When asking someone today on their opinion of free market capitalism, they mentioned something a long the lines of “There is only so far corporations care about people, they mostly care about profit. How would a pharmaceutical company be prevented from selling poison to a market? Private security would be dangerous, and wouldn’t care about people, just look at black water.” Any good responses? Articles? What do ya think?
Private security would be dangerous, and wouldn’t care about people, just look at black water."
Sigh.
State based security would be dangerous, and wouldn’t care about people, just look at the US government.
I like to pretend that states are a new idea and ask them earnest sounding questions, the way statists do when they’re being patronizing to us.
JAlanKatz answer is the best way to deal with this. Just turn the argument around, we aren’t the ones that need to defend why using violence is just.
Most people won’t listen, but it will shut them up because they don’t want to have to try and justify state oppression.
The person isn’t a statist, one of the left leaning anarchists.
Then ask him his plan for security. Then tell me his answer, I’m really curious.
On what grounds does he oppose private property? Assume he answers like Noam Chomsky
But if you’re afraid that private ownership of the means of production will lead to exploitation, you must also be opposed to self ownership, because Human Capital is also a means of production. For example, Chomsky opposes individual ownership of farms because he’s afraid the farmer might threaten to starve people. But you also have to oppose self ownership of Surgeosn because they might threaten to not perform life saving surgery…
No one can be a voluntarist and anti propertarian on utilitarian grounds.
“How would a pharmaceutical company be prevented from selling poison to a market?”
Poison is sold now.
If you mean fraudulently, then let me ask: what would prevent people from murdering each other?
The questions have the same validity.
Fraudulent transactions and violence are both rights violations, and are not allowed in libertarian systems. This is an issue for the police and courts (can be government-controlled in minarchy or private in an anarcho-capitalist scenario).
Along Chomsky’s ally probably. I’d love some articles if anyone knows any. The question is based on, what will regulate negative purely profit seeking behavior from corporations and businesses?
“There is only so far corporations care about people, they mostly care about profit. How would a pharmaceutical company be prevented from selling poison to a market?”
Why in hell would a pharmaceutical company that cares about profit fraudulantly sell poison?
No one is really answering the question.
Here’s mine;
Corporations are not free associations of individuals; corporations apply for and are granted charters by other organizations, like State governments in the U.S.
The regulation of corporations does NOT interfere with any human rights, because corporations are not humans and neither are free associations of humans.
Think of it like this: if I apply for an account on Mises.org, then Mises.org can tell me what the conditions of the account are.
If a corporation applies for a charter to be a corporation, then whoever they are applying to can tell them what they have to do as a corporation.
When a government regulates a corporation, no coercion or violation of rights is involved. An individual person has rights, and people have a right to freely associate with each other and conduct and organize businesses, but applying to a third party is to accept the regulation of the third party.
You are correct that corporations do not care about people; this is because they are not people, but legal fictions which are properly subordinate to the law, and the law in turn is properly subordinate to the wishes of the public under its jurisdiction.
Benjamin.
Last time I checked, if you break one of the Mises forum rules, the admins don’t have the right to come kidnap you and lock you in a cage.
Why wouldn’t they if they know they could make profit and get away with it, what is the regulatory mechanism? One does not need to assume that this perspective is right, only respond in a convincing manner with a detailed argument. It’s a question of safety in a free market anarchy system. I wonder how a leftist would hold up his arguments in a forum like this.
Based on the assumption that corporations only follow profit, private security firms are thought to be dangerous in that sense. You have to think of it from that perspective of leftist anarchists: If corporations can be dangerous in that sense, the government regulating some standards keeps people safe from potentially dangerous products. In a free market, without such looming regulation, not every product can be sold.
What would keep me from accidently buying a potentially lethal product?
You can’t negate purely profit seeking behavior anywhere. Never. Milton Friedman unfortunately has this quote:
The best you can do is allign man’s self interest with the interest of other human beings. The only way to do this is a system of profit and loss. If you make good products at low cost, you stay in business. If you make crap products you go out of business. Simple as that.
Socialists are worried that corporations will be able to trick their fellow man into buying shoddy products via advertising, but as Mises points out, the same advertising techniques are available to all firms so that the best product will win anyway. And if you’re really OCD, you can always get other people to sign an anti-fraud contract before dealing with you, but the anticipation of losing repeat business and negative public image is enough most of the time.
They also have this worldview that if everyone has to pay for things, people might go without food or clothing. This is pessimistic. The market increases real wages and productivity over time, so that eventually instead of working 60 hours a week on a farm for sustenance living, you can work 40 hours a week typing up memos on a computer and live many times better.
The socialist solution won’t work either. To have the masses become truly sovereign over the means or production ultimately means that the demos is judge in its own case. There can be no accountability in this system. Morover there becomes less and less incentive to work as it becomes more lucrative to be an net extorter than a net producer.
Socialists are basically saying that they’ll give me ~30k/yr for working 35 hours a week and being an average employee, with very few gains for being as productve as possible. This is why my friends who are philosophy majors love france, because they will get paid to be bums there. Even a 5% increase in taxes significantly impacts the profitability of projects.
Morover, I think empirically taxation destroys private investment. Consider that if an untaxed individual spends $8000 on consumption, and $2000 on investment/saving, and then taxes are increased to 50%, he’s not going to go to 4000/1000. In an effort to keep up his consumption he might go 4500/500 or 5000/0.
Libertyandlife: “Why wouldn’t they if they know they could make profit and get away with it, what is the regulatory mechanism?”
The question is absurd. Why wouldn’t their be thieves if they knew they could get away with it.
In a free market, people can only profit by voluntary contributions on the part of the buying public. They must serve others in order to reap a gain.
The regulatory mechanism becomes obvious then. All exchange is voluntary. Profit and loss ensure that only those who the public approves off remains in business. It is in fact, profit and loss is what makes everybody in the free market fully accountable to his action. The buying public by buying and abastaining from buying dertermines who produces and what is produced. The consumer is the supreme boss for he is not forced to buy anything and from anybody. Those who establish a reputation for most consumer satisfaction will reap in more profit. Those who do not will suffer losses and be forced to exit the market. Services by 3rd parties to provide better knowledge regarding quality, safety, etc… about other services/products can be and will be made available if they are so demanded by the consumers. 3rd party inspectors, seals of approval, etc.. can and will also be available. One such example is the “Kosher” seal of approval.
A coercive non-profit organization such as a government is on the contrary, accountable to no one. The scarce resources it employs are financed by extortion and there is no way to ascertain the economic value of its alleged services due to the absent of profit and loss. It is ironic that those people who are claiming to be doing public service, as oppose to those profit seeking pigs, must extract their revenue by force and must always excuse themselves from any method by which the value of their service can be ascertained.
Benjamin, but you are assuming that the government have to right in the first place to be the decider if a group of individuals can form a corporation or not.
It’s like if i declared that now i am the ultimate decider if a group of people can group together and play basketball. Now everyone that wants to play basketball have to obey my rules and that’s fair and not a violation of rights.
@DD5, another great example is Underwriter Laboratories. Consumers recognize the UL logo, and a lot of companies will let UL test their product if it means they can sell more units.
The regulatory mechanism becomes obvious then. All exchange is voluntary. Profit and loss ensure that only those who the public approves off remains in business. It is in fact, profit and loss is what makes everybody in the free market fully accountable to his action. The buying public by buying and abastaining from buying dertermines who produces and what is produced.
You do not know the power of the dark side!*
*of markets
Hence, slavery.
Benjamin,
I believe it was the state that dropped atomic bombs on Japan.