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Check the wording carefully...by saying they are "not prerequisites" this does not mean having money can't help you. It's a matter of degree. With a powerful

Check the wording carefully...by saying they are "not prerequisites" this does not mean having money can't help you. It's a matter of degree. With a powerful state people are more likely to obtain positions of power due to favors, or who they know rather than merit. The reason being that if you're a government official and you hire the senator's son over a more qualified candidate (to gain his favor) it's not as big of a deal if he screws up because it's not your money he is losing (it's the tax payers). In a free society you're more likely to hire the best person for the job because it's your own money on the line if he screws up. As Milton Friedman once so elegantly put it, you always spend your own money more carefully than you spend someone else's. And this can be a powerful incentive.

foldr 17y ago
>It's a matter of degree. Maybe it is, but that's not really how he presents it. As far as hiring decisions are concerned, I think you're just picking one factor our of many thousands that are operative and assuming that it has the biggest influence.
anigbrowl 17y ago
The reason being that if you're a government official and you hire the senator's son over a more qualified candidate (to gain his favor) it's not as big of a deal if he screws up because it's not your money he is losing (it's the tax payers) You must hate most corporations then - all-powerful executive, weak and passive boards of directors, and shareholders with little influence who have to take the haircut for executive screwups. Why is it that most of the institutions of capitalism have such hierarchical structures? Seen any anarchist corporations on the stock ticker lately? No? Maybe that's because when laissez-faire capitalists start talking about freedom, they're talking about what they want for themselves, not everyone else. As Adam Smith observed, men of the same profession seldom come together save with the intent to defraud the public.
- barry-cotter 17y ago
  Yeah, but shareholders in corporations have a much more credible threat of exit. The more people exercise said right the more the price falls, and eventually the management is replaced.

foldr 17y ago

>It's a matter of degree. Maybe it is, but that's not really how he presents it. As far as hiring decisions are concerned, I think you're just picking one factor our of many thousands that are operative and assuming that it has the biggest influence.

anigbrowl 17y ago

The reason being that if you're a government official and you hire the senator's son over a more qualified candidate (to gain his favor) it's not as big of a deal if he screws up because it's not your money he is losing (it's the tax payers) You must hate most corporations then - all-powerful executive, weak and passive boards of directors, and shareholders with little influence who have to take the haircut for executive screwups. Why is it that most of the institutions of capitalism have such hierarchical structures? Seen any anarchist corporations on the stock ticker lately? No? Maybe that's because when laissez-faire capitalists start talking about freedom, they're talking about what they want for themselves, not everyone else. As Adam Smith observed, men of the same profession seldom come together save with the intent to defraud the public.

barry-cotter 17y ago
Yeah, but shareholders in corporations have a much more credible threat of exit. The more people exercise said right the more the price falls, and eventually the management is replaced.