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Obviously, companies want less competition, but if they use a political system to do that, it's not free market capitalism.
by dovereconomics 11y ago
Obviously, companies want less competition, but if they use a political system to do that, it's not free market capitalism.
- Demiurge 11y agoAnd if they use private guns for hire to do it?
- TeMPOraL 11y agoThe line dividing "market" and "political system" is blurry and pretty arbitrary, like most lines in models we make. There's nothing in reality that makes meddling with politics unkosher; if it increases profit, then the incentives created by the economy will make companies choose to do so. The problem isn't that they're crossing some arbitrary lines - the problem is with the incentives that lead them to it.
- lprubin 11y agoI think it's an important question of whether or not lasting monopolies are possible without political intervention.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoA big enough monopoly looks surprisingly like a nation state. I don't think you can really disconnect those two worlds.
- timtas 11y agoSeems clear to me. The market consists of voluntary associations. An association is voluntary if it is entered into without coercion. The "political system" more properly called the state, depends on coercion. There is no purpose to a law other than to involuntarily compel, by violence if necessary.
- reagency 11y agoGovernment regulation is one specific form of power. Human hunger is another, hence the trouble that started the labor movement / unions.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoVoluntary trade at the level of basic needs is bullshit. Fear of hunger or death from sickness is coercion. I have to have a job, and I have to buy food. Companies are very happy to exploit that. A lot of blood was shed a century ago to establish some minimum safety net for this "voluntary trade".
- timtas 11y agoYou must obtain food but not from any one specific provider. No company will long "exploit" you (Hmm, where have we heard that term before?) unless they are protected from competition by a coercive state.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoRead up on e.g. lives of miners in the United States in the past. It happened many times that a private interest controlled all your life - your housing, your food, your tools. Companies can, and if allowed will, create conditions where competing with them is impossible. One of the reasons we have states is to prevent exactly that from happening.
- timtas 11y ago> Read up on e.g. lives of miners in the United States We all know the about the suffering of industrial workers. What's less well known is the far greater suffering of the pre industrial revolution peasant. What's also less well knows is that the advances in conditions and prosperity that bring us to today were will under way before, and had very little to do with, progressive state interventions.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago