the only revenge they could get in a libertarian society would be reactive boycott.
can you provide us with one historical example of a reactive boycottt who has been really successful and managed to end such unethical practices on a market-wide level ?
you don’t need to take an example on the history the energy market.
any successful boycott will do it.
[/quote]
Montgomery Bus Boycott
True, it was ended by the SC, but they had the company and the city on their knees well before that.
On your enviroment damage, could you specify what you are refering too? That would help me answer that one better.
[/quote]
Come on John, you’re not stupid. There are about a billion examples we could come up with. Companies used to simply dump or bury their manufacturing waste in the easiest spot possible. Chemicals that have adverse effects, and easily make their way into water supplies used to be a major problem.
These are all “hidden” costs (safe disposal of hazardous materials) that private interests have demonstrated time and time again they will pass off onto someone else if they are not forced through fines and regulation to pay themselves. That’s the super-easy example.
Wal-Mart was another great example of a slightly more sophisticated way of doing this: pay your employees little enough, and cut their hours enough, that they still qualify for public assistance.
Anyone who pollutes water and land that they don’t own… like sends anything downstream, or into an underground water supply, destroys the livelihoods of anyone who makes a living off the land or water “downstream”.
Do we really believe that BP would be paying out any money to any gulf-fishermen without government pressure?[/quote]
I was not asking the question to be stupid, I was trying to guage what he was looking for, if it was some they pump CO2 into air and we are all going to die from global warming, then I was going to just ignore it. If it was an example like you used of water I can explain how that works.
Who owns the water? The state or a private company. So if a company dumps the chems into the water they are damaging onther persons property that would be illegal and they are responsible for cleaning it up/compensating. As long as you believe in property rights situations like this, while they will happen can be minimized and punished. This reason right here is why I am not an anarchist.
And your thing about BP, maybe they wouldn’t have paid, but you think without government pressure the fishermen wouldn’t have gotten revenge on BP? But again this goes back to property rights. Property rights do not interfer with a free market, they are what make a free market run.[/quote]
In many instances. the land is part of the commonwealth… convenient, because it offers a framework within which we can all transport goods, etc… Nonetheless, if your only strategy for protecting the safety of the public is to react to infractions, you open the door to essentially limitless degrees of risky behavior. You give businesses the opportunity to roll the dice to such a degree that the infraction could far outweigh any punishment.
Consider Chernobyl. [/quote]
You mean consider the government regulated market of Chernobyl?[/quote]
Saying this and making a distinction as to how and why what happened there was dependent upon said government regulation are two different things.
What I am asking you to consider the effect of such an event.
And, actually, Chernobyl is a perfect example of the psychology of risk and the heuristic trap of experience. If an individual or an organization exposes themselves to risk on a regular basis, the longer they go without experiencing the downside of that risk, the less seriously they will treat that risk. They are also likely to experience an increasing degree of downside.
As for the industrial revolution, you come back to the coinage of human life… those textile factories were pretty awesome![/quote]
Compared to subsistence agriculture and prostitution they actually were.
[/quote]
Fortunately, we have settled into well regulated market and industrial environments, so we don’t have to worry about either possibility.
Incidentally, I would take being a prostitute over working in an early textile factory any day… lower rates of mortality. [/quote]
Well, most people chose the former, so I guess they disagreed.
Also, a “well regulated market and industrial environments” has nothing to do with worrying about either possibility, because if our whole capital stock disappeared tomorrow those would be our choices, no matter how much the government regulates.
what’s the name of the ethical company which naturally appeared in the transport market to replace the unethical one and to fit the demand ? [/quote]
Private taxis and carpools.
In fact the private taxis were so cheap, that they mandated the price to be for times that in order to get them out of the market.
When that did not work, they tried to deny them insurance coverage, which is when they bought teh insurances and insured themselves with Loyds of London.
Isnt the free market glorious?
Proves that you can even wreck a government granted monopoly and work around it if you have too.
[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
Saying this and making a distinction as to how and why what happened there was dependent upon said government regulation are two different things.
What I am asking you to consider the effect of such an event.
And, actually, Chernobyl is a perfect example of the psychology of risk and the heuristic trap of experience. If an individual or an organization exposes themselves to risk on a regular basis, the longer they go without experiencing the downside of that risk, the less seriously they will treat that risk. They are also likely to experience an increasing degree of downside.
[/quote]
No, you act as if a government controlled market is free of all errors, then bring up chernobyl.
Accidents happen, people learn from them and go on. Again if a business does something that harms someone else they are responsible under property rights.
Lets take a look at reactors, today they are finding better materals to put in them. Thorium is what scientists are talking about now. I don’t claim to know much about the subject but from my understanding it is a lot safer both for people and the enviroment.
Lets take a look at BP, due to government manipulation of the market they made it so the oil companies went into very deep water, when an accident happened they where unable to contain it. There is/was safer places to drill but because of market manipulation a horrible accident happened and for a long time where powerless to stop it.
I know it is much smaller scale, but it’s the only experience I have, so here goes-
Some friends of mine bought a business 5 years ago. Small business in a niche but competitive market, with total gross dollars in the entire industry at less than say 10 bill.
It was a strong company but they wanted to grow it and become stronger. So, they engaged in public outreach, charitable donations of money and time, and generally became as benevolent as their capacity to do so would allow.
Their business has tripled in the past 5 years. They have become very well known in the U.S. and some international markets as very good people to do business with, and very good people as individuals.
No arm twisting. They gave as able, and people appreciate that. They show this appreciation in the form of patronage. They know that when they support this business, they support many good things in the process and feel good about doing it.
Granted, their gross is only a few million a year, but it illustrates that good ethical business practices make good business sense.
[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
Saying this and making a distinction as to how and why what happened there was dependent upon said government regulation are two different things.
What I am asking you to consider the effect of such an event.
And, actually, Chernobyl is a perfect example of the psychology of risk and the heuristic trap of experience. If an individual or an organization exposes themselves to risk on a regular basis, the longer they go without experiencing the downside of that risk, the less seriously they will treat that risk. They are also likely to experience an increasing degree of downside.
[/quote]
No, you act as if a government controlled market is free of all errors, then bring up chernobyl.[/quote]
‘No’ to what?
There is no acting here… only writing. Don’t start injecting straw men.
Energy and chemical technology (since we’re on that topic) is simply too advanced, complicated and dangerous to expect that you can protect the safety of the public reactively. In the process and chemical industries in particular, most safety and much of the efficiency innovations are driven by partnerships between corporations and regulatory boards. Without rigorous and thorough regulations, you get situations like the disaster at T3 laboratories… essentially a couple of amateurs in over their heads with some pretty damn dangerous technology.
Aside from the safety of the general public, worker safety in these types of operations must be considered. It would be completely unfeasible for plants to hire technicians and operators who were qualified/educated enough to reverse engineer their process designs and thus provide for their own safety.
All this, of course, could mean absolutely nothing to you, if you accept that human life is acceptable coinage in regulating business.
Largely driven by the regulatory atmosphere… You’ve actually struck on a specific topic that I have a little knowledge about, and I have access to some people with a lot more.
You’re making some huge assumptions here regarding fault in the Deepwater Horizon accident. BP has a terrible safety record, and as far as I know are considered a joke within the industry… especially domestically.
[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
Saying this and making a distinction as to how and why what happened there was dependent upon said government regulation are two different things.
What I am asking you to consider the effect of such an event.
And, actually, Chernobyl is a perfect example of the psychology of risk and the heuristic trap of experience. If an individual or an organization exposes themselves to risk on a regular basis, the longer they go without experiencing the downside of that risk, the less seriously they will treat that risk. They are also likely to experience an increasing degree of downside.
[/quote]
No, you act as if a government controlled market is free of all errors, then bring up chernobyl.[/quote]
‘No’ to what?
There is no acting here… only writing. Don’t start injecting straw men.
Energy and chemical technology (since we’re on that topic) is simply too advanced, complicated and dangerous to expect that you can protect the safety of the public reactively. In the process and chemical industries in particular, most safety and much of the efficiency innovations are driven by partnerships between corporations and regulatory boards. Without rigorous and thorough regulations, you get situations like the disaster at T3 laboratories… essentially a couple of amateurs in over their heads with some pretty damn dangerous technology.
Aside from the safety of the general public, worker safety in these types of operations must be considered. It would be completely unfeasible for plants to hire technicians and operators who were qualified/educated enough to reverse engineer their process designs and thus provide for their own safety.
All this, of course, could mean absolutely nothing to you, if you accept that human life is acceptable coinage in regulating business.
Largely driven by the regulatory atmosphere… You’ve actually struck on a specific topic that I have a little knowledge about, and I have access to some people with a lot more.
You’re making some huge assumptions here regarding fault in the Deepwater Horizon accident. BP has a terrible safety record, and as far as I know are considered a joke within the industry… especially domestically.
[/quote]
You bring in Chernobyl as an example, yet it happened in the most regulated country to ever exist. This is not a staw man, it shows that big government has done somethiung a free market has never done.
Regulators are worthless, the private sector regulates far better. Insurance companies can/could be the greatest regulatory force on the planet.
You make the assumption that without the government regulations the private sector would act crazy, but when you inject property rights into the mix the whole story changes. Again I am not advocating anarchy which is what you are trying to turn my postitions in too. If you believe in property rights, and that when someone violates another persons property rights the victim must be compensated then the whole story changes.
I am not making any assumption about deep horizon, due to government laws and regulations it was cheaper for them to go out into the deep water, this is a well known fact. And if BP had decided to play by the laws they wouldnt have had to pay nearly as much money as they did.
Yet in my free market solution, the first thing I would do is sell the land they where drilling on, then if an incident like this happened one of two things would have gone down. First, they would have had insurance on the well and the insurance company would have made damn sure they had the best gear. Then there is option 2, they would have no insurance something like this would happen and they would go bankrupt cleaning it up, thus being washed out of the market.
Now lets get back to reactors, with government regulators how long has it taken for them to come up with a good idea? If that is the speed of the government I say no thanks lets get private sector in and actually do something.
[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
Saying this and making a distinction as to how and why what happened there was dependent upon said government regulation are two different things.
What I am asking you to consider the effect of such an event.
And, actually, Chernobyl is a perfect example of the psychology of risk and the heuristic trap of experience. If an individual or an organization exposes themselves to risk on a regular basis, the longer they go without experiencing the downside of that risk, the less seriously they will treat that risk. They are also likely to experience an increasing degree of downside.
[/quote]
No, you act as if a government controlled market is free of all errors, then bring up chernobyl.[/quote]
‘No’ to what?
There is no acting here… only writing. Don’t start injecting straw men.
Energy and chemical technology (since we’re on that topic) is simply too advanced, complicated and dangerous to expect that you can protect the safety of the public reactively. In the process and chemical industries in particular, most safety and much of the efficiency innovations are driven by partnerships between corporations and regulatory boards. Without rigorous and thorough regulations, you get situations like the disaster at T3 laboratories… essentially a couple of amateurs in over their heads with some pretty damn dangerous technology.
Aside from the safety of the general public, worker safety in these types of operations must be considered. It would be completely unfeasible for plants to hire technicians and operators who were qualified/educated enough to reverse engineer their process designs and thus provide for their own safety.
All this, of course, could mean absolutely nothing to you, if you accept that human life is acceptable coinage in regulating business.
Largely driven by the regulatory atmosphere… You’ve actually struck on a specific topic that I have a little knowledge about, and I have access to some people with a lot more.
You’re making some huge assumptions here regarding fault in the Deepwater Horizon accident. BP has a terrible safety record, and as far as I know are considered a joke within the industry… especially domestically.
[/quote]
You bring in Chernobyl as an example, yet it happened in the most regulated country to ever exist. This is not a staw man, it shows that big government has done somethiung a free market has never done.[/quote]
Actually, the catastrophe at Chernobyl was the DIRECT result of a lack of regulation. Don’t confuse state ownership with regulation.
The incident there occurred because there was not an adequate structure in place of safety standards, nor was there any real system in place to monitor safety conditions. On top of that there was almost no system in place to filter for competency at the level necessary for many of the operating environments.
Two undereducated and under-monitored operators were given free reign to experiment. They had no idea what they were doing, and they ended up melting the damn thing down.
You might then want to explain then, why the insurance industry only exists in a subsidized state.
I’m not making any unfounded assumptions here. I’m offering evidence to my opinion. Feel free to explain to me how disasters like the T3 laboratory explosion, or the Imperial Sugar mill explosion in Georgia, or the Texas City refinery detonation… would have been preempted by taking regulation out of the picture. Here’s the link, in case you missed it last time:
Wait… did you just say, “And if BP had decided to play by the laws they wouldnt have had to pay nearly as much money as they did.”???
I’m pretty sure that supports my position.
So… you’re anti-regulation… but, you want them to carry insurance… but, if they don’t they can invoke bankruptcy protection… or just run out of money and dissolve… in either case, we ended up footing the bill of the mess they made.
How is this supposed to work?
What motivation could there possibly be in this scenario for executives at BP to behave in a more thoroughly safe manner? There compensation isn’t tied to it in any meaningful way.
So, can you prove that there would be motivation to innovate if it wasn’t forced by regulation?
[quote]ZEB wrote:
I’m curious as to what the T Nation members think of current business ethics. Do you feel that business owes society something and should actively participate in the betterment of society. [/quote]
Monopolies do not happen unless government gets involved.
[/quote]
I disagree, see:
There is something better than the free market, called a perfect market:
(For those who do not want to click the link, those conditions are:
* Perfect market information
* No participant with market power to set prices
* No barriers to entry or exit
* Equal access to production technology)
Getting back to the OPs question, I find it reasonable for the people (and thus the government) to enact regulations that move the market more toward a perfect market, but beyond that, the only duty a corporation has is to its shareholders.
Thus, an example of such a regulation is food labeling requirements, which increase market information (since people know what they are buying).
[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
Saying this and making a distinction as to how and why what happened there was dependent upon said government regulation are two different things.
What I am asking you to consider the effect of such an event.
And, actually, Chernobyl is a perfect example of the psychology of risk and the heuristic trap of experience. If an individual or an organization exposes themselves to risk on a regular basis, the longer they go without experiencing the downside of that risk, the less seriously they will treat that risk. They are also likely to experience an increasing degree of downside.
[/quote]
No, you act as if a government controlled market is free of all errors, then bring up chernobyl.[/quote]
‘No’ to what?
There is no acting here… only writing. Don’t start injecting straw men.
Energy and chemical technology (since we’re on that topic) is simply too advanced, complicated and dangerous to expect that you can protect the safety of the public reactively. In the process and chemical industries in particular, most safety and much of the efficiency innovations are driven by partnerships between corporations and regulatory boards. Without rigorous and thorough regulations, you get situations like the disaster at T3 laboratories… essentially a couple of amateurs in over their heads with some pretty damn dangerous technology.
Aside from the safety of the general public, worker safety in these types of operations must be considered. It would be completely unfeasible for plants to hire technicians and operators who were qualified/educated enough to reverse engineer their process designs and thus provide for their own safety.
All this, of course, could mean absolutely nothing to you, if you accept that human life is acceptable coinage in regulating business.
Largely driven by the regulatory atmosphere… You’ve actually struck on a specific topic that I have a little knowledge about, and I have access to some people with a lot more.
You’re making some huge assumptions here regarding fault in the Deepwater Horizon accident. BP has a terrible safety record, and as far as I know are considered a joke within the industry… especially domestically.
[/quote]
You bring in Chernobyl as an example, yet it happened in the most regulated country to ever exist. This is not a staw man, it shows that big government has done somethiung a free market has never done.[/quote]
Actually, the catastrophe at Chernobyl was the DIRECT result of a lack of regulation. Don’t confuse state ownership with regulation.
The incident there occurred because there was not an adequate structure in place of safety standards, nor was there any real system in place to monitor safety conditions. On top of that there was almost no system in place to filter for competency at the level necessary for many of the operating environments.
Two undereducated and under-monitored operators were given free reign to experiment. They had no idea what they were doing, and they ended up melting the damn thing down.
You might then want to explain then, why the insurance industry only exists in a subsidized state.
I’m not making any unfounded assumptions here. I’m offering evidence to my opinion. Feel free to explain to me how disasters like the T3 laboratory explosion, or the Imperial Sugar mill explosion in Georgia, or the Texas City refinery detonation… would have been preempted by taking regulation out of the picture. Here’s the link, in case you missed it last time:
Wait… did you just say, “And if BP had decided to play by the laws they wouldnt have had to pay nearly as much money as they did.”???
I’m pretty sure that supports my position.
So… you’re anti-regulation… but, you want them to carry insurance… but, if they don’t they can invoke bankruptcy protection… or just run out of money and dissolve… in either case, we ended up footing the bill of the mess they made.
How is this supposed to work?
What motivation could there possibly be in this scenario for executives at BP to behave in a more thoroughly safe manner? There compensation isn’t tied to it in any meaningful way.
So, can you prove that there would be motivation to innovate if it wasn’t forced by regulation?
I can prove the opposite.
[/quote]
You bring up T3 as if regulations could have saved it, using hindsight anyone could say that. In a free market they would be wiped out/insurance company would have imposed regulations. Again confusing my point with Anarchy.
And you should take a look at the deep ocean drilling laws to understand what I am talking about. The Federal government set a cap on what they are liable for, this goes against the free market, and is one of the main reasons we have drilling so far out there. Like I said if BP followed the law that is in place they would not have had to pay as much as they did because GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS made it so.
Also the main thing big government lovers fail to forget is that a state with the power to regulate gets bought by big business.
And insurance can exist without subsides, a free market brings much greater wealth and people are very easily able to afford it. trying to use current conditions to prove capitalism is wrong, when the more government regulations leads to greater subisides in insurance completely disproves your notion and is being dishonest, not with me but with yourself. You are looking for something that has always led to either socialism, or something far worse which is the course we are on now, Fascism.
Monopolies do not happen unless government gets involved.
[/quote]
I disagree, see:
There is something better than the free market, called a perfect market:
(For those who do not want to click the link, those conditions are:
* Perfect market information
* No participant with market power to set prices
* No barriers to entry or exit
* Equal access to production technology)
Getting back to the OPs question, I find it reasonable for the people (and thus the government) to enact regulations that move the market more toward a perfect market, but beyond that, the only duty a corporation has is to its shareholders.
Thus, an example of such a regulation is food labeling requirements, which increase market information (since people know what they are buying).[/quote]
A pefect market is what I call a free market. Any government intervention is against free market, thus making it not free.
And to your point about labels, If people wanted it a company would come along and start using it. People would buy that product and eventually the rest would catch on.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
I’m curious as to what the T Nation members think of current business ethics. Do you feel that business owes society something and should actively participate in the betterment of society. [/quote]
Of course they do. And yes, they should. [/quote]
Agreed.
Makkun[/quote]
Laughable.
What exact obligation do they have, who defines those obligations, how are they enforced and most importantly, how are we going to prevent people from imposing their moral values once again with force when the term itself is exceedingly vague and allows for practically everything?
[quote]ZEB wrote:
I’m curious as to what the T Nation members think of current business ethics. Do you feel that business owes society something and should actively participate in the betterment of society. [/quote]
Of course they do. And yes, they should. [/quote]
Agreed.
Makkun[/quote]
Laughable.
What exact obligation do they have, who defines those obligations, how are they enforced and most importantly, how are we going to prevent people from imposing their moral values once again with force when the term itself is exceedingly vague and allows for practically everything?
[/quote]
Answers:
No business operates without the use of the commonwealth (roads, postal service, fire service, police, army, etc…). So, at a bare minimum, the owe the country for that use.
In the US at least, representative democracy defines those obligations.