<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><html>On Apr 15, 2008, at 7:26 AM, Kevin Freels wrote:</html><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"> <div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> <br> <br> Olga Bourlin wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:038d01c89d94$cc984130$6601a8c0@patrick4ezsk6z" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">From: "Rafal Smigrodzki" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:rafal.smigrodzki@gmail.com"><rafal.smigrodzki@gmail.com></a>
To: "ExI chat list" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"><extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org></a>
</pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 7:16 PM, Olga Bourlin <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:fauxever@sprynet.com"><fauxever@sprynet.com></a>
wrote:
(in answer to a previous post of Lee Corbin's) Your remark about
"institutions dead nearly 150 years ago" does not take into account de
jure segregation that existed in parts of the USA into the 1960s, and
many instances of de facto segregation since then. Those institutions
are interrelated - and not all dead.
</pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""><!---->
</pre> </blockquote> <br> Of course the question we are really trying to answer is whether a totally free market will always be superior to a market that is managed and manipulated by government. If we were just talking about the past, then it would be obvious that government regulation is necessary. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>Not really.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">Without labor laws, people were working for pennies - or even as slaves. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>False. Without physical compulsion people will not agree to sell their labor on such terms. Slavery requires physical compulsion by definition. </div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">Without the FDA, companies were free to market any kind of snake oil they could. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>They can't without utterly ruining their reputation and losing their market share. Big money is not made by fly-by-night criminal operators who defraud and harm people. </div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">The free market didn't build the interstate highway system we all enjoy and I doubt it would have been built without government intervention. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Supposition. Many of our roads and bridges were built privately. </div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">And without compulsory education there is no telling where we would be at the moment but I am sure evolution would be taught even less. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Before compulsory education and the public school system as we know it in the US America was often remarked on as a tremendously literate society. Now we have a literacy rate below 80%. So I am not impressed by this argument. </div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">Most of the large bloated bureaucracies were created in response to the shortcomings of the free market. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>No. They were created with supposed shortcomings as an excuse. Often the "shortcomings" were actually the result of previous government meddling including creating government sanctioned monopolies. The victors (government largely) write the history. </div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"><br> <br> But we're not talking about the past. We're talking about the future. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>We are talking about both. </div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">In the past, if someone was using a cheap process to create a toy which left lead in the paint that could harm children, there was no way to quickly prove it and notify people. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes we can monitor better but not necessarily prove increasingly complex points more cheaply or quickly.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">If an employer wanted to pay pennies the people couldn't hop on the internet and find a job in another city that paid twice as much because they wanted better people. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Before the internet word did get out of employers and areas offering better opportunities. Freedom to choose, principally property rights to ones own person and labor, allowed and will allow taking advantage of better opportunities.</div><div><br></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">The free flow of information offsets most - if not all - of the benefits of the bureaucratic systems that are in place. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The free flow of information was produced mostly by private citizens and companies with a vision of what could be. It was largely the work of very dedicated hackers and visionaries with the freedom to act and to profit. It largely happened because it moved fast enough to not get regulated to death in infancy. All the bureaucracy in the world would not have achieved it. </div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">A free market can only work when there is a free and rapid flow of information. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>A free market can only work in an environment of freedom. How rapid the information flows is a function of technological means and is not determinative of whether free markets work, at least better than relatively non-free ones, or not.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">Consumer Reports is a service I subscribe to and it is much more effective than the consumer product safety commission could ever hope to be and I'm sure you can figure out all the reasons why. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>Yes. A free association of people. </div><div><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"><br></div></blockquote><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">My point is that it's probably a waste of time debating the free market of the past as there are significant differences today. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>Those who do not understand the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">What we should be focusing on is how we can utilize these technologies today to create a more efficient system than exists now. </div> </blockquote><br></div><div>Efficiency per se is a non-goal. We could build an extremely efficient and utterly oppressive police state. We seem to be headed in that direction.</div><div><br></div><div>- samantha</div><div><br></div><br></body></html>