From: Jeff Fabijanic (jeff@primordialsoft.com)
Date: Sun Mar 22 1998 - 09:31:05 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>> > than force them) is to provide some combination of a
>> > better product and a better price, how is this a bad thing?
>>
>> If this is the case, why is dumping outlawed?
>
>Oh, that one's easy to answer...because our legislators
>are idiots, and will listen to the whining of someone
>being undercut (and who makes a nice contribution).
>There is no legitimate reason to outlaw many business
>practices that are now illegal: dumping, tying, insider
>trading...it's just business. But in a democracy--as
>opposed to a free society--the losers can use state
>guns to make up for their incompetence in the market.
So if one company has more money than the others, it should be
allowed to charge less than cost for it's product? Doesn't this
leads to a situation where, in order to compete in the short run,
other companies are forced to do the same or lose customers?
Wouldn't that just mean that the company with the most money to burn
at the start of this cycle will probably last longest? And after the
other competitors starve, the consumers are left with fewer choices
in the long run. And that sucks - monocultures are prone to atrophy
and catastrophic failure.
Most "Americans" get all bent out of shape when businesses of
another state (like Japan) try this trick on "us". Why should we
allow it within our own market system?
I'm not for excessive gubbamint regulation, but likewise, I wouldn't
be in favor of any completely unregulated market scheme which didn't
serve the ultimate interests of *individual humans* (ie consumers
and business people, not just the few richest businesses). I believe
that the goal of any market system should be to get the maximum
sustainable level of individual economic freedom and power for
*humans*, not corporations.
I'd love to have you describe a method for avoiding this type of
positive feedback trap without any type of regulatory intervention,
and change my mind.
tschau,
jeff
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