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 Originally Posted by CoccoBill
I didn't mean embezzlement but hiding facts from the customers. Every company is run by people, which most of the time have their own best interests first. If they're left with a choice of admitting a fault with something in their personal field of responsibilities, or hiding it and getting away with it until they've left the company, I'm pretty sure many would be tempted. Everybody at Google, Amazon and Goldman could do this, and many have. My point was, in answer to your question, that companies are run by people, and most of them couldn't care less about what their clients think when their personal ass is on the line.
This all assumes monopoly power. In a market, it doesn't matter that much if some people try to screw over clients when their asses are on the line because the competitive dynamic allows for others who can do better to do better. Like with natural selection, consumer selection weeds out identified problems.
When comparing people in enterprise to people in government, it's all just about incentive structure. Every one of us acts in our own self-interest first and foremost. Capitalism is the mechanism that harnesses that fact and uses it to create a society that improves itself
What about drug laws in Colorado, the Netherlands or Portugal? I would argue that those are government regulations in place that demonstrably work well. Of course it's hard to say what would happen if all drugs were completely unregulated, maybe that could be the optimal solution. But I also don't think an issue like this can be proven one way or the other with just a single or even several case examples.
What in those regulations are beneficial? The benefit in those regions is in every way that regulations that deter freedom have been overturned. The benefit for Colorado hasn't been in its new regulations of marijuana, but in its deregulation of punishing people for marijuana
I meant internal company policies, such as insurance policies. We'll always have regulations, whether mandated by public or private actors. Again, the public sector policies at least in theory have the citizen's best interests in mind, the private sector aims solely for ROI.
One of the focal points of the Caplan lecture I previously posted is how even though public sector policies have best interests at heart, they result in overall negative things, yet even though the private sector is selfish, it results in the best interests. It's counter-intuitive, but it is true that the economic mechanism of progress is selfish actors competing with each other. Intentions are not key, incentives are key. Government intends to do well, but its incentives don't promote doing well and it ends up not doing well. Entrepreneurs do not intend to do well (unless you think being selfish is "doing well"), but their incentive is to create a product or service that people freely choose to accept, and this dynamic coupled with competition from other entrepreneurs doing the same thing results in societal benefit
Unless when the competition isn't fair, because of for example false advertizing (which again, may correct itself over time, but not as soon as it can), unethical business practices, etc. And I know, some of these may be created by government regulation, which is a case against bad regulations and lobbied governments, not against all regulations and governments. While it's easy and tempting to demonize governments, it's important to remember that at least for you in the US, your frame of reference is an overbloated lobbied caricature of one, not the "hey, I just wanna farm and get drunk, let's vote in a bunch of smart people to take care of this administrative shit for us" it was meant to be.
Well, I wouldn't say that's how the US was meant to be. It was originally set up to have an incredibly weak government, but over time, power consolidated for a handful of reasons (usually related to security). But that's a different topic
Regardless, you're going the "unless competition isn't fair" route. What mechanisms make competition less fair and what mechanisms make them more fair? I think if you flesh that out you'll find that government intervention does the former and lack of government intervention does the latter.
The belief is that government intervention helps the little guy, but it does the opposite. The overwhelming majority of intervention favors the big, entrenched guy. Helping the little guy comes by keeping government out of the market. It is a big mistake to think that businesses have the sort of capital or prestige to crush the little guy in a free market. If the pharmaceutical companies attempted to do what they've done to beat back competition without the use of government, they'd all be bankrupt. "Big pharma" should be changed to "Big government backing favored pharmaceutical companies and screwing everybody else"
Yup, that's true. But why is that health inspections regularly find stuff like rat and poo in pizzas when the market was supposed to make them all clean? How is the market stopping someone from serving you terd pizzas for a few months, then opening with a new name in another part of town and continue doing the same after someone finding out? I would argue the cleanliness of the kitchens, effective cold storage chains and molecular consistencies of their dinners are more often revealed by official health inspections than avid customers.
You're vastly underestimating the logistics it takes to start and operate successful businesses. Only somebody who wants to lose nothing but assloads of money could sell turd pizzas for a few months then close up shop and do it again. You're also underestimating consumers. Who the hell wants to eat a turd pizza? This hypothetical entrepreneur isn't going to just be able to up and sell whatever he wants to anybody he wants. A third underestimate is how much "turd" there is in your food already, despite the best efforts of regulators and businesses (mass production and oral consumption is messy). A fourth overestimation is how government could do any better. Here's what works better than government regulation of food safety: a popular journalist reports that McDonalds knew that rat poison was in its food, people have died, the majority of McDonalds' customers are now going to Burger King, McDonalds and all its stakeholders are now in the process of bankruptcy
The incentive for businesses to run a clean ship is much, much higher than the incentive for the regulators to make sure they're running a clean ship. If a business gets caught screwing its customers, it's doomed. If the government gets caught screwing anybody, it slaps itself on the wrist and takes more tax dollars. Start listing examples of big businesses that have gotten away with screwing people over, and you'll find that they've been bailed out by government.
I feel those are more examples that are largely US specific, I think in most countries cops beating up and killing innocents is not a big issue. So again, an argument against one specific implementation of governance, not an argument against governance. And more to the point, I meant the "theoretical" incentive of a government is the citizens best interest, while for a company that is shareholder value.
It's just one example. Europe has a whole bunch of other problems. Even then, an example of government acting bad in one place but not another doesn't mean the problem isn't inherent. Besides, Europe has been the biggest culprit of government fucking people in the entire world. Lest we forget wars are not waged by private enterprise. There are few better examples of the destruction wrought by government than the colonialism and war of European ones. Today, we live in a golden age like never before precisely because of capitalism
The governments are, or at least should be reflections of their populace, nothing more nothing less. If they're not, the wrong people got voted in. I'd suggest basic IQ, history and psychological testing in order to be allowed to vote.
Herein lies a good example of the problem of regulation. Because I completely disagree with this policy preference, and maybe I'm right. Or maybe you're right. Or maybe somebody else is right. But how could we find out who is right if we create a perpetuating incumbency on the issue?
I think the best salve to the issue is still allowing every citizen to have one vote, but letting them sell their votes if they so please. At first it sounds like it would be a disaster. It sounds like the Kochs would just buy up enough votes to get politicians to overturn the constitution and turn the US into a Kochtatorship, but the logistics don't back that up. What the ability for voters to sell votes would do is vastly increase the amount that people with an agenda would have to pay to get their agenda enacted, and it would likewise increase the amount of wealth (and potential ability to fight against an agenda) of those who sell their votes
It's the name of the game, yo
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