Discuss libertarianism for the Nth time

[Elder Iptuous]

My roommate believes that the Free Market is capable of solving all our problems. He thinks we should privatize everything and let supply and demand iron out the wrinkles of modern living.

i agree that is silly.  if there were no need for anything public, then why stop there?  is he an 'anarchist', as well?

Sure, that totally worked for artists, who can now only comment on certain parts of culture for fear of violating some guarded piece of IP.

The Health Care Industry is doing a kick ass job of providing everybody with affordable health care.

And now that there are a ton of "green" products available in the marketplace, I'm sure the environment will be fine.

i can't put much stock in those examples.  the first two are not examples of free markets at all, and the third one is simply an example of people buying marketing (to an extent..) and that's what people want (to an extent...)

sarcasm aside, the free market is great at solving problems when the problem can be solved by a product or financial incentive. (everything will be okay ... if you can afford the solution) But there is a lot more going on in America than supply and demand. The free market does not end wars, or increase civil rights. Quality of Life is not correlated with the GDP.

agreed.  economic freedom does not ensure personal freedom.  nor the other way around.  but saying that the free market is not magical doesn't indicate that it is not desirable.  i don't know if that's what you are saying or not....
also, are you sure there is no correlation between GDP (per capita) and quality of life?.... perhaps you meant to say it isn't one to one, but i'd be hard pressed to buy that there's no correlation.

the oppressive beast seems off base to me because without some threat of force, where is the oppression?

Most of the important life decisions I've made are basically about money.

We spend half of our waking hours running after it and the other half spending it.

Money is power, money is freedom. If you have more money, you have more choices, more mobility, and are therefore more free.

The oppression is in the pervasiveness of it. Nearly anything you want to do in this world is mediated by these green biosurvival tickets.

That's simply the nature of things.  railing against that is pissing in the wind, i believe.

If everybody had a more equal say, the system might be a bit fairer to the chumps on the bottom. But most of the money in this country is controlled by very slim fraction of the population. The rest of us get to eat what scraps trickle down. I don't see what incentive I have to play the game, except that there's no other game in town.

It's like starting a game of monopoly where your opponent already owns 75% of the spaces on the board. "If you play long enough, you can be as rich as I am!" he tells you. "You are free to buy any of the four spaces I haven't bought yet."

"But I don't even like monopoly," I say.

"Well it's the only game we have," he says. "If you'd like, you can sit quietly over there until the game is over."

Yes!  the monetary/financial system is stacked against us by a powerful elite class.  That is definitely a topic worth digging into...  but that is not the free market either, is it?  that's just some rich folks that manipulate the system by controlling threat of force (govt.)

personally, i have not decided how to react to the understanding of that....
If i were in their position, i don't know that i would do any differently.  would you?

[Elder Iptuous]

as soon as you figure out a way to throw a corporation in jail, let me know.

they react only to money.
if the threat to their bottom line is significant, they will alter their behavior.

[LMNO]

On the other hand, the idea of Limited Liability is pretty good for economic growth.

I mean, let's say a company has 100 workers, 50 managers, 10 directors, and 1 president, and they are working off a widely held business model.  If there is a fundemental flaw in the process or the implementation of the model, or even the philosophy of the model, it seems kind of unfair to hold only one person accountable.  

Usually, new companies are started by visionaries with drive and a willingness to accept risk up to a certain level.  If they are told they'll be held 100% responsible for anything and everything that goes wrong, regardless of what that error is, they won't take the risk.

[Cain]

Rat, it sounds like, in some ways, you are advocating philosophical anarchism.  Which I can live with.

Also, I'm going to split all non-stupid wingnut utterances off into a new thread.  Please stand by...

[Template]

On the other hand, the idea of Limited Liability is pretty good for economic growth.

I mean, let's say a company has 100 workers, 50 managers, 10 directors, and 1 president, and they are working off a widely held business model.  If there is a fundemental flaw in the process or the implementation of the model, or even the philosophy of the model, it seems kind of unfair to hold only one person accountable.  

Usually, new companies are started by visionaries with drive and a willingness to accept risk up to a certain level.  If they are told they'll be held 100% responsible for anything and everything that goes wrong, regardless of what that error is, they won't take the risk.

Yes they will.  That's why they're visionaries!

The "Limited Liability" concept is part of corporate personhood--it means that the corporation is its own person.  The investors, who own shares in the company and elect the board of directors, who in turn hire the CEO, who in turn does something perfectly boneheaded and sociopathic face only the loss of the money they paid for the stock.  As opposed to, say, holding CEO, board of directors, and everyone who voted in their favor responsible for the Supercancer in the watertable.

[Requia ☣]

as soon as you figure out a way to throw a corporation in jail, let me know.

Seize all profits for the length of the sentence.  Watch the stock tank when the new quarterly profit predictions say 0.

Also, cap compensation at something that will make the people in charge squirm (100k or so) for the duration.

[Template]

as soon as you figure out a way to throw a corporation in jail, let me know.

Seize all profits for the length of the sentence.  Watch the stock tank when the new quarterly profit predictions say 0.

Also, cap compensation at something that will make the people in charge squirm (100k or so) for the duration.

And, they can't leave.  Freeze sale of the stock and forbid the chief officers from quitting or taking another job.

Garnish profits at eighty percent, though.  It's only possible to put corporations on probation, or render them a wing of government.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

On the other hand, the idea of Limited Liability is pretty good for economic growth.

I mean, let's say a company has 100 workers, 50 managers, 10 directors, and 1 president, and they are working off a widely held business model.  If there is a fundemental flaw in the process or the implementation of the model, or even the philosophy of the model, it seems kind of unfair to hold only one person accountable.  

Usually, new companies are started by visionaries with drive and a willingness to accept risk up to a certain level.  If they are told they'll be held 100% responsible for anything and everything that goes wrong, regardless of what that error is, they won't take the risk.

This is correct... and its a great example of why government involvement in corporations can be beneficial. What they need to learn is that IF they voluntarily sign up for 'limited liability' they must also accept 'limited freedom'.

Rat, it sounds like, in some ways, you are advocating philosophical anarchism.  Which I can live with.

Discussing more than advocating...  

My views on libertarianism were forever changed by the Non-Euclidian Politics class that RAW taught before he died. Guys like Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker make extremely good arguments for 'voluntary association'... but getting to that philosophy with our society seems basically impossible to me. Humans seem rather lazy and short sighted, both attributes which seem bound to throw off the balance required for a truly Free Market or a Free Society.

Its like these spags that geek out over "going Galt". I find the idea of "going Galt" to have some very interesting and attractive qualities, but then I know how to grow my own food, hunt, skin an animal and build a house. This recent upsurge in people that wish to "Go Galt" seem to be missing that necessary foundation. If I were alone in the wilderness, I could survive, assuming that I had the proper tools; but how many of the Tea Party/Libertarian/Galt wannabes can say the same thing? I have no philosophical issue with the so called "selfish" attitude expressed by Libertarian philosophy... if someone doesn't want to contribute to the tribe, I don't think they should be forced to... as long as they don't expect benefits from the tribe either. Itss this important balance that seems to have gone missing in the US summed up in the lines: "Get government out of Medicare" and "No one helped me when I was on Welfare and Food Stamps!"

You can't have both a well governed society AND a society free of government influence.

Now, I do think that 'consent' is necessary for any truly Free nation of people... I do not believe that any current system reflects that concept though. Perhaps it is not currently achievable.

[BabylonHoruv]

At least tell me what's wrong with being a Libertarian... 

He expressed amusement that you are a fan of Ronald Reagan, who was about the least Libertarian president to date, until lil W got in.

It'd be like an Anarchist admiring Stalin.  Because, you know, they're both Communists after all.

[BabylonHoruv]

as soon as you figure out a way to throw a corporation in jail, let me know.

Well, a corporation consists of resources right?  I mean, it may be more than that, but if you just put all financial resources, all productive resources, and all human resources of a corporation in jail, the corporation would be in jail right?

[BabylonHoruv]

as soon as you figure out a way to throw a corporation in jail, let me know.

they react only to money.
if the threat to their bottom line is significant, they will alter their behavior.

no.  What is the fine for theft?  that fine is insignificant to a corporation, what is the fine for murder?  Also completely insignificant.  unless fines are proportional to assets monetary fines have no reason to motivate a corporation.

They can't without being draconian for a fleshie.

[Elder Iptuous]

as soon as you figure out a way to throw a corporation in jail, let me know.

they react only to money.
if the threat to their bottom line is significant, they will alter their behavior.

no.  What is the fine for theft?  that fine is insignificant to a corporation, what is the fine for murder?  Also completely insignificant.  unless fines are proportional to assets monetary fines have no reason to motivate a corporation.

They can't without being draconian for a fleshie.

I see no reason that the fines cannot be proportional to assets for a company, however fines are not the only thing i was talking about.
If a drug company has some negligent behavior in the making and peddling of some pharmaceutical, and they are punished by being banned from the sale of that category of pharmaceutical, that would hit them hard.  the threat of that type of punitive action would affect behavior.  as it stands they just buy off our elected officials...

[Cramulus]

alright, let's look at the drug example.

Merck & Co produced a drug called Vioxx. It was one of the most widely proscribed drugs in history. In 2004, some clinical trial data revealed that it increased your risk of heart attack. A bunch of people died. Merck quickly withdrew the drug from the market.

Merck was not acting in the public interest. As early as 2000, they knew that their drug could increase risk of heart attack.

According to internal e-mail traffic released at a later lawsuit, Merck had a list of doctors critical of Vioxx to be "neutralised" or "discredited." "We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live," wrote an employee. Also alleged were intimidation of researchers and impingement upon academic freedom.

wicked wicked wicked!

So the company got busted doing something wrong. This is the part where the invisible hand of capitalism swoops in and moderates their behavior, right? Nobody will buy merck drugs if they're killing people, no? And certainly the fatalities are going to cost the company a pretty penny... IN THEORY. Well here's what really happened:

Merck announced that it had an enormous amount of money put aside for settlements ($50 billion!). If you had a heart attack while you were on Vioxx, you have to provide evidence, in court, that it was Vioxx which caused this heart attack. So far, only 23 people have been awarded any money, and it's not much money either.

This whole thing has been somewhat of a victory for Merck, who benefited from a lot of PR and managed to salvage their image without spending a lot of money.

And get this, from 2002 to 2005, Merck published an Australian medical journal which LOOKS LIKE a peer reviewed journal, but was really just a commercial targeted at doctors:

Although it gave the appearance of being an independent peer-reviewed journal, without any indication that Merck had paid for it, the journal actually reprinted articles that originally appeared in other publications and that were favorable to Merck. The misleading publication came to light in 2009 during a personal injury lawsuit filed over Vioxx; 9 of 29 articles in the journal's second issue referred positively to Vioxx.

so . . .

Here is a concrete example of a corporation working purely for its bottom line - exactly what it is programmed to do - at the cost of human life. This is a synecdoche for the larger problem. Attempts to change Merck's behavior by threatening it's financial nervous system have failed. The free market is not serving the public interest. If regulation isn't the solution to these problems, what is?

[LMNO]

One of the issues here appears to be whether the corrections should be pre- or post- regulated.

It only makes sense that the "Free Market" approach is Reactive: That is, when a company does something bad, and people find out about it, they make choices.  The company then adapts, or fails.  Bad behavior is eventually punished.

A "Regulation" approach is Proactive: That is, the gvt looks at the potential for bad behavior, and prohibits it.  The company adapts, or is penalized.  A certain kind of bad behavior is restricted.

The pitfalls of both approaches are many, especially when you take into account the flawed philosophies of captitalism, economics, and politics. 

[Requia ☣]

What Merck did is called 'negligent homicide' its not *supposed* to be dealt with by civil courts or the marketplace, its supposed to be dealt with by cops and prosecutors.  The same laws that cover organized crime will cover that kind of action, just as soon as the people responsible do their damn job and use them.