Close. The main difference being that the man in charge of the firm is interested only in profit- where the tribal chief, patriarch of the family (or matriarch in some societies) recognizes a primary duty not to self or to mindless profit- but to the members of his tribe/family. Thus a firm will sacrifice jobs if that is what is required to be profitable- but a tribe will never sacrifice members even if it means the membership as a whole is less wealthy.
The reason I think is anonymity- the workers are just resources to the firm owner, no different from a computer or a robot. The tribe members in a family or tribe are PEOPLE- the chief/patriarch/matriarch cares about their feelings and well being. That's a huge step backwards- and I'm not at all sure it was worth it.
Incorrect. Economies of scale help efficiency dramatically.
Economies of scale mean nothing when it comes to providing the most work for the most people possible.
By your rationale small businesses would be cheaper than WalMart.
They are when you take the full cost of business on an entire community into account. For each $1 you spend at a small local business- that dollar moves an average of 8 times through the local community. For each $1 you spend at Wal-Mart, $.08 stays in your local community. When it comes to providing your neighbors with jobs, economies of scale don't matter one whit- it's about 100x more expensive to shop at Wal-Mart than it is at your local Mom&Pop store in the long run.
That's the beauty of the free market economy. It steamrolls ineficient systems in favor of efficient ones, but not entirely sucking profitability out of things. You don't have to charge as little as possible, just less than a competitor could charge and trive and take your business away. The Exxon/Mobile thing will get sorted out.. because the profit margins have increased competitors will gain the ability to expand and compete and take their business away. In the short term, they will make huge money but in the long term, the company will lose ground and shrink.
Not likely- the money they make will just enable them to buy out their competitors instead of actually competing.
There are rules that you need to keep things in balance in a free market economy. One of them is you can't have anti-competitive behavior. Buying your competition is an example of that anti-competitive behavior. Sometimes, merging is beneficial to economics though and the FTC is put in place to decide which mergers are which. The FTC made a huge mistake when they allowed Exxon/Mobile to happen, and it will hopefully be a lesson well remembered.
The Bush Administration is quickly dismantling the FTC- and the SEC. They're anti-regulation. No-holds barred free markets is what they want. The problem with that is that it is anti-comeptitive- and there isn't anything to stop them because the Democrats are just as corrupt, just as bribed by big money, and so are the courts.
Who cares? Everyone. Because when it's off balance everyone loses, and not a little. Look at China for a good example. They are currently trying to balance both a "fair" centrally planned economy and a capitalist one. People living under the "fair" system are misterable peasants powerless against those who use brutal oppressive tactics against them. The ones in the harsh capitalist system are horribly exploited by corperations and are much happier for it. They live wildly better lives and have much more freedom and oportunity.
I'd point out that China is as much of a con artistry as the stock market is- both promise much but deliver little. China's central planning is designed to do one thing- move people off of farms and into factories, where they can be exploited more efficiently, just like the corporations and the stock market.
We are all victoms of the horrible unstoppable capitalist machine.. because we want to be. It makes our lives better. You won't convince me that making my life worse is worth it so I can get back to the roots of what it means to be human.
It hasn't made my life better- I'm working more hours than every generation before me just to keep my head above water. How is that "better"?
The roots of humanity are plagued with famine, brutality, powerlessness and back breaking toil. My life is full of art and history and happiness and effortless productivity. I may not be as holy or spiritual as I would have been if I was facing death and starvation every day.. but that's a tradeoff I'm rather happy to make.
My life isn't full of art and history and happiness and effortless productivity- it's full of 56 hour weeks just to keep my family in a house that is worth about 10x what it sold for when it was built in 1968. That's your "progress".
An economic system that requires people to concider the needs of others over the needs of themselves is doomed.
Only because greed is not sufficiently punished.
"A small minority of con artists" is a silly way of characterizing what is an obvious problem: when people are faced with the decision of balancing their needs with the needs of others, they typically give a higher priority to their own.
Families don't- and I'm sorry you live in such a spiritual vaccum that you can't understand that.
The capitalist system works with this ensuring that to meet your own needs you have to meet the needs of others.
No it doesn't- it gives the greatest rewards to those who take away from others, who lie, cheat, and steal.
You point out that economic matters affect personal relationships and this needs to be taken into account and yet are dismissive of the desire to not expose yourself to people who might abuse a business relationship with you. That has a horrible affect on personal relationships that we fortunately don't experience often in modern society.
How am I dismissive of that desire? Rather, I say it should be a right of every individual and community to exclude others! I'm very much for the idea of a shipping tax- where every cargo container is taxed at the destination for how far it had to come to get to that destination, thus encouraging business relationships that are physically close over those that are anonymous and long distance.
That's relativism taken to it's most ludicrous extreme. Only someone who lives such a blessed life as to never have seen real hardship could make such a heartless argument. If someone is starving, downtrodden and powerless to do anything about it do you really think they're just as well off as long as everyone else is too?
Primitive people were NEVER starving, downtrodden, or powerless. It's only when governments and economies started exerting power over larger areas than the single tribe that starvation, political oppression, and powerlessness came into being. The primitive tribe moves when famine comes- the totalitarian agriculturalist begs for hel
I would not call it a travesty of justice, if you are blatantly wrong you will lose regardless of the money you are paying lawyers to represent you, Martha Stewart, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling are recent examples of people who could probably hire any attorney they want but they still managed to get convicted.
Ken Lay actually claimed on the bench that the millions he stole were gone long before he came to trial- which makes me wonder what idiot ever hired him as CEO to begin with if he can burn through $400 million in 5 years.
For every one who gets caught, 10 go free.
The reason that corporations have better representation is because they are willing to be selective. How many skilled jobs are listed in the classified section require no experiance. The more you are willing to pay the more selective you can be. Another advantage to retaining lawyers is the fact that they will help you avoid making the blatant mistakes that will get you convicted, the skill of the attorney matters more in the grey cases and not the black and white ones.
I'm one of those who believes that in the end, all cases are black and white. Either you harmed your neighbor or you didn't.
Corporations also survive because people buy what they sell, the easy way to take down a corporation is to stop the money from flowing in. If being a corporation gives you power over the useless citizen start a corporation. Once it takes off you will not have to worry about being a citizen anymore. Nobody is forced to be a worthless citizen because the money is out there to start a buisness with if you fill out the paperwork. what is required to succed is the proper skills to play in the market.
Yeah, right, people will just give you money for filling out paperwork- sounds like quite the scam to me.
Corporations and People that make money rise to the top, while Corporations and People that lose money sink to the bottom. There are two ways to make money luck and skill. Those that rely on luck make the money fast and lose money fast, those that have skill make money slow and lose money slow. If you take the money from everybody and redistribute it equally my guess would be those at the bottom will return to the bottom and those at the top will return to the top.
Luck and skill- code words for the ability to lie. I've never met an honest businessman yet. I rather doubt I ever will.
Now I'm confused, how does haggling give dignity to anyone in the process?
It makes the other person a *person*, instead of just a consumer or a worker or a businessman. The extended conversation of the haggling means that you see your "opponent" as a human being, instead of merely a faceless number.
If my abilty to get the best price (or a fair price) depends on my ability to negotiate, I don't ever want to live in that society.
I'd probably be at a bit of a disadvantage also- being autistic. But that would come back to doing business with people I KNOW, vs people I don't.
I'm not sure how you can expect to buy say a bushel of wheat for a different price from two vendors, all the free market requires is that you can not buy wheat, that several vendors sell it (perhaps two grades or brands), and that you can substitute barley or corn.
But with certain things you can't- which goes back to my other argument on rarity of the item. How easily can you suddenly go from gasoline to biodiesel? Not very easily, though both are fuels that do exactly the same job. That's what I mean by a captive market, rather than a free one. Price gouging exists in captive markets simply because it CAN. Under a truly free market, price gouging will never exist- because you can get the exact same product from a different vendor and/or haggle for a different price.
Markets can transact in security (I'm thinking of several ways to do it now), but by design they cannot be security. Human nature cannot offer you security no matter how it's organized.
Incorrect- for the first several thousand years on this planet we granted every human being some measure of security. All it takes to grant people security is local production to the consumer, and ownership of one's own means of production. Security does NOT require price fixing- in fact, price fixing is against human security. See Daniel Quinn's writings for more information on how tribal societies create security.
I choose a market based system because they are the that works well knowing that all the other actors are flawed and selfish, rather than a system that depends on them not being selfish. I wish they weren't but barring the Mellinial reign I don't think human society will find that on it's own.
And yet, we have, in the past- sometimes for tens of thousands of years at a whack. We expect such security because we evolved to expect it. We're called to not be selfish- we evolved to form small societies that do work. Expecting larger societies to work is the mistake; and a rather new one at that, at least in geological time scales.
I also disagree that lawsuits are won by the fact that the judge and jury are bribed. There is some corruption in the system, but I would say that a larger amount are one because the lawyers of bigger companies are on retainer. If the law firms are being paid a retainer fee then they know eventually they will need to go to court, so they probably can do some of the research while waiting for the case they will have to go fight. Bigger companies can probably afford a better lawyer.
Anything that gives one party an advantage over another is a travesty of justice- and makes the system useless. Bribery vs good lawyers means nothing in this context; the end result is the same. Government of, by, and for the corporations- where being a citizen is absolutely worthless.
You would probably be quite interested to learn more about the Japanese economic system. Melon may cost ~JPY 2000 each, but by golly they are really nice and the farmer makes a good living. It's market based but more social (just as they are more concerned as a culture with the group than the individual), their distribution of benefits is unlike both the US winner takes all (or most) and Europe's the government spreads it to everyone "fairly".
It's actually similar to my own Kwakiutal roots- which is unsurprising because the tribes both are based on are Pacific Rim tribes. (In some ways, I still see this as a military occupation more than a Republic- it took a lot of military might to take and keep the Oregon Territory). As a Catholic, I'm also very interested in Distributism as put forth by Pope Leo XXIII and Dorthy Day and GK Chesterton- Europe's current "fair" government has a tendency to not grant enough dignity for them (or as you put it below- the right to work and feed those who you care about who can't).
I consider a system where all able bodied individuals have the opportunity to provide for themselves and privately take care of all those unable to work (the orphan, widow and alien, etc) to be the best system. I tire of our system's coddling of those who should have been saving when they work but do not.
The last would not be neccessary if the system didn't also coddle those who do not work and live off of the work of others (the investor class).
The system we have is similar but it's done in bulk and in public with records and much greater scrutiny and we call it free market competition.
And because it's done in bulk, it will never achieve justice or mercy, but only averages.
Places with fair competition get fine tuned extraordinarily well. Where there is a lack of it is where things go wrong. Take, for example, the recent high fuel prices in the US. It has a partial basis in high oil costs but the real scandal there is the Exxon/Mobile record profits. The fact that the two largest and fiercest competitors in the fuel delivery markets were not just allowed to price fix with each other but were actually allowed to merge and avoid competing entirely is ridiculous.
True- now think about what would happen if they were simply not allowed to merge at all- if each oil well, each refinery, each gas station had to be owned separately and serve only it's community? Competition is not neccessarily a good thing in small amounts- but it becomes a great thing in large amounts.
To me, tranactional information is most certainly NOT enough to give justice or dignity to every human being. A transaction merely being advantageous isn't enough- price gouging is advantageous for both sides because there is no other way to accomplish the task in a captive market. That isn't enough to say that we have a free market- it says NOTHING about freedom, only whether or not the transaction is advantageous. Choice not to buy is not enough- you must *also* have the choice to buy from a different vendor for less, and get the exact same product.
Having said that- yes, my chosen career often requires a large consumer base as well. That doesn't matter to me. The benefits of having a society that cares for it's neighbors, that ties people's fates together in such a way that they are willing to do transactions that are not neccessarily materially advantageous merely to help one another out- is worth more than being able to earn a large amount of money, have more cars than I need, and use more energy in a day than 40 Kalahari tribesmen. The real keyword is security- the market will never be able to offer anybody security. Only with security can come freedom- freedom from need, freedom to want.
Right. For example, you should have your parents or brother-in-law or someone else you know well be your financial advisors. Hell.. it works so damn well for stars, why wouldn't I. I mean... it's not like anyone's parents, or other close friends ever stole from them, right?
Not unless they were a dysfunctional family taken over by a broken market economy. See, that's the problem right there- economic matters DO affect personal relationships, that's why we need to start taking the personal relationships into account.
The sad reality is that people you know well are much more likely, to cheat, steal and rip you off than a Wall Mart cashier.
Just shopping at Wal-Mart means you're getting ripped off in ways you don't even suspect.
Frankly.. I don't care if you need more money.
Exactly right- the personal relationship has been destroyed to the extent that you just don't care.
If the guy down the street will do the same job for half as much, I'll hire him.
Yep, that's right- because you've forgotten how to be human and what counts.
You want charity.. get in line with the rest of the beggers. You want to do business.. compete.
And never mind how business actually destroys humanity, right? After all "It's just business" can cover any sin, can cover any felony. So what if your product kills people, it's just business, right?
Why would I pay more for the same thing than someone who made less money? That's basically the same as saying everyone should make the same amount of money, which is an economic policy with a long history of miserable failure.
Depends on what you consider to be failure- I consider any system where everybody is able to eat a success.
As far as the rest of your points... complete garbage. The free market does an excellent job of accounting for and balancing all of them.
Really? You've just said that you don't care about some of the most important of them, that all you care about is price. Seems to me you just admitted that the free market ignores all of them- it's just business after all.
And you know what else EVERY 13th centruy peasant had... they were a pesant!
And as a peasant, they were more holy, more spiritual, than any "businessman" today.
And they were in good company since almost everyone was a peasant too. They would look at a poor person in the US in awe of the lavish lifestyle they lead.
Yes, they would- if they had ever met one! One is only poor if one knows that there are rich people elsewhere. Good old Cain Killing Abel again.
That's complete bs. Cooperations are more and more open books. Useful information is nearly impossible to keep hidden.
Is that why computer security is a growing field, why everybody seems interested in closed networks and encryption?
Systems that balance themselves are hard for many people to understand. The balancing point is chaotic and impossible to predict and people hate unpredictability. Lots of simple-minded hippie types like to advocate predictable calm systems but, the trade off is the system that will always be off balance.
If the system feeds all of the people all of the time, then who cares if it is off balance? The real question is the individual human experience, not the group and certainly not a small minority of con artists.
People also rail about the unfairness when they lose their jobs. This is the hard underbelly of the system but it's necessary. It keeps people from being useless and forces them to do useful things. If it costs an American worker $40 to make a shirt and we can import them from china for $10, I'd rather buy the Chinese for $10 and give the American $30 to stay home and watch TV because at least they wouldn't being deluded into thinking they are doing something useful.
Except for- you don't. You buy the Chinese for $10 and leave your neighbor with nothing, until he breaks into your house to steal the $30, because you just don't care, as you said above. The end result of that "self balancing" system will be that the people with the guns will own everything.
Actually, looking at the picture of the vending machine, it looks like the bottom two rows are music to load onto it. How I don't know- how the hell do you load the music without a ocmpuer?
Depends on your environment I suspect- the 35 hours is from an old National Geographic documentary on the Bushmen of the Kalahari- so I suspect they have a slightly more challenging environment than say, the Invisible People of the Amazon. The Inuit I suppose would have a similar work schedule.
All of those items pretty much make up supply or demand (with the exeption of the needs of the individuals could be wants.
It's very easy to get the price of most goods transacted in the free market especially in the internet era. All you have to do is watch the transactions.
How many of these transactions are truly free? That is, how many of them were haggled over and decided on a Fair Wage and a Just Price, or did they just take the price offered without haggling?Chances are the later.
Newspapers print them, property sales are published at the courthouse, all manner of financial instruments are tracked daily, stores have published offer prices, and you can watch a few baskets to see what is selling at a given price (NPD does this for a large number of stores if you are really interested).
All of which is worthless unless the price is actually haggled over. You're only getting one side of the story with most of it- the price offered by the corporation, and if you don't want to pay their price, you're out of the market.
You lose all of this information if you choose a different method. The guild system benefitted from the market's information flow but restricted the flow to guild members (which was what kept the guild in operation). At this point we are arguing about who should be the benificiary of the information flow not that it isn't worth having.
Well, we're also arguing over the acruacy of that information flow- under the guild system for instance the information ALSO included the haggling price in a truly free marketplace- just try haggling over the price of tomatoes in a supermarket sometime.
You keep bringing up corporations and con artists, but the information is there for everyone to use. They do use it, but plenty of consumers and honest businesspeople do, as well.
I've yet to meet an honest businessperson, anywhere. And since when have consumers had the right to haggle over the price of anything they need in their day to day lives other than housing and transportation?
Your restriction of information can only be maintained until you transact, at which point your transactions become information to all other market participants.
Nope- that only releases the end result of the information, the price. It does NOT release the research that went into that price- not even to the buyer who must either accept the price or drop out of the transaction.
A stock market is certainly not a central authority (anymore than the forum in Democracy is a central authority). It is central, but it takes input from all participants.
Actually, it only takes input from half the participants- the sellers. The buyers have no real choice in the matter. In addition to that, the centrality IS the problem- any time you have a central authority of any sort you run the risk of it growing too large to truly take all opinions into account. Democracy doesn't work for more than 500 people- and neither do markets.
Therin lies the hope and cruel reality of all non-market based systems. They seek to extend the social relationships to an economy, but it never works well once your unit gets much bigger than a family unit.
So maybe we were never meant by our evolution to deal outside of our family unit. Perhaps the reason that the economy fails to work for most people is because we're simply not evolutionarily capable of working outside of the family unit.
True communism works great in a family, because in most families the members care a great deal about the whole. So price signals aren't necessary. It even extended to the kibbutz, but the only mechanism that effectivly can weigh all of the items (and others) in the list you cited using current technology is a market.
And even the market can't when it extends to more than a few hundred people.
Perhaps with more advanced computers we will be able to better allocate resources (and eliminate the
That this even is being asked illustrates a very serious problem in this country. We are a nation of slobs and lazy asses.
And the scary part is that the Department of Labor keeps claiming we're the most productive people on the planet- and by hours logged at work they're right.
Perhaps the hunter-gatherers, who averaged 35 hours a week to live, were wealthier than we are?
I am not sure how you can slander using a domain name, you could publish libelous information on the website and be sued accordingly
Lawsuits are settled to the highest bidder who can bribe the judge and jury.
If a competitor has a domain the best they could do is sell similar products or services as long as they do not infringe on your trademarks.
Well, see, that's the point, isn't it? The cybersquatters are infringing on trademarks to begin with. But you can't touch them because they're outside your local city government.
The market sets a clearing price, which may change based on differing information, but the huge benefit to a market is that someone (usually everyone) gets the pricing information at a nominal cost and that information is exceedingly hard to get in almost all other systems.
I find it exceedingly hard to get in the so-called "free market". The clearing price is merely supply and demand. It does NOT take the following information into account: -Cost of raw materials. -Cost of labor. -Amount of money in the market. -Income of individuals that need the good. -Fair profit. -The needs of the individual workman. -The needs of the individual consumer.
In other words it fails to take into account what EVERY 13th century peasant had as a right to under the guild system that it replaced- a fair wage and a just price.
Our society tolerates the other flaws of a market based system (the most obvious being asymetric rewards) because the value of the pricing information is much larger.
Value to whom? The information is controled to the point that corporations and other con artists have all the information- and thus all the power.
What does your statement mean? What is bad about expensive pricing? It almost always indicates that something required many human hours and other resources to create. By inacurate pricing do you mean volatility or fruad?
The free market is inaccurate because it encourages an abscence of information- and thus fraud. A distributist economy overcomes this not by setting prices by a central authority- like under communism or a stock market- but rather by setting prices individually based entirely on human relationships. You do the best work for people you know- and you give the best price to people you love. You should not be doing business with anybody else.
Do you believe a seller has a right to withhold a good from a buyer?
I believe that goods are divided into needs and wants- and to put needs on the free market instead of sharing them is the very definition of the mortal sin of greed.
If not, then it follows that you believe the seller is partially enslaved to the buyer, since you believe the buyer is entitled, on some level, to the good the seller produced or purchased with his own labor.
The foolish man asks for freedom, not knowing what he asks for. The wise man knows that we are all slaves to each other.
If you do believe the buyer has a right to withhold his good, then what is the difference between withholding a good completely, and offering that good for a million dollars?
The difference is that the billionaire can still afford to get the good- thus what you're really talking about is classism, bigotry based on income.
Slander is illegal, and someone else using your company name to attract business is a violation of trademark law (please correct me if I'm mistaken about this).
Unless you're lucky enough to have registered your trademark *before* the cybersquatter grabbed the domain name, AND have registered the trademark with the LOCAL governmental authority of both your competitor and the cybersquatter, violation of trademark does not apply. And we all know that slander cases go to whomever has the most money for lawyers- so we're back to class bigotry again.
In summary, there is no such thing as gouging in a free market. All prices are determined by supply and demand.
Too bad that by definition, this ain't a free market. Not by any stretch of the imagination. If it was, then you could simply re-register the name with a competing Domain Name System.
Well, let's look at the track record so far of the pro-market people in this debate: We've got people who can't admit that a captive market is not a free market, that markets limit information transfer, and now an AC who can't even come up with a better argument for charging $1500 for a cyber-squatted domain name than to call me a troll or stupid. Who's the stupid one now?
I would definitely start by offering far less than they're asking just to see how serious they are. $750 would be a good starting point, maybe even less. The longer they've had the name the more likely they are to sell, since its probably not in high demand. Profit margins in the domain market are even more obscene than high end jewelery stores, so they'll be making money no matter how much they sell it for.
I mentioned the $750 because it's the natural haggle price (as opposed to the "captive market" price of $1500, or the "free market, can always get another name" price of $8.95). In other words, it's where the haggling in a barter system would end up.
What more information would you need? The squatters make it clear what they're offering and for what price.
Have they? Do they include the date that the registration will be expiring if you do not pay their price so that you have a chance of grabbing it again before they renew?
Its up to you to determine if its worth it. This being the internet, the potential buyer can research to see what people are paying for domains. They can also post an Ask Slashdot to get information from other peoples' experiences. Other than the fact that domain squatting is not an entirely ethical business, I fail to see how he's getting cheated here. He could always buy a different name for a much lower price.
And run the risk of a competitor buying up the same name and slandering his business, you mean.
Completely agreed- which is the reason one of my hobbies is non-lethal home protection alternatives to firearms. It's amazing what a loud enough stereo aimed outward and tuned to a 10khz shriek will do.....
Gimme a break. I've had my eye on an original Van Gough [vangoghgallery.com] for years now. It is significantly rare, so by your definition my attempt to purchase it is not voluntary.
That's correct- you don't have the choice to go to another person for the same painting, at least legally (saw a man on "Globe Trekker" on PBS who MIGHT be able to serve you for the $100 you're willing to pay- if you're willing to go to Hong Kong), thus this is NOT a free market by definition.
After all, the cost of canvas and paint should make it less than $100. Anything more is gouging! Maybe if I stamp my feet and picket the gallery, then maybe I'll get my way. Better yet, I'll get a law passed outlawing the practice of letting the market decide the price!
Possibly- but at any rate, the point is that significantly rare or needed items are by definition not a part of the free market- the "market" will bear any price for such items because you'll simply freeze out the lower income consumers without losing any profit.
You know as well as I that if his competitor did that, the arbitration would turn the name over to him in a minute.
Arbitration is always won by the company with the deepest pockets for bribing the arbitrators. I have no faith in arbitration, courts, or anything else presided over by a government elected of, from, and by the corporations.
Slashdot Mirror
However, oddly enough, the following will NOT produce the compile error: if (a=b) then b=c For reasons related to the history of basic....
Close. The main difference being that the man in charge of the firm is interested only in profit- where the tribal chief, patriarch of the family (or matriarch in some societies) recognizes a primary duty not to self or to mindless profit- but to the members of his tribe/family. Thus a firm will sacrifice jobs if that is what is required to be profitable- but a tribe will never sacrifice members even if it means the membership as a whole is less wealthy.
The reason I think is anonymity- the workers are just resources to the firm owner, no different from a computer or a robot. The tribe members in a family or tribe are PEOPLE- the chief/patriarch/matriarch cares about their feelings and well being. That's a huge step backwards- and I'm not at all sure it was worth it.
Incorrect. Economies of scale help efficiency dramatically.
Economies of scale mean nothing when it comes to providing the most work for the most people possible.
By your rationale small businesses would be cheaper than WalMart.
They are when you take the full cost of business on an entire community into account. For each $1 you spend at a small local business- that dollar moves an average of 8 times through the local community. For each $1 you spend at Wal-Mart, $.08 stays in your local community. When it comes to providing your neighbors with jobs, economies of scale don't matter one whit- it's about 100x more expensive to shop at Wal-Mart than it is at your local Mom&Pop store in the long run.
That's the beauty of the free market economy. It steamrolls ineficient systems in favor of efficient ones, but not entirely sucking profitability out of things. You don't have to charge as little as possible, just less than a competitor could charge and trive and take your business away. The Exxon/Mobile thing will get sorted out.. because the profit margins have increased competitors will gain the ability to expand and compete and take their business away. In the short term, they will make huge money but in the long term, the company will lose ground and shrink.
Not likely- the money they make will just enable them to buy out their competitors instead of actually competing.
There are rules that you need to keep things in balance in a free market economy. One of them is you can't have anti-competitive behavior. Buying your competition is an example of that anti-competitive behavior. Sometimes, merging is beneficial to economics though and the FTC is put in place to decide which mergers are which. The FTC made a huge mistake when they allowed Exxon/Mobile to happen, and it will hopefully be a lesson well remembered.
The Bush Administration is quickly dismantling the FTC- and the SEC. They're anti-regulation. No-holds barred free markets is what they want. The problem with that is that it is anti-comeptitive- and there isn't anything to stop them because the Democrats are just as corrupt, just as bribed by big money, and so are the courts.
Who cares? Everyone. Because when it's off balance everyone loses, and not a little. Look at China for a good example. They are currently trying to balance both a "fair" centrally planned economy and a capitalist one. People living under the "fair" system are misterable peasants powerless against those who use brutal oppressive tactics against them. The ones in the harsh capitalist system are horribly exploited by corperations and are much happier for it. They live wildly better lives and have much more freedom and oportunity.
I'd point out that China is as much of a con artistry as the stock market is- both promise much but deliver little. China's central planning is designed to do one thing- move people off of farms and into factories, where they can be exploited more efficiently, just like the corporations and the stock market.
We are all victoms of the horrible unstoppable capitalist machine.. because we want to be. It makes our lives better. You won't convince me that making my life worse is worth it so I can get back to the roots of what it means to be human.
It hasn't made my life better- I'm working more hours than every generation before me just to keep my head above water. How is that "better"?
The roots of humanity are plagued with famine, brutality, powerlessness and back breaking toil. My life is full of art and history and happiness and effortless productivity. I may not be as holy or spiritual as I would have been if I was facing death and starvation every day.. but that's a tradeoff I'm rather happy to make.
My life isn't full of art and history and happiness and effortless productivity- it's full of 56 hour weeks just to keep my family in a house that is worth about 10x what it sold for when it was built in 1968. That's your "progress".
An economic system that requires people to concider the needs of others over the needs of themselves is doomed.
Only because greed is not sufficiently punished.
"A small minority of con artists" is a silly way of characterizing what is an obvious problem: when people are faced with the decision of balancing their needs with the needs of others, they typically give a higher priority to their own.
Families don't- and I'm sorry you live in such a spiritual vaccum that you can't understand that.
The capitalist system works with this ensuring that to meet your own needs you have to meet the needs of others.
No it doesn't- it gives the greatest rewards to those who take away from others, who lie, cheat, and steal.
You point out that economic matters affect personal relationships and this needs to be taken into account and yet are dismissive of the desire to not expose yourself to people who might abuse a business relationship with you. That has a horrible affect on personal relationships that we fortunately don't experience often in modern society.
How am I dismissive of that desire? Rather, I say it should be a right of every individual and community to exclude others! I'm very much for the idea of a shipping tax- where every cargo container is taxed at the destination for how far it had to come to get to that destination, thus encouraging business relationships that are physically close over those that are anonymous and long distance.
That's relativism taken to it's most ludicrous extreme. Only someone who lives such a blessed life as to never have seen real hardship could make such a heartless argument. If someone is starving, downtrodden and powerless to do anything about it do you really think they're just as well off as long as everyone else is too?
Primitive people were NEVER starving, downtrodden, or powerless. It's only when governments and economies started exerting power over larger areas than the single tribe that starvation, political oppression, and powerlessness came into being. The primitive tribe moves when famine comes- the totalitarian agriculturalist begs for hel
I would not call it a travesty of justice, if you are blatantly wrong you will lose regardless of the money you are paying lawyers to represent you, Martha Stewart, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling are recent examples of people who could probably hire any attorney they want but they still managed to get convicted.
Ken Lay actually claimed on the bench that the millions he stole were gone long before he came to trial- which makes me wonder what idiot ever hired him as CEO to begin with if he can burn through $400 million in 5 years.
For every one who gets caught, 10 go free.
The reason that corporations have better representation is because they are willing to be selective. How many skilled jobs are listed in the classified section require no experiance. The more you are willing to pay the more selective you can be. Another advantage to retaining lawyers is the fact that they will help you avoid making the blatant mistakes that will get you convicted, the skill of the attorney matters more in the grey cases and not the black and white ones.
I'm one of those who believes that in the end, all cases are black and white. Either you harmed your neighbor or you didn't.
Corporations also survive because people buy what they sell, the easy way to take down a corporation is to stop the money from flowing in. If being a corporation gives you power over the useless citizen start a corporation. Once it takes off you will not have to worry about being a citizen anymore. Nobody is forced to be a worthless citizen because the money is out there to start a buisness with if you fill out the paperwork. what is required to succed is the proper skills to play in the market.
Yeah, right, people will just give you money for filling out paperwork- sounds like quite the scam to me.
Corporations and People that make money rise to the top, while Corporations and People that lose money sink to the bottom. There are two ways to make money luck and skill. Those that rely on luck make the money fast and lose money fast, those that have skill make money slow and lose money slow. If you take the money from everybody and redistribute it equally my guess would be those at the bottom will return to the bottom and those at the top will return to the top.
Luck and skill- code words for the ability to lie. I've never met an honest businessman yet. I rather doubt I ever will.
Now I'm confused, how does haggling give dignity to anyone in the process?
It makes the other person a *person*, instead of just a consumer or a worker or a businessman. The extended conversation of the haggling means that you see your "opponent" as a human being, instead of merely a faceless number.
If my abilty to get the best price (or a fair price) depends on my ability to negotiate, I don't ever want to live in that society.
I'd probably be at a bit of a disadvantage also- being autistic. But that would come back to doing business with people I KNOW, vs people I don't.
I'm not sure how you can expect to buy say a bushel of wheat for a different price from two vendors, all the free market requires is that you can not buy wheat, that several vendors sell it (perhaps two grades or brands), and that you can substitute barley or corn.
But with certain things you can't- which goes back to my other argument on rarity of the item. How easily can you suddenly go from gasoline to biodiesel? Not very easily, though both are fuels that do exactly the same job. That's what I mean by a captive market, rather than a free one. Price gouging exists in captive markets simply because it CAN. Under a truly free market, price gouging will never exist- because you can get the exact same product from a different vendor and/or haggle for a different price.
Markets can transact in security (I'm thinking of several ways to do it now), but by design they cannot be security. Human nature cannot offer you security no matter how it's organized.
Incorrect- for the first several thousand years on this planet we granted every human being some measure of security. All it takes to grant people security is local production to the consumer, and ownership of one's own means of production. Security does NOT require price fixing- in fact, price fixing is against human security. See Daniel Quinn's writings for more information on how tribal societies create security.
I choose a market based system because they are the that works well knowing that all the other actors are flawed and selfish, rather than a system that depends on them not being selfish. I wish they weren't but barring the Mellinial reign I don't think human society will find that on it's own.
And yet, we have, in the past- sometimes for tens of thousands of years at a whack. We expect such security because we evolved to expect it. We're called to not be selfish- we evolved to form small societies that do work. Expecting larger societies to work is the mistake; and a rather new one at that, at least in geological time scales.
I also disagree that lawsuits are won by the fact that the judge and jury are bribed. There is some corruption in the system, but I would say that a larger amount are one because the lawyers of bigger companies are on retainer. If the law firms are being paid a retainer fee then they know eventually they will need to go to court, so they probably can do some of the research while waiting for the case they will have to go fight. Bigger companies can probably afford a better lawyer.
Anything that gives one party an advantage over another is a travesty of justice- and makes the system useless. Bribery vs good lawyers means nothing in this context; the end result is the same. Government of, by, and for the corporations- where being a citizen is absolutely worthless.
You would probably be quite interested to learn more about the Japanese economic system. Melon may cost ~JPY 2000 each, but by golly they are really nice and the farmer makes a good living. It's market based but more social (just as they are more concerned as a culture with the group than the individual), their distribution of benefits is unlike both the US winner takes all (or most) and Europe's the government spreads it to everyone "fairly".
It's actually similar to my own Kwakiutal roots- which is unsurprising because the tribes both are based on are Pacific Rim tribes. (In some ways, I still see this as a military occupation more than a Republic- it took a lot of military might to take and keep the Oregon Territory). As a Catholic, I'm also very interested in Distributism as put forth by Pope Leo XXIII and Dorthy Day and GK Chesterton- Europe's current "fair" government has a tendency to not grant enough dignity for them (or as you put it below- the right to work and feed those who you care about who can't).
I consider a system where all able bodied individuals have the opportunity to provide for themselves and privately take care of all those unable to work (the orphan, widow and alien, etc) to be the best system. I tire of our system's coddling of those who should have been saving when they work but do not.
The last would not be neccessary if the system didn't also coddle those who do not work and live off of the work of others (the investor class).
The system we have is similar but it's done in bulk and in public with records and much greater scrutiny and we call it free market competition.
And because it's done in bulk, it will never achieve justice or mercy, but only averages.
Places with fair competition get fine tuned extraordinarily well. Where there is a lack of it is where things go wrong. Take, for example, the recent high fuel prices in the US. It has a partial basis in high oil costs but the real scandal there is the Exxon/Mobile record profits. The fact that the two largest and fiercest competitors in the fuel delivery markets were not just allowed to price fix with each other but were actually allowed to merge and avoid competing entirely is ridiculous.
True- now think about what would happen if they were simply not allowed to merge at all- if each oil well, each refinery, each gas station had to be owned separately and serve only it's community? Competition is not neccessarily a good thing in small amounts- but it becomes a great thing in large amounts.
To me, tranactional information is most certainly NOT enough to give justice or dignity to every human being. A transaction merely being advantageous isn't enough- price gouging is advantageous for both sides because there is no other way to accomplish the task in a captive market. That isn't enough to say that we have a free market- it says NOTHING about freedom, only whether or not the transaction is advantageous. Choice not to buy is not enough- you must *also* have the choice to buy from a different vendor for less, and get the exact same product.
Having said that- yes, my chosen career often requires a large consumer base as well. That doesn't matter to me. The benefits of having a society that cares for it's neighbors, that ties people's fates together in such a way that they are willing to do transactions that are not neccessarily materially advantageous merely to help one another out- is worth more than being able to earn a large amount of money, have more cars than I need, and use more energy in a day than 40 Kalahari tribesmen. The real keyword is security- the market will never be able to offer anybody security. Only with security can come freedom- freedom from need, freedom to want.
Right. For example, you should have your parents or brother-in-law or someone else you know well be your financial advisors. Hell.. it works so damn well for stars, why wouldn't I. I mean... it's not like anyone's parents, or other close friends ever stole from them, right?
Not unless they were a dysfunctional family taken over by a broken market economy. See, that's the problem right there- economic matters DO affect personal relationships, that's why we need to start taking the personal relationships into account.
The sad reality is that people you know well are much more likely, to cheat, steal and rip you off than a Wall Mart cashier.
Just shopping at Wal-Mart means you're getting ripped off in ways you don't even suspect.
Frankly.. I don't care if you need more money.
Exactly right- the personal relationship has been destroyed to the extent that you just don't care.
If the guy down the street will do the same job for half as much, I'll hire him.
Yep, that's right- because you've forgotten how to be human and what counts.
You want charity.. get in line with the rest of the beggers. You want to do business.. compete.
And never mind how business actually destroys humanity, right? After all "It's just business" can cover any sin, can cover any felony. So what if your product kills people, it's just business, right?
Why would I pay more for the same thing than someone who made less money? That's basically the same as saying everyone should make the same amount of money, which is an economic policy with a long history of miserable failure.
Depends on what you consider to be failure- I consider any system where everybody is able to eat a success.
As far as the rest of your points... complete garbage. The free market does an excellent job of accounting for and balancing all of them.
Really? You've just said that you don't care about some of the most important of them, that all you care about is price. Seems to me you just admitted that the free market ignores all of them- it's just business after all.
And you know what else EVERY 13th centruy peasant had... they were a pesant!
And as a peasant, they were more holy, more spiritual, than any "businessman" today.
And they were in good company since almost everyone was a peasant too. They would look at a poor person in the US in awe of the lavish lifestyle they lead.
Yes, they would- if they had ever met one! One is only poor if one knows that there are rich people elsewhere. Good old Cain Killing Abel again.
That's complete bs. Cooperations are more and more open books. Useful information is nearly impossible to keep hidden.
Is that why computer security is a growing field, why everybody seems interested in closed networks and encryption?
Systems that balance themselves are hard for many people to understand. The balancing point is chaotic and impossible to predict and people hate unpredictability. Lots of simple-minded hippie types like to advocate predictable calm systems but, the trade off is the system that will always be off balance.
If the system feeds all of the people all of the time, then who cares if it is off balance? The real question is the individual human experience, not the group and certainly not a small minority of con artists.
People also rail about the unfairness when they lose their jobs. This is the hard underbelly of the system but it's necessary. It keeps people from being useless and forces them to do useful things. If it costs an American worker $40 to make a shirt and we can import them from china for $10, I'd rather buy the Chinese for $10 and give the American $30 to stay home and watch TV because at least they wouldn't being deluded into thinking they are doing something useful.
Except for- you don't. You buy the Chinese for $10 and leave your neighbor with nothing, until he breaks into your house to steal the $30, because you just don't care, as you said above. The end result of that "self balancing" system will be that the people with the guns will own everything.
Actually, looking at the picture of the vending machine, it looks like the bottom two rows are music to load onto it. How I don't know- how the hell do you load the music without a ocmpuer?
Depends on your environment I suspect- the 35 hours is from an old National Geographic documentary on the Bushmen of the Kalahari- so I suspect they have a slightly more challenging environment than say, the Invisible People of the Amazon. The Inuit I suppose would have a similar work schedule.
All of those items pretty much make up supply or demand (with the exeption of the needs of the individuals could be wants. It's very easy to get the price of most goods transacted in the free market especially in the internet era. All you have to do is watch the transactions.
How many of these transactions are truly free? That is, how many of them were haggled over and decided on a Fair Wage and a Just Price, or did they just take the price offered without haggling?Chances are the later.
Newspapers print them, property sales are published at the courthouse, all manner of financial instruments are tracked daily, stores have published offer prices, and you can watch a few baskets to see what is selling at a given price (NPD does this for a large number of stores if you are really interested).
All of which is worthless unless the price is actually haggled over. You're only getting one side of the story with most of it- the price offered by the corporation, and if you don't want to pay their price, you're out of the market.
You lose all of this information if you choose a different method. The guild system benefitted from the market's information flow but restricted the flow to guild members (which was what kept the guild in operation). At this point we are arguing about who should be the benificiary of the information flow not that it isn't worth having.
Well, we're also arguing over the acruacy of that information flow- under the guild system for instance the information ALSO included the haggling price in a truly free marketplace- just try haggling over the price of tomatoes in a supermarket sometime.
You keep bringing up corporations and con artists, but the information is there for everyone to use. They do use it, but plenty of consumers and honest businesspeople do, as well.
I've yet to meet an honest businessperson, anywhere. And since when have consumers had the right to haggle over the price of anything they need in their day to day lives other than housing and transportation?
Your restriction of information can only be maintained until you transact, at which point your transactions become information to all other market participants.
Nope- that only releases the end result of the information, the price. It does NOT release the research that went into that price- not even to the buyer who must either accept the price or drop out of the transaction.
A stock market is certainly not a central authority (anymore than the forum in Democracy is a central authority). It is central, but it takes input from all participants.
Actually, it only takes input from half the participants- the sellers. The buyers have no real choice in the matter. In addition to that, the centrality IS the problem- any time you have a central authority of any sort you run the risk of it growing too large to truly take all opinions into account. Democracy doesn't work for more than 500 people- and neither do markets.
Therin lies the hope and cruel reality of all non-market based systems. They seek to extend the social relationships to an economy, but it never works well once your unit gets much bigger than a family unit.
So maybe we were never meant by our evolution to deal outside of our family unit. Perhaps the reason that the economy fails to work for most people is because we're simply not evolutionarily capable of working outside of the family unit.
True communism works great in a family, because in most families the members care a great deal about the whole. So price signals aren't necessary. It even extended to the kibbutz, but the only mechanism that effectivly can weigh all of the items (and others) in the list you cited using current technology is a market.
And even the market can't when it extends to more than a few hundred people.
Perhaps with more advanced computers we will be able to better allocate resources (and eliminate the
That this even is being asked illustrates a very serious problem in this country. We are a nation of slobs and lazy asses.
And the scary part is that the Department of Labor keeps claiming we're the most productive people on the planet- and by hours logged at work they're right.
Perhaps the hunter-gatherers, who averaged 35 hours a week to live, were wealthier than we are?
I am not sure how you can slander using a domain name, you could publish libelous information on the website and be sued accordingly
Lawsuits are settled to the highest bidder who can bribe the judge and jury.
If a competitor has a domain the best they could do is sell similar products or services as long as they do not infringe on your trademarks.
Well, see, that's the point, isn't it? The cybersquatters are infringing on trademarks to begin with. But you can't touch them because they're outside your local city government.
The market sets a clearing price, which may change based on differing information, but the huge benefit to a market is that someone (usually everyone) gets the pricing information at a nominal cost and that information is exceedingly hard to get in almost all other systems.
I find it exceedingly hard to get in the so-called "free market". The clearing price is merely supply and demand. It does NOT take the following information into account:
-Cost of raw materials.
-Cost of labor.
-Amount of money in the market.
-Income of individuals that need the good.
-Fair profit.
-The needs of the individual workman.
-The needs of the individual consumer.
In other words it fails to take into account what EVERY 13th century peasant had as a right to under the guild system that it replaced- a fair wage and a just price.
Our society tolerates the other flaws of a market based system (the most obvious being asymetric rewards) because the value of the pricing information is much larger.
Value to whom? The information is controled to the point that corporations and other con artists have all the information- and thus all the power.
What does your statement mean? What is bad about expensive pricing? It almost always indicates that something required many human hours and other resources to create. By inacurate pricing do you mean volatility or fruad?
The free market is inaccurate because it encourages an abscence of information- and thus fraud. A distributist economy overcomes this not by setting prices by a central authority- like under communism or a stock market- but rather by setting prices individually based entirely on human relationships. You do the best work for people you know- and you give the best price to people you love. You should not be doing business with anybody else.
Markets are really good at setting a price in an efficient manner (the pricing is free).
Inaccurate pricing is just as bad as expensive pricing in the long run.
Do you believe a seller has a right to withhold a good from a buyer?
I believe that goods are divided into needs and wants- and to put needs on the free market instead of sharing them is the very definition of the mortal sin of greed.
If not, then it follows that you believe the seller is partially enslaved to the buyer, since you believe the buyer is entitled, on some level, to the good the seller produced or purchased with his own labor.
The foolish man asks for freedom, not knowing what he asks for. The wise man knows that we are all slaves to each other.
If you do believe the buyer has a right to withhold his good, then what is the difference between withholding a good completely, and offering that good for a million dollars?
The difference is that the billionaire can still afford to get the good- thus what you're really talking about is classism, bigotry based on income.
Slander is illegal, and someone else using your company name to attract business is a violation of trademark law (please correct me if I'm mistaken about this).
Unless you're lucky enough to have registered your trademark *before* the cybersquatter grabbed the domain name, AND have registered the trademark with the LOCAL governmental authority of both your competitor and the cybersquatter, violation of trademark does not apply. And we all know that slander cases go to whomever has the most money for lawyers- so we're back to class bigotry again.
In summary, there is no such thing as gouging in a free market. All prices are determined by supply and demand.
Too bad that by definition, this ain't a free market. Not by any stretch of the imagination. If it was, then you could simply re-register the name with a competing Domain Name System.
Are you a troll or just stupid?
Well, let's look at the track record so far of the pro-market people in this debate: We've got people who can't admit that a captive market is not a free market, that markets limit information transfer, and now an AC who can't even come up with a better argument for charging $1500 for a cyber-squatted domain name than to call me a troll or stupid. Who's the stupid one now?
I would definitely start by offering far less than they're asking just to see how serious they are. $750 would be a good starting point, maybe even less. The longer they've had the name the more likely they are to sell, since its probably not in high demand. Profit margins in the domain market are even more obscene than high end jewelery stores, so they'll be making money no matter how much they sell it for.
I mentioned the $750 because it's the natural haggle price (as opposed to the "captive market" price of $1500, or the "free market, can always get another name" price of $8.95). In other words, it's where the haggling in a barter system would end up.
What more information would you need? The squatters make it clear what they're offering and for what price.
Have they? Do they include the date that the registration will be expiring if you do not pay their price so that you have a chance of grabbing it again before they renew?
Its up to you to determine if its worth it. This being the internet, the potential buyer can research to see what people are paying for domains. They can also post an Ask Slashdot to get information from other peoples' experiences. Other than the fact that domain squatting is not an entirely ethical business, I fail to see how he's getting cheated here. He could always buy a different name for a much lower price.
And run the risk of a competitor buying up the same name and slandering his business, you mean.
Completely agreed- which is the reason one of my hobbies is non-lethal home protection alternatives to firearms. It's amazing what a loud enough stereo aimed outward and tuned to a 10khz shriek will do.....
Gimme a break. I've had my eye on an original Van Gough [vangoghgallery.com] for years now. It is significantly rare, so by your definition my attempt to purchase it is not voluntary.
That's correct- you don't have the choice to go to another person for the same painting, at least legally (saw a man on "Globe Trekker" on PBS who MIGHT be able to serve you for the $100 you're willing to pay- if you're willing to go to Hong Kong), thus this is NOT a free market by definition.
After all, the cost of canvas and paint should make it less than $100. Anything more is gouging! Maybe if I stamp my feet and picket the gallery, then maybe I'll get my way. Better yet, I'll get a law passed outlawing the practice of letting the market decide the price!
Possibly- but at any rate, the point is that significantly rare or needed items are by definition not a part of the free market- the "market" will bear any price for such items because you'll simply freeze out the lower income consumers without losing any profit.
You know as well as I that if his competitor did that, the arbitration would turn the name over to him in a minute.
Arbitration is always won by the company with the deepest pockets for bribing the arbitrators. I have no faith in arbitration, courts, or anything else presided over by a government elected of, from, and by the corporations.