4 ms·

You have it backwards. Regulation has gone up a lot over the last two decades which is why you're seeing what you're seeing. Historically in America or current

by gms 3y ago

You have it backwards. Regulation has gone up a lot over the last two decades which is why you're seeing what you're seeing. Historically in America or current day in developing countries, the rate of growth in living standards negatively correlates with the amount of regulation.

Tainnor 3y ago
You haven't responded to my main point: do you believe that a completely unregulated market doesn't lead to wealth accumulation in the hands of few people? It is of course true that some (bad) regulation, like protectionism of various sorts, can also lead to the same outcome in a different way.
- gms 3y ago
  Yes, completely unregulated would lead to that. We need laws to protect against coercion and adjudicate in the case of disagreements between parties. Warring tribes where physical force wins is not a good place to be.
  - Tainnor 3y ago
    I don't think you're seeing the whole picture if you think only about physical force. People who are well off have more opportunities to start other ventures that make them even more well-off, and if they're especially powerful, they can use that influence to further their benefit. I don't think that's particularly controversial.
    - mikeyouse 3y ago
      To wit, I live in a mid sized town in the Midwest - about 80 years ago a family started a business that was pretty successful and is on its third or fourth generation of ownership now — that’s all well and good but it’s insane how much of the town is owned or directed by them now. Do you want to buy a car, foreign or domestic? Host a convention? Rent a hotel room in the urban core? Put on a concert? How about go to the hospital or buy health insurance? Go to college? Send your kid to preschool? Build a commercial building? Capital begets capital.
    - gms 3y ago
      It’s not easy to start successful ventures. Most new ventures fail. Even the best VCs only have a 30% success rate.
      - Tainnor 3y ago
        That doesn't contradict anything. Most people can't afford to start a new venture, so they have a 0% success rate.
- mindslight 3y ago
  After pondering this question from time to time over a few decades now, I will say I still really don't know. Sure, it makes intuitive sense that wealth can be used to create setups that capture more wealth. But most examples we see of this (especially the galling zero-sum ones) are regulatory capture and regulatory escape, where wealth is used to affect government action/policy to further concentrate wealth. The most glaring of these, that facilitates many others, is the fountain of newly-created USD that the politically connected get the first cut of. That value doesn't come from nowhere - it's the central collection of technological and economic progress that would otherwise show up as distributed price deflation. On the other hand, we have the diminishing marginal utility of money - rich people overspend all the time, often on frivolous stuff. Musk bought an entire publicly traded company and crashed it on the way home, the way an upper middle class person might a shiny red Dodge Viper. One might say the VC ecosystem is chiefly 'dumb' money sloshing around trying to not be left out of the next big thing, while having no clue what that might be. Talking about "completely unregulated" markets is also somewhat specious. In a completely ancap context, we'd likely get structures similar to governments, funded by wealthy people cooperating rather than continuing to compete in less-productive ways (say through physical force). In fact some might even say that this is the character of the current US government in a few different regards.

by gms 3y ago

Tainnor 3y ago

You haven't responded to my main point: do you believe that a completely unregulated market doesn't lead to wealth accumulation in the hands of few people? It is of course true that some (bad) regulation, like protectionism of various sorts, can also lead to the same outcome in a different way.

gms 3y ago
Yes, completely unregulated would lead to that. We need laws to protect against coercion and adjudicate in the case of disagreements between parties. Warring tribes where physical force wins is not a good place to be.
- Tainnor 3y ago
  I don't think you're seeing the whole picture if you think only about physical force. People who are well off have more opportunities to start other ventures that make them even more well-off, and if they're especially powerful, they can use that influence to further their benefit. I don't think that's particularly controversial.
  - mikeyouse 3y ago
    To wit, I live in a mid sized town in the Midwest - about 80 years ago a family started a business that was pretty successful and is on its third or fourth generation of ownership now — that’s all well and good but it’s insane how much of the town is owned or directed by them now. Do you want to buy a car, foreign or domestic? Host a convention? Rent a hotel room in the urban core? Put on a concert? How about go to the hospital or buy health insurance? Go to college? Send your kid to preschool? Build a commercial building? Capital begets capital.
  - gms 3y ago
    It’s not easy to start successful ventures. Most new ventures fail. Even the best VCs only have a 30% success rate.
    - Tainnor 3y ago
      That doesn't contradict anything. Most people can't afford to start a new venture, so they have a 0% success rate.
mindslight 3y ago
After pondering this question from time to time over a few decades now, I will say I still really don't know. Sure, it makes intuitive sense that wealth can be used to create setups that capture more wealth. But most examples we see of this (especially the galling zero-sum ones) are regulatory capture and regulatory escape, where wealth is used to affect government action/policy to further concentrate wealth. The most glaring of these, that facilitates many others, is the fountain of newly-created USD that the politically connected get the first cut of. That value doesn't come from nowhere - it's the central collection of technological and economic progress that would otherwise show up as distributed price deflation. On the other hand, we have the diminishing marginal utility of money - rich people overspend all the time, often on frivolous stuff. Musk bought an entire publicly traded company and crashed it on the way home, the way an upper middle class person might a shiny red Dodge Viper. One might say the VC ecosystem is chiefly 'dumb' money sloshing around trying to not be left out of the next big thing, while having no clue what that might be. Talking about "completely unregulated" markets is also somewhat specious. In a completely ancap context, we'd likely get structures similar to governments, funded by wealthy people cooperating rather than continuing to compete in less-productive ways (say through physical force). In fact some might even say that this is the character of the current US government in a few different regards.