From what I've learned, I know that the government has always used the apparent excesses of Big business to regulate said businesses for the benefit of "protecting" consumers.
One thing that's gotten my attention though, is when Big Business asks for the regulation itself. Are we to expect that goverment is just going to ignore businesses' requests for regulation? If a truly laissez-faire economy is too be acheived then how can it be posssible if business itself is actively going and assisting government in it's big government regulation and fiasco?
I hope I'm making sense.
Basically it always boils down to education. Enough people have to understand enough of the reality of how the world really works, and be motivated (or at least intolerant) enough to stand up to ridiculousness. When they do, things change.
What this means to say is, there need to be enough people who don't believe the government should have that much power in the first place. If the power the government wields is much less, there is less and less incentive for political entrepreneurs to lobby for goodies. The cost of doing so becomes too great (because of course, the only reason such unproductive behavior as lawyering and lobbying yields profit is because of the government booty that usually gets awarded because of it.) The less there is to "auction off" so-to-speak, the less profitable it is to spend time schmoozing politicians.
A few references on your topic:
Monopoly
Do Government Regulations Actually Help Big Business? - Tim Carney
Will Stanton:From what I've learned, I know that the government has always used the apparent excesses of Big business to regulate said businesses for the benefit of "protecting" consumers. One thing that's gotten my attention though, is when Big Business asks for the regulation itself. Are we to expect that goverment is just going to ignore businesses' requests for regulation? If a truly laissez-faire economy is too be acheived then how can it be posssible if business itself is actively going and assisting government in it's big government regulation and fiasco?
Two ways. First, a constitutional separation of economy and state.
Secondly, by rejecting the idea that anyone can force laws upon you that you have not explicitly accepted.
Businesses ask for certain laws, without realizing they're harming their own long-term interests. Like the health-care firms that helped write the US obamacare law and don't realize that ultimately they're going to be replaced by government health-care entities. That's a problem for tomorrow, and they expect to lobby their way out of it or something.
In short, we need a replacement for democracy, because democracy is predicated on the socialist ethic in the sense that it can only exist in a society which assumes that majority rule is legitimate, when in fact it is not, it is innately aggressive.
John James:Basically it always boils down to education. Enough people have to understand enough of the reality of how the world really works, and be motivated (or at least intolerant) enough to stand up to ridiculousness. When they do, things change.
Do you have any actual cases of this happening in the real world? Especially in economics this is unlikely. Hazlitt in "Econ in One Lesson" notes that economics is counterintuive and that the opponents of good economic policy have a huge communication advantage. Their pat answers seems immediately intuitive and easily explained (via simplifications). The correct answer by contrast requires thinking on at least two or three different levels and scopes, whereas the pat answer caters to simplistic one-dimensional economic thinking.
Personally I've given up on the idea that education is going to create change. Libertarians have been hoping for that for some 70+ years now and I see no evidence of a sea-change any time soon. Even an economic crash would not cause the Keynesians to question their premise. Instead they spent $5 trillion after the '08 housing crash. You can only do that so many times, even in the US.
John James:What this means to say is, there need to be enough people who don't believe the government should have that much power in the first place.
And then what, we're going to elect a politician into political power who beleives that politicians shouldn't have that much political power? and in order to actually effect this policy, he would have to garner extreme amounts of political power, meaning filibuster proof majorities in the house and senate, and a willing Supreme Court. Yeah, that's never going to happen. and the number of contradictions in someone who doesn't beleive in government power having to gather power in order to destroy that power, I'm not sure it's humanly possible to live out one's values by essentially betraying them.
John James:If the power the government wields is much less, there is less and less incentive for political entrepreneurs to lobby for goodies.
This is true, but as long as the ability to force laws on others exists, lobbying cannot be gotten rid of.
what will people who make their living being anti-government do when there is no government ?
"what will people who make their living being anti-government do when there is no government ?"
protect people from the possibility of government of course, by continuing to be anti-government. :P
Schools are labour camps.
cab21: what will people who make their living being anti-government do when there is no government ?
They are freed up to work in far more productive ventures. Society as a whole thereby benefits, as well as they themselves.
any yet they fail, and yet they get paid more.
so one chooses to work in a venture that fails and makes money, when they could work in a venture that succeeds and makes money. the greater they fail, the more money they make, if they succeed, the more money they make.
Gabriel Kolko wrote an excellent book on the matter Railroads and Regulations 1877-1916 . It was a book Murray Rothbard warmly recommended to anyone who wanted to comprehend the apparent non-sense of Big Business clamoring for more stringent legislation on their own business.
Robert Higgs thus commentates the events described in the book: "They could "capture" the agencies and make them serve, in effect, as cartel police, keeping maverick competitors in check and assuring higher rates of return to the cartel members." Higgs is right on the money on this: without stringent regulations it becomes more difficult for established business to make a dime. New, more dynamic and aggressive competitors can pop up any moment and even a cartel's member can renege on the existing unwritten agreements. A classic case is the sugar industry: without heavy handed government intervention (which takes the form of heavy tariffs on imports, subsidies etc) sugar producers in Europe, the US and Japan could never compete with sugar producers from Brazil, Ecuador, the Philippines, Uruguay etc for the simple reason growing and refining cane sugar in tropical climates is much more economical than growing and processing beets in Europe and Japan or extracting sugar syrup from corn in the US.
Much of what passes for the government's brainchild is actually conceived in cartel meetings or in Big Business' legal departments. In Memories of a Monopolist, Frederick Howe went a step further, writing all Big Business actually has to do is convincing the public opinion a particular measure is "for the common good", then sit back and watch the whole society work for them, and for free. DuPont did that when they wanted Freon banned: they went from a 90% to a 100% market share in the automotive industry A/C market.
We all know it's the government's nature not only to keep on growing but also to keep on justifying its own existence: that's why nobody will ever say no to Big Business. At most there will be a negotiated solution with the government taking the moral high ground (We defended the common good) and Big Business pocketing the cash.
Keep in mind, the only reason for big business to ask for regulation (which necessarily increases operating costs) that could do voluntarily for themselves (but only to their own company) is to increase operating costs to other companies (their competition) in hopes of forcing other companies out of business, making other companies less profitable, or stop new competitors from being able to enter the market.
The only one worth following is the one who leads... not the one who pulls; for it is not the direction that condemns the puller, it is the rope that he holds.
Anenome: John James:Basically it always boils down to education. Enough people have to understand enough of the reality of how the world really works, and be motivated (or at least intolerant) enough to stand up to ridiculousness. When they do, things change.Do you have any actual cases of this happening in the real world?
Yeah. I'm pretty sure slavery went from being legal and widely accepted to illegal and almost entirely shunned. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong...I wasn't in all the countries when it happened, I just kind of read about it.
Do you have any real world examples of "a constitutional separation of economy and state"? (And of course more importanly, a case of such that actually last?)
Personally I've given up on the idea that education is going to create change.
So you don't believe that people knowing and understanding more of the reality of how the world really works would change the way people think about things and therefore how they behave with regard to various things...
So how exactly does change occur?
Anenome: [It gets done by] rejecting the idea that anyone can force laws upon you that you have not explicitly accepted.
Gee. I wonder how one expects that to happen. I wonder if it includes anything about people gaining knowledge.
I see no evidence of a sea-change any time soon.
Did I say anything about a "sea-change"? (I don't even know what that is.)
And then what, we're going to elect a politician into political power who beleives that politicians shouldn't have that much political power? and in order to actually effect this policy, he would have to garner extreme amounts of political power, meaning filibuster proof majorities in the house and senate, and a willing Supreme Court. Yeah, that's never going to happen.
Right because that's what it took to end prohibition. That's what it's taking to legalize marijuana. That's what it took to end slavery in every country where it has been outlawed. Everytime government has been rolled back or nullified it's been by political leaders who garner extreme amounts of political power.
Anenome:and the number of contradictions in someone who doesn't beleive in government power having to gather power in order to destroy that power, I'm not sure it's humanly possible to live out one's values by essentially betraying them.
So you're saying Ron Paul's head would spontaneously explode from contradiction if he were to become a high-ranking government position? Or you're saying he's been "betraying his values" for almost four decades? Please explain.
Did I say that? Or do you just really like building straw men because you like the way they smell?
Basically it always boils down to education. Enough people have to understand enough of the reality of how the world really works, and be motivated (or at least intolerant) enough to stand up to ridiculousness. When they do, things change. What this means to say is, there need to be enough people who don't believe the government should have that much power in the first place.
What this means to say is, there need to be enough people who don't believe the government should have that much power in the first place.
I agree. Unfortuantely, so many exist today that refuse to acknowledge any alternative viewpoint that doesn't lead them to their baised view. Or just plain out deny anything. They don't want to hold on to the possiblity...that maybe, just maybe they've been wrong and listen to another perspective.
cab21: what will people who make their living being anti-government do when there is no government ? What do the people who make their living being pro-government do now? | Post Points: 5