Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

My statement was specifically speaking of policy. A pro market stance requires no policy aimed at "business" per se, but rather the standard protection of life and property afford to all (the existence of policy at all assumes at least the "minarchist" state). This is limited, off the top of my head, to physical property theft and vandalism in terms of "capital". IE if you have a store and I spray graffiti dicks on the side, smash your windows, and rob your safe the law is as interested as it would be if I did the same to/at your house. This would be "pro-market policy". "Pro business" policy would be if the town replaced your windows/missing cash and covered the cost of the cover paint job. That would actually be anti-market. The market is not dependent on non-graffitied walls, sparkly windows, nor full safes at any given business. However, the ability of any given business (or person) to offload risk onto customers without choice is extremely damaging to the market. "Pro business" policy is a pseudonym for corporate socialism.

 

[SentinelSlain]

really interesting video for you two

 

[Einherjar86]

My statement was specifically speaking of policy. A pro market stance requires no policy aimed at "business" per se, but rather the standard protection of life and property afford to all (the existence of policy at all assumes at least the "minarchist" state). This is limited, off the top of my head, to physical property theft and vandalism in terms of "capital". IE if you have a store and I spray graffiti dicks on the side, smash your windows, and rob your safe the law is as interested as it would be if I did the same to/at your house. This would be "pro-market policy". "Pro business" policy would be if the town replaced your windows/missing cash and covered the cost of the cover paint job. That would actually be anti-market. The market is not dependent on non-graffitied walls, sparkly windows, nor full safes at any given business. However, the ability of any given business (or person) to offload risk onto customers without choice is extremely damaging to the market. "Pro business" policy is a pseudonym for corporate socialism.

If something is damaging to the market, then isn't it also damaging to business?

 

[Dak]

If something is damaging to the market, then isn't it also damaging to business?

Some businesses, not all. Of course, you could broaden the definition of damage to include growing stagnate etc but if you mean only in terms of profitability, no, not in all cases. Again, we can return to bailouts as a perfect example. Tariffs, rentseeking, etc.

@SS: I think it should be obvious to an impartial observer that the era of the US as the primary tool of global control is nearing the end, barring coming out on top of a WWIII.

 

[Einherjar86]

Some businesses, not all. Of course, you could broaden the definition of damage to include growing stagnate etc but if you mean only in terms of profitability, no, not in all cases. Again, we can return to bailouts as a perfect example. Tariffs, rentseeking, etc.

But if most businesses were to be pro-market in policy, wouldn't they still find success (emphasis on "most businesses"; obviously not all)? And if this is the case, then isn't being pro-market simultaneously being pro-business?

 

[Dak]

Corporate policy. I guess I need to be further specific in that by policy I mean public policy. Corporate policy is another matter. As I said before, if the market is rigged to various degrees (As the existing world market is via public policy), for a company to insist on an internal "pro-market" policy would be to stack the odds against themselves.

 

[Einherjar86]

But the odds would be for other companies, would they not?

 

[Dak]

Either other existing or potentially future existing companies yes.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well, as expected, I don't think the distinction between "pro-business" and "pro-market" makes any sense.

 

[Dak]

I think you are confused. I don't know why you brought up what a company does into a discussion that was about public/government policy. There is a very clear distinction between a bailout sort of policy and a leave it all be sort of policy.

 

[Einherjar86]

I feel very confused. You originally said that big businesses don't like the free market, so I didn't think we were exclusively talking about government policy. Furthermore, I don't agree that there's a difference between government policy and business policy, since I believe that government policy is influenced by business/private policy.

 

[Dak]

I feel very confused. You originally said that big businesses don't like the free market, so I didn't think we were exclusively talking about government policy. Furthermore, I don't agree that there's a difference between government policy and business policy, since I believe that government policy is influenced by business/private policy.

Was Enron "influenced by government"? Influenced is an inaccurate word choice. There is a big difference between a law and a bribe. Even if that were not the case, that wouldn't mean it is all one nice big homogeneous clump that must frustrate all attempts at analysis.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm not saying you can't analyze it. I'm saying the causal impact isn't linear; it's multilateral and omnidirectional. This doesn't mean it eludes all attempts to understand it.

All I ever meant to say was that distinguishing between a "pro-business" and "pro-market" policy isn't as easy as it looks because there will always be exceptions that counteract the general goals.

 

[Dak]

I agree with the first statement, and see the second as a non-sequitur.

We could see any sort of government policy regarding business as pro-business from various points of view, while conversely seeing all (gov) policy regarding business specifics as anti-market.

The economy =/= the market. Wall St =/= the market. Etc. That might be a point of confusion.

 

[Einherjar86]

The economy =/= the market.

But they also aren't two entirely separate, discrete spheres of activity. One is enclosed within the other.

 

[Dak]

I would say overlap rather than enclosed - seeing the economy in some sort of "official" perspective. Market (I'm insisting on market being necessarily theoretically free) being an aggregation of one classification of action (voluntary) and "The Economy" being an aggregate of differently classified actions (with statistics/statistical analysis available). You could theoretically have an economy with no market or any degree of market.

I will grant that distinguishing where things become more or less free requires some arguably arbitrary distinctions. For instance: Let us say I have "free choice" at a given time between Arbys and Hardees for lunch....but in either case I am coerced to pay sales tax. Where such systemic coercion is universal it can merely be held as a constant for the purpose of analysis of other variables rather than as some unraveling thread.

 

[Einherjar86]

The blog goes political (sort of...).

 

[Dak]

^

Anyone who suggests the current (or even previous) system(s) is/were in a "Free market" is certainly ignorant at best, and an apologist at worst (certainly any given civilian/politician/pundit all fit the bill). Arguments from guys like Bastiat, Mises, etc are descriptive about what does work, and normative in the sense that sense that "we should do what works and not what does not work". Of course work is defined (very loosely) here as enhancing peace, freedom, and (broad based) prosperity. They do not defend the sorts of abuses laid at the foot of "capitalism". It is, rather obvious to me, that enhancing peace, freedom, and prosperity for even say, more than half of the people is certainly not in the interest of those with, or seeking any power (wealth is not absolutely synonymous with power btw). And so the printing presses keep rolling, we have our sugar tariffs and Big Agri bailouts and quotas, Wall St bailouts, "czars", etc etc. I've said before, we can call this system "capitalism", but then certain supposed defenders of capitalism are suddenly not so, and we are right back where we started.

Edit: Didn't know where else this might get a laugh:

 

[Einherjar86]

I disagree with folks like Bastiat or Mises over the applicability of the free market. If communism isn't a viable solution, then I don't think the free market is either, for the simple reason that both are just utopian fantasies.

I don't think redefinition signifies a regression because I think there needs to be a re-qualification of our attitudes toward the word, and critiquing how we define it should be accompanied by a cognitive tweaking that helps shovel out some of the bullshit. For starters, I think "the free market" needs to be seriously recontextualized; not as an achievable ontological absolute, but as an ideological construction that rationalizes capitalist gain.

If we are going to permit capitalist gain, then we need to accept the simple scientific necessity that goes along with capitalist gain: poverty, exclusion, etc. There should be no rationalization via the free market. Capitalist development and expansion is responsible for incredible technological and industrial advances, but it is also responsible for human suffering.

 

[Dak]

I think the problem in comparing communism or any other organization vs the free market as reduced to mere utopianism is that this misses the economic aspect. There is certainly a deontological angle to Free Market arguments as opposed to a completely consequentialist approach in any other case I can think of. Respective theorists imagine the sort of place they would like to live in (live in = rule) and then set about explaining how it would work if people just agreed to play by those rules.

The Free Market theorist goes one step further, and also begins earlier, by describing economic law, and then based on these laws, what consequences various actions will lead to. This is part of the reason for the qualifier on statements about what economic policies "work". It completely depends on what your aims are as to whether or not they will "work". The normative part of Free Market Political Economy is the assertion that if you want a society or civilization with peace, with freedom, and with prosperity, you must have a Free Market. Many other Utopias do not claim to provide all of those 3, and in that case there really is no argument other than whether or not not having those 3 things together is desirable. (For example, Plato's Republic doesn't even pretend to offer freedom from any accepted perspective).

The argument against the Free Market as an ontological absolute is different than the argument against an economic organization approaching socialism or communism. The argument against the Free Market says people won't stop using coercion (there is a counter to this but let's assume that the argument is foolproof). So, it's an argument from human fallibility, or human nature. Conversely, while there is a human nature argument against socialism and communism, the point of the Free Market critique is that even if human nature were no issue, socialism and communism would both fail due to economic law. Mises laid this argument out pretty thoroughly here:

Economic Calculation In The Socialist Commonwealth

Regarding suffering, I know we've been over that ground. I will easily and readily concede that even in a theoretical "true" Free Market (and even ruling out exceptions of random evil, natural disasters, etc), there will be poverty, human suffering, etc in cases, and that in the sense that the Free Market makes it possible, we might call a system responsible. But the response to this is twofold: The very mechanism whereby one put themselves into the negative position also offers the way out. Two: The greater prosperity and lack of bureaucracy to pass responsibility off to(with their conflicts of interest and inefficiencies) would more likely provide a greater voluntary "safety net".