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It's the same thing. In order to create any free market and foster competition, an entity has to decide and then enforce the rules for the market, which allows
by joshAg 7y ago
It's the same thing.
In order to create any free market and foster competition, an entity has to decide and then enforce the rules for the market, which allows that entity to pick a winner by the rules it choose to write and then enforce.
Plus, in mature markets, fostering competition is antithetical to maintaining the "freeness" of the market, because it requires punishing the "winners" in order to ensure competitors, by things like breaking up competitors that are able to leverage winning in one area to compete and then win in another area (ie antitrust/antimonopoly), invalidating patents/trade secrets/intellectual property/etc. when ever something is so dominant that without access to it no one can compete, and limiting how competitors can compete (eg preventing them from limiting how purchasers can use their products).
And of course, every decision made for how to implement the kinds of issues outlined in the above paragraph is an opportunity to pick who wins, too.
- duxup 7y agoI don't buy into the implication that any decision is picking winners the outcomes don't have to be that absolute.
- joshAg 7y agoEvery decision about what to enforce and when has a set of competitors that benefit from that decision and a set of competitors that are disadvantaged from that decision. And over time even a single, small benefit can be enough to guarantee a specific rational actor will win out over its competitors. Certainly not in all cases, but if the issue you have is that individual decisions aren't enough to pick a winner, no matter how large/important, then change the last paragraph to >>> And of course, every decision made for how to implement the kinds of issues outlined in the above paragraph is an opportunity to pick whom to give an advantage over their competitors, too. And this doesn't even begin to consider the issue that since the mechanism for making and enforcing the rules exists within the system of rules it creates, both fostering competition and enforcing a free market give opportunities for competitors to buy rules and/or enforcement of rules that benefit them at the expense of competitors, either directly or indirectly.
- duxup 7y agoIt's possible, but I'm still not sure I buy into the idea that a given decision that might result in someone failing is picking winners exactly. I can say in a given industry they can't pull some bait and switch... a company that relies on that tacit could go out of business, is that picking winners or regulating poor behavior? Like anything working to maintain some level of competitiveness would be like hitting a moving target, you'll have to change what you do, address barrier of entry issues one day, who knows what next.
- joshAg 7y agoIn the extreme form of a free market (some would call that 'in a truly free market'), there is no such thing as regulating out bad behavior because, that is a limitation on actors' freedom within that market. As the view goes, even if everyone in the market agreed on what was bad and how to enforce the regulation, it would be wholely unnecessary to actually regulate such bad action, because all participants are rational actors who will naturally punish that bad behavior themselves by preferring a competitor over the bad actor. And yes, regulating poor behavior is absolutely picking winners/picking losers/picking specific companies to disadvantage/advantage, and not just because of issues with uneven enforcement. Determining which behaviors are disallowed and which behaviors will be policed by "natural market forces", especially when talking about modifying rules for a preexisting market, means picking winners/losers/who gets advantaged/disadvantaged. This is why encouraging/fostering competition is antithetical to making/maintaining a free market.