The Market: The Only Trustworthy Registrar of People’s Preferences

vidyohs -

I like you so much better now, and I'm actually serious about that. You reminded me of my grandad in that post on vocabulary and grammar today. I'm not mocking at all - honestly and truly I feel closer to you after reading that :)

The article is good and highlights the limitations of the democratic process. But it's also worth considering why Don's mind wanders to Lexuses as something that we make a constrained "I want" statement about, and subways as something that we make an unconstrained "I want" statement about. Same with Bill's example. It's a great example and illustrates the point beautifully. But why is it that we've never had to vote on the provision of breakfast cereal? The point about democracy is dead-on, and it naturally raises the questions "well then why do we use democracy instead of the market for certain products and not others". Doesn't make democracy any more efficient - but in the words of an earlier Don post today - "always axe - 'compared to what'" [yes, that was another shout out to you vidyohs!]

Perhaps people would vote differently on say, bond issues, if their portion of the cost would be displayed and deducted from their account when they vote for it.

Democracy provides the illusion that government can be had with little personal cost, and redistribution fools people into thinking that someone else will be made to pay the cost.

The cost of government is always borne by those that labor to produce value.

Sam - and the socialists gain victory be demonizing people like us. Whenever we attempt to speak out, they just shout slogans about "greed", "unfairness", "you righties just don't care about people".

yet another dave - the biggest victory of the socialists is they made the word "democracy" something most people think of as wonderful and just. Ask the ancient Greeks about their experience with it. In fact there is not a case in history that you point out a country prospering better because of democracy.

When I read Sam Grove's post, I was reminded of Bastiat: "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

Our founding fathers were more wise then the socialists. They founding a Constitutional Republic to reign in the democracy. They created checks and balances, they distributed power among 3 branches. Even in 1 branch, the Congress they divided into an Upper and Lower chamber modeled on the British Parliament. The House is the more direct-democracy style body, beholden to the whims of the day with it's 2-year election cycle. The Senate is the smaller, more deliberative body which only re-elects 1/3 of itself every 2 years. Very smart our founding fathers, to create impediments to new legislation.

Also the founders were smart to create the Electoral College to lessen the impact of the popular vote on electing a President. If we went to popular vote like most liberals want, a candidate would only have to run up the vote in blue regions and totally ignore the rest of the country. Also that each state receives 2 senators helps equalize small & large states, as unjust the liberals feel that is. IT goes to basic philosophy. Liberals believe in direct democracy NOW, and the rest of us believe in putting up obstacles to "the will of the people" as a virtue.

Some founding fathers also understand that "equality" of outcome is not realistic:

http://www.oxonianreview.org/issues/2-2/2-2-6.htm

But Adams was not unrealistic about the extent of human equality. While maintaining that people are ‘equal and alike’ at birth, he also recognized the impossibility of a uniform distribution of aptitudes and wealth, glory and honors in a great country. ‘Was there, or will there ever be a nation whose individuals were all equals in natural and acquired qualities, in virtues, talents, and riches?’ he wonders, before concluding, ‘the answer in all mankind must be in the negative.’

The government of the United States would have to respect the principle of equality at birth while recognizing the tendency of people to diverge in attributes and accomplishments.

yet another Dave - I disagree. Look at how ObamaCare is stumbling because of the Blue Dog Democrats. This is exactly what our founding fathers envisioned. Don't give up the hope!

You reminded me of my grandad in that post on vocabulary and grammar today. I'm not mocking at all...

Daniel,

I'm glad Vidyohs' post about grammar struck a chord. I'd ask you to take Methinks' advice about, "besides the point" in the same spirit.

I took my time before bashing Yasafi for his grammar, because I have a friend who is dyslexic, and whose spelling is astonishingly terrible. He's also a brilliant man. As an aside, it's too bad public schools don't teach phonics any more. There was only one First Grade teacher in my grammar school that taught phonics in the late 60s. I was fortunate that she was my First Grade teacher. Her former students always dominated the Sixth Grade Spelling Bees.

Back to Yasafi. Yasafi is about as brilliant as a penny in the bottom of an outhouse, and when that became apparent, I started bashing him for poor grammar (in addition to his stupidity) because it's a useful tool to mock him with.

"Besides the point" rather than, "beside the point" bugs me almost as much as hearing expecially instead of especially.

This isn't meant to demean you. Public schools generally do a terrible job of teaching grammar, so most people have to learn it on their own.

The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism.

Mikhail Gorbachev

What an utter fool. I read a lot lately about what Gorbachev did in the 1980s, nothing he did could even remotely be described a pro free market. It was all knee-jerk government price controls & rationing.

Brotio - Hooked on fonicks werked for mee.

Their. I said it. Now back to the toppick!

Oh. Thank you Don for re-posting this. I always remembered a similar post you did a while back that was linked to an article on Econlib.(?) I could be wrong. Regardless, I have it saved now.

Colson,

Even when you try, you can't be as incoherent as Yasafi!

Is this post consistent with the previous post, titled "How we feel about our taxes"? We believe that poll but not others?

Gee, I could do a 'vidyohs grammar check' on Crusader's thought:

"They founding a Constitutional Republic to reign in the democracy."

Hmmm . . . A Republic is a nation that isn't ruled by a royal family, i.e. a monarchy. Whoopdeedoo. A Constitution is a document that outlines the power and restrictions of a government. Gee, Australians don't have to dicker over whether they have the right to 'bear arms' because there's no equivalent of the 2nd Amendment. American gun nuts must have keeled over when Australia did the unthinkable - the people were debarred from owning firearms unless they have a pro-active reason in 1997.

Gil - self defense is reason enough to own a gun. One doesn't need special permission from the government. You have it all backwards.

why do we use democracy instead of the market for certain products and not others?

That's why democracy sucks big-time. A constitutionally limited government is much better. I hope we get one again.

Crusader, you make good points. The obstacles and constraints worked fairly well for a while. (in Clouseau voice...) not any more...

First off I think we need a nomenclature of what "free market" means. To the muirdiot types, it means the powerful plutocracy controlling the rest of us. To me "the market" is any combination of free individuals engaging in commerce with each other. Since we can never agree on basic definitions, 'round and 'round the mulberry bush we go.

Don't get me wrong Crusader - the system still slows down the march of the @$$holes and I'm glad to see ObamaCare stumbling. I'd rather see the entire government in healthcare concept go down in flames, but baby steps in the right direction are still in the right direction.

I haven't given up hope, but it's been taking a beating for a long time now. I'm open to ideas on how to stop the collectivist stupidity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy

In a plutocracy, the degree of economic inequality is high while the level of social mobility is low.

Muirdiot would have us believe that Americans have never had to ability to climb the social & economic ladders. Can he provide evidence?

If you want real example of plutocracy, look no further then South American banana republics(Venezuela) or African(Zimbabwe). But muirdiot never wants to talk about those "countries".

FEE's Sheldon Richman draws an interesting contrast between market behavior and voting behavior in this essay: http://tinyurl.com/lah5gg. His illustration is complementary to what Don wrote regarding "I want."

In a market setting, if you enter the supermarket and see Cheerios and Wheaties on the shelf, you can choose Wheaties, go through the check stand, and immediately go home with what you want without consulting with anyone else.

In a political setting, if you enter the supermarket and see Cheerios and Wheaties on the shelf, if your preference is Wheaties, you can cast your single vote for Wheaties, but then you have to go home and wait the election returns and hope a majority of other voters also "chose" Wheaties in order to get what you want.

In 1965 I had reality slap me in the face when in dealing with younger sailors (baby boomers all) I had to explain simple words and concepts to them, because they never got that education at home or in their schools.

I found most baby boomers had no concept of the word consideration, they didn't know the word and didn't know the meaning. And, frankly the actions of that generation as they went through the 60s demonstrates pretty much that didn't and wouldn't have given a crap if they did know and understand the word.

The very difference in the word want that Don points out above.

The difference between want and need for another example. (Took me a long time to convince my wife to not say need when she meant want.)

The difference between the word "miss" and the words "did not see or will not see". i.e., we will not "miss" the show, we just will "not see the show."

Try to tell a youngster today that when a person talks, he doesn't "go", he says or said. You can just confuse the hell out of most youngster today by asking them, "And, then what did he goad after you axed him?"

All-in-all though the ignorant so vastly outnumbered the knowing even back then, that one just comes across as a scold if one tries to educate everyone that misspeaks, so now I just have fun with it.

I had a lady attorney the other day say in the period before we began the deposition that she had been looking at a competitor's website advertising, "and, they guaranteed results!", she said, "I wonder if the state bar has seen that ad?"

I pointed out to her (this is very unpolitic for a videographer to educate an attorney, but what the hell I am old enough not to give a crap.) that it was a perfectly good ad. I said to her, "If you and I went on a date for dinner and after, I can guarantee results. You might slap my face, laugh, and or experience some pleasurable time....but no matter what, we would have results."

She looked at me blank for a moment while she assimilated this, and then said, "Good point."

A blow struck for clarity.

Mostly though people have just missed so much education and have been missing it for decades. And, having that lack of clarity in many cases costs them a lot in wasted time and money.