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That's not a libertarian response, it's a capitalist response, the way capitalism is supposed to be. We don't (read shouldnt) protect anyone, we only should ste
by drcross 10y ago
That's not a libertarian response, it's a capitalist response, the way capitalism is supposed to be. We don't (read shouldnt) protect anyone, we only should step into a free market where we see monopoly.
- ycombinatorMan 10y agoI've heard most monopolies are the spawn ofgovernment intervention, and that in general natural monopolies cant sustain themselves.
- riskable 10y agoNot just a monopoly, but also when power concentration becomes too much of a risk to the market. If just one of the big banks were to fail it could take down the entire economy along with it. Even after all the stress tests... Because they don't count the interconnectedness of these backs. For this reason even the Libertarian and staunch capitalists should be clamoring to break them up into smaller chunks. There's no reason why such an action should be bad for investors or the banks themselves. It could merely be a forced diversification.
- ookdatnog 10y agoI don't think it's by default bad if the government artificially keeps a dying sector alive for a while to soften the blow to the families who depend on that sector for income. If government intervention can prevent a lot of people falling into poverty/homelessness at the cost of slightly delaying technological progress, I think that can be a price worth paying.
- SubiculumCode 10y agoa direct payment to families would be more effective.
- saiya-jin 10y agoyou cannot scoop some nice side money on bribes from direct payments to families, can you
- greglindahl 10y agoKeep in mind that the solar industry employs more people than the coal industry. Why is it a good thing to soften the blow by keeping the coal industry alive, instead of directly paying former coal workers?
- ookdatnog 10y agoI won't respond to the specific example of the coal industry; I'm not advocating for keeping the coal industry alive artificially. My claim is that it's not always bad policy to do so. So in a more general sense, why not simply pay the workers of an obsolete industry? I'm not sure I have a good answer to that, since I'm not educated in economics. But I would guess that a dying industry can still generate net wealth, just not enough to sustain itself. It depends on how much of its costs are labor vs infrastructure. An industry that cannot generate enough wealth to sustain its infrastructure is probably generating negative net wealth, and it's better policy to let it die and give money directly to the workers. But if an industry can sustain its infrastructure without government help, but it can no longer afford the labor costs, I think the industry can still generate positive net wealth for society if the government plugs that gap. The portion of the money the industry is paying out of its own pocket to its workers is already net gain for society, why throw that away?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- webscaleizfun 10y agoAt what cost though? I've heard this protectionist argument from a friend of mine many times before, and it always ends up circling back to his current employer, who if there had been larger economic/regulatory barriers in his industry a decade and change or so ago, would likely not exist. Protectionism has its place, but we should fully evaluate the cost, damage and benefits created by protectionist policies before implementing them, otherwise you end up with massively subsidized US corn crushing our NAFTA partner's agriculture industry, and Chinese Steel being dumped on the US at significantly lower prices than the US Steel industry can produce said metal at (mostly due to Chinese state subsidies, just like our agribusiness subsidies).