How much should business be regulated? This is often framed as a choice between the good feelings of freedom, and the costs of unmanaged cut-throat competition. But consider: the democracy that most people want to use to manage business is itself a form of cut-throat competition. That is, candidates usually have wide freedoms as they compete to get elected.
To have lawsuit about enviromental pollution you need laws. Those laws come from other humans. Either a parliament, the executive or a judge who makes case law.
As recently as last year the US Republican advocated that US fims should be able to poision more people with mercury than the EPA advocated. You have a real conflict about how much is too much. Solving those conflicts through lawfare isn't efficient.
If we are in a purely free market, such a firm is going to be overwhelm by lawsuits (because there's no monopolies of the State on the river a free marketer) which make dumping mercury in the water very counter productive for the firm in the first place (opportunity cost of dumping the mercury in the river versus disposing of it properly).
When you think in term of free market, you can't project your current paradigm.
In a democracy, policy choices are made by majorities of voters. You can't say that the only good choices are individual choices because some choices affect everybody.
What's "regulation"? Anti-trust? Honouring contacts? Givign accurate information? Regulation is such a baggy term that there is no meaningful comparison.
And who gets the power to distribute or withhold votes, and why don't they get corrupted by it?
A fairly recent example of this was Northern ireland in the 20th century, where the wealthy (ie Protestants) got extra votes. Heaver on Earth it wasn't. That raises a problem: if a discrminated group fail the meritcocracy test, however do they change their lot?
Libertarianism fixes that how? People voluntarily buy cigarettes and unhealthy food. It seems more like an argument for meritocracy. Or technocracy. Or vastly improved political education.
The easy answer for the libertarian is that politics is a one size fits all solution, while the market is not. Those whose needs are not met by the most successful competitors can still go elsewhere to get their needs met. Those consumers who back less successful/popular competitors can still get what they want as long as they are in a minority large enough to make catering to their interests viable. This is not the case in politics.
Even libertarians think businesses should be regulated. They generally believe that strong property rights enforcement is necessary, and, in some cases, antitrust law. They believe that businesses should be subject to tort law and other product liabilities, and more generally subject to the jurisdiction of courts. The fact that we take these legal restrictions for granted does not change the fact that regulation is necessary. Without this regulation, you get a lot of very harmful competition, like businesses hiring private armies to sabotage each other or protect themselves.
Similarly, much regulation may be necessary for democracy to function efficiently. It's easy to say unbridled competition is best for all, but only if you forget about the bridle we take for granted. This likely applies to election competition as well.
I thought that was implied-----but yes. But further, do we really need 2 govt employees checking this? Who has a greater interest in preventing the fire? The people who work there, or voters in remote states who want "more regulation"? Few people know the details of what constitutes regulation.
In answering the question, I tried to explain why political competition and business competition are categorically different
How much should business be regulated? This is often framed as a choice between the good feelings of freedom, and the costs of unmanaged cut-throat competition.
I don't know many people who advocate regulation who frame the choice that way.
Not all regulation reduces competition. If the government prevents a company from forming a monopoly they can increase competition. If the government forces a coal factory to use filters that reduce enviromental polution, they aren't really reducing competition either.The coal factory still competes with other coal factories just as they did before. If the government regulation like cap and trade introduces new market incentives you could even say that it increases competition.
Oh sure there are places like Iran or China where democratic competition is highly regulated, such as via restrictions on who can run for office and what can be said to whom.In the West nobody advocates that there are restrictions for who can start a company and which business owner is allowed to say what. China does those things for both businesses and political candidats.
I don't think violence/coercion alone answers the question, but it's a significant enough factor that I think any post not mentioning that factor feels a little useless.
"This [business regulation] is often framed as a choice between the good feelings of freedom and the costs of unmanaged cut-throat competition."
This seems like an odd way of fraiming the question. Most regulation seeks a lower cost method of overecoming market failures and negative externalities than is possible through courts (and often fails for well-known reasons). Indeed the costs of the lack of competition is one object of regulation.
Political competition in America is a joke. I'll list some reasons below (sorry if I repeat some of MikeRulle's points)
We basically get to choose between two alternatives (if we're lucky), not tens of alternatives. Electoral reform may help this (e.g. ranked voting, proportional representation, etc). Barriers to entry in politics are immense.
More fundamentally, elections are heavily regulated in that a set of rules have been laid down for how the elections are conducted and what powers are given to the victors. This is not the sort of bottom-up, fluid structure that we associate with competition. In essence, elections are a "market" that was created by regulations (similar to copyright or emissions markets).
There is no direct feedback between a person's vote and their own welfare, therefore there is little incentive for informed choice.
The connection between a vote and anyone's welfare is extremely indirect and complicated, making it impossible for anyone to make an informed choice. Rather than making a simple decision like "I choose to give my money to a hospital" we are asked to develop a strategy for electing a good candidate (which is complicated enough), who we hope will develop a strategy for getting good legislation passed (if we can trust him and he doesn't have to compromise too much with selfish interest groups), which will cause the state bureaucracy to act in a way that produces our desired outcome (in spite of laziness, corruption, and all the other unintended consequences that occur when the public responds to bureaucratic intervention).
In summary, our political system is a heavily regulated system that is designed to give the illusion of choice to the general public even as all real decision making rests in the hands of a largely self-selected elite.
Market idolotry is the (vain) hope that prohibitive information costs can be surmounted by incentives, where providing these incentives comes with a vast reduction in information available (because of the absence of a central plan and because of private hoarding of information).
If all ithat ntelligent socialist majoritarianism is to self-discipline the citizens not to treat their opinions as beliefs ( http://tinyurl.com/4r9k5g3 ), then Bryan has practically conceded.
To have lawsuit about enviromental pollution you need laws. Those laws come from other humans. Either a parliament, the executive or a judge who makes case law.
As recently as last year the US Republican advocated that US fims should be able to poision more people with mercury than the EPA advocated. You have a real conflict about how much is too much. Solving those conflicts through lawfare isn't efficient.
If we are in a purely free market, such a firm is going to be overwhelm by lawsuits (because there's no monopolies of the State on the river a free marketer) which make dumping mercury in the water very counter productive for the firm in the first place (opportunity cost of dumping the mercury in the river versus disposing of it properly).
When you think in term of free market, you can't project your current paradigm.
In a democracy, policy choices are made by majorities of voters. You can't say that the only good choices are individual choices because some choices affect everybody.
"People voluntarily buy cigarettes and unhealthy food."
Because they want them.
This is a choice people make for themselves.
In contrast, policy choices are made by others, and then enforced through force.
What's "regulation"? Anti-trust? Honouring contacts? Givign accurate information? Regulation is such a baggy term that there is no meaningful comparison.
And who gets the power to distribute or withhold votes, and why don't they get corrupted by it?
A fairly recent example of this was Northern ireland in the 20th century, where the wealthy (ie Protestants) got extra votes. Heaver on Earth it wasn't. That raises a problem: if a discrminated group fail the meritcocracy test, however do they change their lot?
Libertarianism fixes that how? People voluntarily buy cigarettes and unhealthy food. It seems more like an argument for meritocracy. Or technocracy. Or vastly improved political education.
The easy answer for the libertarian is that politics is a one size fits all solution, while the market is not. Those whose needs are not met by the most successful competitors can still go elsewhere to get their needs met. Those consumers who back less successful/popular competitors can still get what they want as long as they are in a minority large enough to make catering to their interests viable. This is not the case in politics.
Even libertarians think businesses should be regulated. They generally believe that strong property rights enforcement is necessary, and, in some cases, antitrust law. They believe that businesses should be subject to tort law and other product liabilities, and more generally subject to the jurisdiction of courts. The fact that we take these legal restrictions for granted does not change the fact that regulation is necessary. Without this regulation, you get a lot of very harmful competition, like businesses hiring private armies to sabotage each other or protect themselves.
Similarly, much regulation may be necessary for democracy to function efficiently. It's easy to say unbridled competition is best for all, but only if you forget about the bridle we take for granted. This likely applies to election competition as well.
I thought that was implied-----but yes. But further, do we really need 2 govt employees checking this? Who has a greater interest in preventing the fire? The people who work there, or voters in remote states who want "more regulation"? Few people know the details of what constitutes regulation.
In answering the question, I tried to explain why political competition and business competition are categorically different
How much should business be regulated? This is often framed as a choice between the good feelings of freedom, and the costs of unmanaged cut-throat competition.
I don't know many people who advocate regulation who frame the choice that way.
Not all regulation reduces competition. If the government prevents a company from forming a monopoly they can increase competition. If the government forces a coal factory to use filters that reduce enviromental polution, they aren't really reducing competition either.The coal factory still competes with other coal factories just as they did before. If the government regulation like cap and trade introduces new market incentives you could even say that it increases competition.
Oh sure there are places like Iran or China where democratic competition is highly regulated, such as via restrictions on who can run for office and what can be said to whom.In the West nobody advocates that there are restrictions for who can start a company and which business owner is allowed to say what. China does those things for both businesses and political candidats.
No, if a company dumbs mercury or lead into the enviroment which reduces your IQ there's little you can do about it in a purely free markets.
I don't think violence/coercion alone answers the question, but it's a significant enough factor that I think any post not mentioning that factor feels a little useless.
"This [business regulation] is often framed as a choice between the good feelings of freedom and the costs of unmanaged cut-throat competition."
This seems like an odd way of fraiming the question. Most regulation seeks a lower cost method of overecoming market failures and negative externalities than is possible through courts (and often fails for well-known reasons). Indeed the costs of the lack of competition is one object of regulation.
Political competition in America is a joke. I'll list some reasons below (sorry if I repeat some of MikeRulle's points)
We basically get to choose between two alternatives (if we're lucky), not tens of alternatives. Electoral reform may help this (e.g. ranked voting, proportional representation, etc). Barriers to entry in politics are immense.
More fundamentally, elections are heavily regulated in that a set of rules have been laid down for how the elections are conducted and what powers are given to the victors. This is not the sort of bottom-up, fluid structure that we associate with competition. In essence, elections are a "market" that was created by regulations (similar to copyright or emissions markets).
There is no direct feedback between a person's vote and their own welfare, therefore there is little incentive for informed choice.
The connection between a vote and anyone's welfare is extremely indirect and complicated, making it impossible for anyone to make an informed choice. Rather than making a simple decision like "I choose to give my money to a hospital" we are asked to develop a strategy for electing a good candidate (which is complicated enough), who we hope will develop a strategy for getting good legislation passed (if we can trust him and he doesn't have to compromise too much with selfish interest groups), which will cause the state bureaucracy to act in a way that produces our desired outcome (in spite of laziness, corruption, and all the other unintended consequences that occur when the public responds to bureaucratic intervention).
In summary, our political system is a heavily regulated system that is designed to give the illusion of choice to the general public even as all real decision making rests in the hands of a largely self-selected elite.
Market idolotry is the (vain) hope that prohibitive information costs can be surmounted by incentives, where providing these incentives comes with a vast reduction in information available (because of the absence of a central plan and because of private hoarding of information).
If all ithat ntelligent socialist majoritarianism is to self-discipline the citizens not to treat their opinions as beliefs ( http://tinyurl.com/4r9k5g3 ), then Bryan has practically conceded.