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The free market has never existed in an unregulated state, and since the founding of the country there have been rules and regulations on imports and what compa
by ericmay 3y ago
The free market has never existed in an unregulated state, and since the founding of the country there have been rules and regulations on imports and what companies can operate in the United States and under what circumstances.
It was framed as a moral argument by suggesting the US should be “better”. At least that was my interpretation. I don’t think arguing from a market perspective really changes that interpretation but instead further weakens China’s lack of allowing American social media companies to operate in China with the same unfettered market access.
> If you want to talk precedent, China has pretty aggressive domestic ownership laws for foreign subsidiaries, but we don’t care about that in the other way.
We kind of care and we have been caring more. The problem is that legally it has been difficult to say “go ahead and build or operate your business in the US except if you are China”. Likewise China just blanket applies the rules that it has to entities that want to operate in China.
> Of course it’s a win win for both parties so by cutting off our own foot it indeeds also hurts the other party.
So far from what I’ve seen these types of actions have been very specific and targeted. In the case of Tik Tok there isn’t any loss to citizens and letting it continue to operate with impunity in the US brings all sorts of negative externalities that the market isn’t equipped to solve.
It’s also important to remember that some things are more important than profit. The economy and market are just one aspect of a nation. Lowering cost and increasing competition are nice but they are not the point of civilization.
- chrischen 3y ago> The free market has never existed in an unregulated state, and since the founding of the country there have been rules and regulations on imports and what companies can operate in the United States and under what circumstances. Of course in practice that's true, but we also tout free-er markets as something to strive for, especially when it comes to us imposing it on other countries in conflict with their sovereign rights to restrict their own markets. > So far from what I’ve seen these types of actions have been very specific and targeted. In the case of Tik Tok there isn’t any loss to citizens and letting it continue to operate with impunity in the US brings all sorts of negative externalities that the market isn’t equipped to solve. I think TikTok is a highly special case, and sort of brings to light the rationale why China decided to ban foreign mega tech corps, especially social media ones. We also saw a backlash when Facebook tried to influence India's elections and politics with a banner on their website. Social media is indeed a special case. But I think this problem is also similar to the national security vs privacy/encryption battle. We are giving up some of our principles to make our short term lives (national security) easier. Yes, TikTok can be weaponized as an influence machine... however letting it run free could mean developing a more natural resistance to it in the American population (if possible). If we devolve to market manipulation we'll rely on it as a crutch. Why stop there? Why not engineer the whole economy.
- ericmay 3y agoI don’t understand what principals you are suggesting we are “giving up”. Could you elaborate? > Why stop there? Why not engineer the whole economy. Why go to extremes? You could just argue the opposite and argue why don’t we explicitly allow slave labor, bribery, and dumping? As soon as you provide an argument against any of those things you can use that same rationale to argue to ban a company like Tik Tok.