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As a half-Libertarian, the problem with a lot of libertarian logic is that it's too black and white. Less government/regulation is good if and only if the unde

As a half-Libertarian, the problem with a lot of libertarian logic is that it's too black and white. Less government/regulation is good if and only if the underlying market is highly competitive. High competition protects consumers. Examples: restaurants, barbers, tailors, spas, almost anywhere small businesses exist. All ancient, well-functioning industries that are comparatively minimally regulated. The problem with deregulating banks is that the banking industry is low-competition. A few corporations dominate the landscape. So deregulation just strengthens the predators. All deregulation should be accompanied by an equal effort to foster a massive amount of competition within the industry. Otherwise, things can go south rather quickly.

apercu 2y ago
If you agree that all people are fundamentally "good". But that's not true, so the barber will start skimping on barbicide and people will start getting infections. We need regulation because people are not fundamentally "good", even if they mean well. I'm glad you're "half-libertarian" because you are halfway there!
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  Yes, in addition to competitiveness, complete information must be available. The customers must know that the barbers are skimping on barbicide, and also have a full understanding of the consequences of that. It's not a default situation, and a lot of regulations are about providing that transparency so that customers can make an informed decision.
  - jkubicek 2y ago
    One of the many realizations that pushed me away from libertarianism is that I don't want to research every part of my daily life. Today in the US, I can * Buy any brand of meat in any grocery store and be confident it won't make my family sick. * Visit any barber and be confident I won't get a weird scalp infection * Fly with any airline and be confident I'll get to my destination alive This confidence is incredibly valuable to me. I don't know what percentage of my taxes goes towards these regulations, but what ever it is, I'm happy to pay it.
    - mikeyouse 2y ago
      There are a few other issues that prevent True Libertarianism from ever actually being possible, namely you’d need unlimited liability and juries that could appropriately assign blame and penalties but you’re still left with the principal-agent issue where a highly compensated exec could make buckets of money doing unethical business if only the firm is responsible for the outcomes. We’re much better off with minimum safety standards and relying on Capitalism to drive prices and allocate resources inside that ‘arena’.
    - fc417fc802 2y ago
      This isn't entirely fair. There's nothing stopping a rigorous certification system (either private or public) from existing alongside a less regulated system. USDA organic comes to mind. Just as libertarians are often overly black and white, so are regulatory regimes.
- matthest 2y ago
  However, in reality, barbers (at least in the US) are not dangerous places. If a barber starts acting in a way that makes their customers come down with infections, customers will take their business to the other barber down the street. If this new barber does the same, you will simply go to the next barber. In this scenario, the first barber to treat their customers well (in a manner that does not pass on infections) will gobble up all the business. Hence, it makes no sense for any barber to act in a manner that gives their customers infections, as they will quickly go out of business. Same reason restaurants are naturally incentivized to cook their food as well as possible. 1 food poisoning case is all it takes for their business to go poof. A true free market (as in, one where there's sufficient competition) keeps businesses in check, and protects customers.
  - vkou 2y ago
    That's a beautiful theory that completely falls apart when cause and effect between bad behaviour and consequences is not immediately clear to the person buying the service. Which, in the real world, is the case with almost everything. Vendors don't tend to cheat or cut corners or perform malfeasance on shit that's easy to spot. Worse yet, the customer often can't tell the difference between malfeasance and bad luck. Without an independent regulator looking into this crash, I will have no idea if the airline operating it was staffed by morons and cutting corners, or it did everything right and got unlucky. And no, the legal system doesn't solve this problem, because any sane company will have a strong preference towards a quiet, confidential settlement, to expose as little of their dirty laundry as possible to the public and prospective customers. Libertarianism collapses upon contact with the real world, because it depends upon informational symmetry. Yet the way businesses actually operate, it's all informational assymmetry. I don't have the time to devote my life to trying to pick out which vendor will try the least hard to fuck me over, and even if I did have that time, I wouldn't have the information necessary to make an informed choice.
    - matthest 2y ago
      It's not so much a theory as it is an attempt to understand what we already observe in the real world. Why is it that restaurants, barbers, car washes, and other small business industries have thrived for so long despite minimal regulation? One reason is the high competition. If you've ever run a restaurant, you know the importance of making customers happy. Because customers have so many other options to choose from. They can easily take their business elsewhere. So you have to perform.
- yongjik 2y ago
  It's not even a matter of "good" and "bad". Modern society is complicated and individuals cannot (and should not) be expected to study and understand every different ways in which it could kill people. Like, why do we have maximum seating limits and doors that open outside? You could be a completely honorable restaurant owner, religiously clean the kitchen every day, and strive to give your patrons the best meal every day. And then one day an old wire shorts out, the restaurant catches fire, and people are trapped inside pushing against a door opening inward - something you've never even thought about the whole time. Everybody dies. * Under libertarian thinking, once everybody dies the grieving families can take their business elsewhere, thus proving that we needed no regulations, after all.
marcusb 2y ago
I guess I’m only 1/4 libertarian. I don’t think competition is enough. The risk of harm needs to be balanced as well. With airplanes, you have not only the risk to paying customers, but to bystanders who in many cases cannot be made whole in the event of an accident (i.e., you might get a financial settlement if an airplane crashes into your house, but that won’t bring your family members who were in the house back to life.) I’m all for cutting superfluous government regulation, but deregulating airline safety is quite possibly the dumbest possible place to do it.
- matthest 2y ago
  I'm pro airline regulation given the current state of the market. But you could also argue the airline industry is fairly concentrated. There are only so many airlines. If a Delta flight crashes, you might still fly Delta again in the future, because there are only so many options. Now imagine if there were as many airlines as restaurants. If one Delta flight messes up in any way, people would never fly them again. They'd go out of business. Of course, a market with as many airlines as restaurants isn't practical in the current day (maybe when AI robots become feasible). Hence, agree that airline regulations are necessary.
  - mint2 2y ago
    “They go out of business”… is that way to say they rebrand themselves and blend in with the crowd? As that seems highly likely with a theoretically crowded but not regulated airline market.
    - dullcrisp 2y ago
      Yeah, damaging their brand would only matter if their brand was worth a lot, which would only be the case if there weren’t too many airlines for people to keep track of.
  - nradov 2y ago
    Even if AI robots somehow replaced all of the airline employees it still wouldn't be economically viable to have more than about four major airlines covering routes between all major US airports. The limiting factor is gate access. If we wanted to make room in the market for more airlines then we would have to expand most airports, or build new ones. There are a number of smaller airlines competing with the big players but they have limited route networks and little opportunity to expand.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> The problem with deregulating banks is that the banking industry is low-competition. A few corporations dominate the landscape. So deregulation just strengthens the predators. But that's not a natural state of affairs. Look at the savings and loan scandal! Without the regulation, banking was intensely competitive. Why assume that, if you took the regulation away, banking would take no notice and stay exactly the same? > All deregulation should be accompanied by an equal effort to foster a massive amount of competition within the industry. Deregulation is an effort to foster competition within the deregulated industry. Those regulations are barriers to entry, which is why large companies always want more of them.

apercu 2y ago

If you agree that all people are fundamentally "good". But that's not true, so the barber will start skimping on barbicide and people will start getting infections. We need regulation because people are not fundamentally "good", even if they mean well. I'm glad you're "half-libertarian" because you are halfway there!

mitthrowaway2 2y ago
Yes, in addition to competitiveness, complete information must be available. The customers must know that the barbers are skimping on barbicide, and also have a full understanding of the consequences of that. It's not a default situation, and a lot of regulations are about providing that transparency so that customers can make an informed decision.
- jkubicek 2y ago
  One of the many realizations that pushed me away from libertarianism is that I don't want to research every part of my daily life. Today in the US, I can * Buy any brand of meat in any grocery store and be confident it won't make my family sick. * Visit any barber and be confident I won't get a weird scalp infection * Fly with any airline and be confident I'll get to my destination alive This confidence is incredibly valuable to me. I don't know what percentage of my taxes goes towards these regulations, but what ever it is, I'm happy to pay it.
  - mikeyouse 2y ago
    There are a few other issues that prevent True Libertarianism from ever actually being possible, namely you’d need unlimited liability and juries that could appropriately assign blame and penalties but you’re still left with the principal-agent issue where a highly compensated exec could make buckets of money doing unethical business if only the firm is responsible for the outcomes. We’re much better off with minimum safety standards and relying on Capitalism to drive prices and allocate resources inside that ‘arena’.
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    This isn't entirely fair. There's nothing stopping a rigorous certification system (either private or public) from existing alongside a less regulated system. USDA organic comes to mind. Just as libertarians are often overly black and white, so are regulatory regimes.
matthest 2y ago
However, in reality, barbers (at least in the US) are not dangerous places. If a barber starts acting in a way that makes their customers come down with infections, customers will take their business to the other barber down the street. If this new barber does the same, you will simply go to the next barber. In this scenario, the first barber to treat their customers well (in a manner that does not pass on infections) will gobble up all the business. Hence, it makes no sense for any barber to act in a manner that gives their customers infections, as they will quickly go out of business. Same reason restaurants are naturally incentivized to cook their food as well as possible. 1 food poisoning case is all it takes for their business to go poof. A true free market (as in, one where there's sufficient competition) keeps businesses in check, and protects customers.
- vkou 2y ago
  That's a beautiful theory that completely falls apart when cause and effect between bad behaviour and consequences is not immediately clear to the person buying the service. Which, in the real world, is the case with almost everything. Vendors don't tend to cheat or cut corners or perform malfeasance on shit that's easy to spot. Worse yet, the customer often can't tell the difference between malfeasance and bad luck. Without an independent regulator looking into this crash, I will have no idea if the airline operating it was staffed by morons and cutting corners, or it did everything right and got unlucky. And no, the legal system doesn't solve this problem, because any sane company will have a strong preference towards a quiet, confidential settlement, to expose as little of their dirty laundry as possible to the public and prospective customers. Libertarianism collapses upon contact with the real world, because it depends upon informational symmetry. Yet the way businesses actually operate, it's all informational assymmetry. I don't have the time to devote my life to trying to pick out which vendor will try the least hard to fuck me over, and even if I did have that time, I wouldn't have the information necessary to make an informed choice.
  - matthest 2y ago
    It's not so much a theory as it is an attempt to understand what we already observe in the real world. Why is it that restaurants, barbers, car washes, and other small business industries have thrived for so long despite minimal regulation? One reason is the high competition. If you've ever run a restaurant, you know the importance of making customers happy. Because customers have so many other options to choose from. They can easily take their business elsewhere. So you have to perform.
yongjik 2y ago
It's not even a matter of "good" and "bad". Modern society is complicated and individuals cannot (and should not) be expected to study and understand every different ways in which it could kill people. Like, why do we have maximum seating limits and doors that open outside? You could be a completely honorable restaurant owner, religiously clean the kitchen every day, and strive to give your patrons the best meal every day. And then one day an old wire shorts out, the restaurant catches fire, and people are trapped inside pushing against a door opening inward - something you've never even thought about the whole time. Everybody dies. * Under libertarian thinking, once everybody dies the grieving families can take their business elsewhere, thus proving that we needed no regulations, after all.

marcusb 2y ago

I guess I’m only 1/4 libertarian. I don’t think competition is enough. The risk of harm needs to be balanced as well. With airplanes, you have not only the risk to paying customers, but to bystanders who in many cases cannot be made whole in the event of an accident (i.e., you might get a financial settlement if an airplane crashes into your house, but that won’t bring your family members who were in the house back to life.) I’m all for cutting superfluous government regulation, but deregulating airline safety is quite possibly the dumbest possible place to do it.

matthest 2y ago
I'm pro airline regulation given the current state of the market. But you could also argue the airline industry is fairly concentrated. There are only so many airlines. If a Delta flight crashes, you might still fly Delta again in the future, because there are only so many options. Now imagine if there were as many airlines as restaurants. If one Delta flight messes up in any way, people would never fly them again. They'd go out of business. Of course, a market with as many airlines as restaurants isn't practical in the current day (maybe when AI robots become feasible). Hence, agree that airline regulations are necessary.
- mint2 2y ago
  “They go out of business”… is that way to say they rebrand themselves and blend in with the crowd? As that seems highly likely with a theoretically crowded but not regulated airline market.
  - dullcrisp 2y ago
    Yeah, damaging their brand would only matter if their brand was worth a lot, which would only be the case if there weren’t too many airlines for people to keep track of.
- nradov 2y ago
  Even if AI robots somehow replaced all of the airline employees it still wouldn't be economically viable to have more than about four major airlines covering routes between all major US airports. The limiting factor is gate access. If we wanted to make room in the market for more airlines then we would have to expand most airports, or build new ones. There are a number of smaller airlines competing with the big players but they have limited route networks and little opportunity to expand.

thaumasiotes 2y ago

> The problem with deregulating banks is that the banking industry is low-competition. A few corporations dominate the landscape. So deregulation just strengthens the predators. But that's not a natural state of affairs. Look at the savings and loan scandal! Without the regulation, banking was intensely competitive. Why assume that, if you took the regulation away, banking would take no notice and stay exactly the same? > All deregulation should be accompanied by an equal effort to foster a massive amount of competition within the industry. Deregulation is an effort to foster competition within the deregulated industry. Those regulations are barriers to entry, which is why large companies always want more of them.