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xerox
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posted May 20, 2014 07:48 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 19:52, 20 May 2014.
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He said it was a love child of capitalism and communism when there isn't anything communist about it, because there's still capitalism in that model
Seriously though, how is it influenced by communism when there's nothing specifically communist about it? Influenced by Marxist thought yes. By communism, no.
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- John Stuart Mill
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artu
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posted May 20, 2014 07:53 PM |
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Edited by artu at 19:55, 20 May 2014.
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Saying the communist ideal softened capitalism is NOT saying the regime transformed into a communist/capitalist hybrid. That was specifically emphasized.
There are two main aspects of Marxism, philosophical (historical materialism) and political (communism/socialism). The influence was political.
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xerox
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posted May 20, 2014 07:56 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 19:59, 20 May 2014.
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But it wasn't a Communist ideal, they still wanted capitalism, bourgeoise government, private property and a lot of other things that are hardly compatible with communism. Like a lot of non-communists, they liked the Marxist idea of income distribution. That hardly makes them a "love child of communism". Communism was rejected . Communists and social democrats did and do not like each other.
____________
Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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mvassilev
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posted May 20, 2014 08:22 PM |
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Artu:
I mean, the bad conditions they're in initially (before accepting any contract) aren't the capitalist's fault, and even if the contract isn't that great, it's still better than what they would've had otherwise, so there's no problem. But as for bargaining, as I said before, unions are labor cartels, so if you don't mind cartels, sure, workers can organize into unions.
Fauch:
As far as unemployment goes, that's either because something is preventing from wages adjusting downward (sometimes government intervention, sometimes other stuff [like unions!]) to a level at which they can be employed, or in rarer cases because they're not worth hiring even for low wages. (This is possible because employing someone isn't costless.)
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Baklava
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posted May 21, 2014 01:00 AM |
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Edited by Baklava at 01:06, 21 May 2014.
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@Xer
He said it was a love child of capitalism and communism when there isn't anything communist about it, because there's still capitalism in that model
You don't have to be a communist regime to be influenced by communist (as Marx called it) or Marxist (as Marx didn't call it) thought. Social democracies where such a large part of your income goes to taxes which fund welfare, public schooling, public healthcare etc. is far from both capitalism and communism. If, for instance, John came to this world due to his raven-haired mom sleeping with a blond Swedish guy that she never saw again, the fact that John's hair is black and him being born in England doesn't mean he's not half-Swedish. Maybe his Swedish heritage is the reason he's taller than other kids in school, and also explain his occasional urge to pillage a church and sail off on a longboat every now and then.
"Love child" is just an expression.
@MVass
It's unlikely that sellers would refuse to sell altogether, unless the price ceiling was set really low, but it is likely that they'd sell less than they would if prices had been allowed to rise as much as they would in a free market. In practice, this means shortages and people standing in line (an unproductive activity). And some mutually beneficial exchanges are prevented.
Alright, I'll play along.
Follow me here.
If everyone needs a good, and you're the only one that's got it, there can be two options.
-You either have a limited supply (of which you'll sell everything), or
-You have an unlimited supply (which more families will be able to buy if it's less expensive).
I don't get how, in any case, you'll sell less than you would if you raised the prices.
***
As for the mutual benefit, if the peddler sold for a price before the disaster, it means it made him better off the way it was. In fact, enough better off that he remained in that business. It also made the buyers better off, since they bought at his place even when there WERE other ways to get the good. We're not talking about confiscating the peddler's goods here, far from it - just keeping his prices where they were.
Now, in the case of artificial scarcity when disaster strikes, the people have no choice. What was once an alright deal for both sides becomes excruciating for them (because they are forced to agree to it), in order to become more profitable for the peddler, all due to a natural disaster (or, in some cases, due to sloppy prevention of this disaster by the government). That's not a free market, that's redistribution of the goods - and a random one, at that, because it isn't even caused directly by central planning, but by wild and fickle natural processes such as the weather.
A sole supplier of a crucial good cannot afford inaction, as his position becomes one of both power and responsibility - the state is the sole supplier of the military, and it can't simply wait for the war to start, and then tell people, now you'll all give us blowjobs or we won't defend you. Wondrous as that'd be for reducing the public support of wars everywhere, it's simply a no-go.
***
I'm not quite sure what you're aiming at with the shortage bit. If an entire village has three loaves of bread, it doesn't matter if they cost 20 cents or 20 dollars, there's a shortage of bloody bread.
You mention the inefficiency of a line of people waiting to get a regular-cost life-sustaining resource from a single source. Yes. That's really not overly productive. What's even less productive are riots. Which would occur if there's one guy with a lot of this resource, who refuses to share, or only shares with the rich. What can people without basic life-sustaining resources who just suffered a shattering natural disaster be productive about anyway? Even in order to clear the rubble, look for survivals, make shelters or improvised levees or whatever, they need food and water and clothes. Raising the prices of raincoats and rubber boots in a place hit by a flood - yeah, that ought to raise productivity.
Jesus, MVass.
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is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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mvassilev
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posted May 21, 2014 01:42 AM |
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First, regarding the quantity sold and the price. Things cost money to produce and transport. If the price of an item is, say, $50, you're going to sell 20 pairs of boots in a certain town, because directing more boots there wouldn't be worth it (they'd be better sold elsewhere). Now, if the price rises to $100, it makes sense to redirect some shipments to the town - and more boots are sold there. And if you're a private individual who has an extra pair of boots in good shape, it may not make sense for you to sell them to someone when the price is $50 (Why would they buy from some random stranger when they could just go to the store? And besides, it's a hassle), but when the price is $100 and people really need boots, it makes sense to sell whatever extras you have. And if you don't have extras, you know to be more careful with what you have, since replacing them would be more expensive.
As long as the total quantity isn't fixed (and it isn't), higher price = more stuff sold. It's literally basic supply and demand.
Second, regarding changed conditions. The terms of trade have changed as a result of the disaster, but the fact that it's mutually beneficial has not. The distribution of goods is still done through the free market, as people are engaging in mutually beneficial voluntary exchange, but the disaster affected people's preferences (or made a different subset of preferences be expressed, whichever way you want to formulate it).
As for the military, it's already paid for, so they can't turn around and ask for more when they're needed for active defense, at least if they functioned like a private firm. Just like if you order and pay for something, the company can't charge you more for it. But the example of the military isn't a good one anyway, considering that you pay for it continuously, and its expenses rise in an actual war.
Third, regarding shortages. If the price of bread is $20, everyone who can/wants to buy bread at that price has bought it. If the price is 20 cents, there are many people who want to buy it, but only 3 people can actually buy it, so there's a shortage.
To illustrate the principle more clearly, consider an auction, where you're auctioning off the bread.
In the first scenario, you run the auction properly: you start bidding at a certain price, and let people outbid each other until no one wants to bid any more, then give it to the highest bidder. This is roughly similar to a price system in a free market. There are no shortages here because the bread is only sold when no one wants to bid higher, which means that everyone who is willing to pay that price can pay it.
In the second scenario, you end the auction early, before the maximum bidding price has been reached. People are still willing to bid higher, but you give it away for a lower price. Then there are people who are willing to pay for it at the price at which it was sold, but can't because there's no more to sell. This is a shortage.
And as for riots, we are already assuming that there is some entity (presumably a government) that can prevent sellers from charging excessively high prices. What's stopping that entity from actually doing its job and protecting private property owners from rioters?
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xerox
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posted May 21, 2014 01:46 AM |
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Edited by xerox at 01:47, 21 May 2014.
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How is the Swedish wellfare state "far" from capitalism?
It's got everything required by capitalism, perhaps the only thing, private property and profit. And I'm not saying it was a communist state (I'm not one of those who go around yelling "Soviet" when somebody mentions communism), I denied it was influenced by communism.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Baklava
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posted May 21, 2014 02:57 AM |
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Edited by Baklava at 03:02, 21 May 2014.
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@MVass
Regarding basic supply and demand.
First of all, there are towns hit or endangered by the flood, and towns which are safe. Towns related to the flood automatically have a great demand for boots - whereas they really aren't all the rage in mid-May somewhere in the mountains or far from the rivers. In any case, even though rarely any man needs more than one pair, the demand is gigantic and you'll hardly satisfy it. Still, you're doing better than ever (in reality, companies donated tens of thousands of boots for free, which is the TRULY useful deal here, considering the positive media image and advertising they got out of it. The clog was in small retailers and resellers, but we've dwelled on those already - let's postulate a major company here). You're doing swell - suddenly, everyone's a bloody fisherman. So what do you do if you're allowed to set the prices to whatever you want? You raise them in all the places where they're needed. You raise production as well, you send additional shipments to wet places, you get sweet $$$.
But what do you do if the government says you can't double the prices? Well, alrighty then. They're still selling fast (going even faster considering more people are buying them). What do you do? You raise production, you send additional shipments to wet places, you get sweet $$$. Maybe less sweet $$$ than otherwise, but it's still money in your pocket, and it's far better than usual. What you certainly do not do is send less boots (or the same amounts as when the demand was low) because it's not worth shipping more of a product to a place where there's high demand for it, if you're not allowed to double the price. Of course it's freaking worth it. Especially if you raise the production, which you'll do anyway, and sell all of it, because the demand will still be even greater than you can satisfy. You are free to be mad all you want because the gov didn't allow you to profit even more on the misery of others, but you won't send any less of anything anywhere. So your argument falls into a ditch and gets dissolved in a mushy stream of dirt and feces.
***
Regarding shortages.
As I tried to explain to you some time ago about your liberal use of terms: watering down a term such as "shortage" to this, renders it irrelevant. When you put aside some crucial pillars of ethics in order to support a policy of "no shortage", it's bad demagogy, and here's why.
Saying, "the free market would prevent a shortage in this crisis" causes the bombastic sound of "hey, there'd be enough bread then!" But when what you mean is, "This is because, in this case, it would make the bread more expensive and therefore if there are 5 people and 2 breads, those 3 people wouldn't be able to afford it anyway," it doesn't really sound like something to legalize sexual extortion over.
This goes for "mutual benefit" as well.
***
As for the government preventing riots, it takes one visit by one inspector to keep a peddler in line, while a whole squad of policemen which would otherwise help out with rescuing and sanitizing the catastrophe, would be needed to protect the man blackmailing the village into sexual favours for food. What were we talking about, again? Productivity? Ethics?
@Xer
What kind of an anarchocapitalist believes capitalism is fulfilled in a place where people are forced by the state to pay for other people's welfare, healthcare and education?
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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xerox
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posted May 21, 2014 03:01 AM |
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Edited by xerox at 03:02, 21 May 2014.
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A free market is essential for anarcho-capitalism. It is not essential for capitalism per se.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Baklava
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posted May 21, 2014 03:11 AM |
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Edited by Baklava at 03:13, 21 May 2014.
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Have states provided these things prior to the advent of Marxist thought? How did workers' rights and labour laws look like at the height of the industrial revolution?
Basically, we're going in circles. You already accepted the social democracy of today being influenced by Marxist social-economic thought. You simply state that this has nothing to do with communism. Marx devised his social-economic thought as either communism or paving the road to it - which is to say, it was all heavily influenced by his idea of a communist society and attempts to reach it. People liked it. Dangerous amounts of people, growing increasingly irritated with their lot in life. Concessions were made. Compromises were introduced. I don't follow how you can't see the connection.
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mvassilev
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posted May 21, 2014 03:20 AM |
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Bak:
First, regarding supply and demand. At the given (pre-flood) price, the companies are already selling all the boots they want to sell - if you want them to sell more, the price has to rise. It doesn't matter if more people want to buy it if the price doesn't rise - the company has decided that for this price, they're willing to produce and sell a certain number of boots, and producing and selling more wouldn't be worth it, because each additional pair of boots costs more to produce than the one before it. Even if more people want to buy it for that price, the company doesn't care - its decision to produce is determined by the revenue from each additional boot sold and the cost of producing that boot, neither of which changes if more people want to buy and the price doesn't change. It's already producing at the point at which it doesn't want to produce any more at that price.
Second, regarding shortages. If the price rises and quantity isn't fixed, then quantity rises when prices rise. While quantity is fixed in your 3 breads case, this is atypical in the real world. There's also another point - even if the quantity is fixed, letting prices rise ensures that the person who gets it will be the one willing to trade the greatest value for it, which is important for efficient resource allocation - you wouldn't want the bread going to someone who wants it less.
As for force and peddlers, it takes one visit from an inspector to tell the peddler what to do, but if peddlers as a whole decide to ignore the inspector (as they should), it would take police intervention to quell them, anyway.
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Baklava
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posted May 21, 2014 04:43 AM |
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Edited by Baklava at 04:47, 21 May 2014.
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That doesn't go for importers. It doesn't go for resellers. And it doesn't go for short bursts in demand such as these - especially not in ruined developing countries and economies.
Even if the producers already operate on maximum efficiency given the resources they have (which is, sadly, always rather questionable in Serbian economy), and it'd require getting additional space or equipment to expand (the only thing that would notably increase the marginal cost here), it's a question of whether they'd manage to do that in time to take advantage of the situation - more than likely, the producer would simply opt to play it safe and meet increasing demands with increasing prices, knowing that when the demand falls back to normal (after the floods), all those means of production which they'd have invested so much into would be unneeded again. So your proposition, in this particular case, would probably simply result in a very quick jump in prices, not production.
***
I am amazed that you do not understand that everyone without a life-sustaining resource needs it rather equally; and that sky high prices do not differentiate between who wants to live, but who is (soon-to-be "was") rich enough to afford it for a bit longer.
The entire idea of the ability to pay being a measure of desire has - like many of the basic ideas you revere for reasons unbeknownst to me - been created as a simple economic guideline. One that can be applied in certain cases (the sales of iPhones among young adults with similar earnings in a functional economy, for instance), and cannot in certain others. Just like wars do not determine who is right, but who is left, high pricing of essential goods does not determine who wants to eat, but who's got the resources for it. A hungry orphan may not have the means a landowner would, in this situation - and the landowner certainly would not have the means of a man about to rob him dry in the chaos of natural disaster in order to feed himself or his family. Or, indeed, bash the peddler's head in and deal with the obstacle quickly and efficiently. Willingness to trump one's own basic ethics is the highest level of desire, after all, and we wouldn't want the bread to go to someone who wants it less.
***
As for peddler riots - there are far less peddlers than there are non-peddlers in any given place. And that's not counting honest or normal salespeople who keep their prices standard, or actually hand out supplies and give it their best shot to sanitize the situation first (not giving a rat's arse about joining the Peddlers for Sexual Exploitation strike). Given the choice between having increased demand for their wares, or rising against the government's forces and the common folk alike and refusing to sell anything in a case of emergency, they tend to simply keep their prices right where they are.
I sometimes wonder if you have, like Marx, lost all ability to understand the real world consequences of radical aspects of your theories. At other times, I hope you're never forced to.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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mvassilev
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posted May 21, 2014 06:00 AM |
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It's not necessarily a question of production, just a question of allocation in general. They could send some of the boots they'd normally send elsewhere to the flooded area, for example. If they want to expand capacity, they usually can - even on short notice.
---
Measuring desires is part of it, but also it's based on being able to trade value for value - those who have produced the most value in the past (and are willing to trade it now) get the goods. It's part of the reward (incentive) for producing value. As for bashing the peddler's head in, that's a nonsequitur, because we're talking about policies here, and obviously we're not going to have a policy that the right thing to do is to murder someone.
---
True, a peddler riot is unlikely. But that still leaves open the question whether the police should protect people (peddlers) or threaten to aggress against them (force them to sell at a certain price), and that's not determined merely by what's cheap for the police to do. It'd be cheapest for them to do nothing, but that's unacceptable.
And yes, I am a radical. I am a radical for capitalism. I hope we'll see it in our lifetime, and enjoy its freedom and prosperity.
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artu
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posted May 21, 2014 06:51 AM |
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Edited by artu at 07:24, 21 May 2014.
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mvass said:
Measuring desires is part of it, but also it's based on being able to trade value for value - those who have produced the most value in the past (and are willing to trade it now) get the goods. It's part of the reward (incentive) for producing value.
You talk as if people are born into some farm/network like the one in the Matrix, they are totally equal by opportunity, education, connections from the start and then the ones who produce the most value get rewarded the most. The fact is, they are not, it's a race where some people start 20 meters ahead, some 200 meters ahead. (The communist ideal was an overwhelmingly radical, hence, doomed to fail when executed in real life, attempt to balance this.)
Let me ask you something, let's have your hypothetical radical capitalism, (actually we don't need to, there are roughly similar examples in the real world, but you may put the blame on capitalism not being radical enough in the real world, so I'll stick to your hypothetical version). Let's have two coal mines, our production value is naturally coal. In one of those mines, let us have the company owner apply certain regulations such as oxygen masks for every miner, detectors that alert gas leaks, emergency elevators etc etc, simply because he prefers to. But since there are no legal regulations that lay out the working conditions, let us have the second mine company completely disregard these precautions and go by the motto of "we are not forcing anyone to work for us, you go underground, it's your choice." There will still be many people desperate for the job, therefore, both mines will be competing in the market. Yet, the second company will be richer because it will be free of all the expense the first one constantly spends on safety issues.
Now, is the second company richer because it has produced more value? No, it is richer because it has put profit before human life. How is that something you defend by a principle of reward incentive? The reward incentive in wild capitalism is profit and profit only and you don't have to go too far or get too hypothetical to see that. And in your radical capitalism, there is nothing to stop the second company from getting bigger and buying out the first one and turn the worse conditions into the only alternative, since it will make more profit. So, the choice for the workers will be to starve or to risk their lives everyday.
You can bet your life that kind of system won't last very long anyway. (That's why 19th century "puked out" communism.) But even if it could, why would anyone desire it?
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mvassilev
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posted May 21, 2014 08:06 AM |
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Your example is unrealistic (if you assume profit-maximizing firms) because in effect, one firm is offering higher wages (through safer working conditions). If it had no reason to do so, it would stop, and if it did have a reason (such as getting better workers) then the two firms would be unlikely to be equal in output (though they could be equal in profit). Also notice that in the real world, some firms consistently outperform others, and yet they don't buy each other up all the time even in highly competitive markets, where it wouldn't form anything like a monopoly.
But, let us assume that both mines have the same revenue but the second mine has lower costs. Maybe the managers of the first firm have goals other than profit maximization, or maybe they're just incompetent. The second firm is taking inputs (labor, raw materials, etc) and producing the same amount of output. But it's producing the same amount of output with less input (that is, it's paying less for labor). That means it's getting more out of each "unit" of input, which means it is producing more value, just like you'd be producing more value if you'd find a more efficient way to do your job.
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artu
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posted May 21, 2014 08:41 AM |
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Edited by artu at 10:23, 21 May 2014.
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mvass said:
Your example is unrealistic (if you assume profit-maximizing firms) because in effect, one firm is offering higher wages (through safer working conditions). If it had no reason to do so, it would stop, and if it did have a reason (such as getting better workers) then the two firms would be unlikely to be equal in output (though they could be equal in profit).
So, the possibility that the owners of the company actually putting their employees' lives before profit if they are not forced to, seems completely unrealistic to you? I'd say, even if that was the case, it would be a reason to support governmental regulations, not abandon them.
mvass said:
Also notice that in the real world, some firms consistently outperform others, and yet they don't buy each other up all the time even in highly competitive markets, where it wouldn't form anything like a monopoly.
Some do and some don't for a whole variety of reasons. Besides, in the real world, there ARE regulations against monopolies. The important part is, in your hypothetical system, there is nothing to prevent that from happening and it is not something unlikely to happen.
mvass said:
But it's producing the same amount of output with less input (that is, it's paying less for labor). That means it's getting more out of each "unit" of input, which means it is producing more value, just like you'd be producing more value if you'd find a more efficient way to do your job.
Not in the sense which I quoted you in the above post. You made it sound like a golden paradise where only efficiency (and not covetousness) is justly rewarded and everybody is happy. In your own words, "I hope we'll see it in our lifetime, and enjoy its freedom and prosperity." While what I simply pointed out to you was, it's just about the big capital owners maximizing THEIR profit. You have just confirmed that. So the next and the important question that you avoided still stands: Why should anybody (except maybe the few who are already extremely wealthy) desire that?
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Baklava
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posted May 21, 2014 12:34 PM |
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Edited by Baklava at 13:11, 21 May 2014.
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@MVass
We're not talking about what's cheapest for the police to do, but what would save the most lives. Police engaging in rescue missions and rebuilding attempts across the country is better used than preventing riots by people extorted for sexual favours by a peddler that holds a monopoly due to a natural disaster. And even if it does, there's far too much ground to cover and far too many angry people.
And by saying the police being "better used", I don't just mean ethically. The country's production increases if it's rebuilt faster (with aid from government institutions such as the police and military), and if more potentially productive people are saved from the floods.
***
Also, as for your point that
obviously we're not going to have a policy that the right thing to do is to murder someone.
You can have a policy of it not being right to kill a man for his iPod or for drug money. But risking jailtime is usually very much worth it if you're facing starvation. Even risking the firing squad is - you introduce a chance of not getting caught, as opposed to the certainty of starving. So what reason would people have to not do that?
Going to Heaven?
***
And one more thing, I agree that most producers can expand capacity on short notice, but the supplies of rubber boots in dry towns go out slow, and in flooded towns they go out fast and the demand is higher. So, naturally, they'll allocate more over there.
To illustrate, if towns A and B both bought 10 pairs a month pre-flood, and now town A buys 100, if you raise your production to 30 pairs per month, you'll send those additional 10 pairs to town A. In fact, since it's easier to coordinate one shipping destination than two, you might leave your retailer in place B for a while, and send all 30 to A, where they sell out quickly. Higher boot pricing doesn't really change this. The only thing that it really influences is whether the company raises the prices enough for it to be profitable to expand production in an expensive, high-marginal-cost-inducing manner, which usually spells a permanent increase in this production (such as entire new factories or additional heavy machinery, with new employees to work them). But an increase of this kind will be rendered unnecessary as soon as the floods are over, and a new factory and several hundred workers on your payroll don't pay off that quickly, even in your perfect world where you can give them the boot any time you like without any kind of reparations required.
***
All in all, what you believe both the government and the police should do has so far shown to be physically harder (to the point of impossibility), and even if successful, it wouldn't ensure any greater productivity (on the contrary) during this time - simply a wave of increased pricing for a temporary personal profit over disaster victims forced to participate in blackmail. The only thing that remains is, again, pulling back to your beliefs about rights - which, as an atheist, you believe stem from contracts instituted to some kind of benefit for the society, which in this case, there is no mention of. Only a handful (and only in short term) are better off supporting the "freedom of pricing during a disaster while the military defends you" aspect of the free market, while everyone else is far worse off - and why would the military defend you, at any rate? It doesn't make sense. It's the people they're defending you against that financed it far more than you. There is no God telling them that your property rights should trump a thousand people's right to live - it simply all goes against anyone's interests.
Contrary to the popular views on social Darwinism, it wasn't sharp competition and survival of the fittest that advanced mankind the most; that's all simply a byproduct of vying for control of things achieved through cooperation. If someone is unwilling to engage in this cooperation, the government is free to demand not undermining it or using holes in the nominal deal in order to commit extortion. The law forbids raising prices, it doesn't involve confiscating your property.
Still, I cannot alienate you from something you simply believe in, any more than I could alienate Elodin from believing Jesus supports the death penalty. If a radical, fundamentalist Muslim supports circumcising women, I can explain what kind of physical and mental issues that belief runs into. I cannot argue against it being God's will.
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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posted May 21, 2014 02:55 PM |
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mvassilev said:
Measuring desires is part of it, but also it's based on being able to trade value for value - those who have produced the most value in the past (and are willing to trade it now) get the goods. It's part of the reward (incentive) for producing value.
most of the time, those who produce value, aren't the ones who trade it. they usually have absolutely no control of what will be done with what they produced, because of lucrative property.
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posted May 21, 2014 04:41 PM |
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Artu:Quote:
So, the possibility that the owners of the company actually putting their employees' lives before profit if they are not forced to, seems completely unrealistic to you?
No, not unrealistic. But in these kinds of analyses we usually assume profit-maximizing firms. And it's quite reasonable that if one firm is profit-maximizing and the other one isn't, the profit-maximizing one is going to do better.Quote:
Some do and some don't for a whole variety of reasons. Besides, in the real world, there ARE regulations against monopolies.
As I said previously, many markets are nowhere close to monopoly, so anti-monopoly legislation doesn't apply to them. And yet you don't see this kind of consolidation. If the anti-market people were correct, you'd see markets becoming more and more concentrated until anti-monopoly laws kick in, but that's not what we see in real life.Quote:
While what I simply pointed out to you was, it's just about the big capital owners maximizing THEIR profit. You have just confirmed that. So the next and the important question that you avoided still stands: Why should anybody (except maybe the few who are already extremely wealthy) desire that?
Because efficiency is a great thing. For every unit of input, you produce more and more output. This is good for consumers because it means they can buy more goods. At the same time, it's good for workers because their productivity rises, and so their wages rise too (and wages don't have to be monetary, they can be in the form of workplace safety). It's not about the capital owners - even though they're the most obvious beneficiaries, they may not even be the biggest ones.
Bak:
Should the police always save lives without regard for whose lives they're saving? I mean this quite seriously - if the police could save the lives of ten wrongdoers or one just man, which should they do? If there were a lynch mob coming after me, the police could save lives by refusing to protect me, but this is the opposite of what they should do. The same is the case here - if there's a lynch mob coming after merchants engaging in mutually beneficial voluntary exchange, the police should protect them.
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Yes, what each individual person should do is a separate question from what the best policy is. Certainly if I'm starving and the only way I can survive is by theft, I'm going to steal. But at the same time, I endorse the principle by which governments can and should act against thieves. The optimal policy and the optimal individual action need not be the same, and we're talking about policies here.
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On the contrary - if boot prices aren't allowed to rise, why would you send more boots to Town A? You're already selling all the boots you want to sell for that price - to get you to sell any more, the price has to rise.
To illustrate this principle more clearly, imagine you're a small bootmaker, and you make ten pairs of boots a month, which sell for $50 a pair. You make ten pairs of boots because each boot costs more to make than the previous one, partially because of resource costs, especially the resource that is your labor - working more means giving up leisure, and each "unit" of leisure you give up to make boots is more valuable than the previous one (moving from, say, 10 units of leisure to 9 units is less of a loss than moving from 2 units to 1 unit). As long as you get $50 for each pair of boots, the costs of making boots only justify making 10 pairs of boots. And this is true regardless of how many people are willing to pay $50 (as long as it's at least 10 people a month) - whether 10 people want to buy your boots or 10 million, if the price is $50, the trade-offs for you don't change, so you won't make more than 10 pairs. But if the price rises to $100, the trade-offs do change, and so you reconsider and decide that if the price is that that high, it's worth it to produce more boots.
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If you think this is about simple "benefit to society", you're oversimplifying what I said earlier elsewhere. It's not about net benefit to people as an aggregate, it's about individual people's benefits that cause them to make contracts. To put it simply, if the agreement makes both of us gain 1 unit of utility, then we should make it, but if it makes you gain 100 units of utility and makes me lose 5 units, then I shouldn't make it, even if the aggregate amount of utility would be greater if I did. Since people benefit from living in peace with each other, they benefit from an agreement to do so. But this means that they can't force merchants to do what they want. Otherwise, you're back in the state of nature with a marauding band robbing you. That is the savagery of the pre-contract world, and the contract is good because it gets us away from that.
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Eccentric Opinion
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted May 21, 2014 07:26 PM |
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Edited by artu at 19:35, 21 May 2014.
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mvass said:
Because efficiency is a great thing. For every unit of input, you produce more and more output. This is good for consumers because it means they can buy more goods. At the same time, it's good for workers because their productivity rises, and so their wages rise too (and wages don't have to be monetary, they can be in the form of workplace safety). It's not about the capital owners - even though they're the most obvious beneficiaries, they may not even be the biggest ones.
I'm gonna skip asking how is more goods automatically consumers being able to buy them or why does buying more and more stuff has THIS effect on you... But a minute ago (figure of speech), you were telling me the company would not better the conditions if it doesn't have to and now you are telling me the workers' wages will rise with their productivity. How? The workers have no union in your system (cause they are somehow, inevitably transforming into cartels), so they are powerless. Why should the company owner reflect the rise of production to their wages, especially when you are reasoning that rise of production by keeping the wages low. It seems like, you are just giving answers you come up with along the way and you don't care about their consistency as a whole.
mvass said:
Since people benefit from living in peace with each other, they benefit from an agreement to do so. But this means that they can't force merchants to do what they want. Otherwise, you're back in the state of nature with a marauding band robbing you.
Another one of your oversimplifications... To regulate and to force (and especially force as in marauders robbing you) are hardly the same thing. Does enforcing traffic laws count? Or can I drive at any speed and in any manner I want as long as I don't hit somebody? And when I can't, even if you disagree to this situation, would you really call it returning to the state of nature just because I violate your overwhelmingly idealistic free association principles?
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