Matt wrote:
It's very easy to explain
1. all transactions in the market are voluntary
Ideally true, in practice not true. Let's take a very basic example: if you lack the means or land to grow food, you must buy it. You are limited to what is available in your area. Regardless of whether you dislike the pricing structure, means of production, environmental effects, or any other aspect of the operation that brings food to your market, you will still buy the food if it is all that is available.
Matt wrote:
2. all people who make a transaction beleive that they are getting appropriate value for their money
Ideally true, in practice not true. This is predicated on the assumption that both parties in the transaction have equal power and knowledge of all of the ramifications of a transaction. In a barter society, this is more likely to be true, as it's harder--but not impossible--to externalize costs or hide the true profit in an exchange like "I'll give you these eggs and potatoes if you fix my roof." However, if I fed the laying hens food I stole from you without your knowledge, the deal is a farce and is not mutually beneficial.
In a real economy, this gets far worse. Return to the food example. I think I'm getting appropriate value for my money buying your cheap eggs, but I am not aware that your laying operation is polluting my water supply, which will cost me many thousands of dollars in either medical expenses and hardship or as part of a taxpayer-funded cleanup operation. In our current economy, it's virtually impossible to know the true value of any commodity, and the consumer is always on the losing end of that battle. This is where regulation has a role: preventing externalized costs to be passed on to consumers so that goods can be priced artificially low. It doesn't always work, but it's necessary and regulations should be improved as abuses are brought to light.
Matt wrote:
if we consider all market transactions and look where value accumulates, we can therefore deduce that in aggergate, "the market" values certain people more than others. Where-ever wealth accumulates, there is where people find value.
In light of the real-world situation I've highlighted, wealth often accumulates where people have been most successful at ripping off consumers by hiding the true costs of their products. Sweatshop labor in China, environmental damage, depletion of sea wildlife, slash and burn agriculture in the rainforest, inadequate safety testing of drugs, skimping on vehicle safety, leaking oil wells, artificial inflation of security values based on high-risk loans, etc. There are examples for every industry and every product on the market, whether it be agricultural, medical, manufactured, or financial.
Well, i don't know about far right conservatives, but some people obviously understand there are constraints on choices.
For instance, I understand that if i have $100, I cannot buy two items that both cost $95. If only our dipshit elected official understood that!
Or if your child is born prematurely, you are forced to pay the going rate for intensive medical support even if it drives you into debt. Not all constraints are equally weighted, and emotion and value are highly intertwined. You value your childrens' lives more than you value your credit score or personal wealth, I'm sure. All good parents do. This, of course, makes you ripe for fleecing by unethical medical providers. Perhaps the allure of a car isn't enough to drive you to economic hardship, but the allure of healthy children or self certainly is. There is no free market when one side of the transaction is in a position to be coerced.
Matt wrote:
And also in a republic, apparently. Which is unfortuneate. Some can decide to take freedom from others, so that the very notion of freedom itself is dirtied.
Limiting the freedoms of those could could tip the scales protects the market system; it doesn't dirty it. The key is policing the regulators, which should be our job.
Matt wrote:
Now this is an area where we might agree. When society has created legally valid fictions; where people collude with government, I don't defend the gains or the wealth that exists as a result.
Having a very small minority with significantly outsize power is my worry.
That doesn't concern me in and of itself because there is a way it could happen that came about by valid means. If it has come about by invalid means, by all means, prosecute.
Laws that a results oriented instead of ethics/rules oriented are bad laws.
Going back to the estate tax discussion, society has decided that an aristocratic class is detrimental. The landed nobility don't work and are not productive, or at least have the option to be unproductive, living off of family wealth built up over generations. A tax on that wealth substitutes for the productivity of the individual. As such, it should only apply to amounts large enough to allow one the reasonable option of not being productive. The old $600k tax-free ceiling was too low and had the undesirable result of forcing beneficiaries to sell assets to pay the tax. The current $5M ceiling is probably closer to being right. The concept of an estate tax on large inheritances, though, makes perfect sense and its abolition would lead, over time, to a useless class of the wealthy with the means to defend their uselessness.
It's possible for laws to be both ethics oriented and results oriented. Identifying the result of unethical market manipulation and legislating those methods out of existence leads to laws that are both.
Matt wrote:
What if I don't?
Buy an island and move to it. Build your own roads. Discover your own medicine. Build your own house, raise your own food, make your own entertainment, build your own weapons.
-tammer
