Jesse - The land is not being put towards its most valuable end.
E. R. Olovetto - Add this to the list of unfounded assertions as well
Someone has to fix the quote mechanisms here. I can’t properly quote people.
I think the big problem here is that “efficiency” is a concept that requires a pre-defined objective. It is based upon perspective and goals. For example an ‘efficient’ automobile is said to be efficient because either it has very good power transfer for its size and energy stored, or it uses as little gasoline as possible to travel X distance. The implied goal here is to use as little gasoline as possible to get from point a to point b.
But what is ‘efficient’ use of land? What goal do you imply exists that one must most efficiently strive towards?
Here’s a revealing question: Is Disneyland making more money by owning (and keeping off the market) the land surrounding their competitors than their competitors would make by expanding their park into this land? Can the answer be inferred from the situation? If the answer is yes, then I think that this objection can be laid to rest. If not, then maybe it deserves a little bit more attention.
So let’s just imagine for the sake of argument that someone else thought they had a better use for this land. If they’re not going to buy it from Disney…are they going to have the government take it and then give it to them at a lower price? Is this method to become common practice? Can anyone here imagine the consequences of setting this kind of precedent?
Why buy anything from anyone? Why not just argue that the person who owns it is using it improperly and therefore it must be seized and redistributed?
So, is a hard-line approach the only way to answer the objection? (That is, to just agree that reasources aren’t always put to their most valuable ends under capitalism). I’m afraid that people would percive this as a flaw in capitalism.
People are free to see ‘flaws’ in any part of the Universe they like. One can not argue with arbitrary value judgments. The problem remains, however, that there is no alternative to the market economy. All interventions merely hamper the market economy.
If no other objections could be raised to the socialist plans than that socialism will lower the standard of living of all or at least of the immense majority, it would be impossible for praxeology to pronounce a final judgment. Men would have to decide the issue between capitalism and socialism on the ground of judgments of value and of judgments of relevance. They would have to choose between the two systems as they choose between many other things. No objective standard could be discovered which would make it possible to settle the dispute in a manner which allows no contradiction and must be accepted by every sane individual. The freedom of each man’s choice and discretion would not be annihilated by inexorable necessity. However, the true state of affairs is entirely different. Man is not in a position to choose between these two systems. Human cooperation under the system of the social division of labor is possible only in the market economy. Socialism is not a realizable system of society’s economic organization because it lacks any method of economic calculation. To deal with this fundamental problem is the task of the fifth part of this book.
The establishment of this truth does not amount to a depreciation of the conclusiveness and the convincing power of the antisocialist argument derived from the impairment of productivity to be expected from socialism. The weight of this objection raised to the socialist plans is so overwhelming that no judicious man could hesitate to choose capitalism. Yet this would still be a choice between alternative systems of society’s economic organization, preference given to one system as against another. However, such is not the alternative. Socialism cannot be realized because it is beyond human power to establish it as a social system. The choice is between capitalism and chaos. A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings. To stress this point is the task of economics as it is the task of biology and chemistry to teach that potassium cyanide is not a nutriment but deadly poison.
Libertarians claim that the free market puts reasources where the most demand is. This instance with Disneyland seems to be a counterexample; the land that they own could be put to a more profitable usage (from the perspective of the consumer) if it were owned by the competition.
Disneyland isn’t using the land. And somehow Jesse has tapped into what “consumers” want, but Jesse isn’t saying be an entrepreneur or try to engage in a voluntary, negotiated exchange with Disney as to what to do with the land. I think it’s up to Jesse to actually think and provide a solution to his puzzle. Since you, bloom, had already wrote the other alternative action to this problem, but Jesse said he wasn’t talking about that, then Jesse needs to actually talk about what he is talking about then. I’m ready to hear it.
Yes. That’s the reason why there’s no point in arguing against market fundamentalists who reject socialism. There’s nothing wrong with socialism…except for people who hate socialism because socialism doesn’t mesh with their subjective values (von Mises being a perfect example of this)
Then offer one. Now sir, by all means, you made the claim that free markets can’t do the job. You made the claim that you know what consumers really want. Yet without the entrepreneaur mentality and implementation to fulfill this hypothetical assertion into an actual experiment to see if the consumers really do want the land for something other than what the consumers are paying Disney to use it for now, then by all means, show me what you got. Show me how you figured out how you know what consumers want better than the current, and thus, actual consumer actions.
Economics informs us that its not possible for socialism to work the way leftists want it to. This is a rational point. If socialists conceded that their system would lead to mass poverty and still preferred it, we’d have no rational argument with them.
What can be inferred is only that investors do not believe that they can sufficiently profit on their investment, if at all, in order to buy off the land from Disneyland.
If somebody knows better, like all those who complain about this, why don’t they buy off the land from Disneyland and make a profit?