What is AC? - Page 11

Borodog · #**101** 11-12-2006, 01:06 AM

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How do you objectively identify a market failure?

[/ QUOTE ] I'm not going to answer a question for you that you could look up yourself in one second; it shows that I'm not making it up too btw. Wiki market failure, it has a list of about 20 different KINDS of market failure and definitions.

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Lol. This is hillarious.

Why don't you just admit that you cannot tell me how to objectively identify a market failure, because you have no idea how, because it cannot be done.

How do you objectively identify a market failure?

valenzuela · #**102** 11-12-2006, 01:07 AM

The first market failure on the wiki thing is: monopoly.
The goverment has roads monopoly, court system monopoly, etc,etc.

So if market failures do exist, the goverment is causing them rather than solving them.

dvsfun1 · #**103** 11-12-2006, 01:34 AM

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That's because you're not very smart.

Luckily, the market selects against not very smart people like you.

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Duh. That's why we do this. And we don't really give a damn what the market selects because we are not a part of this society. It makes no difference to us what you believe in or find profitable. We just want it.
Now, to step out of character for a moment, are you saying that there is actually something in place to prevent such an occurrence? I don't buy it that it will just happen naturally. Explain.

Borodog · #**104** 11-12-2006, 02:04 AM

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That's because you're not very smart.

Luckily, the market selects against not very smart people like you.

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Duh. That's why we do this. And we don't really give a damn what the market selects because we are not a part of this society. It makes no difference to us what you believe in or find profitable. We just want it.
Now, to step out of character for a moment, are you saying that there is actually something in place to prevent such an occurrence? I don't buy it that it will just happen naturally. Explain.

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You are asking several questions at once, while making lots of assumptions as well.

Why did people like Al Capone dominate the alcohol market during Prohibition, but peaceful businessmen dominate it when it is legal? The answer is that violence is costly, and that high time preference individuals, like violent criminals, make poor decisions (by definition, since they are incapable of taking long-term costs and consequences into account). Low time preference individuals, like peaceful businessmen, engage in less costly, non-violent business practices and better decisions, because they are more capable of long term planning. In short, peaceful businessmen outcompete violent criminals.

This is all completely in addition to the fact that TIT FOR TAT shows clearly that cooperation is superior to cheating, the fact that the very existence of complex language shows that we are more prone to cooperation than conflict, and any number of other arguments.

Your other question is, what would be in place to prevent it? And the answer is, everything that is already in place now. It is not government that provides social order. You can see this by the fact that chaos and looting has not broken out the numerous times that, for example, entire police forces have gone on strike. Looting does break out, though, when property owners leave en mass, as was the case during Katrina (when the local police where still in New Orleans; they were in on the looting, in fact).

It is private citizens and the free market that deter crime and preserve social order. They buy guns, and dogs, and fences, and deadbolts, and security cameras, houses in gated communities, etc.

When actual criminals are asked what deters them from committing a crime, they answer unequivocally things like fear of guns, dogs, security systems, etc. Fear of being caught by the police are way down the list. Fear of being convicted is even lower. Fear of going to jail even lower.

Your last statement about such things "not occurring naturally" displays a clear lack of understanding of how the market works. How do you think pencils and steaks and coffee and ipods and tires get provided? They all get provided naturally, by the market, because people value them. People value security. The market produces it and people buy it. They buy it in proportion to the value of the property they have to protect and the threats they perceive to it.

tolbiny · #**105** 11-12-2006, 02:06 AM

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Saying that people won't fight for profit because you judge that it isn't profitable is like saying that people won't go to church because you judge that God doesn't exist.

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If the majority who went to church ended up bankrupt or dead people would stop going to church pretty quickly.

As for forests there is tons of money to be made in logging as well as hiking, camping and fishing permits. 5 million people visit the grand canyon each year at ~20 bucks a pop (not counting helicopter tours and more) and (numbers off the top of my head) 40-60 million visit other national parks/campsites, most of which cost money to enter.
Here's a site where you can find dozens of private campgrounds in ohio link
Lots of money to be made in nature.

Propertarian · #**106** 11-12-2006, 02:33 AM

I've told you once and I've told you a million times. "Market Failure" is a term used to describe specific things that are as easy to identify as the thing called "sink" or "chair". Each market failure is called a market failure because that thing is part of some sort of inefficency in the market; something that is generally thought of as a failure.

If you want to believe it is not a failure, be my guest. But that is what they are called.

Propertarian · #**107** 11-12-2006, 02:34 AM

roads and court systems are both natural monopolies, meaning that they would be market failures if the state was foolish enough to privatize them.

The classic definition of monopoly is also technical and is used to describe something that is private; correctly, because states operate on different systems of accountability than markets.

Also, you ignored the rest of them.

Borodog · #**108** 11-12-2006, 02:35 AM

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I've told you once and I've told you a million times. "Market Failure" is a term used to describe specific things that are as easy to identify as the thing called "sink" or "chair". Each market failure is called a market failure because that thing is part of some sort of inefficency in the market; something that is generally thought of as a failure.

If you want to believe it is not a failure, be my guest. But that is what they are called.

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Lol. So, a market failure is a market failure because it's a market failure?

How do you objectively identify a market failure?

Propertarian · #**109** 11-12-2006, 02:37 AM

Did you read the post?: market failure is used to describe some sort of inefficency in the market; their are different kinds of inefficiencies, all defined technically/objectively as opposed to normatively, just like market failure is.

Borodog · #**110** 11-12-2006, 02:38 AM

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roads and court systems are both natural monopolies, meaning that they would be market failures if the state was foolish enough to privatize them.

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Is that why there were dozens of private turnpike companies providing hundreds of private roads in England and the United States before they were monopolized by government?

Is that why there are private arbitration systems all over the world?

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The classic definition of monopoly is also technical and is used to describe something that is private; correctly, because states operate on different systems of accountability than markets.

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Lol. So a monopoly can only exist in the market (still waiting on a single example, by the way), because you define state monopolies to not be monopolies?