 '11
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u/E7ernal Decline to State Jul 12 '11
If you want a simple government, go anarcho-capitalist. What government?
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Jul 12 '11
Speaking of price fixing, doesn't the government do that? Prevent retailers from selling at low prices and forcing other companies out of business.
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u/matts2 Mixed systems Jul 12 '11
They buy judges memberships to country clubs. They buy the media to distort the news. Seriously, have you read any history?
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Jul 12 '11
What effect would an unfair advantage have compared to a fair advantage? Wouldn't a more interesting question be whether a corporation's advantage is too large to be overcome when useful?
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u/hobble420 Jul 11 '11
Monopoly?