Paging Kevin Carson
By Thoreau
Big company has safety problems. Big company lobbies for safety regulations. Regulations are passed. Company then gets special permission to do safety testing in-house while smaller competitors have to hire independent labs to do it. This just proves that we need more regulations and more of the right people in charge.
In other news, dog bites man.
Via Radley Balko.
Comment by J sub D —
August 31, 2009 @ 1:32 pm
I’m surprised at this development. I was also surprised by the birds chirping at dawn this morning.
Comment by Taktix® —
August 31, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
Wow, Democrats and their regulations are a shining beacon for “Standing Up for the Little Guy”
*vomits*
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 31, 2009 @ 2:30 pm
If only we had the right people…
Oh wait, I thought we had the anticorporatist party in power. My fault.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 2:41 pm
The machine is what it is. A good man can’t change it and a bad man won’t change it.
Comment by Seward —
August 31, 2009 @ 2:43 pm
Bring on seasteading and moon colonies!
Comment by Jim Henley —
August 31, 2009 @ 3:02 pm
Then comes seastead-moon colony war!
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 3:04 pm
To be clear, I think that if the problem is inherent to the system then parties are largely irrelevant. Maybe that’s a defense of the Democrats (why expect the impossible from them?), maybe it’s a criticism (they’re part of the system), but either way it means that the party thing is largely irrelevant. We can, if we want, turn this into a food fight over parties, especially once joe shows up, but I think that sort of misses the point.
The machine is what it is. It does what it does. A good man cannot change it. A bad man will not change it. Expecting anything else is like expecting snow to fall on the Sahara in July. The best you can do is limit the scope of the machine.
Comment by Seward —
August 31, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
The two major parties exist in very broad terms to channel hatreds and reward people (I guess the minor parties do this too). I don’t think either major party differs in this regard. .
Comment by Seward —
August 31, 2009 @ 3:25 pm
Jim Henley,
Once the moon colonies are set up, they would have a distinct advantage because their missiles do not require the higher escape velocity of seasteading missiles (all other things be equal). In that case the moon would be a generous mistress.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 31, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
Excuses, excuses.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 3:38 pm
You didn’t bother to read the rest of what I said.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
August 31, 2009 @ 3:47 pm
I read it. The verdict is the same.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
If you read the rest, you’d note that I said that the scope of the machine should be limited. That’s a perfectly libertarian sentiment. The shenanigans that were the topic of the original post are one more reason why the scope of the machine should be limited.
I don’t see how that’s an excuse.
Comment by radish —
August 31, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
[rolls eyes] Well I certainly hope you’ve learned your lesson this time young man…
Is it? Seems to me that reducing its scope is necessary but still a long way from “the best you can do.” I offer as evidence the observation that there are many variations on the machine, some of which work better than others, and the most successful of which are the result of deliberate innovation. People are refining/redesigning/rebuilding the machine all the time anyway (which is presumably why its scope tends in general to expand rather than contract).
I wouldn’t argue that it’s ever possible to beat the red queen on this, but neither can I think of a good reason to stop trying.
Also, the machine is quite literally made of people, and people are crazy malleable. Socio-political systems are circumscribed by human nature (among other things), but we don’t know what those limits are, except to a very loose approximation.
Comment by Curmudgeon —
August 31, 2009 @ 4:02 pm
Yes, this is a system thing. The only kind of policies that emerge from Washington are policies that give away money to well connected insiders. Think tax cuts for the wealthy, Medicare part D, and cash for bankers. Policies that benefit ordinary people don’t get very far. Think mortgage cramdowns, consumer protection for financial products, comprehensive health reform, and cash for clunkers.
That said, I have a hard time seeing these kind of blatant giveaways being tolerated as normal politics in any other western country. Using government only as a means to channel public wealth to insiders pockets is how the third world works and is why the third world stays poor. Functional governments do not do this.
The problem is not government. The problem is regulatory capture and the fact that Washington is–like any other kleptocracy–utterly and irretrievably corrupt beyond redemption.
Comment by dhex —
August 31, 2009 @ 4:11 pm
Functional governments do not do this.
i believe this neatly explains the liberal / libertarian split of vision in as few words as possible.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 5:23 pm
Having calmed down from my initial response to the topic of this post, I will say that some machines may do this more than others or less than others. But every machine does it, and so limiting the scope of the machine is important. On the other hand, I do acknowledge that some machines do it less than others, so attentive operation is not to be dismissed.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
August 31, 2009 @ 5:56 pm
A machine that didn’t function on the premise that money equals speech would probably do a lot less of this kind of thing.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 31, 2009 @ 6:12 pm
A machine that doesn’t would probably have control of all the speech.
Comment by Seward —
August 31, 2009 @ 6:40 pm
Uncle Kvetch,
Other nations have all manner of limits on who can give, how much they can give, when they can give, when political commercials can be aired, etc., yet none of them have escaped the insights of public choice theory.
And it isn’t that money equals speech; it is how and who I want to spend my money on that equals speech (including political speech). Anyway, as with a lot of regulations, what has happened with CFR is that it has made it difficult for grassroots groups to organize, while the larger groups that already existed have used it to their advantage. It basically stifles change.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 31, 2009 @ 7:27 pm
Comment by Mojo —
August 31, 2009 @ 7:28 pm
Since we’ve completely ruled out the option of trying to decrease the amount of corruption in the system, it seems we’re down to the choice between having one company get an undeserved slight competitive advantage and many companies selling lead-paint coated toys to kids. Looks like the best of two bad options.
I’d still like to do some more research into why government corruption is a force completely outside our control (thus justifying ruling out any attempts to improve governance in favor of eliminating governance) yet some places have more corruption and others less. I guess it must be genetic or alien meddling or something.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 31, 2009 @ 7:29 pm
So, if a whole slew of other companies are granted the same status, and it turns out that Mattel has not, in fact, purchased any special consideration from the government, shall we expect an update?
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 7:35 pm
joe,
Yes. The update will read: “Big corporation lobbies for regulation. Enforcement now appears to be based on industry self-reporting rather than outside verification. Regulation suspected to be toothless. In other news, sun rose in East this morning.”
The handful of remaining libertarian commenters will jump on me for being anti-corporation, and you can jump on me for being critical of the current administration’s regulatory efforts.
On corruption, yes, I’ve cooled down a bit. I realize that it can be made less bad or more bad depending on how things are done, but the nature of the beast is that when companies lobby for new regulations the result is usually something that is easy for them to circumvent, and may or may not be easy for their competitors to circumvent.
Liberals should take pause at stories like this, but the most naive versions of libertarianism (generally the ones premised on the enlightened self-interest in a competitive market) also face significant problems in the face of these events.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 31, 2009 @ 7:55 pm
You have no idea whether this is true or not. You don’t know the first thing about the standards used to grant “firewall third party inspector” status, or how it operates, do you?
You just wrote a post based on the assumption that OF COURSE everything in this program is going to operate as your political ideology would predict it would. And then that turned out not to be so.
So now, instead of questioning whether it’s possible that you’ve jumped the gun, you make up another story whose central plank assumes that OF COURSE everything is going to operate as your political ideology would predict.
Really, you’ve got to be completely naive to think that
any other company would be treated similarlythe in-house inspection program is anything but a sham.This really has nothing to do with the current administration. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is pretty independent. It’s more like, for example, the National Science Foundation or the Coast Guard. They chug along in their labs and offices, painting yellow lines down the middle of the road.
People of all political persuasions should take care to make sure that they have the facts before selecting some case as a poster child.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:07 pm
Actually, to step back a bit, I don’t know that this is really about corruption on the individual level, with cash going into individual pockets. It’s more about big players knowing how to push for things and get them, working the system without necessarily corrupting individuals. It can produce the same general outcomes as corruption without the individual consequences.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:09 pm
I love that the libertarian is the one who’s suspicious when he sees regulations based on in-house analysis rather than external analysis, and the liberal is yelling at the libertarian.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:11 pm
Mojo,
Indeed. One good place to start would be to look at why the much smaller, more laissez-faire government of the 19th century was so much more in the pocket of corporate interests than the the modern welfare state of the modern era. Did you ever read about the Penn Coal decision?
The explanation of how the growth of public-interest regulation leads to greater capture of the government by wealthy corporate interest tends to founder on the problem that it, you know, doesn’t. Looking back over the course of the past 180-odd years, precisely the opposite has happened. Government was captured by wealthy corporate interests when it was at its smallest, and it was expansions of government intended to fight those interests that led to them being at least checked.
If you want to fight corporate influence on the government, you need to fight corporate influence on the government. They’re a force pushing in a direction, and checking them requires a force pushing in the opposite direction.
Special interests will have precisely as much interest in capturing a small government as a large one. Absent someone pushing explicitly in the opposite direction, they will simply grow the small government into one big enough to do what they want. This is precisely the story of the railroads.
Comment by b-psycho —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
@Curmudgeon: there’s a government somewhere that DOESN’T channel public wealth to insiders pockets? Where?
I strongly suspect that if the ability of people with political power to use it for the advantage of them & their friends were, somehow, to be wiped out, then all governments would collapse from lack of people wanting to run one.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:16 pm
The libertarian answer to my argument is, of course, “If only the right people were in charge, they wouldn’t let wealthy corporate interests capture and mold their small government.”
The political class of the 19th century weren’t REAL LIBERTARIANS, you see.
We just need to have libertarians – and REAL LIBERTARIANS at that – in charge.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:18 pm
Thoreau,
I wouldn’t put too much effort into teasing out the precise meaning of “corruption.” Both of the dynamics you described can fit under that heading, and the outcome is likely to be the same.
Feeling suspicious in your gut is all well and good. But given the past eight years, I’ve come to disfavor the gut-check as a guide to understanding issues of political import.
I share that reflex about in-house self-regulation. It requires a commitment to, literally, watching the watchers. That requires people with the proper attitude towards the responsibilities of government.
Which is an argument I can make without the slightest concern about inconsistency, because I’ve never argued for a second that it’s unimportant to have THE RIGHT PEOPLE in charge. Of course it’s important. Just ask Mike Brown.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
Below is a comprehensive list of all of the episodes during my career in government during which I attempted to provide any advantage to myself and my friends:
fin
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:27 pm
Actually, for 8 years the government behaved almost exactly as libertarian theory would predict. The question we need to ask now is whether that was a coincidence or a validation of the theory. The next 4 years will be crucial, as Thomas Friedman might say.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:30 pm
Ah, but it behaved almost exactly as liberal theory would predict as well.
But regardless of that, my point was about the usefulness of the gut check. We had government (or at least foreign policy) by gut check, and it didn’t work out too well.
Comment by b-psycho —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:32 pm
Of course not, that’s why you don’t wield any of the actual power. You’re there for grunt reasons like benefits, schedule, job security an’ whatnot. The type of people I refer to, if they bothered to acknowledge your existence, would call your apparent non-interest in corruption a lack of ambition.
I hope you aren’t trying to segue into an argument that political power doesn’t inherently attract self-serving dicks simply because as far as I can tell you aren’t one…
Comment by b-psycho —
August 31, 2009 @ 8:33 pm
That was referring to comment 32, btw.
Comment by Seward —
August 31, 2009 @ 9:32 pm
joe from Lowell,
The libertarian answer to my argument is, of course, “If only the right people were in charge, they wouldn’t let wealthy corporate interests capture and mold their small government.”
Maybe “a” libertarian response is that. It certainly isn’t “the” libertarian response. Another libertarian response (and mine) is that there is no such thing as the right people in charge because any government of significant size is going to have so many factions, so many individuals interested in influencing the government, etc. that even a group of fair minded people will simply be swimming upstream.
This is part of the reason why we need more governments and more competition between them.
Ah, but it behaved almost exactly as liberal theory would predict as well.
Liberal theory assumes (amongst other things) that an independent class of civil servants will significantly check any screw ups by elected leaders. Turns out that isn’t the case actually.
Comment by Seward —
August 31, 2009 @ 9:45 pm
And since we’re talking about the CPSC, we should all bemoan their moronic bicycle safety regulations in the 1970s.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
August 31, 2009 @ 10:00 pm
Seward,
That isn’t actually a response to my point about government-capture being being even greater during the period of small government and no regulatory state, but ok.
Only if there actually is an independent class of civil servants. Which is why the Bush administration went to war against them.
Comment by Seward —
August 31, 2009 @ 10:17 pm
joe from Lowell,
That isn’t actually a response to my point about government-capture being being even greater during the period of small government and no regulatory state, but ok.
When did this occur actually? During the Bush administration? We’re all aware that the regulatory state grew in size and scope during the Bush administration. It hasn’t seen shrinkage since the Truman administration.
And it is a response to it actually. Having the right people in charge is something of a chimera.
Only if there actually is an independent class of civil servants. Which is why the Bush administration went to war against them.
As all administrations do. That’s the lesson of “Yes, Minister” actually.
One of the most common complaints about the Bush administration concerned outsourcing; which followed a pattern we’ve been since the Reagan administration at least and which the Clinton administration did not deviate from as far as I know. Of course the reason why we are seeing this expansion is as much associated with budgets as it is ideology; as government grows ever larger it is just cheaper to hire a contractor to do the work.
As a sort of allied point I think we give federal agencies way too much leeway to get around reporting requirements for what they spend, etc. This can be laid in large part at the feet of the “streamlining” associated with the Clinton administration’s Reinventing Government program. It is one of the reasons why we never hear about $500 hammers anymore.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 10:30 pm
Outsourcing is complicated. Some of it is simply about replacing defined-benefit retirement plans with defined-contribution retirement plans. Some of it is of course pork for the middlemen. And some of it is probably about avoiding oversight: Imagine if you get to pick and choose your disclosure rules, and depending on the situation either say “Sorry, secret government business, national security, classified, etc.” or “Sorry, private company, not subject to Freedom of Information Act [or whatever].”
Comment by Seward —
August 31, 2009 @ 10:41 pm
Thoreau,
Excellent point. I agree. I over simplified the issue.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
August 31, 2009 @ 11:15 pm
Independent civil servants are not there to check screwups by elected leaders. They are there to properly implement the policy decided upon by elected leaders. So you can have a good or bad policy, and a good or bad implementation of the policy.
Professionalizing civil service functions is supposed to ensure competent implementation of variously smart and stupid plans, by protecting non-political government functions from being used as a source of patronage/slush fund by elected politicians.
This can work, but not always. The civil service can work apolitically and well if they either have discretion or money, but not both.
For example, NOAA (which runs the weather service) works well, even though it’s basically left to do its own thing, because the sums of money involved are so small they cannot overwhelm the professional ethos of the service.
The Social Security Administration also works well, even though it handles a gigantic river of money, because its bureaucrats have no discretion to decide where the money goes: it’s all determined by formula, and their job is basically just to cut checks.
OTOH, the DoD works predictably terribly, because it has a high degree of discretion, and a gigantic pile of money. So defense money gets funneled to strategic Congressional districts as the DoD uses its budget to lobby Congress.
Also, “money” isn’t just the size of the agency budget; it’s also the money the parties affected have. So the FCC and Patent Office (high-discretion) do terrible jobs, even though their budgets are small, because their rulings affect people with vast amounts of money, and who are willing to use some of it to lobby the government.
It’s medium-sized government agencies where the margin is. For example, the NIH does a really good job, even though it has a lot of discretion over a medium-sized pile of money. Conversely, NASA does an absolutely terrible jobs, with their medium-sized piles of money.
That’s where goo-goos can make a difference. They will never be able to reform the DoD short of abolishing it, but they might be able to reform the FBI.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2009 @ 11:34 pm
Or consider the Agriculture Department, which is on track to be bought by Brawndo in 2300 and start recommending that we use spot drinks to irrigate fields. Cuz they got electrolytes and shit.
Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
Comment by radish —
August 31, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
[rolls eyes some more] So do you have some personal knowledge which leads you to believe that Mattel’s “firewall” is adequate even though the testers “work feet away from [Mattel's] production lines”, or are you suggesting that this large corporation should simply get the benefit of the doubt?
Or are you perhaps suggesting that we should trust both the sincerity and the accuracy of the CPSC’s assessment of the “firewall”, even though we have no independent visibility into either Mattel, or CPSC, or the communications between them?
Libertarians: “Privately held power is trustworthy because the power of the market provides reliable oversight.”
Liberals: “Government power is trustworthy because the power of democracy provides reliable oversight.”
This is why I don’t trust anybody who tells me who to trust.
Not a dynamic that’s limited to democracies, either. I thought the lesson of Yes, Minister was that the civil servants fight back, though.
Comment by Joshua Holmes —
September 1, 2009 @ 1:10 am
One good place to start would be to look at why the much smaller, more laissez-faire government of the 19th century was so much more in the pocket of corporate interests than the the modern welfare state of the modern era.
Right, that’s why there was a massive military-industry complex in 1845 and practically none today. Giant agribusinesses withered and died under progressive agriculture policy, and the family farm was saved. Small local telephone companies prospered under the welfare state, which broke the power of Ma Bell. There was definitely no war profiteering, no sir.
you = dope
Comment by Curmudgeon —
September 1, 2009 @ 2:02 am
#29:
Canada and most of Western Europe do a pretty good job of governing for purposes other than enriching the pockets. These governments are far from perfect but insider self dealing is the exception rather than the rule. In contrast, in the American case since Reagan, self dealing is the rule rather than the exception.
#32:
Petty corruption by individuals isn’t the point. The real problem is grand mal corruption where wealthy private interests can walk up to government and buy legislation and regulations that allow wealthy interests to extract economic rents from others. An honest bureaucracy doesn’t mean much if the regulatory deck is already stacked in favor of private interests.
Comment by Kevin Carson —
September 1, 2009 @ 3:32 am
Speak the Devil’s name….
Besides being a cost the big guys can bear more easily, it also gives an artificial competitive advantage to a particular business model at the expense of another.
By mandating a test for each separate product line, it imposes a minimum level of overhead cost for each product line, and increases the output level required to spread that overhead cost over as many units as possible. It essentially mandates large-batch production, and criminalizes small batch low-overhead production, by imposing overhead costs that can only be serviced by mass production.
Microenterprises in the informal sector, which have low overhead costs because they rely on “spare cycles” of ordinary household capital goods, are like rats in the corporate dinosaurs’ nests. Such legislation forces the rats to wear a 20-pound ball and chain.
Nevertheless, the capabilities of small-scale production machinery are rising so rapidly, and the costs imploding so rapidly (a Fab Lab with CNC multimachine, RepRap and CNC cutting table, which can be built open-source for a little over $2000, can produce just about anything a mass production factory can), that the dinosaurs are doomed. Production is feasible on so small a scale, for such a low price, that it can be dispersed below the radar of the regulatory state. When a hundred thousand microfactories are operating at the neighborhood level, and building modular accessories and replacement parts for proprietary corporate designs without regard to their “intellectual property,” the IP, “safety,” zoning, etc., laws will be impossible to enforce.
Comment by dhex —
September 1, 2009 @ 9:15 am
i like the cut of your jib mr. carson, but that last bit presumes an audience that has to and also knows how to repair/replace/service the things they buy, no? or am i misreading? more like a chinatown coach bag factory but producing toasters/dvd players or what have you instead?
for what it’s worth, i didn’t read the original as an example of out-and-out corruption so much as a side effect of (presumably) good intentions and “doing something for the children” mixed with regulatory capture. that there would never be a way for niche toy makers to follow through on such regulatory schemes wasn’t on the mind of the regulators at the start because they’re niches and off the radar to begin with.
Comment by Barry —
September 1, 2009 @ 9:46 am
Another:
“One good place to start would be to look at why the much smaller, more laissez-faire government of the 19th century was so much more in the pocket of corporate interests than the the modern welfare state of the modern era.”
Comment by Joshua Holmes —
“Right, that’s why there was a massive military-industry complex in 1845 and practically none today. Giant agribusinesses withered and died under progressive agriculture policy, and the family farm was saved. Small local telephone companies prospered under the welfare state, which broke the power of Ma Bell. There was definitely no war profiteering, no sir.”
The point, which you managed to miss, was that ’small government’ was still a serious target of monied interests. The nature, of course, was different. In the pre-Civil War era (IMHO), land grants would have been huge. This, of course, consisted of taking land with the military, and giving it preferentially to those with greater lobbying/bribing power.
Comment by Barry —
September 1, 2009 @ 9:48 am
Adding on – in addtion, the monied interests had no objection to increasing the size and scope of government powers whenever it suited them.
Comment by Seward —
September 1, 2009 @ 9:48 am
Neel,
Independent civil servants are not there to check screwups by elected leaders.
Much of the theory behind the notion of an independent civil service says that they are.
radish,
I thought the lesson of Yes, Minister was that the civil servants fight back, though.
Yeah, but both elements are idiotic, so they cancel each other out.
Joshua Holmes,
In the 19th century the role of the federal government is favoring one industry over another, or one company over another, was done largely at the state level. I’ve never been that convinced that the U.S. was all that laissez-faire in the 19th century. It did lack a welfare state, but it had plenty of the wealthfare state we see today.
Comment by Seward —
September 1, 2009 @ 9:59 am
Barry,
Most of the land grants, etc. happened after the Civil War commenced because the states which formed the Confederacy had generally blocked legislation like that. Not because of ideology of course; well, not anything to do with free markets at least. They wanted to keep at a minimum the number of homesteads run by free farmers so as to reduce their role in the agricultural sector. On balance they ended up being not very good pieces of legislation.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
September 1, 2009 @ 10:34 am
This is breathtakingly naive. Every large giveaway that the United States has passed has been reflected in Europe. Bailing out banks, auto companies… the Microsoft antitrust cases were really there to further the interests of European corporations.
So…yeah, you’re just wrong.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
September 1, 2009 @ 11:26 am
When a hundred thousand microfactories are operating at the neighborhood level, and building modular accessories and replacement parts for proprietary corporate designs without regard to their “intellectual property,” the IP, “safety,” zoning, etc., laws will be impossible to enforce.
I, for one, can’t wait for that golden future when microenterprises can crank out common household products under the radar, without all this silly worrying about “safety” (love those scare quotes!).
Lead-based paint in the toys? Exploding toasters? Hey, caveat emptor, dude!
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
September 1, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
Just out of curiosity, is there any rational method of initially divvying up acquired land that would NOT lead to the wealthiest getting the lion’s share?
The important part is to have policies (or, more accurately, a policy of laissez-faire) that facilitates greater wealth mobility and de facto breaks up the “monied interests” instead of enshrining them as virtual nobility, which is what government intervention in the market does.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
September 1, 2009 @ 12:30 pm
The Homestead Act would seem to qualify: it’s pretty explicitly based on Lockean theories of land tenure. Of course, given that the land in question was acquired via military conquest with a side order of state-sponsored genocide, this seems like the low-order bit, morally speaking.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 1, 2009 @ 12:37 pm
Trust? Ehn. It’s just a lot easier to avoid a bad company than it is to avoid your bad government.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
September 1, 2009 @ 12:56 pm
Neel – even the Homestead Act was used by “monied interests” to acquire a lot of land. Frequently, individuals would file for their acreage as a front for large cattle farming corporations.
although I take your point in saying it was probably the best way to get that land out there, all I am saying is that monied folks are going to do what monied folks do, which is the argument for not giving them that opportunity. Liberals want to do this via punitive measures and measures like BCRA, even though it has been thoroughly demonstrated that this punishes less monied folks, while the monied interests (a la Mattel) find ways around these things.
Comment by Seward —
September 1, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
Neel,
The Homestead Act was “abused” quite often; of course, that was in part due to the fact that the parcel size it awarded was far too small for the sort of agricultural pursuits one could do in most of the West. This was long before anyone understood the ecology of the place; like a lot of western development programs it was quite harmful to the environment.
TAO,
What the government could have done was to measure out blocks of land and sell them first come, first serve, letting the price float as in the regular marketplace. It would have significantly lowered transaction costs for one thing.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
September 1, 2009 @ 2:02 pm
TAO, Seward: you’re right.
Comment by Seward —
September 1, 2009 @ 2:25 pm
Neel,
One of the things that led me to libetarianism was government western land management (even if we can call it that). Particularly books like “Cadillac Desert” and “Playing God in Yellowstone.” I don’t think either was/is a libertarian (Marc Reisner, the author of the first book, died about ten years ago).
Comment by Kevin Carson —
September 1, 2009 @ 2:36 pm
dhex:
My jib thanks you.
I don’t think division of labor will be nullified to the point that the average person will learn to make his own CAD (computer assisted design) files and custom-machine them as an alternative to buying stuff–I know I sure as hell can’t. I do think he’ll be able to buy replacement parts and modular accessories (and eventually entire open-source appliances) produced in small shops a lot closer to where he lives, a lot cheaper than the mass-production alternative, and with product design a lot more responsive to the needs of end-user communities. I think most of our industrial production will be relocalized not only to the small machine shop, but to networks of what are currently dismissed as backyard/garage “hobbyist” shops.
Comment by JasonL —
September 1, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
The deep dark secret of western democracies is the degree to which the interests of “the little guy” align with what folks like to call special interests. It is true that ADM gets a handout, but they get a handout because they are popularly enabled by a whole slew of normal farmer types who see doom in cheap corn. General Motors gets bailed out because there’s a labor union interest. Lockheed Martin gets a contract because it brings jrbs to some congressional district or other. People want politicians to bring home the bacon, and since most people are not self employed, the baconic delivery mechanism is the corporation.
Comment by dhex —
September 1, 2009 @ 4:29 pm
http://www.kansascity.com/444/story/1395184.html
notice the goodwill reaction.
Comment by Joshua Holmes —
September 1, 2009 @ 5:47 pm
I don’t think the 19th century was a paragon of libertarianism or transparency, either. I’m attacking the idea that the welfare state drastically reduced corporate influence on the government, an idea so stupid as to defy comprehension.
Comment by radish —
September 1, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
Of course it is! For you and me, anyway.
And fortunately this freedom to choose among brands without worrying (too much) about whether one of them will poison you has nothing at all to do with this country’s history of hard-fought antitrust, public safety, and labor law battles. Otherwise what you just said would be an embarrassing admission for a libertarian to have to make.
The underlying point I was trying to make was that bad and powerful companies beget bad governments, just as surely as bad and powerful dynasties, churches, social movements, schools, castes, or any other “bad and powerful” institution begets bad government. What you’re saying about your own (sheltered) existence isn’t a general truth about political economy — it’s only true of populations who take certain kinds of protections for granted, at the expense of other kinds of protections.
“Eternal vigilance,” “wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross,” “every country is occupied by somebody’s army,” etc, etc. If freedom is what you crave then I’m advising you to keep those things in mind for commercial ventures, political parties, social identities, and your local Elks Club, as well as the government. Sorry if that was unclear before.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
September 1, 2009 @ 7:27 pm
Wow, radish, that many logical fallacies in one post has to be some kinda UO record. I mean, I see post hoc ergo propter hoc, I see appeals to faith and an ad hominem or two in there.
Like I said, some kinda record.
Comment by radish —
September 1, 2009 @ 9:14 pm
Wow, TAO, naming three logical fallacies without any further explanation has to be one of the wittiest smackdowns in UO history. I’m suitably humbled.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 1, 2009 @ 9:57 pm
Me:
Radish:
Oh? Who outside my “sheltered existence” finds it easier to avoid a bad government than a bad company? And what “un-sheltered” existence have you lead that you know to differ from mine? I mean, it’s one thing to go ad hominem, but I’m not aware that you even know me.
Radish:
If I’d actually said anything about brands and poisoning, we could talk. You might reread what I said, which was rather more clearly put than much of your response.
Well, I suppose if you vague things up enough, everyone outside of Somalia counts as “sheltered” under this logic.
Before? You were far more clear at the whole “the best you can do” business, if still unconvincing.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
September 1, 2009 @ 10:12 pm
geez, Eric, if you weren’t so sheltered, maybe you would pick up on the fact that radish is right.
Just because.
Comment by radish —
September 2, 2009 @ 1:35 am
Forfuckssake Eric, you said that it’s a lot easier to avoid a bad company than it is to avoid your bad government.
“Avoiding a bad company” = “switching brands.”
As for the poisoning part, in order to avoid a bad company a) you have to have another option, and b) you have to know it’s a bad company. Only sometimes you don’t know that until after the company has already posioned you.
You take it for granted that companies are not going to poison you, and you take it for granted that you have a choice. Neither of those things are universally true. That’s why people wind up making “regulations.” Regulations — for both better and worse — represent the institutionalization of efficiencies previously identified via (far more expensive) methods of natural selection. They don’t even require a monopoly on force.
BTW people who might find it easier to avoid a bad government than a bad company include those who live in areas controlled by criminal organizations, who work in sweatshops and mines, who live in certain kinds of war zones or certain very rural or very small towns. Basically anyone who lives where the distinction between government and private interests is not particularly clear, or where local de facto governance supersedes de jure governance.
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
September 2, 2009 @ 8:19 am
and radish invokes the “go live in Somalia and see how you like it” method of arguing.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 2, 2009 @ 1:01 pm
I did say that – we’re firmly agree here.
It can include that, certainly. However, I’ll note this very specific reduction of my general statement to a handy particular case seems peculiar in the light of this remark:
Yes, and…?
I missed where I said “in absolutely every case, universally” or threw out a mathematical formula. This is a funny thing about general statements in colloquial English – they’re not usually expected to be absolutes without terms like “always” and such.
As indicated above, I find it interesting that you recast the same general statement of mine to a very particular meaning and expand its scope from a general point to a universal absolute meant to apply to everywhere, including war zones, in the same argument.
(Incidentally, I’ll buy your point about war zones, assuming, I guess, that the company is a mercenary organization. Pointedly, though, regulations don’t seem to help people much in war zones, due to an inherent lack of civilian authority.)
Really, Radish, you’re verging on inventing a rather odd argument for me out of the whole cloth. I’m happy to discuss things with you and answer any questions you might have, but it seems unfair to ask me to answer for the libertarian-in-your-head on this topic.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 2, 2009 @ 3:41 pm
The 1800s. As I wrote: One good place to start would be to look at why the much smaller, more laissez-faire government of the 19th century was so much more in the pocket of corporate interests than the the modern welfare state of the modern era. Did you ever read about the Penn Coal decision?
The explanation of how the growth of public-interest regulation leads to greater capture of the government by wealthy corporate interest tends to founder on the problem that it, you know, doesn’t. Looking back over the course of the past 180-odd years, precisely the opposite has happened. Government was captured by wealthy corporate interests when it was at its smallest, and it was expansions of government intended to fight those interests that led to them being at least checked.
But why ignore differences in degree, when they are so dramatic? Think about Bush’s dismissal of what his entire EPA bureaucracy was saying, or the use of questions like “Why do you want to serve George Bush?” and questions designed to screen for ideology and partisanship in the hiring for civil service positions in the Gonzales Justice Department.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 2, 2009 @ 3:45 pm
radish,
Neither. I am taking the properly skeptical position, which is to withhold judgment until we have sufficient facts to draw upon.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 2, 2009 @ 3:45 pm
Joshua Holmes,
I’m sorry you can’t follow my argument, but I’m not interested in clarifying it for you. Why don’t you just lurk, and see what your more intelligent brethren have to say about my argument.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 2, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
Wow, just read Joshua Holmes’ more intelligent brethren.
Ouch. Well done.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 2, 2009 @ 3:52 pm
Yes, and…?
And, as radish argued in his very first comment on the subject, you are on much stronger ground in taking those things for granted now, with a modern regulatory state in existence, than you were in the era of patent medicines and Sinclair Lewis.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 2, 2009 @ 6:12 pm
Taken more broadly, joe, I’m on much stronger ground against harms done to me by negligent or outright murderously careless companies for a lot of reasons. I would definitely grant that some portion of regulatory activity at levels from local to levels has helped in that regard. (Whether all such are worth the costs and/or would be simply better as privately-handled matters like UL certification is another matter entirely.)
However, that’s still tangential to what I said.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 2, 2009 @ 6:16 pm
My question, “Yeah, and…?” stands to Radish.
Comment by radish —
September 2, 2009 @ 11:52 pm
And what joe said.
Then you shouldn’t have any trouble listing a few strictly contractual, not-at-all-regulatory reasons that you’re on stronger ground than an Eric of, say, 1825.
Well considering that my original argument amounted to: “libertarianism is attractive to economic agents in heavily regulated economies, but unattractive to economic agents where regulations are lax, inconsistent, or nonexistent,” it didn’t actually seem like an unreasonable thing to do.
I’m not disputing that you can “avoid a bad company” by doing without whatever it is they offer, instead of by getting it from someone else. But the only sense in which “switch brands” is more specific than “avoid a bad company” is that it assumes a desire to continue buying the product or service provided from a different provider. And that’s a pretty widespread desire among humans. The “straw” part of the “libertarian-in-my-head” is that she’s unwilling to surrender industrial-economy levels of toothpaste and electricity in exchange for greater economic freedom. Maybe you aren’t like that, but a lot of libertarians are.
What I am disputing is that “unregulated” markets are compatible with the kind of large high-efficiency economies that the libertarian-in-my-head believes to be the norm. I dispute this for three main reasons:
1. The prediction in control theory that stable/repetitive inputs to an evolving system will be “linearized” internally, even if the inputs are actually non-linear from the perspective of an observer outside the system.
2. The observation that unregulated markets quickly acquire regulatory characteristics in one form or another (whether guilds, or cartels, or monopsonies, or monopolies, or norms, or whatever), even in the absence of a pre-existing monopoly on force. (as predicted by control theory)
3. The observation that in practice regulatory mechanisms which “succeed” (in the sense that they linearize non-linear inputs in a way which increases aggregate market efficiency under local conditions) are effectively irreversible once invoked.
Regardless of how they originate, regulations alter the structure of the market which invokes them, creating what economists call path dependency. So the side effect of (3) is that regulation is common (i.e. is a strong attractor) and actual “deregulation” is vanishingly rare (as predicted by public choice theory, I believe). People who try to “deregulate” markets tend to wind up with a different — often less efficient — set of regulations.
Er, yes, that was sorta the point. There are circumstances where agents gain additional degrees of economic freedom when they are more heavily regulated. Weird, huh?
Comment by radish —
September 2, 2009 @ 11:58 pm
Interesting. So the properly skeptical position in this particular instance is to take no particular action? ISTM that’s not wildly different from Eric’s position.
Let’s suppose — just hypothetically of course — that we lived in a parallel universe where Mattel had an established history of manufacturing poisonous toys, and that CPSC had a history of failing to enforce its policies. In that other world — which I admit bears almost no resemblance to this one — would the properly skeptical position also be to withhold judgment?
Comment by Seward —
September 3, 2009 @ 1:25 am
joe,
One good place to start would be to look at why the much smaller, more laissez-faire government of the 19th century was so much more in the pocket of corporate interests than the the modern welfare state of the modern era. Did you ever read about the Penn Coal decision?
Like I wrote; the U.S. didn’t have much in the way of smaller government in the 19th century except at the federal level. Which is why anti-trust laws which favored certain producers over other producers (and thus shafted consumers, as anti-trust law still does) started at the state level in the 1880s. The minute micromanagement of and favoritism afforded to certain railroads by the states is also illustrative of this. The notion that the 19th century was some sort of libertarian utopia is quite frankly a myth that some libertarians like to believe in.
BTW, if the state were really laissez-faire, it wouldn’t be in the pocket of anyone.
As for your factual claim, well, you’d have to actually demonstrate that corporate interests are less served today by the federal government than they were by the state governments in the 19th century; because that is all that has really has changed – the locus of which branch of government is too be influenced, captured, etc.
But why ignore differences in degree, when they are so dramatic?
You really have no idea what the Obama administration is going to do with regard to this during its four years in office.
Anyway, as far as I know the Obama administration has not addressed the primary gripe of the civil service; all those formerly civil service jobs now being filled by private contractors.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 3, 2009 @ 12:14 pm
Interesting choice of year.
Why contractual? Underwriters Laboratories wasn’t founded until 1894. Most similar organizations came into being after 1825. Despite its military and university roots, the modern Internet is largely the product of private enterprise and the domain of private individuals and groups; this sort of broad, fast communication can provide that warning about “poison”. (Really, you can broaden that out to the entirety of modern media and communications.)
No, these are not the only interactions one can have with a company acting badly. Ask union workers who met those fellows from the Pinkertons, after all.
Hmm. First you were hungry for someone to admit that regulation may have protected someone from the industrial robber-barons, and now you’re arguing that industrialization couldn’t have happened without later regulation? That’s an interesting lady you’re talking to.
Oh, so you’re trying to convince this lady to buy into anarcho-capitalist precepts? Interesting, and let me know how that goes. Mind you, most other folks, even non-anarchist libertarians, think you mean something other than norms, private inspection organizations, reputation capital, torts, etc. when you say “regulation”.
On another note:
Don’t associate our views there; I don’t think joe is being “skeptical” so much as “completely open on the question”. Considering the nature of human malfeasance, treating good behavior as if it were as likely as bad behavior in that situation seems a dubious stance.
Comment by radish —
September 4, 2009 @ 1:01 am
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why, what’s so special about that period?
Oh absolutely. Assuming some sort of common carrier laws of course… If an unregulated Google, Yahoo, MSFT, Sprint, and ATT decided that a free flow of information about consumer product safety was not in their best interest, how exactly would normal market forces prevent them from taking action to discourage that flow? Just those four companies could, if they wanted, reduce the half-life of “poison toothpaste alerts” to a matter of hours.
Well duh. Which side of this argument are you on exactly? Pinkertons vs strikers is the classic American example of a nominally private monopoly on force, and I’m arguing that the failure to take privately instigated coercion into account is the central failure of modern libertarianism.
“Switch brands” and “do without” are the only non-coercive interactions one can have with a company acting badly, and I’m the one arguing that companies can be coercive in all the same ways that states can be coercive. So that supports my position, not yours.
Nonono. I’m arguing that industrialization couldn’t have happened without earlier (or at least simultaneous) regulation of financial transactions. The technology would have been possible, but the heavy hand of the state is what made it possible for capital intensive industries to be privately owned (rather than state-owned) in the first place.
That’s where I think they’re mistaken. The difference between norms, tort, private inspection, and regulations is the enforcement mechanisms, not the impact they have on the flow of information in the market. “Reputation” is a different creature altogether, but I didn’t say anything about reputation.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 4, 2009 @ 1:37 pm
You tell me.
Nothing less than what prevents them or the government from discouraging that flow now. The funny thing about flow is that discouraging it is a woefully incomplete solution; ask the Chinese government how poorly it clamps down on news online, Google’s help or no.
Interesting; you appear to assume that libertarianism requires pacifism or supports monopolies on force. I’m not sure why you would think that.
How did pitching anarcho-capitalism to that lady go?
Nor torts, but when you’re throwing those and norms in, reputation seems an unavoidably appropriate inclusion.
Comment by radish —
September 4, 2009 @ 11:49 pm
Er, no, not even close, and I’m not sure why you would think that I think that. What I assume is that the reason libertarians are indifferent to the problem of de facto monopolies on force is that they’ve generally only been exposed to de jure monopolies on force.
As Ran Prieur says, it’s easier to convert your mother to anarcho-syndicalism than it is to convert an anarcho-capitalist. I think I’ll leave it at that.
Comment by Micha Ghertner —
September 6, 2009 @ 3:39 pm
Hmm…that’s an interesting claim. It may be true for the majority of contemporary anarcho-capitalists, but I think it’s changing, largely due to the efforts of people like Kevin Carson and Roderick Long. I’m just the sort of anarcho-capitalist who has been swayed by the arguments of Carson and Long to view anarcho-socialism in a more positive light.
After your name drop of Ran Prieur, I’ve started reading some of the essays on his website, and while I don’t agree with everything I’ve read so far, a lot of his stuff is pretty congenial to my current world view. So thanks for the tip.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 8, 2009 @ 10:54 am
It was the only way I can make sense of your argument.
So, the lady from earlier was your mother?