5 ms·

Nah, I think the author is simply just not a fan of exploitation, voluntary or involuntary.

Jabanga 9y ago
As I made an effort to demonstrate, you and the author's assumptions about these voluntary interactions being exploitive, and the cause of income disparity, are incorrect. What you and the author are advocating, which is prohibitions on voluntary interactions that you've concluded are exploitive, will in fact exacerbate income inequality, by artificially reducing competition, which allows incumbents to exploit the public by extracting economic rent.
- uoaei 9y ago
  More ideological "free-market fanboyism." In a world where everyone has the money they want to (or must) spend, this is certainly true. But these voluntary interactions are unfortunately only granted to those who, before the thought enters their minds, possess the means to engage in them. The general trend that has become apparent for people who are not consistently able to engage in such interactions is that it's really easy to make more money when you have some, and very hard to make money when you have little. Any form of investment, monetary or otherwise, requires some upfront value to be presented. Usually this is capital. If you don't have this you are left in the dust by those who have the luxury to put that money up now. The end result is that those things which are valuable to those who can engage in voluntary interactions are supported while those that hold no value die from being crowded out. This is, from my perspective, the driving force for the libertarianism of modern SV: policies and actions which help people with money make more money will be adopted because they have the upfront capital, etc. to enact it. This will breed inequality as those policies in general are not helpful or even directly hurt those with less money.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    >More ideological "free-market fanboyism." Comments like this are not at all constructive, and contribute to a poor intellectual environment. I made significant effort to provide objective evidence for my position, and provide arguments that don't rely on a person accepting any ideological beliefs. That my argument concludes that the free market is economically more efficient doesn't automatically imply that it's blindly ideological. If anything, your blind dismissal of my argument, and use of the term "free-market fanboyism", is what demonstrates an overly ideological approach to a complex topic that requires open-mindedness. >But these voluntary interactions are unfortunately only granted to those who, before the thought enters their minds, possess the means to engage in them. You're using your own personal definition of "voluntary" which is not inline with the conventional definition. Someone being poor is certainly capable of engaging in voluntary economic interactions, and there's no evidence at all to suggest otherwise. >The general trend that has become apparent for people who are not consistently able to engage in such interactions is that it's really easy to make more money when you have some, and very hard to make money when you have little. How is this at all apparent? Where's the evidence that makes it apparent? Did you read the analysis I linked on the cause of growing income disparity, and how regulatory restrictions play into them? How is it apparent that the poor are unable to engage in such interactions when wages for the poor are growing at their fastest rate in history? Did you actually bother reading the sources I provided? >The end result is that those things which are valuable to those who can engage in voluntary interactions are supported while those that hold no value die from being crowded out. Does the evidence bear this out? The evidence I collected suggests that the current market institutions are leading to the fastest wage growth in human history, and that the slowdown in wage growth in the US is due to exactly the type of regulatory restrictions against voluntary interactions that you're advocating. Again, I suggest you look past the anecdotes, and look past what's in the media focus, like Airbnb and Uber, and look at the bigger picture, in terms of percentage of occupation and business activities requiring a license, and what the statistical evidence suggests is the cause of growing income disparity. Theories that are light on evidence and heavy on speculation about ideological conspiracies by the wealthy are not conducive to coming to accurate conclusions about economics: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2006/11/the_big_four_ec.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2006/11/the_big_four_ec.html
    - uoaei 9y ago
      >the free market is economically more efficient You never specified your definition of "efficient." I can only assume that "value-generating at a high rate" is your working definition. If so, there is no connection between a high efficiency and a lack of exploitation. Exploitation of people via coercion, exploitation of a lack of regulations leading to concentration of wealth, etc. > You're using your own personal definition of "voluntary" which is not inline with the conventional definition. My definition of "voluntary" is equivalent to that of "non-coercive." I'm not sure that yours is the same. You speak about people choosing to use Uber as if they have a choice, and not as if they are coerced by the circumstances (lack of jobs in their field, outstanding debt, mouths to feed...). Your choice is to ignore these different scenarios and focus only on those who voluntarily take part in driving for Uber. This is a dishonest practice and does not reflect reality. > Someone being poor is certainly capable of engaging in voluntary economic interactions, and there's no evidence at all to suggest otherwise. If you have no money, then you cannot spend money. You have no value to contribute to an economy, and can only participate by receiving value at no cost, which never happens. The evidence is not needed, and is in fact impossible to provide, because this is a clear-cut deduction. If you think differently, you need to clarify your standing. > How is it apparent that the poor are unable to engage in such interactions when wages for the poor are growing at their fastest rate in history? Because poor people are poor... Having more than a tiny bit of something is still not very much. They can participate in more, sure, but is that enough? Depends entirely on the context: where they live, what services are available there, etc. To put things a bit bluntly, most of the places in the world aren't very fun to live in for the reason that there's not a lot available and not a lot of earning potential to pay for what is there. Globalization still fails at the "last mile," with the exception of some supply chains such as Coca-Cola's. I don't disagree that some regulatory restrictions are making things hard for your everyday Jane, but the solution would be instead to regulate those at the top more, rather than regulate those at the bottom less. Using your hedge fund example from Brookings, the problem is not that other types of funds are not allowed to do the same things as hedge funds, but instead that hedge funds are allowed to do things that others aren't, leading to a massive concentration of wealth that wouldn't be possible otherwise. This is an uneven playing field but deregulating it only gives power to those who use force, physical or otherwise, to get what they want while leaving those at the bottom with little more than crumbs. I'm not sure why you are linking to those biases as I don't believe to have expressed any of them. Again, you will need to be clearer if your message is to be understood accurately.

As I made an effort to demonstrate, you and the author's assumptions about these voluntary interactions being exploitive, and the cause of income disparity, are incorrect. What you and the author are advocating, which is prohibitions on voluntary interactions that you've concluded are exploitive, will in fact exacerbate income inequality, by artificially reducing competition, which allows incumbents to exploit the public by extracting economic rent.

uoaei 9y ago
More ideological "free-market fanboyism." In a world where everyone has the money they want to (or must) spend, this is certainly true. But these voluntary interactions are unfortunately only granted to those who, before the thought enters their minds, possess the means to engage in them. The general trend that has become apparent for people who are not consistently able to engage in such interactions is that it's really easy to make more money when you have some, and very hard to make money when you have little. Any form of investment, monetary or otherwise, requires some upfront value to be presented. Usually this is capital. If you don't have this you are left in the dust by those who have the luxury to put that money up now. The end result is that those things which are valuable to those who can engage in voluntary interactions are supported while those that hold no value die from being crowded out. This is, from my perspective, the driving force for the libertarianism of modern SV: policies and actions which help people with money make more money will be adopted because they have the upfront capital, etc. to enact it. This will breed inequality as those policies in general are not helpful or even directly hurt those with less money.
- Jabanga 9y ago
  >More ideological "free-market fanboyism." Comments like this are not at all constructive, and contribute to a poor intellectual environment. I made significant effort to provide objective evidence for my position, and provide arguments that don't rely on a person accepting any ideological beliefs. That my argument concludes that the free market is economically more efficient doesn't automatically imply that it's blindly ideological. If anything, your blind dismissal of my argument, and use of the term "free-market fanboyism", is what demonstrates an overly ideological approach to a complex topic that requires open-mindedness. >But these voluntary interactions are unfortunately only granted to those who, before the thought enters their minds, possess the means to engage in them. You're using your own personal definition of "voluntary" which is not inline with the conventional definition. Someone being poor is certainly capable of engaging in voluntary economic interactions, and there's no evidence at all to suggest otherwise. >The general trend that has become apparent for people who are not consistently able to engage in such interactions is that it's really easy to make more money when you have some, and very hard to make money when you have little. How is this at all apparent? Where's the evidence that makes it apparent? Did you read the analysis I linked on the cause of growing income disparity, and how regulatory restrictions play into them? How is it apparent that the poor are unable to engage in such interactions when wages for the poor are growing at their fastest rate in history? Did you actually bother reading the sources I provided? >The end result is that those things which are valuable to those who can engage in voluntary interactions are supported while those that hold no value die from being crowded out. Does the evidence bear this out? The evidence I collected suggests that the current market institutions are leading to the fastest wage growth in human history, and that the slowdown in wage growth in the US is due to exactly the type of regulatory restrictions against voluntary interactions that you're advocating. Again, I suggest you look past the anecdotes, and look past what's in the media focus, like Airbnb and Uber, and look at the bigger picture, in terms of percentage of occupation and business activities requiring a license, and what the statistical evidence suggests is the cause of growing income disparity. Theories that are light on evidence and heavy on speculation about ideological conspiracies by the wealthy are not conducive to coming to accurate conclusions about economics: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2006/11/the_big_four_ec.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2006/11/the_big_four_ec.html
  - uoaei 9y ago
    >the free market is economically more efficient You never specified your definition of "efficient." I can only assume that "value-generating at a high rate" is your working definition. If so, there is no connection between a high efficiency and a lack of exploitation. Exploitation of people via coercion, exploitation of a lack of regulations leading to concentration of wealth, etc. > You're using your own personal definition of "voluntary" which is not inline with the conventional definition. My definition of "voluntary" is equivalent to that of "non-coercive." I'm not sure that yours is the same. You speak about people choosing to use Uber as if they have a choice, and not as if they are coerced by the circumstances (lack of jobs in their field, outstanding debt, mouths to feed...). Your choice is to ignore these different scenarios and focus only on those who voluntarily take part in driving for Uber. This is a dishonest practice and does not reflect reality. > Someone being poor is certainly capable of engaging in voluntary economic interactions, and there's no evidence at all to suggest otherwise. If you have no money, then you cannot spend money. You have no value to contribute to an economy, and can only participate by receiving value at no cost, which never happens. The evidence is not needed, and is in fact impossible to provide, because this is a clear-cut deduction. If you think differently, you need to clarify your standing. > How is it apparent that the poor are unable to engage in such interactions when wages for the poor are growing at their fastest rate in history? Because poor people are poor... Having more than a tiny bit of something is still not very much. They can participate in more, sure, but is that enough? Depends entirely on the context: where they live, what services are available there, etc. To put things a bit bluntly, most of the places in the world aren't very fun to live in for the reason that there's not a lot available and not a lot of earning potential to pay for what is there. Globalization still fails at the "last mile," with the exception of some supply chains such as Coca-Cola's. I don't disagree that some regulatory restrictions are making things hard for your everyday Jane, but the solution would be instead to regulate those at the top more, rather than regulate those at the bottom less. Using your hedge fund example from Brookings, the problem is not that other types of funds are not allowed to do the same things as hedge funds, but instead that hedge funds are allowed to do things that others aren't, leading to a massive concentration of wealth that wouldn't be possible otherwise. This is an uneven playing field but deregulating it only gives power to those who use force, physical or otherwise, to get what they want while leaving those at the bottom with little more than crumbs. I'm not sure why you are linking to those biases as I don't believe to have expressed any of them. Again, you will need to be clearer if your message is to be understood accurately.