A valid point. It is really tough to measure the corrospondence between happiness and money. There are a few measures that try to do this. The one you're talking about is the GDP (which measures the health of an economy by measuring the exchange of money).
There are other standards, however. One that comes to mind (although I can't remember the name) actually subtracts every dollar spent on things like cleaning up car wrecks, rebuilding after natural disasters, spending money to cure diseases, etc. It takes the liberal stance of defining some things as *bad* and then counting them that way.
An interesting statistic. Economists compared the "health" of the USA using both the GDP and the figure I talk about above (i think it's called the C something I). They found that according to the GDP, the health of our economy has been slowly increasing over the years, but that according to the C_I, the health of our economy hit a peak sometime in the 70's and has been slowly decreasing.
there isn't a sharp line drawn that can demark all offences that one might call moral transgressions that should not be codified into law.
Agreed. I would give the name "moral" to any legislation which tries to define that line at all. Many people believe that that etherial line should be defined by an adult deciding their own code of morals.
There is another angle to look at this from, however. It is the consensus that government should only legislate regarding issues that pose a direct concern to the well-being of their governance. It is easy to see how murder, theft, rape, etc pose a direct threat to the health of a nation, state, city or county. It is not so clear the direct link between someone's unhappiness from having been cheated on and its effects on the safety / health of a governance. I can see cases where cheating would drive someone to murder, for instance. But since what happens is a function of the way the person feels about it, there is no way to show a direct threat to the safety of a city. Because of this, people concede that a government should be allowed to legislate regarding murder et al (which have direct consequences), but not regarding adultery (which has indirect consequences).
This is partly where the notions of liberal and conservative come from. Where do you draw the line on what is direct (read: the government should have control over) and indirect (what the government should not)?
That sounds like quite a lot to go through to decide on cereal. You may or may not know it, but you go through those sorts of decisions many times on a day to day basis. Almost every decision you make requires that sort of subconcious thinking.
I'd like to know what makes you think in an unregulated economy cereal companies would not put labels on their boxes with nutrition values. Do you think they wouldn't just because the law says they don't need to?
Imagine this. I'm a cereal company and you're a cereal company, and we both produce cereal with no food labels since it is an unregulated economy. Say one day you get the bright idea to publish nutrition facts even though the law does not require you to. Which one of us do you think people are more likely to buy from? As the grandparent pointed out, uncertaintly amounts to an increase in cost. Since your cereal takes out the uncertainty it effectively costs less than my cereal does. Assuming they are substitutable products, more people will buy from you and you will prosper.
Note that this scenario happened in an unregulated economy because you figured out that having food labels would help you sell more. In order to compete with you, I would also have to label my cereal box with nutritional values. I could become even more competitive by including more details or by maybe saying things in layman terms. Then, in order to stay competitive, you would have to ask yourself what you can do to make the consumer happier with your cereal than mine. In this situation, we have two companies trying to make the best product possible due to competition. The motivation is not the law, it is the market forces. This sort of thing can happen in a regulated economy, as well, although not nearly as effectively. Since people feel assured that the FDA watches over their food for them, they are less likely to feel the need to be critical of the things they buy, and companies are more likely to be able to do the bare minimum and survive.
In a free economy, the companies who produce the things people want for the lowest price prosper. This is not always true in a regulated economy.
Sure, but as long as it is voluntary for a company to sign up to such a standard, all the companies that don't bother can have their long drawn out court case that costs a fortune - so if they have more money than the consumer, they might just win.
I think it's more likely that companies will pick a quality standard that they like and then look for it in potential products they purchase. That's the difference between something voluntary and a law. Putting in a quality assurance standard becomes an *assurance* to a potential buyer that the thing they're buying is of high quality. If it is legislated that all companies must comply to standard XYZ, then a potential buyer can't decide which of two products is better using that standard.
Why does this matter? Because in a non-regulated market, I would know that producers are *trying* harder if I see more QA standards on their product rather than just going through the motions they need to. Simply said, producers could gain a competitive edge by making their product adhere to as many standards as possible. It would even be to their advantage to come up with and publish *new* standards for their competitors to try to adhere to and make their products more desirable.
In case I haven't said it clearly enough - in an unregulated market products will regulate *themselves* since companies with no QA standards will have less desirable products and won't survive. As a result, you have all the standards adherance that you would have in a regulated market *plus more* AND companies won't have to deal with the standards that people know to be worthless but are in law anyway.
The situation is win-win. Higher stakes, but win-win nonetheless.
Yes, in a perfect world where everyone is rational, and takes time to research all their purchasing decisions the free market will efficiently smack down bad companies. In the real world it takes quite a long time for sufficient consumer unrest to make any significant dent.
I have to assume that by the "real world" you mean the current heavily-regulated economy we have right now where (as you say) it takes a while for people to get pissed off about a bad product.
One point: Do you suppose that maybe the fact that we have regulations at all makes people complacent and slow-to-act when faced with a bad product? Put another way, if people are under the impression that there is a large institution (read: government agencies) making sure the things they buy are safe, work, etc, it is not unreasonable to assume that they will be lazier consumers. People are always more aware when they realize there's no one around to watch their backs.
Ever had to deal with Dell service? They suck right? Yet everyone still buys Dell. Convenience, advertising, and price have a remarkably large impact on consumer decision making in the real world.
Exactly! Don't you think that a company that offers convenience, good prices and advertises well would be sucsessful? What's wrong with that? Just because technically minded people might be able to see the flaws inherant in Microsoft software or the crappiness of Dell support doesn't mean that everyone and their mother will care. Put another way, I don't care what food I eat on a day-to-day basis. It could be fast food, expensive take-out or something I cook at home. I don't care, but my friend down the street is very picky about what she eats.
Here's the key: The food she eats it is worth more to her than it is to me. The reason doesn't make a lick of difference. She's willing to pay higher prices for better food because that food makes her happier and the cheaper food makes her stomach turn. I can eat whatever, so I will do what's convenient.
Now apply that to software and computers. I care a lot about the software I use and whether it is stable, technically sound and fast. Most people just want something that works. They don't care. The convenience that Dell offers is worth more to them than the benefit they would gain from learning about how software and computers actually work. They value things differently than you or I, and so companies that provide what they want will prosper. This is what happens in a free market.
The reason a regulated market is less efficient (other than the laziness argument) is that since there are regulations at all companies can influence the legislature to *change* them to their advantage. What would happen if Microsoft were to push legislation through that all new computers purchased after 2006 had to have "trusted computing" functionality. Not only would it make all small software producers vulnerable to Microsoft's sensibilities, but it would also fuck the consumer over by having their choices legislated away. In a free market (no regulations), Microsoft could sell their trusted computing and then go out of business as more and more people switched to freer solutions.
A good philosophical way to look at the difference between murder and pornography is to think about them in terms of self-regarding and other-regarding actions. Murder is clearly an other-regarding action, and one that we can reasonably assume one of the two parties did not want to take part in. Put another way, a murderer imposes certain conditions on the murderee against their will (it's reasonable enough to assume that most people aren't looking to get murdered).
On the other hand, the choice to view pornography or to not view it is a choice that I as an adult can make for myself, and as long as it's done in the privacy of my own home, my actions do not affect any others (this is not exactly true in all cases, but most people try to make sure no one will walk in on them, etc). So pornography is a self-regarding action that happens between consenting adults (the consenting and adult parts are why child pornography is illegal).
The theory is that as long as something is a self-regarding action, an adult in their right mind should be free to choose what they want to do. This is what most people are talking about when they talk about "moral" legislation. In effect, it defines what adult citizens should consider moral and not. Many people (surprise!) believe that an adult has the right to choose their own "rules to live by" without interference from 2nd parties.
Cheekiness aside, you have a valid point about the way criticisms of the bush administration are recieved (not just on slashdot, either). I'd like to add to it.
The fact is everyone is partisan in some respects, and anyone who expects to recieve a netural, objective analysis of what's going on is only fooling themselves. That said, if I took the attitude of dismissing everyone whose comments were even remotely colored by political leanings, I wouldn't have learned anything at college.
Someone who's really concerned about having a dialog about politics will try to strip away the political bias (since it will be there anyway) and look at the underlying message. It is irresponsible of an adult to reject criticism because it is coming from a biased source. Instead, an adult would try to understand the criticism and then provide a rebuttal to it.
For the past four years, there has been a thick "us or them" stigma around anything related to the policies of this administration. I'd like to remind everyone that the working class of this country is made up of both liberals and conservatives, and that they all contribute to the well-being of our economy and culture. To say that a person's opinion is unimportant because they happen to be a Democrat is foul play in a dignified discussion.
If somebody says something you disagree with, tell them that you disagree, but also tell them why. If you really believe in your own viewpoint and believe that it is just, then you should be itching to get into a conversation where you have the chance to tell people your opinion, explain it and then hear theirs in return.
This liberal-conservative schizm has got to go. We're all adults here, and should act like adults. There's still time to stop it.
The principle of regulating it through law is that it then greases the legal system when a problem arises.
I wouldn't call what happens in real life slick or well-greased at all. Think about the last time you heard about a corporation being sued for breaking one of the laws that were supposed to regulate it. How quickly was that taken care of? In addition to the amount of time it takes a case go go through the court system, there is an inequity between the amount of power a corporation has in this scenario and the plaintiff does if they are an everage joe citizen.
A true free market solves this by having these big corporations *compete* against each other rather than against the people who consume their products. If a consumer feels that they have been screwed, the product is defective, etc, they have the option of going to someone else to get it. Odds are they'll tell their friends, too. This effect is instantaneous and will sort out any company / individual that the market deems troublesome.
I think it's more accurate to say that the legal system is necessitated by the regulated market rather than the other way around. Having a legal system does not force you to have a regulated economy, and odds are it would have little use in a free economy.
You bash the repulicans, but how are the democrats any better?
I'm getting tired of seeing comments critical of the Republican party answered this way. I'll say this once and only once: The opponents of a group of devils are not necessarily a group of angels. Asserting that the Democrats are not the right party to lead the US and pointing out all of the things they have done wrong does not excuse the Republicans (and especially the neo-cons) from all of the things they have done wrong, regardless of whether you are correct in criticizing the Democrats.
Here's an analogy: say you and I have sons who are embezzlers. Say my son embezzled 10 million dollars and your son embezzled 1 million. Then one day I come to you and say "Embezzlement is wrong. You should talk to your son about it." The fact that my son has embezzled more money than your son does not excuse your son from the crime, nor does it make his crime any less severe. As a virtuous citizen, you should agree with my statement regardless of who says it because you believe embezzlement is wrong.
And while we're on the topic of government spending, I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) that Clinton (a Democrat) actually had a budget surplus during the last few years of his term, whereas Bush (a Republican) has driving our defecit into the ground.
As a citizen concerned with the economy, I'm forced to ask myself what the wiser choice in this scenario would be.
Slashdot Mirror
A valid point. It is really tough to measure the corrospondence between happiness and money. There are a few measures that try to do this. The one you're talking about is the GDP (which measures the health of an economy by measuring the exchange of money).
There are other standards, however. One that comes to mind (although I can't remember the name) actually subtracts every dollar spent on things like cleaning up car wrecks, rebuilding after natural disasters, spending money to cure diseases, etc. It takes the liberal stance of defining some things as *bad* and then counting them that way.
An interesting statistic. Economists compared the "health" of the USA using both the GDP and the figure I talk about above (i think it's called the C something I). They found that according to the GDP, the health of our economy has been slowly increasing over the years, but that according to the C_I, the health of our economy hit a peak sometime in the 70's and has been slowly decreasing.
there isn't a sharp line drawn that can demark all offences that one might call moral transgressions that should not be codified into law.
Agreed. I would give the name "moral" to any legislation which tries to define that line at all. Many people believe that that etherial line should be defined by an adult deciding their own code of morals.
There is another angle to look at this from, however. It is the consensus that government should only legislate regarding issues that pose a direct concern to the well-being of their governance. It is easy to see how murder, theft, rape, etc pose a direct threat to the health of a nation, state, city or county. It is not so clear the direct link between someone's unhappiness from having been cheated on and its effects on the safety / health of a governance. I can see cases where cheating would drive someone to murder, for instance. But since what happens is a function of the way the person feels about it, there is no way to show a direct threat to the safety of a city. Because of this, people concede that a government should be allowed to legislate regarding murder et al (which have direct consequences), but not regarding adultery (which has indirect consequences).
This is partly where the notions of liberal and conservative come from. Where do you draw the line on what is direct (read: the government should have control over) and indirect (what the government should not)?
That sounds like quite a lot to go through to decide on cereal. You may or may not know it, but you go through those sorts of decisions many times on a day to day basis. Almost every decision you make requires that sort of subconcious thinking.
I'd like to know what makes you think in an unregulated economy cereal companies would not put labels on their boxes with nutrition values. Do you think they wouldn't just because the law says they don't need to?
Imagine this. I'm a cereal company and you're a cereal company, and we both produce cereal with no food labels since it is an unregulated economy. Say one day you get the bright idea to publish nutrition facts even though the law does not require you to. Which one of us do you think people are more likely to buy from? As the grandparent pointed out, uncertaintly amounts to an increase in cost. Since your cereal takes out the uncertainty it effectively costs less than my cereal does. Assuming they are substitutable products, more people will buy from you and you will prosper.
Note that this scenario happened in an unregulated economy because you figured out that having food labels would help you sell more. In order to compete with you, I would also have to label my cereal box with nutritional values. I could become even more competitive by including more details or by maybe saying things in layman terms. Then, in order to stay competitive, you would have to ask yourself what you can do to make the consumer happier with your cereal than mine. In this situation, we have two companies trying to make the best product possible due to competition. The motivation is not the law, it is the market forces. This sort of thing can happen in a regulated economy, as well, although not nearly as effectively. Since people feel assured that the FDA watches over their food for them, they are less likely to feel the need to be critical of the things they buy, and companies are more likely to be able to do the bare minimum and survive.
In a free economy, the companies who produce the things people want for the lowest price prosper. This is not always true in a regulated economy.
Sure, but as long as it is voluntary for a company to sign up to such a standard, all the companies that don't bother can have their long drawn out court case that costs a fortune - so if they have more money than the consumer, they might just win.
I think it's more likely that companies will pick a quality standard that they like and then look for it in potential products they purchase. That's the difference between something voluntary and a law. Putting in a quality assurance standard becomes an *assurance* to a potential buyer that the thing they're buying is of high quality. If it is legislated that all companies must comply to standard XYZ, then a potential buyer can't decide which of two products is better using that standard.
Why does this matter? Because in a non-regulated market, I would know that producers are *trying* harder if I see more QA standards on their product rather than just going through the motions they need to. Simply said, producers could gain a competitive edge by making their product adhere to as many standards as possible. It would even be to their advantage to come up with and publish *new* standards for their competitors to try to adhere to and make their products more desirable.
In case I haven't said it clearly enough - in an unregulated market products will regulate *themselves* since companies with no QA standards will have less desirable products and won't survive. As a result, you have all the standards adherance that you would have in a regulated market *plus more* AND companies won't have to deal with the standards that people know to be worthless but are in law anyway.
The situation is win-win. Higher stakes, but win-win nonetheless.
Yes, in a perfect world where everyone is rational, and takes time to research all their purchasing decisions the free market will efficiently smack down bad companies. In the real world it takes quite a long time for sufficient consumer unrest to make any significant dent.
I have to assume that by the "real world" you mean the current heavily-regulated economy we have right now where (as you say) it takes a while for people to get pissed off about a bad product.
One point: Do you suppose that maybe the fact that we have regulations at all makes people complacent and slow-to-act when faced with a bad product? Put another way, if people are under the impression that there is a large institution (read: government agencies) making sure the things they buy are safe, work, etc, it is not unreasonable to assume that they will be lazier consumers. People are always more aware when they realize there's no one around to watch their backs.
Ever had to deal with Dell service? They suck right? Yet everyone still buys Dell. Convenience, advertising, and price have a remarkably large impact on consumer decision making in the real world.
Exactly! Don't you think that a company that offers convenience, good prices and advertises well would be sucsessful? What's wrong with that? Just because technically minded people might be able to see the flaws inherant in Microsoft software or the crappiness of Dell support doesn't mean that everyone and their mother will care. Put another way, I don't care what food I eat on a day-to-day basis. It could be fast food, expensive take-out or something I cook at home. I don't care, but my friend down the street is very picky about what she eats.
Here's the key: The food she eats it is worth more to her than it is to me. The reason doesn't make a lick of difference. She's willing to pay higher prices for better food because that food makes her happier and the cheaper food makes her stomach turn. I can eat whatever, so I will do what's convenient.
Now apply that to software and computers. I care a lot about the software I use and whether it is stable, technically sound and fast. Most people just want something that works. They don't care. The convenience that Dell offers is worth more to them than the benefit they would gain from learning about how software and computers actually work. They value things differently than you or I, and so companies that provide what they want will prosper. This is what happens in a free market.
The reason a regulated market is less efficient (other than the laziness argument) is that since there are regulations at all companies can influence the legislature to *change* them to their advantage. What would happen if Microsoft were to push legislation through that all new computers purchased after 2006 had to have "trusted computing" functionality. Not only would it make all small software producers vulnerable to Microsoft's sensibilities, but it would also fuck the consumer over by having their choices legislated away. In a free market (no regulations), Microsoft could sell their trusted computing and then go out of business as more and more people switched to freer solutions.
Whew... Long post.
A good philosophical way to look at the difference between murder and pornography is to think about them in terms of self-regarding and other-regarding actions. Murder is clearly an other-regarding action, and one that we can reasonably assume one of the two parties did not want to take part in. Put another way, a murderer imposes certain conditions on the murderee against their will (it's reasonable enough to assume that most people aren't looking to get murdered).
On the other hand, the choice to view pornography or to not view it is a choice that I as an adult can make for myself, and as long as it's done in the privacy of my own home, my actions do not affect any others (this is not exactly true in all cases, but most people try to make sure no one will walk in on them, etc). So pornography is a self-regarding action that happens between consenting adults (the consenting and adult parts are why child pornography is illegal).
The theory is that as long as something is a self-regarding action, an adult in their right mind should be free to choose what they want to do. This is what most people are talking about when they talk about "moral" legislation. In effect, it defines what adult citizens should consider moral and not. Many people (surprise!) believe that an adult has the right to choose their own "rules to live by" without interference from 2nd parties.
I hope that helps things.
Nice post.
Cheekiness aside, you have a valid point about the way criticisms of the bush administration are recieved (not just on slashdot, either). I'd like to add to it.
The fact is everyone is partisan in some respects, and anyone who expects to recieve a netural, objective analysis of what's going on is only fooling themselves. That said, if I took the attitude of dismissing everyone whose comments were even remotely colored by political leanings, I wouldn't have learned anything at college.
Someone who's really concerned about having a dialog about politics will try to strip away the political bias (since it will be there anyway) and look at the underlying message. It is irresponsible of an adult to reject criticism because it is coming from a biased source. Instead, an adult would try to understand the criticism and then provide a rebuttal to it.
For the past four years, there has been a thick "us or them" stigma around anything related to the policies of this administration. I'd like to remind everyone that the working class of this country is made up of both liberals and conservatives, and that they all contribute to the well-being of our economy and culture. To say that a person's opinion is unimportant because they happen to be a Democrat is foul play in a dignified discussion.
If somebody says something you disagree with, tell them that you disagree, but also tell them why. If you really believe in your own viewpoint and believe that it is just, then you should be itching to get into a conversation where you have the chance to tell people your opinion, explain it and then hear theirs in return.
This liberal-conservative schizm has got to go. We're all adults here, and should act like adults. There's still time to stop it.
This is the problem with libertarians. It's all about free market, until the free market doesn't work, and then they blame regulations.
That would be fine and dandy, if it actually was a free market. Regulations are what libertarians don't like in the first place.
The principle of regulating it through law is that it then greases the legal system when a problem arises.
I wouldn't call what happens in real life slick or well-greased at all. Think about the last time you heard about a corporation being sued for breaking one of the laws that were supposed to regulate it. How quickly was that taken care of? In addition to the amount of time it takes a case go go through the court system, there is an inequity between the amount of power a corporation has in this scenario and the plaintiff does if they are an everage joe citizen.
A true free market solves this by having these big corporations *compete* against each other rather than against the people who consume their products. If a consumer feels that they have been screwed, the product is defective, etc, they have the option of going to someone else to get it. Odds are they'll tell their friends, too. This effect is instantaneous and will sort out any company / individual that the market deems troublesome.
I think it's more accurate to say that the legal system is necessitated by the regulated market rather than the other way around. Having a legal system does not force you to have a regulated economy, and odds are it would have little use in a free economy.
You bash the repulicans, but how are the democrats any better?
I'm getting tired of seeing comments critical of the Republican party answered this way. I'll say this once and only once: The opponents of a group of devils are not necessarily a group of angels. Asserting that the Democrats are not the right party to lead the US and pointing out all of the things they have done wrong does not excuse the Republicans (and especially the neo-cons) from all of the things they have done wrong, regardless of whether you are correct in criticizing the Democrats.
Here's an analogy: say you and I have sons who are embezzlers. Say my son embezzled 10 million dollars and your son embezzled 1 million. Then one day I come to you and say "Embezzlement is wrong. You should talk to your son about it." The fact that my son has embezzled more money than your son does not excuse your son from the crime, nor does it make his crime any less severe. As a virtuous citizen, you should agree with my statement regardless of who says it because you believe embezzlement is wrong.
And while we're on the topic of government spending, I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) that Clinton (a Democrat) actually had a budget surplus during the last few years of his term, whereas Bush (a Republican) has driving our defecit into the ground.
As a citizen concerned with the economy, I'm forced to ask myself what the wiser choice in this scenario would be.