Irrational, Unpredictable, and Not Particularly Intelligent
If the argument were that the market should be purely dictated by government, I could see your point. But I think the argument that the market should be run by government and the argument that the market should be run by business people both have the same inherent flaw: they place too much faith in all the wrong people.
There are arguments for checks on both sides: the consumer corrects the business people, the voter corrects the politician. I would argue that in almost any society, the power of the consumer or the voter is actually pretty small, and that the vast majority of consumers and voters BOTH lack the resources to make a significant impact in either.
I guess which one you choose really depends on where you place your trust: an organization that exists purely to profit or an organization that exists, at least theoretically, to maintain order in society. And while I certainly don’t think an economy run entirely by the government is a wise choice, I do think that a degree of interference in the market is necessary in order to ensure that profits don’t become more important than people.
My biggest concern now, though, is that government officials have become too entangled in the private market, are often business people themselves, and are using their positions to amass profit for themselves. I don’t think the solution is to do away with government interference in the market entirely, though. The solution is to fix the problem, which is too many government officials passing laws that affect the private market and then going into private practice where they benefit…or just flat out taking corporate dollars from the companies that profit from the legislation they pass.
As always, I enjoy reading your thinking on this. We do see things very differently.
Whereas you see business people running the market, I see mutual collaboration between people. I think business people only run the market when they buy the coercive force of government. And when people expand the scope of government, it seems they inevitably expand the opportunity of business to exploit it. Look at the proposed health insurance mandate, for example. Or look at just about almost any other law.
I guess I also think that consumers do have significant power. I think about the advertisers who have quit supporting the Glenn Beck show—they didn’t do this because they were high-minded; they did it because their consumers demanded it. Amazon didn’t just lower the price on the Kindle because it wanted to be nice; competition for consumers forced Amazon to do it.
You can only really abuse consumers if you have monopoly power, and there’s really only one entity with monopoly power. It’s not Microsoft, or Exxon, or General Electric. The only entity with the monopoly power required to really abuse customers is the Government.
And yes, voters are a check on the politicans … but through gerrymandering and campaign restrictions and ballot limitations, politicians have a lot of coercive tools that they can use to minimize the power of the electorate. Businesses only wish they had this power. Actually, sometimes they do, but only when they buy it from politicians.
Maybe it’s possible to have a benevolent mixed-economy, but I don’t think we have one now. And I think we ought to work on the benevolence thing before we give the government even more power. It boggles my mind that people who spent the last eight years complaining (rightfully) about the reckless expansion and exercise of government power are so eager to grow the government. Yes, they like some of the people in charge now, but these people won’t be in charge forever, and maybe not even for long. Do you really want the people who blew Iraq to oversee your health care?
Finally, it’s not that I trust businesses to act well—frankly, I don’t. It’s just that the market gives me options, so when a business violates my trust, I can choose someone else. When the government violates my trust, my only option is to, I don’t know … move to another country I guess.
