Yes, knowledge is a scarce resource, same as any other. Socialism does nothing to address that because, as many socialist leaders found out in the 20th century, you cannot circumvent the laws of economics. In practice, all you can do is substitute one cost for another and I would argue (and have over and over) that the most efficient means to adapt to accommodate any scarce resource is capitalism. Knowledge is no exception. If all else fails, you may be able to at least count on a competitor to point out the deficiencies in a competing product. What it appears to be happening (again) is when one side's argument is not perfect, it is disqualified even if it has fewer imperfections than the alternatives. You would be hard pressed to convince me that attempting to centrally consolidate knowledge is more efficient than systemic processes that allow it to flow where it is most in demand naturally. Wisdom is distilled among many not diverted to a well only accessible to a few to be distributed out when they see fit. Hayek wrote of knowledge in this context when describing Spontaneous Order: Besides, in my experience, when the principle of "fairness" is evoked, it is rarely supported by the tentpole of "knowledge" but rather subjective sensibilities that can be changed on a whim preventing anyone to make any long-term plans of risk and are quick to find a scapegoat rather than charge any accountability. Level playing field deals mainly with equal treatment of law. That also emplies that people area allowed to make their own accommodations and the law only gets involved when someone feels they have been wronged and it needs mediation. Pushing the influence to the front of the process perverts the condition. When discussing the state's actions, ignorance is no excuse when it comes to the state enforcing laws and yet when discussing the free cooperation among individuals, it is used a hanging noose. Virtue becomes devil depending on what you are advocating. This represents another Nexxo/DaneTM distraction from OT but I do so love these conversations.
I'm no socialist, and I don't want a socialist system like in the former eastern germany etc. What I'm asking for is a social economy, where there's fair wages paid for the manpower, where companies care about enivironmental protection and sustainability of ressources. My prior statement about protectionism is not what I want to see as a solution, to make that clear. However it's sometimes needed to protect your own economy against attacks from people who are not playing it fair. Look at the attempt of chinese companies trying to ruin the shoe and cloth industry of europe, by recklessly underbidding the prices. It took only a week for the EU-parliament to react and tax chinese products in that sector, so that they cannot compete in this unfair manner. And yes it was unfair as the quality of the chinese products was nowhere near that of the european counterparts. It's the greed for higher and higher margins these days, that are ruining the economies. It's the egoistic wealthier people that cause social problems, as they aren't willing to support the weak by paying higher taxes etc. Modern social countries with good social systems like in northern europe, Canada or New Zealand are showing that a more socially oriented economy is working perfectly fine without loosing their competitiveness in the world. The living-standards of these countries are the highest in the world... just look at the new global prosperity index released a few weeks ago -> http://www.prosperity.com/ It is possible to make the world a better place for all people, but to make that happen all people have to play by the same rules and think of themselves as a community, where the strong help the weak.
Fret not Eddie; just because I find flaws in capitalism does not mean that I favour socialism as a perfect substitute. The latter has been proven to work only in communities of up to a hundred members or so: about the size of a tribe. Which neatly brings me to the human dilemma: to act in one's own interests, or to act in the interest of the group because that, in a less direct way, also affects one's own interest. Delay of gratification becomes rather a key issue there... My problem is more that because capitalism is the best working system on the whole, some people (not necessarily you) think that it is a perfect system. But it is no more so than natural selection is. From an amoral perspective it works great; from a moral perspective however it sucks to be the sardine rather than the shark. And although any sardine with the right genes (in that particular ecology) can see its offspring eventually evolve to be shark-kicking dolphins, that is scant comfort for the sardines who don't make it. Someone ought to care about the sardines as much as the sharks, because it's a big, cold sea out there. But sharks, unfortunately, have evolved not to. Sardines to them are food. It only becomes an issue for them when they run out of sardines, or sardines evolve into something nastier than sharks. From a natural selection perspective capitalism rewards cooperation, but in the short term it rewards exploitation even more. The dark side is always faster and more tempting (yeah, I know: you quote Hayek, I quote Yoda from Star Wars ). it's that human dilemma again. I'm not sure what the solution is, except to bring the tribe back into it. Make it personal. It is harder to exploit another human being if you have to think of them as fellow humans like yourself and there are social consequences. We see this in American-style charity, where any millionaire businessman who is not seen to donate generously to charitable causes is soon shunned in business by his millionaire counterparts. Would you do business with someone who is selfish and uncaring? That has its flaws too, of course, since less mediapathic charity cases may do less well, but the principle is there. It's harder to eat the sardine if it is a fellow fish and other fish start to avoid you. I'll finish this with a quote by Bush Jr. as it seems oddly fitting: "I believe that man and fish can coexist peacefully"
@JRS Why do you advocate fairness on a national level but not a global? The discrepancy between an unskilled UK labourers earnings of £5 an hour and the wages available in many parts of the world for unskilled labour are far bigger than the UK's own income disparity.
I would not call that "unfair". China offers a cheaper product of commensurately lower quality. The consumer has the choice between buying cheap or buying quality. It only becomes a problem if all that a person can buy is rubbish shoes that are not fit for purpose. Then they need a helping hand, but that is not by intervening in the price of shoes, but intervening in a person's ability to afford a decent pair (because if we intervene in the price, we inevitably intervene in the cobbler's ability to afford stuff too). That is partly true but keep in mind that consumer-driven market forces also reduce profit margins (e.g. consumer electronics. People don't need tablets (it's true!), so they can choose to reject the iPad and buy the much cheaper Nexus 7). It is only where there is an imbalance of choice that exploitation happens (e.g. Pharmaceuticals and health care). That is the trick: to combine capitalism with equality of choice. Otherwise it is not really a free market.
I advocate fairness on a global level after it is achieved nationally, as you can't expect the chinese manufacturers - for example - to pay fair wages, if you don't do it in your own country first. When the chinese see the american turbo-capitalism and the millions of people suffering because of it, getting paid less and less money, then why should they do any better? It's a process that requires one step after another, so the system wont fall over it's own feet. It has also something to do with prices being the same all over the world in the end, nomatter where you live. Americans for example pay only half the amount of money for gasoline as europeans, they pay less for electricity, less for food and clothes etc. The US has way lower taxes for all sorts of things and no universal healthcare too, so europeans need higher wages to compensate the discrepancy currently, empowering them to consume as much as the americans. And theres lot's of examples even within Europe. Germans pay twice the price for electricity than in Finland, while finns pay twice as much for food than the germans etc. The worlds economy is nowhere near balanced currently and it's not something achievable tomorrow aswell. It'll be a long process and we have to start this process in our western industrialized countries, before we tell others to do the same. In the end we would like to see a world, where everyone has to pay the same amount of taxes and the same prices for products, while getting paid the same wages for the same work, and have the same social systems at hand like healthcare, wherever they may live.
That analogy would seem more appropriate to me if capitalism involved two parties going at it directly against one another, i.e. the sardine and the shake, or the self-employed builder in competition with a national construction company. But that is hardly descriptive of the average, every day scenario when the self-employed builder and the large construction company are looking to attract more customers than the other on a given street. If either fall short of this aim, no real harm done, move on to something else. So never really recognised the relevance of the dog-'eat'-dog notion that it's commonly associated with.
Your ideas appear a bit ill thought out here. The Anerican's cost of living is not much less than the European's. What he does not pay on tax (through salary or through petrol) he pays on private health care, pension schemes and other services that Europeans get through their tax contributions. And if you worry about sustainability and the environment, we don't really want the rest of the world to consume at the US level; we want Americans to consume less. Nice idea but it's not that simple. Currencies are not the same because economies are not. What happens when we try to equalise is shown by the EU debt crisis caused by Greece being allowed to borrow using Germany's credit card, so to speak. That is not exactly what I'm alluding to. In natural selection the sardine and the shark don't compete with each other; they each compete with other sardines and sharks, respectively (the sardine does not have to outswim the shark, just the other sardines. The shark of course has to outswim the other sharks too). Similarly the big construction company and the independent builder are not competing with each other-- they are each competing with others like themselves in their own economical niche. Some customers will choose construction companies, some will want a small independent builder. My concern is more the relative position of either party in a transaction. Sardines have little choice in what a shark does to them: eat or not eat, the shark has most of the power. Customers generally are not knowledgable enough to know if a cowboy builder is screwing them over. Coffee farmers in South America do not have great bargaining power with Starbucks (especially as they have to compete with other farmers); if they don't deal, they starve, while Starbucks just gets its beans from the next competitor. Market forces, for sure. But a free market? I'm saying that a system can work well from a logical or pragmatic point of view, but be pretty flawed from a moral perspective. Capitalism assumes an equality of choices available to both parties involved in the transaction (deal, or no deal). And that is not true, which undermines its free market principle and its fairness.
I've got a better idea of what you're getting at here, but I still don't think that's quite characteristic of it. You firstly allude to negative externalities and fraud, which I think capitalism can address those issues. E.g. Polluting someone else's property is a violation of core free-market principles. In terms of one party having an economic advantage over the other even in a voluntary transaction, I don't believe it's ever assumed that both sides have an equal choice; not that I've ever heard. There certainly doesn't need to be an equality of choice to thrive, rather what is claimed by advocates is that it adds to the choice of both Stuckbars and the coffee farmer, and that both sides probaly gained something out of the transaction (arguably to a more or less extent, mind) more so than they otherwise would have compared to all options available to them. Starbucks isn't driving down the rates of the small independent farmer because it's so productive, but is the farmer's own competitors which only are. The outcome is is simply reflective of that fact, not prescriptive, and therefore it's completely amoral. The one moral merit it does have, however, it is that is in my opinion the best means to expand on those choices.
Read a very good editorial which summed up the election as a vote for who you don't want, rather than who you do want... Those who don't want Romney, vote Obama.. Those who don't want Obama, vote Romney..
Seems an accurate description of every election, really. You've got the few exceptions on each side who are dead set for their candidate regardless of the opposition with the majority in the middle left to make a decision based on the information they gather. Much of the information readily available, however, is all negative claims against the opponent of the speaker's candidate. If all the average voter knows is what's wrong with each candidate how else can they choose?
That does not make it a good means --for the sardine. A free market guarantees a fair price and exchange, so in that respect capitalism seems dandy. In reality however the market is not free. That's the problem. We cannot address that by communist principles because that makes the market even less free, but we cannot stand back and hope that market forces will sort themselves out because it is unbalanced to begin with. All we can do is remind people that the market is not free but that we should strive towards that ( i.e. a balance of choice) because people, not money, are at the centre of the economy.
Bloody close though, at least by the popular vote. Can't say I really understand the colleges system, didn't work for the Romans not really sure it works for the US.
