I appreciate that but after reading it the reader is no closer to knowing how to handle a specific problem.
I read it, I just don't know how to practically apply it to a contemporary issue. I'm all ears.
And I'm not trying to be dismissive, we've just argued it quite a bit through the years before you were active on the board. Everyone's for "free markets," the issue usually is where do you step in and regulate it.
OK, let's pick a contemporary issue and apply free market principles to it, and see where that gets us. Do you want to pick the issue?
OK, electricity. Electricity is a commodity that must be created (generated) and transported from the person or company that generates it to the consumer. One person/company generates electricity using solar energy. Another uses wind energy. Another fossil fuel. And so on. The consumer picks the person/company from whom he wants to buy his electricity. For one person who wants to save the environment he buys his electricity from a solar company, one of many available to him. Another person chooses the cheapest electricity on the market so he buys it from one of the fossil fuel companies. What has happened is a trade in which each participant profited, and each participant is satisfied. The consumer valued the electricity over his money, and the producer valued the money over his product. There is a free market in play. Producers recognize that the consumer is king. He either provides the electricity to the consumer in the amount desired at the price expected or the consumer finds a producer that is willing to meet his demands. Every transaction is made between consenting participants. No coercion is necessary.Electricity.
I don't claim to be an electricity expert, but have used electricity my whole life. And from the consumer perspective nothing has changed in my dozens of years of life. I still have electrical outlets in the wall, my power is still delivered through aerial power cables, and I still do not get a choice of my provider. Am I forgetting some consumer side innovation?Electricity.
OK, electricity. Electricity is a commodity that must be created (generated) and transported from the person or company that generates it to the consumer. One person/company generates electricity using solar energy. Another uses wind energy. Another fossil fuel. And so on. The consumer picks the person/company from whom he wants to buy his electricity. For one person who wants to save the environment he buys his electricity from a solar company, one of many available to him. Another person chooses the cheapest electricity on the market so he buys it from one of the fossil fuel companies. What has happened is a trade in which each participant profited, and each participant is satisfied. The consumer valued the electricity over his money, and the producer valued the money over his product. There is a free market in play. Producers recognize that the consumer is king. He either provides the electricity to the consumer in the amount desired at the price expected or the consumer finds a producer that is willing to meet his demands. Every transaction is made between consenting participants. No coercion is necessary.
I don't claim to be an electricity expert, but have used electricity my whole life. And from the consumer perspective nothing has changed in my dozens of years of life. I still have electrical outlets in the wall, my power is still delivered through aerial power cables, and I still do not get a choice of my provider. Am I forgetting some consumer side innovation?
The only real innovation that I can think of is that when my power does go out I can now use my smart phone to report the outage. That is really nice!
You're being pretty selective. The electricity travels through lines that are condemned by emminent domain (not free market, telling a property owner they have to let a utility use their property), rates are set by the government (to prevent OG&E from gouging us or hogging all of the transmission easements), mandatory safety laws and regulations are in place so that the general public doesn't get electrocuted when a thunderstorm knocks down a pole, don't you think those are common sense restraints on a pure free market enterprise?
I for one am thankful that OG&E doesn't have wide-open latitude to charge whatever they can. Aren't you?[/QUOTE
You're being pretty selective. The electricity travels through lines that are condemned by emminent domain (not free market, telling a property owner they have to let a utility use their property), rates are set by the government (to prevent OG&E from gouging us or hogging all of the transmission easements), mandatory safety laws and regulations are in place so that the general public doesn't get electrocuted when a thunderstorm knocks down a pole, don't you think those are common sense restraints on a pure free market enterprise?
I for one am thankful that OG&E doesn't have wide-open latitude to charge whatever they can. Aren't you?
I repeat: your notion of "big business" is colored by the "big businesses" that were an outgrowth of the regulatory state.You're asking a trial lawyer this? Do you have any idea the abuses big business has perpetrated when they can get away with it? I can keep you on here until tomorrow telling you of abuses big business has done. Have you ever heard of the Sherman Act? What railroads were doing to this country? This call was made in the 1800's.
By chance, who do/did you work for to have such a non "naive" view of big business?
Ahh, the ol' no true big business fallacy.I repeat: your notion of "big business" is colored by the "big businesses" that were an outgrowth of the regulatory state.
I repeat: your notion of "big business" is colored by the "big businesses" that were an outgrowth of the regulatory state.
Gotta agree with my man syskatine here. In general, regulations aren't born out of a desire to regulate. They arise from an event(s). "Free market" in pharmaceuticals led to deaths and addictions. The federal government stepped in to curb the dangers the pharmaceutical industry posed to the population.You're asking a trial lawyer this? Do you have any idea the abuses big business has perpetrated when they can get away with it? I can keep you on here until tomorrow telling you of abuses big business has done. Have you ever heard of the Sherman Act? What railroads were doing to this country? This call was made in the 1800's.
By chance, who do/did you work for to have such a non "naive" view of big business?
Gotta agree with my man syskatine here. In general, regulations aren't born out of a desire to regulate. They arise from an event(s). "Free market" in pharmaceuticals led to deaths and addictions. The federal government stepped in to curb the dangers the pharmaceutical industry posed to the population.
Technically all corporations are creatures of the state.Have you heard of the Sherman Act?
Have you heard about J.P. Morgan, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, et al? How was Standard Oil created as an outgrowth of the regulatory state? Or Wal Mart?
Underoos is over the line. Who really gives a shit if a child's underwear is ridiculously flammable and will burst into flames if grazed with a spark. I bet there are people who want those flammable undies. Let the free market decide.And asbestos... and Ford Pintos... and Underoos... and canned food... and.... and... and....
Lee Iacocca (sp?) testified to Congress that mandatory seatbelts would bankrupt the U.S. auto industry. He was as earnest as he could be.
I hardly know where to begin. The sins you are attributing to a free market (emminent domain, rate setting, transmission easements) are all elements of a regulatory state, the exact opposite of a free market. Your concern for gouging by a company like OG&E are completely unfounded. You are not understanding the role that competition plays in a free market. I don't know what you do for a living, but whatever it is, surely you have competitors. And what does that competition do? It makes you behave as honorably as possible. It gives you incentive to provide the best service you can at a price attractive to your customers. Otherwise a competitor will swoop in and absorb your market share.
What makes you think a free market in electricity would be different? Because you don't see it in your life now, a life ruled by a regulatory state? Do you actually believe OG&E would do away with the commissions, committees, regulations, rules, laws, etc. if it could? They love the regulatory state. It assures them of not having any competition. Who do you think controls those commissions, committees? They're a lot like Hilary Clinton: publicly they whine about excessive regulation, while privately they want more.
Are you under the impression that a company, operating in a free market, would be indifferent to the safety of the public? Wouldn't care if someone were electrocuted by their lines? Would have nothing to fear if their negligence caused harm? That is a naive attitude.
Dude, very unlibertarian of youGiven the Ford Pinto lawsuits and Corvairs litigation....those two immediately come to mind....I think it's you that have the naive attitude. This is especially true given restrictions and limitations of liability sold as "tort reform".
How do you see the progression from our regulatory state to your corporate anarchist utopia best proceeding? Ever proceeding? Or is this just an exercise in idealism....advocating for an ideal economic world that will never exist?
Dude, very unlibertarian of you
Given the Ford Pinto lawsuits and Corvairs litigation....those two immediately come to mind....I think it's you that have the naive attitude. This is especially true given restrictions and limitations of liability sold as "tort reform".
How do you see the progression from our regulatory state to your corporate anarchist utopia best proceeding? Ever proceeding? Or is this just an exercise in idealism....advocating for an ideal economic world that will never exist?
The sins you are attributing to a free market (emminent domain, rate setting, transmission easements) are all elements of a regulatory state, the exact opposite of a free market.
What makes you think a free market in electricity would be different?
Your concern for gouging by a company like OG&E are completely unfounded.
I'm a little overwhelmed here! Yes, I'm advocating for an ideal economic world that has never existed. But it never will exist if those of us who believe in it don't try.
Who's the politician - Rahm Emanuel? - who said never let a crises go to waste? As Robert Higgs (economic historian) points out in his book "Crisis & Leviathan" crises are created in a politician's mind, the public is led to believe the only hope of ending the crisis and averting it ever happening again is through government action, mainly via regulation. "Big business" is only too happy to welcome the regulation because they already have the politicians in their pockets, and they can keep the competition out. They get "their people" placed on the regulatory commissions, people who do their bidding while the public is led to believe the commission is looking out for it. Innovation is stifled, monopolies and cartels are formed, and freedom is diminished. But not to worry, it's all for our protection. Big business would never collide with government. The greed of the corporate bigwigs is anathema to our government saviors.
Yes, I'm advocating for an ideal economic world that has never existed.
I'm not sure exactly where I am right now....maybe a social contract guy with a hard libertarian lean. Constitutional libertarian. I don't even know if that is a thing. Lol.
It does in third world countries that don't have a strong government.
My question was not whether you were advocating for an ideal world that has never existed....it was an ideal world that would NEVER exist. Those are different. Then I asked for your thoughts on what the ideal (left out "realistic"....but certainly inherent in such a question) process would be to get from where we are now to the ideal world that has never existed. That's the difference between philosophical skylarking and actual sociological and economic action.
My recent struggle with idealistic libertarianism recently has been that it makes a lot of assumptions about the "humanity" and "rationality of people.....how they would act in a anarcho-libertarian society. Many of those assumptions have recently struck me as pretty naive and unrealistic.
You're asking a trial lawyer this? Do you have any idea the abuses big business has perpetrated when they can get away with it? I can keep you on here until tomorrow telling you of abuses big business has done. Have you ever heard of the Sherman Act? What railroads were doing to this country? This call was made in the 1800's.
By chance, who do/did you work for to have such a non "naive" view of big business?
Maybe you could start from here.
https://www.apstudynotes.org/us-history/outlines/chapter-24-industry-comes-of-age-1865-1900/
There ya go. Pretty bad, starting 1/4 down.
"There's a difference between philosophical skylarking..."
What can I tell you? I'm a philosophical skylark. How to get from here to where my skylark fantasies take me? I have no idea. But I know if I take the pragmatic approach it not only won't happen, but it can't. Accepting that my ideas are frowned upon by the vast majority comes with the territory. All I can do is suppress my cynicism and keep plugging along. I'm well aware that my side is losing the debate. So what do you suggest? That I give up?