11 ms·

why should we not use the law to prevent abuse of marginalized groups and correct for imbalances of power in the market place? what else is the law for?

pdonis 13y ago
what else is the law for? To give you a level playing field on which to out-compete companies that won't hire qualified employees who happen to belong to certain groups. The proper way to correct "imbalances of power in the market place" is to use the market place to correct them--in other words, to use the market place as it is intended to be used.
- courtf 13y ago
  use the market place to correct them A rather fragile business plan, perhaps not in 2013 USA, but certainly elsewhere in the world and historically. The libertarian argument always seems to assume rational actors playing in ideal conditions. In other words, a situation unlikely to ever arise on its own...
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    Fortunately we have a government of rational actors playing in ideal conditions to legislate for us!
    - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      Oh stop it. It wasn't your precious market that ended segregation or created an environment where people felt safe from lynchings. Lets just get back to reality for a minute.
      - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
        Segregation was a government policy.
        djur 13y ago
        Not in its entirety. Private discrimination continued well after the Jim Crow laws were overturned.
        pdonis 13y ago
        In addition to djur's correct observation, there is also the observation that government policies supporting segregation came after people's private desire to segregate, not before; in fact, the government policies came into being in large measure because of people's private desire to segregate.
      - mistermann 13y ago
        Actually, I would argue that it is not governance that has achieved the vastly improved social acceptance of the LBGT community, it is simply society gradually changing its mind, through education and simply greater exposure, without being forced. It seems to me you would suggest acceptance cannot be achieved without government intervention, but from where I sit that is exactly what is happening - it just takes time.
      - pdonis 13y ago
        It wasn't your precious market that ended segregation or created an environment where people felt safe from lynchings. Neither did the government passing laws. What ended these things, to the extent that they are ended (try looking up the figures for racially motivated violence in inner cities sometime), was changes in people's attitudes. And those changes are mainly due to compulsory public education plus generational turnover: the old bigots died and their children were indoctrinated with a different mindset.
    - courtf 13y ago
      Not at all what I was implying. Not everything is so black and white, yeesh. It's getting so a guy can't pontificate without having a bunch of pre-conceived positions applied to him before even getting the chance to... oh wait, this is the internet.
- derleth 13y ago
  The market place cannot stop pollution, because the damage done by pollution is very often too large for the polluting company to ever pay to fix, assuming the company even still exists when the damage is found. If the company is long gone, there's nobody on the hook and the damage can't be fixed without using laws and taxes to do so. And that's assuming we magically know who did the damage in the first place, and that it's something other than 'everyone'.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    Pollution is not the same as discrimination.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    As yuhong pointed out, pollution is not really comparable to discrimination; but I still think it's worth asking the question: who allowed the pollution to take place in the first place? The "market place"? Or some government that nudge, nudge, wink, wink, allowed the polluter to pollute?
    - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      Nudge nudge wink wink? In your view, there should be no need to nudge or wink. Let market have as it will. You can't have both ways here.
      - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
        In a market, the polluter has to compensate those impacted by it's pollution.
      - pdonis 13y ago
        In your view, there should be no need to nudge or wink. Let market have as it will. You are misrepresenting my view. The reason for the nudge nudge wink wink is that the government, in allowing polluters to pollute, is acting against the interests of the people it's supposed to represent: it is allowing something that the people, if they were able to make the decision on their own in a free market, would not allow. In other words, in an actual free market, a potential polluter would not be able to get any special favors from the government: they would have to get explicit permission from every person who would be affected. That's how a free market works: you want to build a factory that puts toxic chemicals in my groundwater? Sorry, no sale.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  Q: How many Randian Objectivists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None. The market will take care of it.
  - mistermann 13y ago
    Hahaha, so edgy. The correct answer of course is: it takes one. If a light bulb burnt out, an Objectivist would simply take a new one (from inventory, because they planned for equipment failure) and replace it. What they wouldn't do is suggest it is the responsibility of someone else, ie: "the market".
    - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
      That seemed to be exactly what pdonis was suggesting when I replied, though: that we don't need to fight against racism and bigotry, because The Market would fix them if we just let it be. There are certainly reasonable Objectivists like the one you describe, but they don't include anyone who thinks that all humanity's ills will magically vanish if we just let The Market do whatever it wants. That's why I specifically said Randian Objectivists; Ayn Rand's hypocrisy exemplifies that particular subset of Objectivists.
      - pdonis 13y ago
        we don't need to fight against racism and bigotry, because The Market would fix them if we just let it be. That's not what I said. I said that the way you fight against racism and bigotry is by using market power: as a customer, you refuse to do business with companies that are racist and bigoted, and as an employee, you refuse to work for them. Or, as an entrepreneur, you start a company that is not racist and bigoted, and out-compete the racist and bigoted companies.
        PhasmaFelis 13y ago
        And how do you do all those things, when you're operating in a society where bigotry is the standard? Where refusing to do business with bigots means you can't do business at all? How is your hypothetical world better than one with civil rights legislation?
- 21echoes 13y ago
  what if i told you employment discrimination is not about "a level playing field for competition", but rather "equal rights for all"? this is not a market or economics issue, this is a human rights issue. and by "correct imbalances of power in the marketplace" i specifically meant "correct for the allowance of human rights abuses by the marketplace because market forces ill-equipped to root them out". the ability of consumers to have in depth knowledge of every political stance of every business in the production chain of every product they buy means that the free market will never be the right tool for human rights cases (among many others).
  - pdonis 13y ago
    "equal rights for all" Equal rights to what? the ability of consumers to have in depth knowledge of every political stance of every business in the production chain of every product they buy Which, in the age of the Internet, is easy. The problem is not knowledge: the problem is acting on that knowledge. For example, Apple has been criticized for employing sweatshop labor in places like China. (Notice that Mr. Cook conveniently does not mention that in his paean to workplace equality.) If you don't think that's a good thing, will you refuse to buy Apple products? Judging by market share, most people's answer appears to be "no".
    - 21echoes 13y ago
      > Equal rights to what? the pursuit of happiness // income // employment > Which, in the age of the Internet, is easy false

pdonis 13y ago

what else is the law for? To give you a level playing field on which to out-compete companies that won't hire qualified employees who happen to belong to certain groups. The proper way to correct "imbalances of power in the market place" is to use the market place to correct them--in other words, to use the market place as it is intended to be used.

courtf 13y ago
use the market place to correct them A rather fragile business plan, perhaps not in 2013 USA, but certainly elsewhere in the world and historically. The libertarian argument always seems to assume rational actors playing in ideal conditions. In other words, a situation unlikely to ever arise on its own...
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Fortunately we have a government of rational actors playing in ideal conditions to legislate for us!
  - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
    Oh stop it. It wasn't your precious market that ended segregation or created an environment where people felt safe from lynchings. Lets just get back to reality for a minute.
    - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
      Segregation was a government policy.
      - djur 13y ago
        Not in its entirety. Private discrimination continued well after the Jim Crow laws were overturned.
      - pdonis 13y ago
        In addition to djur's correct observation, there is also the observation that government policies supporting segregation came after people's private desire to segregate, not before; in fact, the government policies came into being in large measure because of people's private desire to segregate.
    - mistermann 13y ago
      Actually, I would argue that it is not governance that has achieved the vastly improved social acceptance of the LBGT community, it is simply society gradually changing its mind, through education and simply greater exposure, without being forced. It seems to me you would suggest acceptance cannot be achieved without government intervention, but from where I sit that is exactly what is happening - it just takes time.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      It wasn't your precious market that ended segregation or created an environment where people felt safe from lynchings. Neither did the government passing laws. What ended these things, to the extent that they are ended (try looking up the figures for racially motivated violence in inner cities sometime), was changes in people's attitudes. And those changes are mainly due to compulsory public education plus generational turnover: the old bigots died and their children were indoctrinated with a different mindset.
  - courtf 13y ago
    Not at all what I was implying. Not everything is so black and white, yeesh. It's getting so a guy can't pontificate without having a bunch of pre-conceived positions applied to him before even getting the chance to... oh wait, this is the internet.
derleth 13y ago
The market place cannot stop pollution, because the damage done by pollution is very often too large for the polluting company to ever pay to fix, assuming the company even still exists when the damage is found. If the company is long gone, there's nobody on the hook and the damage can't be fixed without using laws and taxes to do so. And that's assuming we magically know who did the damage in the first place, and that it's something other than 'everyone'.
- yuhong 13y ago
  Pollution is not the same as discrimination.
- pdonis 13y ago
  As yuhong pointed out, pollution is not really comparable to discrimination; but I still think it's worth asking the question: who allowed the pollution to take place in the first place? The "market place"? Or some government that nudge, nudge, wink, wink, allowed the polluter to pollute?
  - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
    Nudge nudge wink wink? In your view, there should be no need to nudge or wink. Let market have as it will. You can't have both ways here.
    - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
      In a market, the polluter has to compensate those impacted by it's pollution.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      In your view, there should be no need to nudge or wink. Let market have as it will. You are misrepresenting my view. The reason for the nudge nudge wink wink is that the government, in allowing polluters to pollute, is acting against the interests of the people it's supposed to represent: it is allowing something that the people, if they were able to make the decision on their own in a free market, would not allow. In other words, in an actual free market, a potential polluter would not be able to get any special favors from the government: they would have to get explicit permission from every person who would be affected. That's how a free market works: you want to build a factory that puts toxic chemicals in my groundwater? Sorry, no sale.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
Q: How many Randian Objectivists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None. The market will take care of it.
- mistermann 13y ago
  Hahaha, so edgy. The correct answer of course is: it takes one. If a light bulb burnt out, an Objectivist would simply take a new one (from inventory, because they planned for equipment failure) and replace it. What they wouldn't do is suggest it is the responsibility of someone else, ie: "the market".
  - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
    That seemed to be exactly what pdonis was suggesting when I replied, though: that we don't need to fight against racism and bigotry, because The Market would fix them if we just let it be. There are certainly reasonable Objectivists like the one you describe, but they don't include anyone who thinks that all humanity's ills will magically vanish if we just let The Market do whatever it wants. That's why I specifically said Randian Objectivists; Ayn Rand's hypocrisy exemplifies that particular subset of Objectivists.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      we don't need to fight against racism and bigotry, because The Market would fix them if we just let it be. That's not what I said. I said that the way you fight against racism and bigotry is by using market power: as a customer, you refuse to do business with companies that are racist and bigoted, and as an employee, you refuse to work for them. Or, as an entrepreneur, you start a company that is not racist and bigoted, and out-compete the racist and bigoted companies.
      - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
        And how do you do all those things, when you're operating in a society where bigotry is the standard? Where refusing to do business with bigots means you can't do business at all? How is your hypothetical world better than one with civil rights legislation?
21echoes 13y ago
what if i told you employment discrimination is not about "a level playing field for competition", but rather "equal rights for all"? this is not a market or economics issue, this is a human rights issue. and by "correct imbalances of power in the marketplace" i specifically meant "correct for the allowance of human rights abuses by the marketplace because market forces ill-equipped to root them out". the ability of consumers to have in depth knowledge of every political stance of every business in the production chain of every product they buy means that the free market will never be the right tool for human rights cases (among many others).
- pdonis 13y ago
  "equal rights for all" Equal rights to what? the ability of consumers to have in depth knowledge of every political stance of every business in the production chain of every product they buy Which, in the age of the Internet, is easy. The problem is not knowledge: the problem is acting on that knowledge. For example, Apple has been criticized for employing sweatshop labor in places like China. (Notice that Mr. Cook conveniently does not mention that in his paean to workplace equality.) If you don't think that's a good thing, will you refuse to buy Apple products? Judging by market share, most people's answer appears to be "no".
  - 21echoes 13y ago
    > Equal rights to what? the pursuit of happiness // income // employment > Which, in the age of the Internet, is easy false