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... in exchange for a system without even the pretension of accountability

by tokipin 13y ago

burntsushi 13y ago
You did not respond to the central point of my comment. I will respond anyway. Firms sell goods to buyers. If buyers stop buying said goods from a particular firm, that firm is going to be in trouble unless they get the buyers to start buying again. Seems like at least a "pretension of accountability". Accountability exists in forms other than democracy.
- colanderman 13y ago
  You must know that humans are very fickle creatures. People buy clothes and food from poorly-regulated industries all the time, not because none of them can be made to care about the conditions under which these goods are manufactured, but because not all of them can be made to care constantly. If only a small group of people are ever interested enough to personally fund regulation, how can such free-market "regulation" effectively ensure good working conditions and food safety? Government solves this problem by low-pass-filtering the fickleness, thus ensuring continued funding.
  - burntsushi 13y ago
    My initial comment was pointing out that we libertarians very explicitly don't underestimate corruption; which factors very strongly in why we view centralized power in the form of legitimized coercion as A Bad Thing. My follow-up to an off-topic but related comment was that accountability exists in freed markets; just not in the way you might be used to in democratic societies. My intention is not to defend freed markets from every possible criticism. There is plenty of literature out there that does that much better than I could already. A nice place to start is David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom" for pragmatic details. [1] Just as accountability can come in many different shapes and sizes, so too can regulation. The only requirement is a bit of imagination. [1] - http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

... in exchange for a system without even the pretension of accountability

by tokipin 13y ago

... in exchange for a system without even the pretension of accountability

You did not respond to the central point of my comment. I will respond anyway. Firms sell goods to buyers. If buyers stop buying said goods from a particular firm, that firm is going to be in trouble unless they get the buyers to start buying again. Seems like at least a "pretension of accountability". Accountability exists in forms other than democracy.

colanderman 13y ago
You must know that humans are very fickle creatures. People buy clothes and food from poorly-regulated industries all the time, not because none of them can be made to care about the conditions under which these goods are manufactured, but because not all of them can be made to care constantly. If only a small group of people are ever interested enough to personally fund regulation, how can such free-market "regulation" effectively ensure good working conditions and food safety? Government solves this problem by low-pass-filtering the fickleness, thus ensuring continued funding.
- burntsushi 13y ago
  My initial comment was pointing out that we libertarians very explicitly don't underestimate corruption; which factors very strongly in why we view centralized power in the form of legitimized coercion as A Bad Thing. My follow-up to an off-topic but related comment was that accountability exists in freed markets; just not in the way you might be used to in democratic societies. My intention is not to defend freed markets from every possible criticism. There is plenty of literature out there that does that much better than I could already. A nice place to start is David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom" for pragmatic details. [1] Just as accountability can come in many different shapes and sizes, so too can regulation. The only requirement is a bit of imagination. [1] - http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf