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People are overly distrustful of private entities. Likewise, they're also overly trustful of public entities. It's implicit in almost every argument you will ha
by zo1 11y ago
People are overly distrustful of private entities. Likewise, they're also overly trustful of public entities. It's implicit in almost every argument you will have when advocating free-market solutions over state-monopoly and state-regulation type solutions. And this applies to practically any problem.
Unfortunately, no one wants to see the elephant in the room. Both types of entities will do (or at least have the risk-of doing) what is in their own best interest. But only one can have a violence-backed monopoly advantage.
- dsr_ 11y agoA government which is tightly constrained in the use of violence by laws and social custom is vastly preferable to a free market in violence.
- brbsix 11y agoYou've posed a false dichotomy. No one is talking about a free market in violence. A free market is tightly constrained by social custom, ostracism, and economic forces that are often more powerful than law. Lack of regulation does not make violence any more tolerable.
- ricardobeat 11y agoA free market is only constrained by the morality of individuals, which as everybody knows can quickly detour from the social custom. Ostracism is never a concern if you have power and/or money. A lack of regulation doesn't make violence more tolerable, but makes it more appealing.
- skylan_q 11y agoA free market is only constrained by the morality of individuals There is no one who advocates for free markets who advocates against laws. Killing people is murder, hurting them is causing injury, etc... It's constrained by laws, ethics, and economic forces.
- ricardobeat 11y agoThat sentence wasn't in a vacuum, read the parent posts for context.
- deciplex 11y ago> A free market is only constrained by the morality of individuals It really isn't even very constrained by that. It helps if people are generally virtuous, but even an institution where the majority of the people are of good moral character, can display pathological behavior if it's poorly designed.
- im2w1l 11y ago1. Elections. 2. Monopoly. There is no "but they are doing it so we have to, too" race to the bottom.
- mcguire 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_%28horse%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_%28horse%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_sulfanilamide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_sulfanilamide
- skylan_q 11y agoWe have laws against killing people.
- dalke 11y agoThey had laws against killing people back then too. Why weren't those laws effective? For example, the only reason the FDA had the power to go against Elixir sulfanilamide was that it was mislabeled, not that it was killing people.
- anon4 11y agoYou also have laws against copyright infringement. And just as you can't unsee an illegally downloaded movie, you can't unkill a man.
- monort 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio... Government is not better, than private companies.
- mcguire 11y agoTo an extent, you are right. On the other hand, those are usually (and correctly) regarded as government failures rather than as how things are supposed to work. Reflexive secrecy is antithetical to democratic government, but that's a completely different issue.