I like the bit where he says “Specifically, a market economy steers greedy businesspeople into staying up all night, thinking about how best to satisfy their customers.”
I would argue that greedy businesspeople also stay up all night thinking about how to bamboozle their customers (and investors, if they’re really smart). The examples are too many… Read More to list.
My problem with Austrian School thinking is much the same as that of Marxists - they idealize the world or account for human vices in only an extremely superficial way.
yes, but there is a disincentive for conspiring against customers and being devious, that is of being found out and the consequences thereof, for ones future business and profit.
against staying up all night thinking of ‘genuine ways’ to earn profit and please custoemr there is no disincentive downside (in contrast to the first case).
Indeed. I wonder how many times this (non)objection will be regurgitated? It’s becoming trite.
These disincentives work for regular guys, not people turning over billions of dollars, and they’re the ones causing most of the problems. The Austrian school idealizes the free market, but in the 19th century the Sherman Act was needed to bust up the trusts (de-facto monopolies) that the free market had created and would have sustained indefinitely if it wasn’t for government “meddiling”.
Government regulation is what limits the power of corporations, and I for one think that’s a good thing - and that sub-optimal economic growth is an acceptable price for that. The problem is balancing the power of business against that of public authorities, not promoting one over the other. In any extreme (socialism or capitalist anarchy) the individual loses - or at least those individuals who aren’t at the top of the power heap, governmental or economic, meaning most of us.
paragraph 1, is lies/propoganda.
paragraph 2 is more of the same
Are you serious or just trolling? Seriously: the whole “free market created monopolies” and other such nonsense has been so thoroughly debunked that it’s not even funny anymore.
Ok, I take back the woulda-shoulda part of my post - not because of what you said but just on the principle that nobody knows what would have happened.
Still, if you give me a choice of a capitalist utopia where corporations are free to do as they please and what we have today, I’ll take the status quo, pimples and all.
A free market may produce higher economic growth, but I don’t see how it would enhance my personal liberty, and that’s what counts to me. If it doesn’t, I don’t see any reason to screw with the system. And economic growth alone is a very questionable goal.
how would it possibly undermine you ‘personal liberty’ ?
Are you serious? As it stands you cannot:
Work for a wage you choose, get married if the state doesn’t approve of your partner, smoke naturally growing plants, not wear a seatbelt if you don’t feel like it, keep the money you earn to feed your children or save for their education. Hell, you can’t even choose how to educate your own children without being molested by the state. The list is endless. If you disobey, they put you in a CAGE.
What power does any evil corporation have over you?
epic fail
The fundamental error in the OP is that psimon assumes that there are no market methods of rooting out dishonest businessmen. He acts as if fraud is not already illegal (and would be in free market or common law) and as if regulations do not protect fraudulent business methods (i.e. consider SEC and Madoff). In short, entrepreneurs who conspire against their customers inevitably lose because they do not serve the needs of their customers. Consumers are king, if you do not serve their needs, they will seek out others who will.
This thread is being closed for trolling.