Milton Friedman on government and private enterprise

[a500lbgorilla]

It is a tough process, as it should be. Human beings are extraordinarily complicated, and great efforts should be made to ensure a pill won't fuck you up.

All the effective ones do though. They just fuck you up "right".

[a500lbgorilla]

This post got seriously long, but I think it's a good one. I tried illustrating scenarios to better paint a picture.



I have an n=1 that I think can exemplify the rationale for why the FDA may not be saving more lives than a competitive market for food safety would. This isn't about the FDA but the Washington State Department of Health (WSDH).

Ever since I've been an early teen, I've probably averaged 80 meals a year at small, hole-in-the-wall teriyaki joints. I love the food, but there are drawbacks. I've had food poisoning from them maybe 15 times. My friend who used to join me on occasion once got food poisoning so bad he was bed ridden for a week and it probably could have killed him. These were not fly-by-night restaurants. They were under the WSDH jurisdiction and were in well-populated commercial areas. But clearly the WSDH was not doing its job. I can extrapolate from my experience that the thousands of tiny, Asian family owned restaurants in the region were not being properly investigated and regulated by the WSDH.

Why is this important? Because the WSDH is in charge. The government stripped me and everybody else of our responsibility to ensure our own safety. The government took our taxes and fees and monopolized the food safety market, and it gave every indication that it was living up to its stated standards. We had no choice but to trust the food was safe. But clearly in my case the government was not trustworthy and I got sick many times and my friend almost died.

Contrast this to what things would look like if the government was not involved in food safety. The market would be populated with multiple food safety companies, each with their own techniques, but all with the goal of getting the customers of food companies to trust the safety of the food they brand. Instead of living in a region with just your state's health department in charge, you may see something like just three safety brands: Safe Food Inc, Eat Safe, and HealthNow. Each of these companies specializes in food safety and they set deals with food providers that allow the safety companies to monitor and manage the food handling practices so that they will put their stamp of approval on the product.

Let's say that over the course of my life, I once got sick from a Safe Food Inc branded food, or I know a guy who did, yet I haven't had any bad experiences with Eat Safe or HealthNow. In that case, when I go to a small teriyaki restaurant, I'm going to be looking for their brand. These restaurants are all over the place, sometimes two or three to a lot, so if I walk into one and I don't see an Eat Safe or HealthNow brand on their menu or window or whatever, I'll go to one that does. In the case of a private food safety market, I have reasonable choice to affect my own health, but in a monopoly I do not.


On a related but different note, this would allow for more innovation in the market and would improve quality while reducing prices. Because of price variation, where the quality of the food safety branding is reflected in the price of the food, the safety companies would be competing with each other to be most efficient. For example, let's assume the only difference between Kroger and Winco is that Kroger is branded by Eat Safe and Winco is branded by HealthNow, yet the price difference in their foods is approximately what they are today. If the perception among consumers is that they do not get sick any more often from Winco than from Kroger, they'll start flocking to Winco at the expense of Kroger simply because they'll be getting the same product for lower price. Eat Safe would be in a fight for its life to get its costs down (without disturbing quality) in order to keep Kroger as a customer.

Or if we're talking small businesses, where an owner may not pay for safety branding in the first place, it's still a viable (and sometimes necessary) strategy. Let's say you are poor and you open a small teriyaki restaurant in the cheaper part of town just across from another teriyaki restaurant, one that's branded by Eat Safe. You know that customers won't easily choose your restaurant over one that pays for Eat Safe inspections and protocols; however, you have a strategy. You already know how to not poison your customers with poorly handled food, and you make food as good as the one across the street. Your strategy is that because you're not paying for inspections and protocols, you can offer the same quality product for cheaper. Everything on your menu is $.75 cheaper. You advertise that on a sign out front, and you get the occasional customer who is willing to take the tiny risk on you because he thinks that if you're legit he'll be saving $2.25/wk. Over time you build up a customer base of people who, for whatever marginal reason, decided to eat at your restaurant despite your lack of safety branding. You're doing so well that you want to expand. You can now afford safety branding, but maybe you'll decide to run things differently because you think you can create a chain of restaurants that performs safety measures internally while creating its customer base off your impeccable record and cheaper prices. This is but one of the uncountable iterations of how a free market of food safety allows innovation that makes the world a better place.


I could go into detail regarding how things would work if you're selling snake-oil and you harm people, but this post is too long so I'll only do that if somebody wants to hear it.

No one can keep score with a thing like this. You eat safeway like you have for every tuesday as long as you care to remember, you get sick, was it safeway or something else? You'll never nail down the cause affirmatively.

Sometimes you get sick, shrug off the reasons and focus on getting better, and never do you wonder again how you got sick way back when.

[a500lbgorilla]

It's not that the stuff approved by the FDA isn't up to proper standards. It's that the approval process is so inefficient and wasteful, in time and money, that many great products are delayed for years, or never see the light of day, or worse, are never conceived of in the first place. The approval process erects such a huge barrier to entry that only multi-billion dollar companies can afford to push their shit through. The unseen factors are hard to quantify, but it's likely that the FDA has resulted in untold millions of deaths by delaying life-saving drugs from market.

The value of what you're pressing at would make a President. If you could suss out the waste and realign the chakhras of something like this, you would be Elon Musk-esque.

[a500lbgorilla]

Don't companies find ways around the FDA? http://www.itv.com/news/2015-05-29/l...he-new-law-do/

[a500lbgorilla]

FDA approVal is probably my #1 priority when deciding what food or drug to use. I will never use a non-fda approved drug, for example.

Gay. Slam some piracetam. http://nootropicsdepot.com/piracetam/

[a500lbgorilla]

Or a world in which goods are produced freely and there are privately-run watchdogs that profit by giving products their stamp of approval or disapproval. As ever, I'm not arguing for no regulation, only against state-based regulation. Also, my suggestion isn't utopian. It is merely a counter to the dystopia that is currently taking place. There's never going to be a perfect solution.

A fresh world that was never wounded by mistakes of the past. Or are mistakes perfectly enveloped in the choices presented to us today?

That's a genuine question. Do you think the world that exists today has learned from all its mistakes?

[a500lbgorilla]

Bureaucrats are less efficient at doing so.

All they need is the squeeze.

Yes, though, you can be lazier with a blinded bureaucracy above you.

[a500lbgorilla]

So if a bureaucrat uses an expert opinion in creating policy, the problem is solved. I suppose we're done here then.

An expert opinion? No one can tell between experts and expert-fakes.

[a500lbgorilla]

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that individuals know better what's good for them when it comes to net of each small decision than bureaucrats do. I have pulled this idea from experts in economics. The biggest economics expert I know of designed his life's work around this idea (Milton Friedman).

Expertise is nothing to sneeze at. Consumers wisely choose to pay for expertise on a regular basis. Buying food, cars, plumbing -- consumers are paying for things they know others do better than they do.

No individual considers their pollution as far as it goes, because they simply can't.

You can't pretend that individuals are the great shamans of the world.

[a500lbgorilla]

Yeah I'm well aware, I do risk management for a living. What you're saying is that consumers know better what's good for them than experts, and I wholeheartedly disagree. Efficiency, ROI, low TCO, capital flow, shareholder value and whatever else mean nothing, if the goods and services don't fulfill minimum standards on the four criteria. Relying solely on free markets they don't, unless consumers demand for them AND it's good for the business, AND the companies do not manage to hide what they're actually doing, AND even then, only after time has passed and shit has hit the fan enough times to create sufficient public outcry. Getting things right _eventually_ is not good enough, when we can enforce standards to make them good enough to start with.

TCO?

[wufwugy]

No one can keep score with a thing like this. You eat safeway like you have for every tuesday as long as you care to remember, you get sick, was it safeway or something else? You'll never nail down the cause affirmatively.

Sometimes you get sick, shrug off the reasons and focus on getting better, and never do you wonder again how you got sick way back when.

People evaluate things all the time.

All they need is the squeeze.

Yes, though, you can be lazier with a blinded bureaucracy above you.

Them not getting the squeeze as often or as vigorously as private entities is one of the reasons they're less efficient.

No individual considers their pollution as far as it goes, because they simply can't.

You can't pretend that individuals are the great shamans of the world.

Civilization is made up of individuals. Decisions are made by individuals. The system that best allows for the most efficient interaction among individuals is the best system.

[Renton]

How many people died of diabetes-complications behind the high-carb low-fat diet guidelines that had us eating dessert for breakfast?

You can measure lost human lives behind any choice by a high enough power.

The dietary guidelines were merely a gentle suggestion of what to eat. The DDT ban took a veritable miracle pest control product out of the hands of people desperate to rid themselves from deadly insects. As well, organizations like the EPA make it continually harder for effective alternatives to DDT to be produced. Again, more unquantifiably unseen factors so it's hard to be too angry about them. How much would the malaria epidemic have been alleviated in the absence of these programs? How much cheaper would food be, worldwide? We can never know.


I'm busy, I'll reply to your other stuff later.

[a500lbgorilla]

Where are you getting this from?

Wiki says that it worked until the 'squitos gained resistance to it or blanket use in areas faultered.

Why isn't Bill Gates rallying for DDT use today to solve malaria?

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-...Health/Malaria

https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates...ed?language=en

He even lists growing resistance to pesticides as a big aspect of the problem. Why do you think DDT is the miracle cure to this problem?

[a500lbgorilla]

Rich countries used DDT and eliminated mosquitos. Poor countries were too poor to do it effectively. Rich countries, no longer needing DDT use to fight malaria, ban it - poor countries are still too poor to do it effectively. It probably also helped that the rich countries were temperate, since the problem was mosquitos, as there are seasons when mosquitos fuck off south.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ombat-malaria/

"DDT should be used with caution" when nothing else would work.

What was the EPA's mistake? That DDT had known and dangerous drawbacks, while malaria was also known and dangerous? Both choices would have killed people, Renton, and in the EPA's zone of influence and responsibility, malaria wasn't a problem any more.

[a500lbgorilla]

DDT legit sounds like chemo-therapy for an ecosystem. Kill everything slowly to kill the parasitic mosquitoes completely.

[a500lbgorilla]

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) used to be the Office of Malaria-Control in War Areas. That's cool

Literally the army's solution to malaria was DDT. We adopted that policy for use across the nation and when the consequences of that choice became known and were local, we stopped.

Even your DDT example came from a central authority. Maybe the EPA takes the loss for its choice, but then the army takes the W.

[a500lbgorilla]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...48969705001749

Not enough evidence to know the consequences of DDT.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...87390590524037

It stays in the food chain, but might not be as persistent as previously thought. A fish can break-down 2.5% of consumed DDT over 42 days.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...48969704005698

They banned it in Spain in the 1970s and were finding it in people in the late 90s.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/ch..._132845573.htm

Even China, which still has a malaria problem, is cutting use of DDT. edit: because of the Stockholm Convention

[a500lbgorilla]

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...90623808000361

Screws with the baby maker.

http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2...n-third-world/

While it does kill all bugs (some guy won a nobel in '48 showing this), some mosquitos simply run away - meaning you need perpetual DDT use to ensure complete erasure of the parasite.

Funny though, it was linked to thinning egg shells of bald eagles - that's what it took for the public to clamor for its ban.

[a500lbgorilla]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring

This is apparently the story of how one woman brought her concerns over the use of DDT to the public fore-front.

[a500lbgorilla]

Why isn't Brazil using it to combat Zika? If BP can dump that stuff that hides an oil spill, why can't Brazil spray everything with DDT and claim it's something else?

[a500lbgorilla]

It's a neurotoxin.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247187/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1620342

[a500lbgorilla]

To summarize what I found

- you need to use a lot of it everywhere to be effective, otherwise the mosquitoes may gain a resistance
- it's a neurotoxin that overwhelms smaller brains while only very mildly harming big ones
- it doesn't kill mosquitoes on contact, it simply repels them on contact
- it lasts for a long time and accumulates upwards in the food chain

I suppose if you use enough of it everywhere for years and years, we'll have no malaria and a world of DDT-resistant humans.

[a500lbgorilla]

It's people still working to change the environment to suit them, but the environment working to fit right back into those niches we try to repel them from.

Can't wait for CRISPR designed mosquitoes that fuck 'em all out of existence. This is a human world, you lil bitches.

http://www.nature.com/news/gene-driv...alaria-1.18858

[CoccoBill]

An expert opinion? No one can tell between experts and expert-fakes.

Agreed. Verifiable scientific data, not authority opinions. Only regulations that should be in place are those that can be backed up with some.

TCO?

Total cost of ownership.

[a500lbgorilla]

Even your DDT example came from a central authority. Maybe the EPA takes the loss for its choice, but then the army takes the W.

I had two english teachers that taught the same book. One of them said that only this author could have written this book, the other said no, this book would have been written eventually.

Which is it? Do you think we would have discovered and purposed DDT eventually or do you think the gov't had a grand demand and DDT came out of it?

edit: In our literal history, it took an army at war, practiced in chemicals, to develop DDT. There was malaria before DDT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_malaria

In 2700 BC China there was malaria. But it took the US army to finally develop a weapon to do something about it. Why wasn't it developed in 1000 BC China? 500 AD China? China, which was the center of wealth of the entire world, the eternal kingdom, used herbal remedies for the sickness.

Oh right, it was before the magical curve in the hockey stick.

Why do you think the free market would do anything more? Why would the free market ever develop a chemical weapon?

[a500lbgorilla]

They were using coal in China circa 4000 bc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coal_mining

And in the Incas in the early Americas and in Rome by 200 AD.

It was being widely traded and used by artisans in 1300s and was prohibited for health concerns. Eventually Britain ran out of trees and relied more heavily on coal, and, feeling the squeeze from a lack of trees and some available coal, we have the Industrial Revolution.

What was the industrial revolution and what made it happen in Britain?

edit

Britain had a vast supply of mineral resources used to run industrial machines, such as coal. Since Britain is a relatively small country, these resources could be transported quickly and at a reasonable cost. The British government passed laws that protected private property and placed few restrictions on private business owners. Britain's merchant marine could transport goods to foreign markets. Lastly, Great Britain's colonial empire created a ready supply of consumers to purchase its manufactured goods.

You tiny islanders just couldn't keep to yourselves... http://study.com/academy/lesson/caus...evolution.html

[a500lbgorilla]

Britain was so small and so filled with resources that it made the entire world small. Hell of a shot, guv

edit: just for fun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_m...United_Kingdom

[wufwugy]

Why do you think the free market would do anything more?

Because that's what free markets do.

[wufwugy]

Rich countries used DDT and eliminated mosquitos. Poor countries were too poor to do it effectively

Interesting. Is this real? Like, did America or Italy or whatever have all sorts of mosquitoes back in the 50s that they don't now?

[Renton]

I'll have more time to address your points later, but I just wanted to add that I'm not arguing for a mass DDT spraying or something. I'm making a point that because a fear-mongering environmentalist wrote a popular book about pesticides in 1962, governments made it unduly hard on pesticide manufacturing to this day. In all likelihood, safer alternatives to DDT would have emerged in a free market. It's impossible to know for certain.

This environmentalism-to-a-fault is very similar to the over-regulation of food and drugs that began this discussion. Both are cases in which a regulatory authority fails to understand that there are risks/costs to everything and sometimes the benefits exceed those costs. And the only way to know if the benefits exceed the costs if you allow humans to make their own choices about how they use the products. A low-income person might be happy to pay one-third of the price for produce that has a little pesticide residue on it. It's a tiny risk for the great benefit of having a full cupboard. Banning the pesticide removes that choice, and results in a lower standard of living for anyone who would have preferred that choice over the alternatives.

[a500lbgorilla]

I'll have more time to address your points later, but I just wanted to add that I'm not arguing for a mass DDT spraying or something. I'm making a point that because a fear-mongering environmentalist wrote a popular book about pesticides in 1962, governments made it unduly hard on pesticide manufacturing to this day. In all likelihood, safer alternatives to DDT would have emerged in a free market. It's impossible to know for certain.

Who was the first manufacturer of DDT? It wasn't the free market. There was no free market demand for DDT. Sick people can't work. People that don't work don't have money. Malaria was a problem for a long time before someone did something incredible about it.

This environmentalism-to-a-fault is very similar to the over-regulation of food and drugs that began this discussion. Both are cases in which a regulatory authority fails to understand that there are risks/costs to everything and sometimes the benefits exceed those costs. And the only way to know if the benefits exceed the costs if you allow humans to make their own choices about how they use the products. A low-income person might be happy to pay one-third of the price for produce that has a little pesticide residue on it. It's a tiny risk for the great benefit of having a full cupboard. Banning the pesticide removes that choice, and results in a lower standard of living for anyone who would have preferred that choice over the alternatives.

It's too easy for me. It's too easy to shrug off these impossible problems to the wisdom of the many. The many have worshiped funny gods and fought funny wars. But for some reason, they're supposed to be able to square up to what DDT is and the true consequences of its use?

I tried well today to get to know DDT and I tried to show my work - and still, what do I know about DDT?

[a500lbgorilla]

Interesting. Is this real? Like, did America or Italy or whatever have all sorts of mosquitoes back in the 50s that they don't now?

According to Bill Gates, Malaria was a problem everywhere, now it's just these places.

[a500lbgorilla]

Because that's what free markets do.

Too much faith for me.

[wufwugy]

Too much faith for me.

I'm not interested in faith. If I had faith in free markets, I wouldn't support them. Free markets are not a unique phenomenon. They are merely attaching to commerce the principles that you and me and everybody else in the West take for granted regarding virtually every aspect of our lives. Every behavior exists in a market, including things like dating or playing games. If the government suddenly started regulating dating, nobody would claim that it is doing anything better than the free market of dating does.

[MadMojoMonkey]

nobody would claim [...]

Too much faith for me.

[wufwugy]

I often use conversational English.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I often lack the drive to match my words to my meaning.

FYP

I really wish you were more meticulous in choosing your words to say what you mean rather than say what is cool. I wont deny that it's cool, though. It's just that you insist that other people's words be taken with dictionary precision, but you use analogy and metaphor all the time. It's pretty daunting to try to converse with you when I have to spend so much time picking and choosing my own words so that you don't insist I said something I didn't mean to say, but then you don't seem to spend any time doing the same meticulous choosing of words to say true things and not merely cool things.


Note: this short post was re-written in every single sentence to avoid setting off your "MMM is judging me" klaxon.

[wufwugy]

I use common colloquialisms. Be talking with your friend. He asks you "why did they cancel Firefly?" You say "eh nobody was watching." Clearly people were watching, but they were small enough of a portion that they might as well have not existed.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I use common colloquialisms. Be talking with your friend. He asks you "why did they cancel Firefly?" You say "eh nobody was watching." Clearly people were watching, but they were small enough of a portion that they might as well have not existed.

Please stop doing this in this thread and others where you're not being casual and colloquial, but making a point about a serious subject about which people whom respect you are trying to learn how to understand your point in the context of their lives.

***
As a note, you asked for examples of how choosing your words poorly makes it easy for you to make bad points based on flimsy reasoning. You were encouraged by myself and JKDS to make the attempt to use more specific and rigorous language when you're making an intelligent point. Since then, I have pointed out 3 examples of when you have not done this, and how it muddies up your point. All 3 times, you have come back with some reason why what you're doing is intentional. I know it's intentional. My point is that your intention is undermining your authority.

[CoccoBill]

I can't help but think Dunning-Kruger.

I always thought the usual criticism of free market capitalism, saying it's only based on greed and interested in profits, not in people's well-being can't be true, a whole field of experts can't just be selfish pricks. I get that free market has mechanisms to autocorrect some actions regarding the let's call them moral values (safety, security, ecology etc.) at some level within a certain timeframe. The only thing that free market seems to guarantee, at least on a fairly consistent basis, is efficiency. Efficiency itself is nothing more than potential to produce more, not something that inevitably leads to moral values.

Don't get me wrong, I'd absolutely love to believe that just by abolishing all governments and regulations, all humanity would come together in perfect harmony, hold hands and sing kumbaya, but sadly this doesn't seem to be the case. The best arguments brought up against regulations are lower efficiency, which I feel is acceptable, if it's the only way to guarantee moral values. The other one is the difficulty of making regulations, which I can totally agree with. It may be the most challenging activity that humans do, to make them fair, effective and without serious side effects. Then again, I see no theoretical reason why they couldn't be all that. Maybe all or most regulations governments have come up until this point have been crap, but that doesn't mean good regulations cannot exist. First we should strictly define what should be the goals of regulations in the first place, and only create ones that are well within those boundaries, but that's a larger political discussion about the role of government overall. Any regulation put in effect should be scientifically justifiable, and there should be a clear mechanism to monitor and adjust them based on their effects. If it didn't work the way it should have, change it or get rid of it. I actually feel that the MF clip wuf posted is in total agreement with what I'm saying.

[CoccoBill]

I completely agree with Friedman, that at the minimum regulations that protect 3rd parties are needed, such as regulations on pollution. Where I disagree is that these regulations should also be extended to protect the primary parties on some basic minimum level, where it can be scientifically justified.

[wufwugy]

I completely agree with Friedman, that at the minimum regulations that protect 3rd parties are needed, such as regulations on pollution. Where I disagree is that these regulations should also be extended to protect the primary parties on some basic minimum level, where it can be scientifically justified.

IIRC Friedman doesn't discuss abolishing government the way I do. That's not to say that he didn't have ideas on it, but maybe he thought it was not pragmatic to discuss. So, his response in this video includes the premise that governments set law. In this situation, he believes that there is no place from a purely logical point of view for government to get between consensual acts, but when third parties are involved by externality, they're non-consensual and thus the government must be involved. I think it's a mistake to take this to mean that without government, non-consensual third parties would suffer. In a free market of law, third parties would be protected by other law/insurance companies. Instead of government protecting property rights, individuals would protect their own property rights mainly by contracting to a company.

I think this method would be more effective because it would be more robust at protecting property. One way I think we can see how this would be the case is that in our current world, negative externalities on third parties typically come by way of people misusing government property, not private property. In a world where all property was privately owned, I suspect it would be harder to get away with vandalizing, dumping waste, polluting, etc..

[wufwugy]

I always thought the usual criticism of free market capitalism, saying it's only based on greed and interested in profits, not in people's well-being can't be true, a whole field of experts can't just be selfish pricks.

Economics looks at the reality that people are by nature selfish; the field tries to understand what that actually means. Adam Smith's chief observation that has stood the test of time is that an economy is made up of a bunch of selfish people, who by nature of competing amongst each other, have to act more or less selflessly to get the selfish awards they set out to. This process is what propels the betterment of goods and services and peoples in a society.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own self-interest."

"Every individual... neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it... he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."

Smith is saying that it is not because the goods providers want to help us that they give us stuff, it's because they want to help themselves yet the best way they know how to do that is to help us so that we will exchange with them what will help them.

Don't get me wrong, I'd absolutely love to believe that just by abolishing all governments and regulations, all humanity would come together in perfect harmony, hold hands and sing kumbaya, but sadly this doesn't seem to be the case.

I only think we could do this if people want to do it. Right now people choose government.

[wufwugy]

Please stop doing this in this thread and others where you're not being casual and colloquial, but making a point about a serious subject about which people whom respect you are trying to learn how to understand your point in the context of their lives.

***
As a note, you asked for examples of how choosing your words poorly makes it easy for you to make bad points based on flimsy reasoning. You were encouraged by myself and JKDS to make the attempt to use more specific and rigorous language when you're making an intelligent point. Since then, I have pointed out 3 examples of when you have not done this, and how it muddies up your point. All 3 times, you have come back with some reason why what you're doing is intentional. I know it's intentional. My point is that your intention is undermining your authority.

I'll keep in mind that this may be one of the ways in which I may be confusing.

[wufwugy]

Most economists don't go the "no government" route. But some do, and I think they do so because the rationale is baked into economic theory. My experience in principles of economics classes is that they teach some eyebrow furrowing contradictions, and it seems to me they do that because the culture of economists is still very pro-government. Here's an example:

When they teach how a monopolistic market functions, they show how monopolies have a different way to set quantities and prices than is possible in competition. They then teach that the government can step in and set the price/quantity for the monopoly at the point that it would be if the market was competitive. Then they leave it at that. But this isn't an answer to the problem of monopolies. On the philosophical front, it's just using a monopoly to "solve" the problem of a different monopoly, which doesn't make sense since the problem is created by the state of there being a monopoly in the first place, so the "solving" must necessarily be a problem itself. Outside of the philosophical stuff, economics teaches other elements about how producer and consumer behavior respond to different prices and quantities. The positive aspects of these elements are detracted when a government steps in and regulates a monopoly. This includes things like the higher the price, the greater the incentive for entry into the market from other firms. So if a regulator artificially drops the price, firms lose one of the primary tools by which they enter markets. What this all means is that academics is teaching economics students that markets have perpetual correction mechanisms that are essential to the health and growth and innovation of the economy, but if you don't like the result of a particular market you can "solve" the problem by nullifying that perpetual correction mechanism, even though that is reasonably considered a worse idea. It's a weird thing to teach, which is why I think my experience with it is that they don't go too deep into it.

It's for reasons like this that I think some economists are in the anti-regulation camp even at the "extremes." If we take economic theory for what it says, we don't want to regulate markets even when they're monopolized because that will just solidify the monopolies instead of allowing for the elements that inevitably attract competition.

[wufwugy]

I completely agree with Friedman, that at the minimum regulations that protect 3rd parties are needed, such as regulations on pollution. Where I disagree is that these regulations should also be extended to protect the primary parties on some basic minimum level, where it can be scientifically justified.

Such a gangster point in the last 15 seconds. Unintended consequences and incentives are so cool. Apply safety regulations to automobiles that increase inefficiency, and find that this makes for an unintended consequence of greater incentive for consumers to drive older, less safe cars. At least in this particular scenario, it's ironic how safety regulations decrease safety.

[CoccoBill]

I watched a couple lectures by him. He never mentioned abolishing governments once, on the contrary believed they have a distinct role in protecting 3rd parties. He clearly also wasn't anti-regulation, but anti bad regulation.

[Renton]

Yeah MF was a chicago school economist, definitely nowhere near an anarcho-capitalist. He was your standard "night-watchman state" proponent.

[Renton]

This is the mega a500lbgorilla response post that I've been promising. I just found myself with a spare 30 minutes.

A father to a son. Is that beyond the claim? A reclaimed addict to another addict? Is that beyond the claim? Someone who knows to someone who doesn't? Is that still beyond the claim?

Are we to assume that everything worth knowing can be given in an instant? That sometimes the hard lessons need not be learnt? Or need to be learnt again at the same expense? That sometimes the world that came before has something to teach you, but you can't learn it without someone insisting you do?

There's a difference between teaching someone that they shouldn't do something and using the threat of death to make them not do something. A father can forbid his son to do something because the son is under the father's care and support. At the very least, father's house - father's rules must be followed. Using the parent and dependent child analogy to describe the state's relationship to its citizens is kind of gross. It doesn't fit anyway because with your parents you eventually become emancipated from them to live your own adult life and make your own adult choices. The nanny state holds you in the pen from the cradle to the grave.

A fresh world that was never wounded by mistakes of the past. Or are mistakes perfectly enveloped in the choices presented to us today?

That's a genuine question. Do you think the world that exists today has learned from all its mistakes?

Of course not. But I think the state has a way of delaying or preventing the lessons from being learned. The consequences for the mistakes are blunted or even misdirected so they seem to come from different causes and affect different people. A clear example of this is the state debt. The overspending is a huge mistake and the consequences are being delayed decades so that people who are in an entirely different generation will have to pay the consequences.

Where are you getting this from?

Wiki says that it worked until the 'squitos gained resistance to it or blanket use in areas faultered.

Why isn't Bill Gates rallying for DDT use today to solve malaria?

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-...Health/Malaria

https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates...ed?language=en

He even lists growing resistance to pesticides as a big aspect of the problem. Why do you think DDT is the miracle cure to this problem?

Maybe it's not a miracle cure. It was certainly a powerful weapon that was made politically inconvenient to use. Mozambique, Belize, and Bolivia were all pressured to stop using it or otherwise lose their aid grants.

Admittedly, it isn't possible to know the extent of the harm caused by the ban, or indeed even if there was great harm caused at all. Either way, it is clear that the preferences of white people in the U.S. and Europe were imposed upon much poorer and more desperate people in the third world. Rich people can afford to be risk-averse. Poor people don't have that luxury.

What was the EPA's mistake? That DDT had known and dangerous drawbacks, while malaria was also known and dangerous? Both choices would have killed people, Renton, and in the EPA's zone of influence and responsibility, malaria wasn't a problem any more.

The drawbacks weren't known and dangerous. They were only speculative. If you read the context of the ban, it's pretty obvious that it was more political than scientific. Rachel Carson's book, which has since been widely discredited, set off the environmental movement and a wave of hysteria that led eventually to the ban. There's really not much evidence to suggest that any humans died from exposure to it, and many of the threats to wildlife have been discredited as well. The current opinions have settled into, mainly, people who think the chemical is worth using to preserve human life and people who think it shouldn't be, primarily due to threat to wildlife. It's really only the crackpots who are continuing to argue that it's a threat to human beings.

To summarize what I found

- you need to use a lot of it everywhere to be effective, otherwise the mosquitoes may gain a resistance
- it's a neurotoxin that overwhelms smaller brains while only very mildly harming big ones
- it doesn't kill mosquitoes on contact, it simply repels them on contact
- it lasts for a long time and accumulates upwards in the food chain

I suppose if you use enough of it everywhere for years and years, we'll have no malaria and a world of DDT-resistant humans.

Yeah in the hour it takes to research it to the 80% level to be aware-but-not-expert, it just seems to be mildly hurtful to humans and environments. Again, probably not a panacea to cure malaria and no drawbacks at all, but a clear example of politics costing human lives.

I had two english teachers that taught the same book. One of them said that only this author could have written this book, the other said no, this book would have been written eventually.

Which is it? Do you think we would have discovered and purposed DDT eventually or do you think the gov't had a grand demand and DDT came out of it?

edit: In our literal history, it took an army at war, practiced in chemicals, to develop DDT. There was malaria before DDT

No, DDT was developed privately in 1874, long before the wars. Its insecticidal properties were discovered by a private pharmaceutical company that still exists today. The chemist got a Nobel prize for that. Certainly, it was put into practice by militaries during WWII, though.

But let's say a state did create it. Of course, that's going to happen from time to time since the state has tons of resources and human ingenuity at its disposal. There are a lot of things that the state does that prevents the private sector from participating entirely. Or the state throws so many resources at the thing that no private company could hope to compete.

Who was the first manufacturer of DDT? It wasn't the free market. There was no free market demand for DDT. Sick people can't work. People that don't work don't have money. Malaria was a problem for a long time before someone did something incredible about it.

Yeah, again, it was free market. As for your second point, that just seems absurd. Sick people have able family and friends who want to make them well, who will work to get the money for the medicine and treatment to make them well.

It's too easy for me. It's too easy to shrug off these impossible problems to the wisdom of the many. The many have worshiped funny gods and fought funny wars. But for some reason, they're supposed to be able to square up to what DDT is and the true consequences of its use?

I tried well today to get to know DDT and I tried to show my work - and still, what do I know about DDT?

You're kind of proving my point. Why do you think a committee would be any better at knowing what the true consequences of DDT use are? It's just a few appointed people. The free market is 7 billion people. As I said the other day, the only way to know if the benefits exceed the costs is to allow people the choice whether to use it or not. Each person has a unique set of needs and desires. A unique tolerance for risk. Let them make the call how they use their own property (including their bodies).

[MadMojoMonkey]

If I want to buy a home/car/etc., it is a significant investment of my resources which will take me many years to acquire the money to afford. I am not an expert in civil engineering, and I don't have the time or patience to become one. I want to know that the experts who are making me promises about the efficiency and safety of the product have to face consequences if they are lying to me. I want further assurances that if they have been incompetent and sold me something less than they claimed that I am protected from their mistakes.

Now, some home/auto manufacturers are diligent and not making any significant (to me) mistakes. I appreciate that those companies don't need to be regulated. However, I don't know which company is which. I am not the expert. I simply want to know that all of the companies meet some minimum standard. I want to know that cars don't explode (even in collisions) because it doesn't have to be my car exploding that could threaten my safety. I want to know that houses are earthquake resilient, because it costs the community when houses fail and injure people.

I want to re-state my earlier point that no one has enough time or intelligence to research every industry which they patronize, or which affects them by other's patronage. Yet, we want to trust that intelligent people, whether from within the industry or from a 3rd party, are responsible for preventing misconduct, whether through intent or negligence.

I'm not arguing that gov't regulations are the most cost efficient way of accomplishing these goals. I'm suggesting that there is an argument to be made that the cost efficiency is irrelevant when compared to the psychological security of trusting in your current situation and the recourse if that trust has been misplaced. I'm suggesting that the value in this psychological security, though unquantifiable, is a real value which motivates people's decisions.


EDIT: I'm suggesting this as a layman in both psychology and economics. My assertions are based on my observations of humans doing their madness things, and not based on my training as a physicist.

[wufwugy]

I'm not arguing that gov't regulations are the most cost efficient way of accomplishing these goals. I'm suggesting that there is an argument to be made that the cost efficiency is irrelevant when compared to the psychological security of trusting in your current situation and the recourse if that trust has been misplaced. I'm suggesting that the value in this psychological security, though unquantifiable, is a real value which motivates people's decisions.

I completely agree with the sentiment of the importance of psychological security. If a free market of law were to mean that there were no consequences for abusive, fraudulent, or negligent behavior, a free market of law would be a trainwreck. If we take the premise implicit in your statement (government security or no security), then you're right, cost efficiency is irrelevant because, well, let me put it this way: government security will always be more cost efficient than no security. What I argue for is not that we replace law with no law, but that we fund law differently. If law were to exist in a free market, I think it would be more effective at providing the psychological security we all need.

If I want to buy a home/car/etc., it is a significant investment of my resources which will take me many years to acquire the money to afford. I am not an expert in civil engineering, and I don't have the time or patience to become one. I want to know that the experts who are making me promises about the efficiency and safety of the product have to face consequences if they are lying to me. I want further assurances that if they have been incompetent and sold me something less than they claimed that I am protected from their mistakes.

Now, some home/auto manufacturers are diligent and not making any significant (to me) mistakes. I appreciate that those companies don't need to be regulated. However, I don't know which company is which. I am not the expert. I simply want to know that all of the companies meet some minimum standard. I want to know that cars don't explode (even in collisions) because it doesn't have to be my car exploding that could threaten my safety. I want to know that houses are earthquake resilient, because it costs the community when houses fail and injure people.

I think it is harder for people like us to make the value judgments you address here when we must rely on the government for protection. My n=1 food poisoning experiences are an example of this. In the cases you present, like home building, the government providing licenses and regulating the projects gives what could be described as a false sense of security in one way while detracting a sense of security in another way. I'll give an example.

Laundry chutes are not typically legal. They're a fire hazard. Regardless, some people install them and bypass inspections by doing so after they know an inspector won't check that area again. In one of these homes, the owner naturally has that more secure feeling I mentioned because he has no choice but to rely on the licensing and inspection practices of the government. So that means that the owner should naturally believe that the builder is doing things right and that the inspector is doing things right. But some of this is false security for reasons like the illegal laundry chute. The owner and the builder know that they've put something illegal in the house that the inspector won't see, but they don't know why it's illegal. All they know is "don't do it because something something air draft," but they think the stairwell is a huge draft that nobody seems worried about so no problem adding a small laundry chute. The sense of security is not diminished even though it should be. Is the government to blame for this? Not directly. The homeowner and builder are to blame directly. However, when we think like economists, we find causality in more places.

By nature of the government having a monopoly on licensing and inspections and law, it sets the rules and has the responsibility to maintain obedience. I don't want to go into the "maintain obedience" element. It's something political discourse regularly battles over because the government has the responsibility to not allow infringement against laws but doing so typically infringes on other rights. What I want to look at is the effects of where government sets rules. By making laundry chutes illegal, they exist in the black market. The black market is dangerous; it has little spread of expertise or competition. By making laundry chutes illegal, where they are installed, they will necessarily be less safe than they otherwise would be. The builder who installs one has no expert he could have learned how to do so from; there isn't somebody he can call for help other than another black market agent. He will use no technique other than something rudimentary. For all we know, laundry chutes can be made perfectly safe, but they require special material or special technique. But the owner and builder don't know this because they're illegal. The existence of the chute itself is unknown by outsiders, so if the house catches fire, the unwitting firefighters may be walking into a death trap. If this happens and it's lathered all over the news that a secret laundry chute killed some firefighters and voters wanted it to stop, what could the government do? Any tactic it took to make sure no secret chutes were installed would be a huge waste in resources and would likely infringe on some other rights. So we'd be stuck in a bad situation with no getting out of it. When you have government, voters respond to problems differently than is most sensible and would be taken up by those more close to the problem. Voters say "outlaw chutes that hurt families and firefighters!", but if we were to actually solve the problem, it would not involve outlawing them.

In a free market, the risk of chutes would be accounted for. Or there would be some widespread innovation that nullifies their hazard. Regardless, they would be installed in the light of day in the best ways and people would be best prepared. Or maybe some companies/regions would still outlaw them, but this time the regulations would work since if they didn't people would lose money; whereas the government loses little when their laws don't work.


I probably missed some important points or forgot to illustrate some of the reasoning I took, so let me know if this is confusing or if you think it's wrong.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I completely agree with the sentiment of the importance of psychological security. If a free market of law were to mean that there were no consequences for abusive, fraudulent, or negligent behavior, a free market of law would be a trainwreck. If we take the premise implicit in your statement (government security or no security), then you're right, cost efficiency is irrelevant because, well, let me put it this way: government security will always be more cost efficient than no security. What I argue for is not that we replace law with no law, but that we fund law differently. If law were to exist in a free market, I think it would be more effective at providing the psychological security we all need.

A) I'm not seeing how governments' existence isn't a response to a demand made by a free market. I'm not seeing how law does not exist in a free market. It's not worth hashing out either of these points again, since the evidence shows that was a waste of time to begin with.

B) I'm not saying it's the best, I'm saying it's what people asked for of their own free will. I want cars that don't explode. Auto manufacturers have made cars that explode. They sold them to trusting consumers who were put in peril. Some of those people died. Can we learn the lesson that leaving the issue of safety up to the manufacturers was killing people? Can we learn that the free market was killing people in this case?


I'm not saying that the free market is bad. I'm saying that you paint it as this very simple thing and you pick and choose where your end-game is in the story. You claim that the free market "would have" solved these problems more efficiently than the gov't did. I say you're conveniently ignoring that the free market created the problem in the first place and continued to perpetuate it until it was not some minor infraction. I'm saying that your claim that the free market would have solved it is in direct opposition to the evidence at hand... the free market was doing the opposite of solving it. I don't see how you can claim that it just needed more time to kill more people 'till it got it right.

I'm not saying that gov't oversight is good. I'm saying that neither is the one true answer. They feedback and support each other. They are both just collections of people doing things. When the free market business don't police themselves to the consumers' satisfaction, the consumers' freely demand the market becomes regulated via their own governing agencies.

If anything, my point is that I don't see the razor you use to cut gov't as separate from business in this sense. Both are made by people, of people, who are free to choose what they do. Both are meeting demands of a wider population, who are free to demand whatever they want. Yes, I see that the gov't gets the trump card in making laws, but the gov't is there because citizens made a free market demand for a gov't which makes laws, settles disputes, and protects the public safety.

[wufwugy]

I'll try to hit a handful of unique points to keep it smooth.

I say you're conveniently ignoring that the free market created the problem in the first place and continued to perpetuate it until it was not some minor infraction.

I'm not trying to suggest this. The natural state of the world, of humankind and civilization, is one of problems. A primary problem is scarcity. The typical behavior that we animals engage in is more or less about fighting the problem of scarcity. From a chipmunk gathering nuts to a barista making coffee, the reason for their behavior goes back to the problem of scarcity. It is with that in mind that I consider different types of economic systems.

The exploding automobile problem you mentioned is an iteration of the scarcity problem. Economic agents try to create abundance, but it's not a smooth process and this manifests in negative ways. I'm not trying to suggest perfection of free markets, but that when it comes to humanity's galactic journey from scarcity to abundance, the free market is the most effective known tool.

In addition, government regulation doesn't resolutely solve the type of exploding automobile problem. For example, state food departments are responsible for maintaining safe food, yet people get sick and die all the time. We still have all sorts of repeat bacterial scares that technically could have been prevented.

Lastly, harken back to the unintended consequences Friedman laid out in the situation of auto safety regulations decreasing efficiency and thereby decreasing safety in other ways (which may result in a net loss of safety). We can't consider just exploding automobiles; we have to consider every input. Unintended consequences are a big, big deal. I mentioned a month or so ago about one regarding the Great Depression, where some economic scholars believe that the financial collapse was in part an unintended consequence of the Federal Reserve having regulatory power over the financial system.

If anything, my point is that I don't see the razor you use to cut gov't as separate from business in this sense. Both are made by people, of people, who are free to choose what they do. Both are meeting demands of a wider population, who are free to demand whatever they want. Yes, I see that the gov't gets the trump card in making laws, but the gov't is there because citizens made a free market demand for a gov't which makes laws, settles disputes, and protects the public safety.

At one time let's assume the founders had a free market of law (I would argue they never actually did) and chose to turn it into a monopoly market of law. Demand exists in every kind of market. Even if it is the case that people would freely choose to move to monopoly (which I believe it is at this point in time), that doesn't mean that having the monopoly is a free market.

[CoccoBill]

^^I agree completely. I'd also like to add that the notion that free markets have not been tried anywhere yet, and if we did, they'd solve all problems is bollocks. On the contrary, a free market is the default state until a government starts regulating a certain aspect of that market. At that moment that aspect is no longer in the free market, but all the other aspects of it still are. Right now, a large part of all markets globally (or the global market) are free, every single product or aspect of it's production or sales that isn't regulated, is part of the free market. Free markets have existed since the dawn of time, when the first transaction took place. Market regulations were put in place to fix the holes in free markets. Not perfectly, but out of necessity.

I think it's extremely important to realize, that some regulations are in fact necessary, and the reduced efficiency is worth paying in some cases. There's no mechanism in a free market to ensure anything, it just the sum of services and products that people as consumers want to buy. Now, if people were rational, educated, egalitarian and altruistic, the free market would work perfectly, and no regulations would be necessary. But they are not. Most of them are anything but, and this is reflected in the goods and services produced and consumed. No amount of efficiency can make up for it. A lot of the time it's better to walk in the right direction than run in the wrong one.

BTW some of what I wrote here is paraphrased from a Friedman youtube clip.

[Renton]

The closest thing to a pure free market was the gilded age, and while things weren't perfect in those days, it was the most dramatic accumulation of wealth, median living standards, and technological advance probably in human history. It's hard to call almost any market in our age completely free because there's always central banking and controlled interest rates at the heart of the system, which affect every facet of everything.

[wufwugy]

Can a society even have a government that isn't an octopus? Look at the States. Since inception, tax rates have gone up how many hundreds of percent? Regulations have increased by how many thousands (millions?) of percents?

Frankly, I don't know what the answer is. I think it's probably having a culture of anti-government anarcho-capitalistic freedom among the people. If we don't have that, the government, no matter how itty bitty, looks like it will just find a way to grow and grow and grow.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I would support a US constitutional amendment which instills a mandatory sunset clause on all laws.
Laws can be re-instated when the sunset date comes, but the law needs to be re-debated on the floors of Congress.

I also support the "one law, one issue" mandate which some states have passed.


We need to de-clutter the laws. I feel confident that we can accomplish an at least equally effective legal environment with a much simplified set of laws.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Lastly, harken back to the unintended consequences Friedman laid out [...]

What evidence does he put forward to support his assertions, though?
If I can't analyze his data and draw the same conclusions, then I remain unconvinced of his point.

He says things which play on what "feels" expected or intuitive, but human behavior defies expectation and intuition. It's great that he has these hypotheses, but unless he shares what motivates his hypotheses, he can't convince me he's on to something more than his ego.

At one time let's assume the founders had a free market of law (I would argue they never actually did)

If people who have no government and are tasked with the creation of government and law are not in a free market of law, then what do you mean by "free market of law?"

[wufwugy]

What evidence does he put forward to support his assertions, though?

In that video about the car safety issue? None.

This is a good place to start when addressing what economists mean by unintended consequences: http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/23...-consequences/

They're really just effects that weren't expected. For example, if you don't take your gf out to dinner anymore to save money because the mortgage went up, but then she breaks up with you because she feels you don't love her anymore, the break up may be in part an unintended consequence of you not taking her out to dinner anymore.

Here's an example on the economist (you only get three free page views per month IIRC) with a link to the academic paper within: http://www.economist.com/news/financ...d-consequences

If people who have no government and are tasked with the creation of government and law are not in a free market of law, then what do you mean by "free market of law?"

A free market of law is one in which laws are made by private entities that are funded through choice of their consumers. Nobody can say exactly how this would manifest, but it would likely be along the lines of people paying for arbitration insurance for a company that will represent them in conflict resolution. If you would like me to provide an example of how I think this would work, I can probably come up with something.

Here's a video you might find a few points you like:

[MadMojoMonkey]

(I will watch your video link after work. I haven't clicked it yet. This is in response to your other links.)

Couldn't the unintended consequence be that the regulation drives more innovation than would have happened otherwise, and consequently, the auto manufacturers are producing cars which are both more safe and more affordable?

Ask anyone who's ever had their profession's form of writer's block and they will tell you that sometimes an "unreasonable" request or limitation is exactly what is needed to drive innovation.

Kennedy said we'll put someone on the moon when he knew full well that our best scientists didn't know exactly how we were going to do that.


What motivates the notion that all unintended consequences are antithetical to the intended consequences?
I.e. what gives any weight to the idea that unintended consequences are a reason to avoid regulation?
I.e. what is it which makes this a reason to place trust in the problem-making entities to resolve the problems with fewer or better unintended consequences?

[wufwugy]

Couldn't the unintended consequence be that the regulation drives more innovation than would have happened otherwise, and consequently, the auto manufacturers are producing cars which are both more safe and more affordable?

That certainly is the case. Just look at an unintended consequence of British tyranny: American independence and its revolutionary democratic and freedom-oriented unalienable rights for individuals constitution.

What motivates the notion that all unintended consequences are antithetical to the intended consequences?
I.e. what gives any weight to the idea that unintended consequences are a reason to avoid regulation?
I.e. what is it which makes this a reason to place trust in the problem-making entities to resolve the problems with fewer or better unintended consequences?

It isn't that economists (the ones I've seen discuss this) think all unintended consequences are negative, but that the government is poor at correcting poor policies. The war on drugs is a great example. Once the government starts something, when does it stop? How many millions of lives have to be ruined and how many billions of dollars wasted? Private entities don't have the luxury of receiving funds through taxes, so they need to employ more robust methods to correct bad policies. Private entities can go bankrupt and they battle competition. Government doesn't much have those considerations.

It isn't that a free market doesn't create negative unintended consequences while the government does; it's that the free market is better at correcting them than the government is.

[wufwugy]

I would support a US constitutional amendment which instills a mandatory sunset clause on all laws.

It's a great idea. I'd like a freedom of commerce amendment too.

[JKDS]

The problem with sunset laws is the same as the benefit.

We want stability as a society. We want to know the law one day, and have it still be the law the next. Most people don't know the law today, these people wouldn't be able to keep track of a constant flow of changes.

I feel it would also be highly corruptable.

[MadMojoMonkey]

In response to the video:

Stick figures in your head are not the same as people in the real world.

Outcomes are not that predictable among real people.
What will happen in his various scenarios is not so unambiguously simple and one-sided as he presents humanity.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The problem with sunset laws is the same as the benefit.

We want stability as a society. We want to know the law one day, and have it still be the law the next. Most people don't know the law today, these people wouldn't be able to keep track of a constant flow of changes.

I feel it would also be highly corruptable.

I disagree. The current problem is that there are so many laws that it is unreasonable to expect anyone to know all of the laws which apply to them. It's not the rate of change, it's the sheer number of laws.

I'm not convinced that the laws would change more rapidly. I didn't specify how long the sunset time would be. The current state of laws is ever-changing, anyway, but many laws are out-dated, given the progress of technology and civilization.

Yes, it would be corruptable, but so is every aspect of out current system.

[MadMojoMonkey]

To be fair... plenty of stuff in that video I wouldn't dispute. The way the narrator says or at least implies that there can be only one outcome in many of his examples is so against anthropological history as to render his conclusions as out of context from humanity.

***
Isn't the fact that businesses have factories spread out all over the world motivated by a free market of law?

Isn't the fact that emigration is a constant flux for nearly every nation in the world also evidence of a free market of law?

Isn't the fact that the government is made of its citizens and that its laws are subject to change at the whimsy of the population also evidence of a freedom to alter your own laws if you don't want the free market options?

[CoccoBill]

It isn't that economists (the ones I've seen discuss this) think all unintended consequences are negative, but that the government is poor at correcting poor policies. The war on drugs is a great example. Once the government starts something, when does it stop? How many millions of lives have to be ruined and how many billions of dollars wasted?

Portugal.

[wufwugy]

To be fair... plenty of stuff in that video I wouldn't dispute. The way the narrator says or at least implies that there can be only one outcome in many of his examples is so against anthropological history as to render his conclusions as out of context from humanity.

***
Isn't the fact that businesses have factories spread out all over the world motivated by a free market of law?

Isn't the fact that emigration is a constant flux for nearly every nation in the world also evidence of a free market of law?

Isn't the fact that the government is made of its citizens and that its laws are subject to change at the whimsy of the population also evidence of a freedom to alter your own laws if you don't want the free market options?

Even though there are multiple law creators, they're still monopolists by way of tax/coercion jurisdictions. Exactly what they would be called -- oligarchies, cartels -- I'm not sure right now. Regardless, a free market of law would be different, as it would be funded through choice instead of through mandatory taxes. When I disagree with the government putting people in prison for smoking weed, I have no choice but to fund it. For us to have a free market of law, it would look something along these lines: I would be able to contract a law company whose policy is that smoking weed is not a crime to be my representative in any disputes, including ones with somebody who pays for a law company whose policy says that smoking weed carries such and such punishment.

[wufwugy]

The problem with sunset laws

You may be right. However, I suspect we would find how to make a stable system of sunset laws. The nature of needing stability is that, well, you need stability, and efforts gravitate towards making it happen. An example of how I think a sunset law system would be stable is that the kinds of laws Congress would create would be the kind that disrupt little and are expected to be renewed easily. This could go a long way to keeping Congress out of the business of intruding so deeply into private interactions like it already has. It would force Congress to focus on what Congress should, on what makes the nation a better place instead of carve-outs for special interests. Carve-outs would have a hard ass time getting renewed, which would deter their creation in the first place.

[JKDS]

I think you guys are stuck in thinking purely about regulatory laws. I'm speaking of laws as a whole.

Like murder.

Contract formation.

Freedom of speech.

Child custody.

Copyright.

We had a period where the federal government shut down recently, for being unable to pass a budget bill. Can you imagine if that happened to any one of the above?

[wufwugy]

Portugal.

Now if only we had the choice to send our money to Portugal instead of Uncle Sam, so that when an agent of Uncle Sam puts handcuffs on one of us for smoking weed on his own back porch, the full force of Portugal comes down on Uncle Sam to protect its insured. Then millions of others who agree with Portugal's policies send their money to Portugal instead of Uncle Sam, and Uncle Sam quickly finds that it's losing billions in funds and it has no choice but to stop putting people in prison for smoking weed.

[wufwugy]

I think you guys are stuck in thinking purely about regulatory laws. I'm speaking of laws as a whole.

Like murder.

Contract formation.

Freedom of speech.

Child custody.

Copyright.

We had a period where the federal government shut down recently, for being unable to pass a budget bill. Can you imagine if that happened to any one of the above?

That is a problem. Sunset doesn't have to be blanket sunset. Certain types of laws could be under periodic mandatory review, for example. It wouldn't be that murder laws would be at risk of being nullified by the clock, but that they would undergo a period of potential change. I don't see how this would be much less stable of a situation than having SCOTUS judicial review, where a big law can change overnight.

[MadMojoMonkey]

When I disagree with the government putting people in prison for smoking weed, I have no choice but to fund it.

This is demonstrably false. You may not think it's cost efficient for you to change other aspects of your life to affect a change on this issue, but you definitely have a whole range of choices on how you respond to this law.

You have the choice to move to a jurisdiction where people are not put in prison for smoking weed - like Colorado. You don't even have to make the decision whether to switch nationalities, which is also your free law-market option, and move to Amsterdam or some other nation where people are not persecuted for this. I know you said its not viable for you, but plenty of people find this to be a perfectly viable solution every day. It is your perspective of your costs and benefits which makes in inviable to you, not the geography of it all, or some innate nature of people or law.

You have the choice of where you live and where you pay "mandatory" taxes. There are places where you can live where there are no taxes, as I'm sure you know. You just choose to consider those places unviable... but those places are perfectly viable to the people who live there.

Why would you even suggest that is your only choice? Would you let yourself be manipulated by statements like these? Why do you use manipulative statements which are at odds with demonstrable reality? Is it to manipulate?

[MadMojoMonkey]

I think you guys are stuck in thinking purely about regulatory laws. I'm speaking of laws as a whole.

Like murder.

Contract formation.

Freedom of speech.

Child custody.

Copyright.

We had a period where the federal government shut down recently, for being unable to pass a budget bill. Can you imagine if that happened to any one of the above?

Yes and we'd be OK.

Are you suggesting that people do or do not murder because of laws?
I am not convinced.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Now if only we had the choice to send our money to Portugal instead of Uncle Sam, so that when an agent of Uncle Sam puts handcuffs on one of us for smoking weed on his own back porch, the full force of Portugal comes down on Uncle Sam to protect its insured. Then millions of others who agree with Portugal's policies send their money to Portugal instead of Uncle Sam, and Uncle Sam quickly finds that it's losing billions in funds and it has no choice but to stop putting people in prison for smoking weed.

Dude... you pay for this protection by Portugal by becoming a Portuguese citizen. Just because you have chosen that this is inconvenient to you doesn't mean that it is not your option.