Right-to-work Laws

[Numbr2intheWorld]

Amazon charges so little that they'll eventually go out of business if they keep doing it for much longer. Each of these companies do them for many different reasons, and they have nothing to do with the rationality you wish existed in the economy and everything to do with exploiting monopolistic attributes

Yes, Amazon: the terrible monopoly! People can buy great products at the best prices from the convenience of their home. What a terrible result of corrupt capitalism.

[IowaSkinsFan]

Yes, Amazon: the terrible monopoly! People can buy great products at the best prices from the convenience of their home. What a terrible result of corrupt capitalism.

The ultimate paradox: People think businesses charge too much and too little!

[wufwugy]

Wow seriously? How many companies right now are competing to be better than the Iphone? What is their power, hypnotism? Samsung practically gave away Galaxy S3's this winter yet people are still flocking to the iphone. Why? Because they make the best fucking phone in the world. I gladly dished out a few hundred bucks for my iphone rather than paying $50 for a Galaxy S3. And if we forced Iphones to sell for the same price as Samsungs, they a) wouldn't be as good quality and b) definitely would still be made in sweatshops in southeast asia which I know you're very much against.

Yes, Amazon: the terrible monopoly! People can buy great products at the best prices from the convenience of their home. What a terrible result of corrupt capitalism.

I didn't suggest either of these things.

Yes, the iphone prices will be normalizing over time due to its serious competition, but that doesn't change the fact that they have been gouged due to monopolistic attributes. They are not an example of a full and everlasting monopoly, but an example of one way in which good economics is distorted by one company having enough power to do so.

In no way did I suggest Amazon was a bad company; they're actually quite brilliant. But the facts remain that due to monopolistic attributes, they have been able to distort the market and push out all the competition in ways that do not conform to the "rationality of the invisible free hand" ideology. Also, their prices will not always be as cheap as they are because they are not actually making a profit now. It is due to their extreme growth and size that investors are going crazy for them that they are able to absolutely crush the competition by offering prices below market imperatives, and eventually that will come to an end and we'll find they bring their prices back up but, lo n behold, without all that pesky competition from before

[wufwugy]

The ultimate paradox: People think businesses charge too much and too little!

The disconnect is that many believe business = economics and that markets are highly rational and simplistic. I am merely providing examples for why abstract platitudes don't paint the whole picture and often paint the wrong picture.

[Numbr2intheWorld]

Whats your definition of rational?

Also, wrt to Amazon, I bet you said the same thing about them five years ago and their prices are getting lower. When do they decide to raise the prices again and reap the monopolistic rewards? According to you, they already have somewhat of a monopoly, if that's the case they could raise prices now and make billions. Or are you arguing the greedy owners want more than billions?

[wufwugy]

Whats your definition of rational?

I'm not entirely sure because I haven't been constructing ideologies that assume it. The "rationality of markets" has to do with things like the notion that all parties within an economy behave in their best interests and that what works on some levels and some ways can be applied to all levels and all ways and that simple rules can be applied across the board.

Also, wrt to Amazon, I bet you said the same thing about them five years ago and their prices are getting lower. When do they decide to raise the prices again and reap the monopolistic rewards? According to you, they already have somewhat of a monopoly, if that's the case they could raise prices now and make billions. Or are you arguing the greedy owners want more than billions?

I didn't, but even if I did, it wouldn't be relevant. My entire point is how the markets are distorted by the company's actions in ways that can't be claimed to benefit the economy. Jobs have been falling off the grid because of Amazon and it isn't because of economic improvement; it's because of an exploitation. This is one reason why it is important to not confuse business with economics. Business works more on the micro scale and tries to do what's best for them, but economics--macroeconomics at least--deals with how things affect the society and economy as a whole, and the two sides often don't jive

We already have a De Beers; we don't want any more. If something more important than diamonds was controlled entirely by one company, we could all kiss any sort of healthy economics involved with that thing goodbye

[ilikeaces86]

Jobs have been falling off the grid because of Amazon and it isn't because of economic improvement; it's because of an exploitation.

The fact is the market creates jobs and destroys them. Amazon having massive warehouses that use machines and high tech stuff to manage inventory is more efficient that paying more people to stock backroom stockrooms at best buy. The people who lose jobs at best buy will need to look for jobs in other places that the market creates them. We should not attempt to stop the destruction of jobs by the market, but look at it simply as an opportunity to become more efficient and therefore more create more wealth.

[wufwugy]

The fact is the market creates jobs and destroys them. Amazon having massive warehouses that use machines and high tech stuff to manage inventory is more efficient that paying more people to stock backroom stockrooms at best buy. The people who lose jobs at best buy will need to look for jobs in other places that the market creates them. We should not attempt to stop the destruction of jobs by the market, but look at it simply as an opportunity to become more efficient and therefore more create more wealth.

Yes that should be one of several concerns with regards to economics.

Even though it may seem like I don't support Amazon, I actually do. But their effects on the economy need to be accounted for, both good and bad. We've gotten into a habit of only paying attention to the good while not wanting to address the bad. What I mean by this is that when markets change and you have something like aggregate job losses because of it, we need to then address things like social safety nets for those left out to dry, taxation changes that address the change in burden, and education in areas that promote growth in the market areas that are looking to grow. But what I've seen too often is simply taking the good and not addressing the bad. If aggregate employment is dropping off a cliff because Amazon is changing the market, we can't just imagine that jobs are going to somehow magically grow without addressing the problems created by Amazon's behavior

The lesson is that legislative efforts that deal with economics needs to be very dynamic and responsive. If, for example, low-skill jobs are being lost and high-skill jobs are being gained, some structure needs to account for what it takes to train for those high-skill jobs. The real lesson we learned from communism and central planning is not that government and regulations are bad but that distorting markets to try to meet an ideal is bad. So I'm not suggesting things like putting a harness on Amazon so Borders wouldn't have gone out of business; that would actually start leading down the path of what killed communism. But I am suggesting making sure that the changes are met with adequate responses, not just the belief that the markets are rational and businesses make the best decisions for the economy and it will all work out if we just let it play out. We know that doesn't work either

[wufwugy]

Doesn't excess capacity effectively remove the threat of competition in any monopoly with large barriers to entry? Unless doing so is against the rules it becomes in effect a cartel.

I'm not sure if it does so comprehensively, but it does have big effects.

Because the market itself is not pure, when left completely alone, it will develop all sorts of contortions. For example, US broadband service is garbage compared to capacity and consumers are charged more than any would-be competition would. But there isn't that competition, and we're all paying more for less because of it. However, because Google exists, this will change over time because Google is an enormous tech company that is trying to get into the market and is able to do so. But what if Google didn't exist? There isn't some market rule that says a Google will always exist; if there was, that rule would apply to diamonds and De Beers wouldn't be able to prop up prices by thousands of percents. And even with the existence of a Google, the markets are already distorted and we're already being gouged by ISPs.

I guess to a different point to what you asked, but I think the answer to what you asked is largely "it can, but not always, and it depends"

[Numbr2intheWorld]

I'm not entirely sure because I haven't been constructing ideologies that assume it.

This is the epitome of your idea of economics, it's so vague that simple terms can't be defined.

[Numbr2intheWorld]

The fact is the market creates jobs and destroys them. Amazon having massive warehouses that use machines and high tech stuff to manage inventory is more efficient that paying more people to stock backroom stockrooms at best buy. The people who lose jobs at best buy will need to look for jobs in other places that the market creates them. We should not attempt to stop the destruction of jobs by the market, but look at it simply as an opportunity to become more efficient and therefore more create more wealth.

Totally agree

[Numbr2intheWorld]

businesses make the best decisions for the economy and it will all work out if we just let it play out. We know that doesn't work either

Who's saying businesses make the best decisions for the economy? They're just giving consumers what they want... consumers decide what businesses make up an economy. The only exception to this is when the government is involved.

[Numbr2intheWorld]

If aggregate employment is dropping off a cliff because Amazon is changing the market

This is completely false

[wufwugy]

Who's saying businesses make the best decisions for the economy?

Whether recognized or not, that is the crux of anarcho-capitalism

This is the epitome of your idea of economics, it's so vague that simple terms can't be defined.

Not at all. We weren't even talking about something I said, but ideas of internal inconsistency I'm trying to combat

This is completely false

A hypothetical is false?

[spoonitnow]

AND WUFWUGY SINGLE-HANDEDLY DESTROYS ANOTHER THREAD

[wufwugy]

[supa]

You're advocating pay-for-performance here. Maybe you're not the unionist you think you are.

I'm not sure what a unionist even is. I don't really know much about unions other than the one I'm in and I like mine. I think private unions, especially constructions unions, work much differently that govt based unions. If you don't do your job you get canned. If you do well at your job you get to keep it. If you excel at your job the opportunity exists to move up and make more money.

[surviva316]

I think that property rights would make a close third on almost everyone's list of inalienable rights, after the right to not be killed or hurt by someone else.

It's far less obvious than you're giving it credit for, which is kinda why property laws are--excuse my french--retarded. It's very difficult to simply outline a law to defend someone's right to not take things away because, quite frankly, things like land ownership don't make any sense. Or maybe they make such a complex and counterintuitive sense that no one has quite been able to wrap their mind around it yet. Either way, it betrays your point.

[wufwugy]

Property rights are a strange thing because in order to protect them, you have to defy them. For example, you can't protect the property of your body from being poisoned at a restaurant without all sorts of violations of property for all sorts parties involved by means of regulation and investigation/prosecution. The concept of property rights is inherently contradictory, but it is also an important one. I would agree that it's something that people haven't been able to wrap their minds around yet.

[surviva316]

And by all means, I'm not trying to start some hippy tangent about how nobody can really own anything and we should all just share like we did in kindergarten, or whatever, because my ideal society moooooost likely also includes theft as being illegal.

I'm specifically addressing this point Renton makes of a clear line of demarcation--that murder and theft are just so obvious that clearly they should be legislated, but {insert literally anything else at all in here} is too morally nebulous for us to mess with.

[Renton]

It's far less obvious than you're giving it credit for, which is kinda why property laws are--excuse my french--retarded. It's very difficult to simply outline a law to defend someone's right to not take things away because, quite frankly, things like land ownership don't make any sense. Or maybe they make such a complex and counterintuitive sense that no one has quite been able to wrap their mind around it yet. Either way, it betrays your point.

Land ownership makes perfect sense. It's one of the many scarce resources that has alternative uses. I cannot think of a better way to distribute it than to have the people trade it with one another for money and other resources.

[boost]

I would like to see further discussion on property rights. It seems like a very stimulating topic that often has one side dismissed as hippies for no good reason.

[Renton]

Property rights are a strange thing because in order to protect them, you have to defy them. For example, you can't protect the property of your body from being poisoned at a restaurant without all sorts of violations of property for all sorts parties involved by means of regulation and investigation/prosecution. The concept of property rights is inherently contradictory, but it is also an important one. I would agree that it's something that people haven't been able to wrap their minds around yet.

I think your restaurant example sucks. Competition among restaurants is so incredibly fierce to the point that there is really no need for health inspectors and regulations, which drive the costs of these businesses up way more than the benefits they provide to society. I'm not saying that there aren't restaurants that are serving toxic food, I'm just saying those restaurants will not exist for a long enough time to hurt many people, and the number/proportion of those restaurants is almost certainly exaggerated by pro-regulation folks.

The only required infringement on property rights that must exist in order to have property rights is that there must be a body, government or security agency or whatever, that has the right to make judgement calls to take property from people when it sees fit for enforcing laws.

[Renton]

And by all means, I'm not trying to start some hippy tangent about how nobody can really own anything and we should all just share like we did in kindergarten, or whatever, because my ideal society moooooost likely also includes theft as being illegal.

I'm specifically addressing this point Renton makes of a clear line of demarcation--that murder and theft are just so obvious that clearly they should be legislated, but {insert literally anything else at all in here} is too morally nebulous for us to mess with.

That line of moral nebulousness is different for different people. I'm just saying that the most hardcore libertarian or anarchist would say that property rights are important, and these are the people that believe in a bare minimum of laws.

[wufwugy]

I think your restaurant example sucks. Competition among restaurants is so incredibly fierce to the point that there is really no need for health inspectors and regulations, which drive the costs of these businesses up way more than the benefits they provide to society. I'm not saying that there aren't restaurants that are serving toxic food, I'm just saying those restaurants will not exist for a long enough time to hurt many people, and the number/proportion of those restaurants is almost certainly exaggerated by pro-regulation folks.

There is a wealth of history on the issue, and personally I've gotten food poisoning several times from food sources I cannot pin down. Besides, your point isn't even counter to mine because the nature of rights is that they're supposed to be rights for all. Therefore, even if competition is the great eventual equalizer, it still didn't solve the problem of rights violations for those who fell through the cracks. Which is a chunk of what I was referring to

[wufwugy]

If you don't like the food example, how about an environmental one? We know for a fact that competition doesn't solve the problem of pollution, and this means that in order to protect property, violations of others' property must happen. I guess the issue stems from the undefined concept of property where people call their own property pretty much what they want or can get away with. A lot of companies that dump waste into rivers probably consider that their right while a lot of homeowners down river do not. In order to solve that problem, regulation and enforcement agencies that impinge upon property to some degree are necessary

In the anarcho concept of property, what ends up happening is whoever has the power to defend property, does so, while whoever doesn't is hung out to dry

[boost]

I think your restaurant example sucks. Competition among restaurants is so incredibly fierce to the point that there is really no need for health inspectors and regulations, which drive the costs of these businesses up way more than the benefits they provide to society. I'm not saying that there aren't restaurants that are serving toxic food, I'm just saying those restaurants will not exist for a long enough time to hurt many people, and the number/proportion of those restaurants is almost certainly exaggerated by pro-regulation folks.

What? No. This is simply wrong. I know a lot of cooks from parts of the world that have far less stringent food safety standards. Most of them are doing very dangerous things in kitchens simply because they do not know. Even so, the chance of someone seriously getting ill, much less getting seriously ill and knowing/being able to prove it was due to your negligence is so small that they can keep operating this way for a long time without any repercussions. Furthermore, one of the only places that educates on these matters are local food safety authorities. Yes, there is a financial risk, but the negative variance is going to strike so rarely that cooks, managers and owners alike, often get away with ignoring basic sanitation because they either don't know, don't realize the potential severity, or simply don't give a fuck.

Then we can jump to the fact that not all restaurants are neighborhood joints servicing a small community. The place I worked at most recently was in the middle of a huge tourist trap. Without regulation, an eatery like this can keep serving up subsanitary fare pretty much indefinitely, and not even have a clue that they are doing anything wrong.

The free market is not the answer to everything. This is one industry you have very little knowledge about, yet you are applying this broad sweeping ideology. How many more industries don't neatly fall in line with an untethered free market?

[rong]

Financial services don't work in a free market environment either. Anything with a large asymmetry of information leave the consumer fucked while the provider makes huge profits. The more complicated the issue the more the need for some form of consumer protection and regulation.

[Renton]

What? No. This is simply wrong. I know a lot of cooks from parts of the world that have far less stringent food safety standards. Most of them are doing very dangerous things in kitchens simply because they do not know. Even so, the chance of someone seriously getting ill, much less getting seriously ill and knowing/being able to prove it was due to your negligence is so small that they can keep operating this way for a long time without any repercussions. Furthermore, one of the only places that educates on these matters are local food safety authorities. Yes, there is a financial risk, but the negative variance is going to strike so rarely that cooks, managers and owners alike, often get away with ignoring basic sanitation because they either don't know, don't realize the potential severity, or simply don't give a fuck.

Then we can jump to the fact that not all restaurants are neighborhood joints servicing a small community. The place I worked at most recently was in the middle of a huge tourist trap. Without regulation, an eatery like this can keep serving up subsanitary fare pretty much indefinitely, and not even have a clue that they are doing anything wrong.

The free market is not the answer to everything. This is one industry you have very little knowledge about, yet you are applying this broad sweeping ideology. How many more industries don't neatly fall in line with an untethered free market?

You lived in Thailand, a place with substantially lax (if any) restaurant regulation for several months and none of us got sick. I think that in decades prior to the information age you are absolutely right. But we are so interconnected now it would be difficult for a business to survive for long with substandard sanitary conditions. Not to mention that cheaper and more effective private means of regulation would emerge in a free market. If people value the peace of mind of being able to eat at a restaurant without making sure it's kosher, a market for providing that peace of mind will emerge, and will almost certainly be more effective and efficient than a government service.

[rong]

A market for it? So the poor don't need it, right?

[Renton]

If you don't like the food example, how about an environmental one? We know for a fact that competition doesn't solve the problem of pollution, and this means that in order to protect property, violations of others' property must happen. I guess the issue stems from the undefined concept of property where people call their own property pretty much what they want or can get away with. A lot of companies that dump waste into rivers probably consider that their right while a lot of homeowners down river do not. In order to solve that problem, regulation and enforcement agencies that impinge upon property to some degree are necessary

In the anarcho concept of property, what ends up happening is whoever has the power to defend property, does so, while whoever doesn't is hung out to dry

Pollution is one of the classic externalities that economists argue about. I admit it's a tough one for the free market to solve but that has less to do with the limitations of the free market and more to do with how incredibly large and difficult to solve the problem of pollution is. I contend as with the restaurant safety example, however, that if people collectively value the concept of lowering emissions, they will. It is tragically obvious that currently they do not value it enough and thus nothing is done.

[Renton]

A market for it? So the poor don't need it, right?

The poor are already paying for it in inflated costs of restaurant bills, and in taxes. A private solution could mean lower costs to these people.

[rong]

I kinda agree with you with regard to the restaurant h&s issue. Going back to Thailand, you see lots of little eateries on the roadside that are literally an oven on wheels and q guy willing to cook. This means extremely cheap food, eh $1 to eat a meal. The food from these stalls is really tasty and has a byproduct of creating an environment where lots of people can afford to eat out regularly which leads to eating being a far more sequal event.

I appreciate this goes directly against my previous comment, but to have small mobile stalls like this unregulated would create a great alternative to expensive restaurants. I imagine it would do some serious damage to lower end restaurants though, but would probably improve the quality of food as a whole.

[rong]

Fucking phone typos arrrghh!

[surviva316]

Land ownership makes perfect sense. It's one of the many scarce resources that has alternative uses. I cannot think of a better way to distribute it than to have the people trade it with one another for money and other resources.

Distributing it is all fine and dandy, but what does the "ownership" even mean? The American legal system defines property as any thing "whereby a legal relationship between persons and the State enforces a possessory interest or legal title in that thing." Since inalienable is defined as anything that is independent of laws, customs or beliefs, calling property an inalienable right is literally a self-contradiction.

Of course, that assumes that you use the definition above, so you're welcome to define it differently if you'd like, but I think you'll find that the "right" you're pretty much always defending is the "right" to have a governing body protect other people from touching your shit--it doesn't have anything to do with the property itself or your relationship with it.

Let's use an example: say you get 4 babies together on a play date and dump a box full of toys on the ground and tell the kids to have at it. What's the difference between "giving the babies the right" to own certain toys, and having an ownership-free micro-society? Giving them property rights isn't what allows them to play with toys. If the parents just don't give a shit about whose toys are whose and say nothing at all and never intervene and enact true laissez faire, then toys are gonna be played with, most likely by babies. In fact, probably the best way to ensure that the toys are played with optimally is for the parents to intervene and enforce regulations, but for these regulations to actually be the exact opposite of, "This is Baby 1's toy, this is Baby 2's toy, etc, and you can't interuse these properties." This opposite policy would be a basic enforcement of making the kids share--especially if the biggest baby is hogging the best toy for too long.

Again, in this example, "property rights" don't seem to be anything more than having the right to have outside bodies intervene when other people are trying to use your shit/walk on your lawn/etc. Ownership =/= usership; in fact, the former (in most cases) prohibits the latter more than it effects it (see DRM for a perfect example). I mean the word "prohibits" in a logical way, by the way. I'm not saying that in most cases it just so happens to work out that property rights eventually preclude usership one way or another. I mean that property rights are basically just the enforcement of prohibition from usership.

[spoonitnow]

How about women get some right to shut the fuck up laws

[boost]

You lived in Thailand, a place with substantially lax (if any) restaurant regulation for several months and none of us got sick. I think that in decades prior to the information age you are absolutely right. But we are so interconnected now it would be difficult for a business to survive for long with substandard sanitary conditions. Not to mention that cheaper and more effective private means of regulation would emerge in a free market. If people value the peace of mind of being able to eat at a restaurant without making sure it's kosher, a market for providing that peace of mind will emerge, and will almost certainly be more effective and efficient than a government service.

Wrong again. Please stop trying to wave your magic libertarian wand, and pretend that it's actually an effective argument. I'm pretty sure the free market would not offer up a solution. Now that I've stated my opinion, I'll actually explain why: Without forced inspections, the proprietor holds the key to effective reporting. Like I explained before, getting sick is one thing, proving it was a particular establishment is another. This is why you absolutely need a government body who has the authority to enter the premises at their leisure and inspect conditions-- the ability to follow up on reports of unsanitary conditions. How exactly do you propose a private entity will do this? Yelp is not going to replace the health inspector. Any free market system would make it so the inspector has to ask permission to inspect. Clearly you can see that there is a conflict of interest here when the inspector is running a for profit inspection which requires the permission of the inspected to carry on with the inspecting.

Anyways, this whole "lol a market will emerge" is just a joke. Tragedy of the commons. A market most likely will not emerge, and certainly not one strong enough to compare to what we have now. Furthermore, it's quite easy to assume this will work when we talk about one case at a time, but when we zoom out and apply your ideology, we realize that we would need dozens if not hundreds of markets. The cost to the consumer to subscribe to a restaurant safety review, Rx review, car safety review, etc would be extreme.

As a matter of fact, we already have this in healthcare. Because of the tragedy of the commons, we have emergency room healthcare, which is sucking up 15%+ of our GDP.

As for your anecdotal evidence against the need for food safety standards and inspections: To my knowledge none of us are infants, elderly, or living with a compromised immune system. I did get the runs a handful of times.

[Renton]

Wrong again. Please stop trying to wave your magic libertarian wand, and pretend that it's actually an effective argument. I'm pretty sure the free market would not offer up a solution. Now that I've stated my opinion, I'll actually explain why: Without forced inspections, the proprietor holds the key to effective reporting. Like I explained before, getting sick is one thing, proving it was a particular establishment is another. This is why you absolutely need a government body who has the authority to enter the premises at their leisure and inspect conditions-- the ability to follow up on reports of unsanitary conditions. How exactly do you propose a private entity will do this? Yelp is not going to replace the health inspector. Any free market system would make it so the inspector has to ask permission to inspect. Clearly you can see that there is a conflict of interest here when the inspector is running a for profit inspection which requires the permission of the inspected to carry on with the inspecting.

Anyways, this whole "lol a market will emerge" is just a joke. Tragedy of the commons. A market most likely will not emerge, and certainly not one strong enough to compare to what we have now. Furthermore, it's quite easy to assume this will work when we talk about one case at a time, but when we zoom out and apply your ideology, we realize that we would need dozens if not hundreds of markets. The cost to the consumer to subscribe to a restaurant safety review, Rx review, car safety review, etc would be extreme.

As a matter of fact, we already have this in healthcare. Because of the tragedy of the commons, we have emergency room healthcare, which is sucking up 15%+ of our GDP.

As for your anecdotal evidence against the need for food safety standards and inspections: To my knowledge none of us are infants, elderly, or living with a compromised immune system. I did get the runs a handful of times.

I don't have enough invested in the restaurant thing to continue arguing, and as you said, you know more about this stuff than me. I still do think that private means of regulation could work and actually be better than government health inspection. Currently, most restaurants in the U.S. has Visa or Mastercard logos on their windows/doors/websites, as this is a selling point for their business. People like to pay with plastic and will more likely eat at a place that takes Visa than one that only takes cash. Or a business will proudly display that its in the Better Business Bureau or some other ethics group. Similarly its easy to imagine competing health inspection companies that restaurants are willing to pay to give them their stamp of approval. Because of competition, these companies will minimize their costs and be much more difficult to corrupt than government officials, as their bottom line and reputation depend on it.

[wufwugy]

I've gotten sick from restaurant food in suburban Washington more than probably everybody here has from Thailand combined

[boost]

I don't have enough invested in the restaurant thing to continue arguing, and as you said, you know more about this stuff than me. I still do think that private means of regulation could work and actually be better than government health inspection. Currently, most restaurants in the U.S. has Visa or Mastercard logos on their windows/doors/websites, as this is a selling point for their business. People like to pay with plastic and will more likely eat at a place that takes Visa than one that only takes cash. Or a business will proudly display that its in the Better Business Bureau or some other ethics group. Similarly its easy to imagine competing health inspection companies that restaurants are willing to pay to give them their stamp of approval. Because of competition, these companies will minimize their costs and be much more difficult to corrupt than government officials, as their bottom line and reputation depend on it.

Why would an inspector employed by a private firm be less likely to be corruptible than one employed by the public sector?

Why is it easy to imagine? Probably because you have no clue what you're imagining. The variance would be so high, that trusting a restaurant inspection outfit over another would be based on hearsay and who has the snazziest logo. This is another case of the assumption that all parties are fully aware of all necessary information and are acting rationally. There are too many variables, and the fickleness of the business would necessitate higher prices. I mean, how exactly would I know to go with Squeaky Clean Food over Sanitary and Safe? Their reputation? So anecdotal evidence? Or is there a service that will emerge in the free market which will review and rank the two companies?

Doesn't it seem like you're just needlessly putting your faith in an ideology? Yes, the free market does some things good. Why do you have to extrapolate that the free market will do everything good? You've bound yourself to an ideology, and that tends to make a person intellectually lazy and lacking in creativity.

[surviva316]

Please stop trying to wave your magic libertarian wand, and pretend that it's actually an effective argument. I'm pretty sure the free market would not offer up a solution.

A good real-life example of this "other competitive option will magically emerge" logic failing is the argument over smoking bans in restaurants and bars. Plain and simple, smoke-free bars don't exist in a free market. It just doesn't happen.

[boost]

A good real-life example of this "other competitive option will magically emerge" logic failing is the argument over smoking bans in restaurants and bars. Plain and simple, smoke-free bars don't exist in a free market. It just doesn't happen.

And they would like to retort, that it clearly wasn't valued. However if you survey people now that smoking is illegal in bars and restaurants in pretty much all major cities in the US, people love it. Even smokers I've talked to are happy with the smoke free atmospheres.

[surviva316]

And they would like to retort, that it clearly wasn't valued.

It would be an irrelevant retort because I'm only demonstrating a real-life example of how competitive markets don't just magically emerge in free markets, which it does very very very very clearly demonstrate so long as you don't get distracted by the irrelevant politics of the issue.

[wufwugy]

Why would an inspector employed by a private firm be less likely to be corruptible than one employed by the public sector?

Why is it easy to imagine? Probably because you have no clue what you're imagining. The variance would be so high, that trusting a restaurant inspection outfit over another would be based on hearsay and who has the snazziest logo. This is another case of the assumption that all parties are fully aware of all necessary information and are acting rationally. There are too many variables, and the fickleness of the business would necessitate higher prices. I mean, how exactly would I know to go with Squeaky Clean Food over Sanitary and Safe? Their reputation? So anecdotal evidence? Or is there a service that will emerge in the free market which will review and rank the two companies?

Doesn't it seem like you're just needlessly putting your faith in an ideology? Yes, the free market does some things good. Why do you have to extrapolate that the free market will do everything good? You've bound yourself to an ideology, and that tends to make a person intellectually lazy and lacking in creativity.

I think the confusion arises from a fundamental misunderstanding of what government means. Governance is an inseparable facet of any interactive human behavior, and it isn't somehow fundamentally different if by legal means or "free market" means.

The LIBOR scandal is a fantastic example of businesses being all competitive in a free market with as little imposition of outside governing bodies as possible, and it became a product of a cartel. The laws of physics are not to be defied. In societies, there will always be rule makers; there isn't some magical formula that allows the rules to be set more fairly by natural phenomenon like the "invisible hand of the free market." The entirety of human history has demonstrated that the only way to change outcomes is to change who makes the rules and in what ways. Isolated ideas like "government" and "free market" are really just irrelevant because their isolation only exists inside peoples' minds.

[wufwugy]

And they would like to retort, that it clearly wasn't valued.

Where does this idea come from? This is the only board I've seen it argued on, and it confuses the hell out of me because it doesn't make a lick of sense because it unwittingly supposes perfection of information and behavior and it doesn't care to examine how value is contorted all the time in just about every way

[wufwugy]

My guess is it's due to poker players mixing definitions while constructing ideologies, but I really don't know

[Renton]

Why would an inspector employed by a private firm be less likely to be corruptible than one employed by the public sector?

Because of the threat of extinction. No one poses an existential threat to government health inspection agencies, they have a monopoly on it. This leaves them with very little incentive to do a good job, work in an ethical way, or minimize costs.

Why is it easy to imagine? Probably because you have no clue what you're imagining. The variance would be so high, that trusting a restaurant inspection outfit over another would be based on hearsay and who has the snazziest logo. This is another case of the assumption that all parties are fully aware of all necessary information and are acting rationally. There are too many variables, and the fickleness of the business would necessitate higher prices. I mean, how exactly would I know to go with Squeaky Clean Food over Sanitary and Safe? Their reputation? So anecdotal evidence? Or is there a service that will emerge in the free market which will review and rank the two companies?

You have a point with the imperfect information. As to whether SCF or S&S, I'd imagine that the quality difference would be pretty close between them if they are the two preeminent agencies, and both would likely be of higher quality than a single monopoly agency.

Doesn't it seem like you're just needlessly putting your faith in an ideology? Yes, the free market does some things good. Why do you have to extrapolate that the free market will do everything good? You've bound yourself to an ideology, and that tends to make a person intellectually lazy and lacking in creativity.

But you have likewise bound yourself to a statist ideology. You have to admit that considering private alternatives to state health inspection is more creative than blind faith in the status quo.

[wufwugy]

Democratic government is subject to the same principles as any free market. In fact, government is arguably an even more malleable structure than big business. Politicians are still dependent upon the vote, a vote which comes often. Big business can be considered more entrenched than a democratic government

[boost]

Because of the threat of extinction. No one poses an existential threat to government health inspection agencies, they have a monopoly on it. This leaves them with very little incentive to do a good job, work in an ethical way, or minimize costs.

sure there is a threat, you are proposing one. And as wuf mentioned, there is the vote. If we are paying our taxes for these agencies, and they are ineffective, then public pressure will force improvements.

Even still, these agencies may suffer from intrinsic flaws in a government monopoly, but that doesn't mean these agencies would be better replaced by free market competition. You've already conceited that transportation is likely one of the fields in which the private sector would be less likely to do a superior job. Why do you insist that other areas, areas which you have little knowledge of, are not similarly better controlled by a government monopoly?

You have a point with the imperfect information. As to whether SCF or S&S, I'd imagine that the quality difference would be pretty close between them if they are the two preeminent agencies, and both would likely be of higher quality than a single monopoly agency.

Why would they likely be of higher quality? You're just making a grand assumption based solely on the tenets of your ideology.

But you have likewise bound yourself to a statist ideology. You have to admit that considering private alternatives to state health inspection is more creative than blind faith in the status quo.

I have bound myself to nothing. I do not think the dive bar I like to drink cheap beers at should be state run. I like that it's run down and the bar tender gives you shit. I like that they aren't blaring the same shitty top 20 radio hits that many other bars are playing. You on the other hand are far closer to being a puritan, and that is why I get to label you an ideologue. The sword does not cut both ways, my friend.

[Renton]

sure there is a threat, you are proposing one. And as wuf mentioned, there is the vote. If we are paying our taxes for these agencies, and they are ineffective, then public pressure will force improvements.

Even still, these agencies may suffer from intrinsic flaws in a government monopoly, but that doesn't mean these agencies would be better replaced by free market competition. You've already conceited that transportation is likely one of the fields in which the private sector would be less likely to do a superior job. Why do you insist that other areas, areas which you have little knowledge of, are not similarly better controlled by a government monopoly?

Because transportation has a lot of characteristics that uniquely make it difficult to solve by the free market. And I didn't concede that the free market couldn't solve it, I just said it was hard to imagine. Similarly with police and military, I am fairly skeptical that the free market could handle those. However, voluntarists have proposed some good free market solutions even to these three issues.

Anyway part of what makes capitalism great is that I don't HAVE to know specifically about any of this stuff in order to assert with confidence that the free market would do a better job. The reason for this is that the market has the ability to tap into the specific intelligence and ingenuity of people in a way that governments do not. If there are a few people with very specific knowledge relevant to a field spread throughout a society of millions of people, the incentives created by capitalism are more likely to tap this knowledge for their's and society's benefit.

Why would they likely be of higher quality? You're just making a grand assumption based solely on the tenets of your ideology.

The effects of competition and profit and loss incentives on increasing quality and lowering prices of goods/services have been demonstrated a zillion times. How is my assumption so grand?

[Renton]

Distributing it is all fine and dandy, but what does the "ownership" even mean? The American legal system defines property as any thing "whereby a legal relationship between persons and the State enforces a possessory interest or legal title in that thing." Since inalienable is defined as anything that is independent of laws, customs or beliefs, calling property an inalienable right is literally a self-contradiction.

Of course, that assumes that you use the definition above, so you're welcome to define it differently if you'd like, but I think you'll find that the "right" you're pretty much always defending is the "right" to have a governing body protect other people from touching your shit--it doesn't have anything to do with the property itself or your relationship with it.

Let's use an example: say you get 4 babies together on a play date and dump a box full of toys on the ground and tell the kids to have at it. What's the difference between "giving the babies the right" to own certain toys, and having an ownership-free micro-society? Giving them property rights isn't what allows them to play with toys. If the parents just don't give a shit about whose toys are whose and say nothing at all and never intervene and enact true laissez faire, then toys are gonna be played with, most likely by babies. In fact, probably the best way to ensure that the toys are played with optimally is for the parents to intervene and enforce regulations, but for these regulations to actually be the exact opposite of, "This is Baby 1's toy, this is Baby 2's toy, etc, and you can't interuse these properties." This opposite policy would be a basic enforcement of making the kids share--especially if the biggest baby is hogging the best toy for too long.

Again, in this example, "property rights" don't seem to be anything more than having the right to have outside bodies intervene when other people are trying to use your shit/walk on your lawn/etc. Ownership =/= usership; in fact, the former (in most cases) prohibits the latter more than it effects it (see DRM for a perfect example). I mean the word "prohibits" in a logical way, by the way. I'm not saying that in most cases it just so happens to work out that property rights eventually preclude usership one way or another. I mean that property rights are basically just the enforcement of prohibition from usership.

Dunno how to reply to this other than to say I agree basically, and that there needs to be rule of law in order to have a functioning society, much less to enforce property rights.

[boost]

the free market has solved many problems > the free market can solve all problems

That is what is wrong with your logic, and if you are incapable of seeing it, I don't know what else to tell you.

[wufwugy]

Anyway part of what makes capitalism great is that I don't HAVE to know specifically about any of this stuff in order to assert with confidence that the free market would do a better job. The reason for this is that the market has the ability to tap into the specific intelligence and ingenuity of people in a way that governments do not. If there are a few people with very specific knowledge relevant to a field spread throughout a society of millions of people, the incentives created by capitalism are more likely to tap this knowledge for their's and society's benefit.

You have just defeated every argument you've made so far.

Besides, Adam Smith himself never believed in capitalism in such an ideologically pure and unsound way. Markets are not magic and governments are not externalities

[Renton]

the free market has solved many problems > the free market can solve all problems

That is what is wrong with your logic, and if you are incapable of seeing it, I don't know what else to tell you.

the free market can solve restaurant health inspection != the free market can solve all problems

[Renton]

You have just defeated every argument you've made so far.

Besides, Adam Smith himself never believed in capitalism in such an ideologically pure and unsound way. Markets are not magic and governments are not externalities

Could you explain how I have defeated my argument, instead of stating it as such and moving on?

[boost]

the free market can solve restaurant health inspection != the free market can solve all problems

It can, yet you just say that it can. I don't get why you are willing to just say that it can, but then not say that it can solve all problems. Why can you wave you magic wand at one thing, and not another?

You're shifting your position quite a bit. In one instance it seems that at the very least the military and possibly transportation are safely in the hands of the public sector, and then you are hypothesizing that even those could be handled better by the private sector, but then you are saying the free market can't solve all problems. If it can handle defense, what exactly is left?

[Renton]

It can, yet you just say that it can. I don't get why you are willing to just say that it can, but then not say that it can solve all problems. Why can you wave you magic wand at one thing, and not another?

You're shifting your position quite a bit. In one instance it seems that at the very least the military and possibly transportation are safely in the hands of the public sector, and then you are hypothesizing that even those could be handled better by the private sector, but then you are saying the free market can't solve all problems. If it can handle defense, what exactly is left?

I only said that private solutions for defense, police, and transportation have been proposed by voluntarists. I didn't say that I supported those solutions. I do think they are interesting and worth consideration, however.

I find your "magic wand" language kind of offensive. It's as if I haven't outlined reasons that support my argument and just stated dogma, when I've done nothing in this thread but come up with reasons. If you look at my posts in this thread and compare them with yours and wufwugy's you'll notice right away that mine don't use petulant and patronizing language to support my argument. Why does every liberal vs libertarian argument have to come to this? Why can't there just be an honest discussion?

[spoonitnow]

I only said that private solutions for defense, police, and transportation have been proposed by voluntarists. I didn't say that I supported those solutions. I do think they are interesting and worth consideration, however.

I find your "magic wand" language kind of offensive. It's as if I haven't outlined reasons that support my argument and just stated dogma, when I've done nothing in this thread but come up with reasons. If you look at my posts in this thread and compare them with yours and wufwugy's you'll notice right away that mine don't use petulant and patronizing language to support my argument. Why does every liberal vs libertarian argument have to come to this? Why can't there just be an honest discussion?

Hahahahahaha sucker. This is what you get for trying to have a discussion with people who do not understand economics on any meaningful level.

[wufwugy]

Could you explain how I have defeated my argument, instead of stating it as such and moving on?

It shows you've been begging the question i.e. assuming the truth of the premise itself. Your explanation for why you don't need to get into specifics is that capitalism is a formula that works purely and categorically better than anything else. You may not believe that when broken into such words, but that is what your claim implied. The bottom line is really that it doesn't work that way, but you'd have to get into specifics to see it. Ideology always looks great when its mettle is untested

If you look at my posts in this thread and compare them with yours and wufwugy's you'll notice right away that mine don't use petulant and patronizing language to support my argument.

Well, you did call something I said "silly". So there's that. Regardless, we tend to get into petulant language because this has been done before. The anarchocapitalist libertarian views expressed in such a pure and comprehensive sense do not have backing in academia, and its proponents always seem to forget that they're repeating the same old mistakes that have previously been identified as dogmatic like the "invisible hand" stuff. So even if you don't say "invisible hand", I tend to do it when somebody asserts the same argument. It's like if somebody arguing for intelligent design doesn't like being called a creationist because he thinks its different when it's really not.

The most support you will find for your point of view that retains its academic integrity will come from sources like Scott Sumner. He's a libertarian, a market monetarist, and is one of the most significant econ bloggers today. I would argue that due to his leadership in gradually shifting the post-stagflation era monetary mentality to one that fixes the flaws learned from post-08 crisis era (namely with the NGDP level targeting stuff), he will end up being one of the most important economists of this century.

He's the kind of guy libertarians want to listen to. Scott is easily as free market capitalist as it gets as long as its without suffering from a sense of false purity that tends to arise from the lay internet debates. His favorite example of a successful economy is Singapore and he thinks taxes on investment income should be zero--both of which are significant facets of libertarian econ ideas--but he doesn't come to those conclusions through an overarching ideological view, but through data analyses

[boost]

I do apologize for any condescending tone I've used. But the magic wand thing is possibly offensive simply because it's true. You have suggested ways the free market could fill in for public sector restaurant health inspections, I have countered with why I don't feel those are sufficient or plausible replacements, and you come back with, "well, whatever, I'm not an expert, but I don't have to be, because magic wand."