"Freedom" thread or something

This was a few pages ago, but I wanted to respond to it anyway since I just got home.

I don't agree that tobacco companies harm people. They offer a product which people are free to buy or not buy. Anyone who smokes cigarettes knows the risk, and has deemed it acceptable. Clearly, they do not perceive themselves as being harmed, or they would stop buying the product.

The externalities, if we are to grant the problem with secondhand smoke, can be potentially problematic, but the last time I checked tobacco companies weren't being continually barraged with lawsuits claiming that they have harmed people with secondhand smoke. If there were a compelling case for that, they would suffer constant legal battles that would quickly turn unprofitable.

I stand by my claim that companies, in a system of clearly defined property rights, have an incentive to please their customers and not arouse the anger of the general public. Who's going to make more money? BP, who aroused the wrath of every environmentally minded person by being sloppy and reckless and then had to pay billions in damages, or a company that manages to avoid things like the gulf oil spill? As I say, accidents happen, but as long as property rights are well established, the incentives will be stronger for companies to behave well than they are now.

Epignosis wrote: That's all good and well Logan, but go look at my cake.

I saw it! It is extraordinary. Happy birthday, Rob! I hope you celebrate as the occasion deserves.

Epignosis wrote: thellama73 wrote: Epignosis wrote: That's all good and well Logan, but go look at my cake. I saw it! It is extraordinary. Happy birthday, Rob! I hope you celebrate as the occasion deserves. Thanks!  Wish you were here tomorrow!

I do enjoy a refreshing Mint Julep. 'Tis a pity.

timothy leary wrote: Dean wrote: ::snip::  disclaimer: I'm not defending Monsanto or GM here - if this stuff is carcinogenic then we need to know about it, but to do that we need proper controlled scientific studies - not second-rate hack-jobs and scare-mongering. http://www.catalystmagazine.net/blogs/item/1906-roundup-unready

That's exactly not the kind of thing I was referring to, unfortunately Don Huber seems to be a man on a mission - he "leaked" an anecdotal letter in 2011 with no corroborating evidence, no published papers, no peer review - and there has been none in the two years since the "leak" and there has been no published evidence of this new kind of pathogen (apparently a micro-fungus only visible with a scanning electron microscope - let's see the micrographs at least) and no factual evidence of 20% infertility and 45% abortions in cattle has ever been reported (that would major news).

thellama73 wrote: I stand by my claim that companies, in a system of clearly defined property rights, have an incentive to please their customers and not arouse the anger of the general public. Who's going to make more money? BP, who aroused the wrath of every environmentally minded person by being sloppy and reckless and then had to pay billions in damages, or a company that manages to avoid things like the gulf oil spill? As I say, accidents happen, but as long as property rights are well established, the incentives will be stronger for companies to behave well than they are now.

BP posted profits of $5.3 billion a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Certainly compensation claims are affecting profits but the company remains in the black and turnover is seemingly unaffected. At present the comsumers' hunger for oil outweighs any environmental costs - we shop around for the gas station selling the cheapest petrol, not the one that has the best public profile.

rogerthat wrote: Furthermore, if there was no Justice Department to impose the rule of law on them, they could use their might to wriggle out of compensating those affected by the spill, as well.  It would at the most create some bad publicity for them but it would be business as usual otherwise.

I think the assumption that only a government can enforce property rights is unwarranted.

Dean wrote: disclaimer: I'm not defending Monsanto or GM here - if this stuff is carcinogenic then we need to know about it, but to do that we need proper controlled scientific studies - not second-rate hack-jobs and scare-mongering.

Oh sure, but I think one of the huge, monumental problems with our society today is the fact that everything is driven by profit.  Scientific studies are only funded if someone sees profit resulting from them.  So there were huge funds devoted to "proving" that Monsanto's product was safe, but not for investigating if it was not.  It doesn't surprise me that the research done to show that their product was not safe was a "second-rate hack-job".  What do you expect when what drives science is profit?  The fact remains - cancer rates keep going up higher and higher and if we don't change SOMETHING...eventually it'll be seen as a fact of life: everyone's going to get cancer.  That's just how everyone dies in the end.  Make sure you give lots of money to big companies on your way to the grave, haha!

So forgive me, however, if I'm unconvinced.  Seeing as how science is so driven by profit, it would seem to make sense to me that the weak science behind proving that Monsanto's practices might actually have truth behind it, while seeming to be "false" because the powerful "science" with all the money behind it comes out and says "all your studies are wrong!"  This is the way of all science in the end.  We see it with Galileo and we see it with climate change, to give two examples.  As Arthur Schopenhauer said: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

None of this is to say that anyone would be wrong to demand that science be thorough and properly controlled.  It's just noting the sad state of affairs we are currently in where "solid" science, driven by money, fools us for a while until we get that feeling on the back of the neck - the hairs raising, the "spidey sense" - that tells us something is wrong, and then we start to listen to "second-rate hack-jobs", and then after a period of struggle we eventually find out the real truth.

And all of this convinces me that if we ever were to have a "truly free market", we'd end up living in darkness forever - accepting lies as truth because those who tell them are strongest.

rogerthat wrote: We could have a truly free market, Geoff, without it being an abyss of darkness.

Sure.  Now how do we get there?  That's the real question.  As I said before - I think your goals and my goals are actually one and the same.  I call it "equality", you call it "free market".  I say "you can't really have a free market without equality."  So if I had a white board and were to draw this out, here is the concept I'd present:
I'd draw some stick figure men.  This is the beginning of history - everyone is equal.  Then you get a person who represents a concept I call a "strong man" - this is a man I'd draw with a club.  He figured out that he was exceptionally strong, and he figured out that, with the use of a tool such as a club, he could dominate a group of other people, and that in this domination he could live a lush, rich life without having to really do much work.  So no more equality.  All over the world, other "strong men" situations start springing up.  Then, these strong men, who are actually clever, figured out that people don't like being dominated and that eventually people will rise up.  So they figured out that to really maintain their control, strong men had to band together with other strong men.  Now, some of the strong men did not agree with each other on their goals, and so you get this concept called "war", where the strong men get their underlings to help them fight other strong men.  Fast forward to today.  Nowadays, we have this idea that - hey guess what?  When people work together, they can actually do amazing things!  We don't want a society of a bunch of individuals - we want cooperation!  Because cooperation brings really cool things, like technology.  So modern society still has a lot of "strong man" situations, and there are some situations where we've actually been able to achieve limited forms of cooperation without strong men.  And that's what we want to get to.  So imagine, if you will, that I've drawn all over the white board a bunch of groups of "strong man" situations, where there's one stick figure guy with a club drawn over a group of non-strong men, and then there's a few groups where there's no strong men - these few groups are the "limited equality" situations.  Now, overtop of all of this is this nebulous idea of "government".  Libertarians hate "government".  They want to get rid if it, right here and right now, immediately.  They say "it's just another strong man."  Which seems to be a valid point....HOWEVER....I say that it is ONLY because of government wrestling the clubs away from SOME of the strong men that you ended up with a few places on the board with "limited equality" and "cooperation producing technology."  I say that it is only because of government eventually intervening because the people rose up and convinced their leaders that they had to do such a thing that you ended up with civil rights for black people and such protections that eliminated SOME of the strong man situations.  SO, I believe that if you eliminate government right here and right now, immediately, what you'll find is that the strong men on the board will just rush in and take over all the groups that don't have strong men over them.  And then this will be your new government.

So you see, I don't think our situation right now is perfect.  I admit that more often then not, the government has acted like a strong man, and has supported strong man situations.  HOWEVER, I believe that it's only because of government that SOME of the strong man situations have become closer to "limited equality".  So the question is: how do we get from "limited equality" to "total equality"?  And it's very tricky.  We have to be very careful, I think.  Some form of strength must be used to get the clubs out of the hands of the strong men on the board.  I think it's very foolish to deny this.  Now, some say "just give everyone clubs", but I think this is foolish as well, because all you'll end up with is a massive war that will result in only a few survivors.

lol...I can only infer from the above that you are not a very attentive reader, Geoff.  On that one point, I am now in whole hearted agreement with the libertarians in this thread.     Listen to what I am saying, read my words carefully, you are getting too enthusiastic about your own agenda. You haven't even figured out that I am simply saying human nature as it is (and not as it ought to be) does not make a truly free market a particularly great idea.    

I am beginning to think that your views are not very different from mine (which I can sum up as "at least markets do know how to create jobs, lefties fail badly even at that").  But for some reason which is not clear to me, you feel more inclined to be seen as agreeing with the hardcore libertarians.