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Maybe if you can't do business without making sure you're not causing harm, you shouldn't do business at all. Of course anti-competitive lobbying happens all t
by detcader 8y ago
Maybe if you can't do business without making sure you're not causing harm, you shouldn't do business at all.
Of course anti-competitive lobbying happens all the time. But if it's not economically feasible for a Scrappy Gang of Dropouts in The Garage follow to regulations that protect people's lives and freedom in this country, I'm cool with them finding another country, or their own deserted island perhaps.
- jessriedel 8y agoI think you missed my point and the discussion on Wikipedia. You seem to be assuming that essentially all regulations are correctly aligned with the public interest. If that were the case, you'd be correct that compliance costs would (in an efficient equilibrium) be correctly internalized, merely excluding inefficiently small companies from the market [1]. However, this is not the world we live in. Uncountable historical examples, and the massive size of the corporate lobbying industry, are clear evidence that companies often shape their own regulations to their benefit. So on priors it's much more likely that Microsofts public call for regulation -- which is just a particular form of lobbying -- is in their own interest, not some pure expression of civic duty. [1] Of course, we are not automatically in an efficient equilibrium, and there exists worlds where the reduced competition due to barrier to entry create costs that are larger than the benefits of the regulation. But I'm happy to put that scenario aside.
- scarejunba 8y agoOkay, so that outlaws commercial transportation. Or at least I haven’t heard of any of them making sure they’re not causing harm.