10 ms·

The way I see it, democracy and markets are opposed to each other. Democracy: One person one vote. Markets: Each person has tiny micro-votes, and they can get

The way I see it, democracy and markets are opposed to each other. Democracy: One person one vote. Markets: Each person has tiny micro-votes, and they can get more votes by supporting initiatives that pan out. One individual with millions of micro-votes can easily out-vote a million individuals with less votes. It's interesting to see just how "cargo cult"-like the practice of voting has become in many places.

nickik 10y ago
You are not seeing the full picture. > One individual with millions of micro-votes can easily out-vote a million individuals with less votes No. In a market there exist property rights that are designed to not work like that. If I own a simple pen, somebody with a billion 'votes' can come along and if I refuse to sell my pen that just that. In a pure democracy, this is simple not the case. The rule of the majority is a real thing, if I have a pen and there are a majority of votes for me to be forced to give away that pen, I can do nothing. This is of course in theory, in practice their is no pure form of either. However it es a extremely important thing to point out. It is the exact reason why you can run a economy with markets but not with democracy.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  "A simple pen" is a nice example, but the real interesting question is what to do about common goods like natural resources and land. The more we shift to an economy where people "own" things via debt and rent, it really becomes a matter of best bids. -- edit: It's also interesting to keep in mind that the original distribution of land wasn't equal. So much of libertarianism is predicated on ideals like "homesteading", but in practice most parcels of land were unequally distributed from the very beginning. This was never corrected, and continues to reverberate.
  - nickik 10y ago
    > "A simple pen" is a nice example, but the real interesting question is what to do about common goods like natural resources and land. A pen is made out of natural resources. > The more we shift to an economy where people "own" things via debt and rent, it really becomes a matter of best bids. No, a rent is just a transfer of right of use but not right of ownership. Once you have stable property rights you can actually make renting practical, and that opens many more options. It does not fundamentally change the system. > edit: It's also interesting to keep in mind that the original distribution of land wasn't equal. So much of libertarianism is predicated on ideals like "homesteading", but in practice most parcels of land were unequally distributed from the very beginning. This was never corrected, and continues to reverberate. Nobody ever said that life was fair, certainty not the classical liberals. No system can go back in time and fix all the morally wrong thing to establish a perfect system and then role history forward. This is not Kafka DB. The argument is that the best societies establish a property rights system and based on that develop further. That's the best we can do. If there are identifiable rights violation that we can 'fix' then this should of course be done. The issue of course explode in complexity with time.
    - RodericDay 10y ago
      I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Once upon a time, society was really really really unfair. Aristocrats ruled everything autocratically and justified it via divine right, etc. Then stuff happened, people fought, and democracy came along. Many hailed it as a much more egalitarian form of decision making. We still pay a ton of lip service to the idea that democracy is amazing. However, then more stuff happened, and now democracy is very very weak. We barely use it to make serious decisions, we collectively prefer to delegate to experts or markets, and decision-making power more and more blatantly now falls upon those who have cash. This is varnished over by saying "the markets decided x". It's not even necessarily a bad thing, some believe the wealth was accumulated meritocratically and therefore it's better in the hands of those who know what to do with it. However, it doesn't erase the fact that markets and democracy are opposed to each other. This doesn't mean one is good and one is bad, it just means that when it comes to making a collective decision about what to do with a resource, one cannot both do it democratically and according to market principles. It's one or the other. Life isn't fair but we get to decide if we make it a bit fairer. The notion that the best societies limit themselves to a property right system, and not further, into an education and health and entertainment systems, seems like it's very much up for debate. I see no reason why it's in society's collective interest to maintain a security system to uphold private property rights, and not others for other rights. --- People always like to talk about how "the invisible hand of the market" led to this or that conclusion. Even if a greedy horrible butcher wants to gouge people, the competitive nature of the market will stop him. So, pretty clearly, the invisible hand stops evil-doers from doing so much evil. However, what's also increasingly clear, is that the invisible hand also works in the opposite direction. That is, if you want to do better things that what the markets allow, if you're a particularly benevolent butcher, the same invisible hand that stops the bad butcher, will stop the good butcher. The market has a logic of its own, both for good and for bad, and we need to collectively decide when and where we want to utilize it, and when we want to use some other decision-making system.
  - bufordsharkley 10y ago
    > "A simple pen" is a nice example, but the real interesting question is what to do about common goods like natural resources and land. This very question is what is addressed with Henry George's concept of private property in land (aka Georgism, aka Geolibertarianism, aka geoism).[0] To quote the Wiki page to tie this into the article: "Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek credited early enthusiasm for Henry George with developing his interest in economics." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
- ue_ 10y ago
  > It is the exact reason why you can run a economy with markets but not with democracy. You may be able to run an economy thusly, but can you run a society in that way? Left alone, 'the market' will push people into extreme conditions to obtain means of sustenance, for example sweatshop labour. Meanwhile proponents will talk about 'freedom to leave' at any time, while ignoring the fact that there is a whole class of people essentially forced to sell their labuor-time to gather means of sustenance. A sweatshop worker can leave, but then what? They probably have to find employment under someone else. That's not freedom. Not everyone has such strong resolve as you with your pen. For example media corporations can also be bought out by companies who don't like what's being said about them. Monopolies can be formed, reducing choice. Et cetera.
MR4D 10y ago
That's not what a free market is about. A free market is allowing you to do anything you want, right up the the point when your actions would harm another person. That's why Bill Gates and I can coexist in peace - we are both doing what we want, and neither is harming the other (unless you count Microsoft Bob, which was an affront on humanity!) Seriously though, BillG can do whatever he wants. Once he does something that harms me, I will push back. Likewise, democracy is about the free exchange of ideas, limited only by when you harm another person.
- RodericDay 10y ago
  Falls apart in practice all the time. From advertising to children, to loss-leaders, to student debt, etc.; individuals have found many ways to influence others via the markets. The idea that every transaction is strictly rational and voluntary is a fantasy.
  - MR4D 9y ago
    And _that_ is the purpose of the State.

nickik 10y ago

You are not seeing the full picture. > One individual with millions of micro-votes can easily out-vote a million individuals with less votes No. In a market there exist property rights that are designed to not work like that. If I own a simple pen, somebody with a billion 'votes' can come along and if I refuse to sell my pen that just that. In a pure democracy, this is simple not the case. The rule of the majority is a real thing, if I have a pen and there are a majority of votes for me to be forced to give away that pen, I can do nothing. This is of course in theory, in practice their is no pure form of either. However it es a extremely important thing to point out. It is the exact reason why you can run a economy with markets but not with democracy.

RodericDay 10y ago
"A simple pen" is a nice example, but the real interesting question is what to do about common goods like natural resources and land. The more we shift to an economy where people "own" things via debt and rent, it really becomes a matter of best bids. -- edit: It's also interesting to keep in mind that the original distribution of land wasn't equal. So much of libertarianism is predicated on ideals like "homesteading", but in practice most parcels of land were unequally distributed from the very beginning. This was never corrected, and continues to reverberate.
- nickik 10y ago
  > "A simple pen" is a nice example, but the real interesting question is what to do about common goods like natural resources and land. A pen is made out of natural resources. > The more we shift to an economy where people "own" things via debt and rent, it really becomes a matter of best bids. No, a rent is just a transfer of right of use but not right of ownership. Once you have stable property rights you can actually make renting practical, and that opens many more options. It does not fundamentally change the system. > edit: It's also interesting to keep in mind that the original distribution of land wasn't equal. So much of libertarianism is predicated on ideals like "homesteading", but in practice most parcels of land were unequally distributed from the very beginning. This was never corrected, and continues to reverberate. Nobody ever said that life was fair, certainty not the classical liberals. No system can go back in time and fix all the morally wrong thing to establish a perfect system and then role history forward. This is not Kafka DB. The argument is that the best societies establish a property rights system and based on that develop further. That's the best we can do. If there are identifiable rights violation that we can 'fix' then this should of course be done. The issue of course explode in complexity with time.
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Once upon a time, society was really really really unfair. Aristocrats ruled everything autocratically and justified it via divine right, etc. Then stuff happened, people fought, and democracy came along. Many hailed it as a much more egalitarian form of decision making. We still pay a ton of lip service to the idea that democracy is amazing. However, then more stuff happened, and now democracy is very very weak. We barely use it to make serious decisions, we collectively prefer to delegate to experts or markets, and decision-making power more and more blatantly now falls upon those who have cash. This is varnished over by saying "the markets decided x". It's not even necessarily a bad thing, some believe the wealth was accumulated meritocratically and therefore it's better in the hands of those who know what to do with it. However, it doesn't erase the fact that markets and democracy are opposed to each other. This doesn't mean one is good and one is bad, it just means that when it comes to making a collective decision about what to do with a resource, one cannot both do it democratically and according to market principles. It's one or the other. Life isn't fair but we get to decide if we make it a bit fairer. The notion that the best societies limit themselves to a property right system, and not further, into an education and health and entertainment systems, seems like it's very much up for debate. I see no reason why it's in society's collective interest to maintain a security system to uphold private property rights, and not others for other rights. --- People always like to talk about how "the invisible hand of the market" led to this or that conclusion. Even if a greedy horrible butcher wants to gouge people, the competitive nature of the market will stop him. So, pretty clearly, the invisible hand stops evil-doers from doing so much evil. However, what's also increasingly clear, is that the invisible hand also works in the opposite direction. That is, if you want to do better things that what the markets allow, if you're a particularly benevolent butcher, the same invisible hand that stops the bad butcher, will stop the good butcher. The market has a logic of its own, both for good and for bad, and we need to collectively decide when and where we want to utilize it, and when we want to use some other decision-making system.
- bufordsharkley 10y ago
  > "A simple pen" is a nice example, but the real interesting question is what to do about common goods like natural resources and land. This very question is what is addressed with Henry George's concept of private property in land (aka Georgism, aka Geolibertarianism, aka geoism).[0] To quote the Wiki page to tie this into the article: "Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek credited early enthusiasm for Henry George with developing his interest in economics." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
ue_ 10y ago
> It is the exact reason why you can run a economy with markets but not with democracy. You may be able to run an economy thusly, but can you run a society in that way? Left alone, 'the market' will push people into extreme conditions to obtain means of sustenance, for example sweatshop labour. Meanwhile proponents will talk about 'freedom to leave' at any time, while ignoring the fact that there is a whole class of people essentially forced to sell their labuor-time to gather means of sustenance. A sweatshop worker can leave, but then what? They probably have to find employment under someone else. That's not freedom. Not everyone has such strong resolve as you with your pen. For example media corporations can also be bought out by companies who don't like what's being said about them. Monopolies can be formed, reducing choice. Et cetera.

MR4D 10y ago

That's not what a free market is about. A free market is allowing you to do anything you want, right up the the point when your actions would harm another person. That's why Bill Gates and I can coexist in peace - we are both doing what we want, and neither is harming the other (unless you count Microsoft Bob, which was an affront on humanity!) Seriously though, BillG can do whatever he wants. Once he does something that harms me, I will push back. Likewise, democracy is about the free exchange of ideas, limited only by when you harm another person.

RodericDay 10y ago
Falls apart in practice all the time. From advertising to children, to loss-leaders, to student debt, etc.; individuals have found many ways to influence others via the markets. The idea that every transaction is strictly rational and voluntary is a fantasy.
- MR4D 9y ago
  And _that_ is the purpose of the State.