[ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency

[painlord2k at libero.it]

Il 01/02/2009 21.53, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto:
> On Sun, 2009-02-01 at 20:13 +0100, painlord2k at libero.it wrote:
>
>> So, apparently not only the "civilized", "free market traders" used the
>> slavery, but also the uncivilized.

> As has already been pointed out if there is slavery then there is not a
> free market.

Slavery is only applicable to persons.
If you redefine the meaning of "person" you can enlarge or restrict the 
pool that beings that you don't consider persons.

There are people that would consider an ape a person and people that 
disagree. And one of the best (as efficient) tools of any fanatics is to 
dehumanize (make them not persons) the enemy or the different from them 
so become persimmisible to kill them or enslave them or do other bad 
things to them.

E.G. If you don't consider a cow being a person, there is nothing that 
prevent you to force it to pull a plough. And nothing prevent you from 
have a free market with the people that you consider "persons".

An AI is/will be a person?
If we consider it not, it will be permissible to force them to work for 
us. If we consider them as person like as (but a bit different), will 
not be permissible to force them to work for us.


But to put it clearly, I consider this mainly a theoretical point.
More the difference from person to not person is small or not obvious, 
more this is exploitable from people with power. And the exploiting will 
cause the free market to don't work really free as it is based, mainly, 
on a minimum of trust.

> Slavery is a serious problem and still exists in several places in the
> world.  The last slavery prosecution in the USA was during the 1950s.

Optimist.
A few recent cases are very recent and involve Arabs (in the USA) that 
import their chattel to do menial works.
They often have problem with considering bad what they do. It is a 
normal things to them.

> So I think that using slavery as a club to attack the concept of free
> markets is both intellectually indefensible and frankly sickening.

The two concepts are mainly orthogonal.
It is like arguing that war and free trade are incompatible, so if war 
is possible free trade will not be possible.
Until a state of war exist between two parties, it is not possible to 
have free trade between them (Axes and Allies didn't were able or 
willing to trade) but this don't prevent them from keeping a free market 
with other nations or inside their nations.

E.G.
The fact that many Germans were POW in England prevented Englishmen to 
keep a free market between themselves?

> And on the flip side to imply that anyone suggesting any sort of market
> regulation is one step from Stalinist labor camps is just as wrong.

Any forced regulation from a third party is interference.
They are not "one step from" Stalinist labour camps, but they are on the 
way. It could be long or short and could be traveled fast or slowly.
But the end is there if they travel all this descending road.
Usually people travel this road without understanding what they are 
doing and where they are going. This is because they say that the way to 
Hell is paved with good intentions.
But, the main problem is that any step they take hurt many others.

Mirco