Platypus' signature quote caught my eye the other day, and I thought it was worth a discussion.

It reads:



I wanted to focus on the first statement, which is stated as a given:

"Some powerful entity is going to exercise significant influence over your economic life, whether you like it or not."

Really?

I certainly agree that the government excerises significant influence over my economic life whether I like it or not. For starters, they take away, under threat of force, a pretty hefty percentage of everything I earn, and force me into a Social Security system that I would never freely choose to join.

But Plat's quote implies that if the government didn't do it, someone else would. I don't understand. In all my non-government interactions, I get to decide whether I want to engage or not engage in economic activity. Do I want to work at this job? Do I want to buy this car? Aside from government, I know of no other "powerful entity excersising significant influence over my economic life". If I don't like something, I can simply walk away.

The questions:

Do you agree with Plat's quote? If so, who are these non-government powerful entities, and how would (or do) they excerise influence, whether you like it or not?

If the government didn't intervene to regulate business, then you'd have to take part in all those interactions trusting that an unchecked megalithic monopoly is not going to cut costs at your expense. Regulation arose during the industrial revolution to counter monopolies, widespread abuses against labor, unsafe products, etc. A profit maximizing entity is going to use any advantage it can over a weaker party, and without a government to run interference, citizens bring no negotiating power to the table.

There are plenty of non-government powerful entities: the oil companies being one (almost can't be considered 'non-government' if the republicans are in the house)

Granted, if you became a hermit, the only entity that would have economic power over your life would be the government. You don't have to participate in society.

If everyone was like that, we wouldn't be the most powerful nation in the world either.

I think it would be better interpretted in relation to those people who wish to participate in society.

Participating in society means relying on oil companies - for power, for food, for water, for clothing. Everything that we use to survive relies on oil in some regard.

I can name another tyranny that I am subjected to: Comcast
The monopoly they have on the region is sickening. My job (defense contractor) requires that I have a high speed internet connection. Comcast is the only provider of high speed internet connections in this area.

You'll argue that I don't need to work at this job, so hence Comcast doesn't really have complete power over me. But I feel like I DO need to work these types of job(that require me to have broadband connection from home) - my working here contributes to the safety of our nation. So, again - the situation must be interpretted in the context of an assumption, that is: If we all became hermits, our nation's structure would collapse (not just because defense contractors - but as a capitalist nation), making the question a moot point.

If an entity was exercising influence over my life, I would prefer it to be elected.

I would like to answer in 2 parts:

Whether we like it or not, We have less free will in this world then we realize. People in high places pull our strings and influence our decisions. Take SUV for one example. That is a marketing strategy from Detroit that work very well. SUV have the largest profit margin of any vehicle that the public drives. Oil for the vehicles is constantly up and down for the smallest reason.

Now if we elect someone,such as Bush. He is controlled and put in power by the powerful poeple. So which way is the best. You tell me.

Boy, I could argue just about every assertion in that response, but I'll just focus on one:



A profit-maximizing entity is never going to succeed at maximizing profit if it seeks to do so by "taking advantage" of others. The simple reason is that anyone who feels taken advantage of will simply choose to do business with someone else. There is no "weaker party" because each party has complete power over whether or not they will engage in the transaction.

Freely chosen economic transactions are nearly always win-win. Both sides benefit, or they would not participate. Sure, you can screw someone once, but that will only give you a short-term benefit, because that person won't do business with you again, nor will their friends and associates. Long-term profit-maximizing comes from continuing to give people a good deal.

You could argue that monopolies are an exception to this. I would argue that natural monopolies (those that arise outside of government regulation) are rare and short-lived.

But even if I was to grant the monopoly exception, that would mean that government should only interfere in the economy where monopolies exist.
Would you go along with that?



When you say that oil companies are "powerful", what does that mean? The only power they have (if you remove government from the picture) is to sell their oil to people or companies that want it. That doesn't give them any power over me.

Yes, our lives depend on oil, but that doesn't make it possible for any oil company to extort my money. If they try to take advantage of my dependence on oil by raising their prices, then another oil company will benefit from the market they lose.

Where is their power?



There is no need to become a hermit to excersise economic freedom. There are lots of people out there willing to do business with me on mutually satisfactory grounds.



You say that the SUV is an example of "people in high places" pulling our strings and influencing our decisions. Are you claiming that people who buy SUVs really don't want to buy SUVs but are somehow manipulated into doing so? If so, do you think they learn their lesson and never buy another SUV, and warn their friends against the same mistake, or do they just go on with the mistaken impression that they like the vehicle they chose?

The fact is there are certain functions of government. If government did their job properly, i.e. regulate natural monopolies and excise proper authority to reduce or eliminate third-party costs, that would be fine. A properly functioning government would ensure that no entity, including themselves, would have a stranglehold on it's citizens. The slaves in the antebellum South were probably not really soothed by the fact that it was an elected government that allowed them to be forced to pick cotton for room and board. What we have today is a tyranny of the majority.

As I think, all of us will agree, choices are not limited between two choices anarchy or communism.

We once had a Constitution that limited the tyranny a temporary majority could impose on a minority of it's citizens. Activist judges have destroyed that protection.

There are two powerful entities that control much of my life: government and my wife.

Hugo:

I agree with everything in your post except the following:



Can you clarify what you mean by "eliminate or reduce third-party costs". That is a role of government I am not familiar with.

Third party costs are a cost imposed on a third party during a transaction between two parties. If I pay someone to kill my neighbor, it is the role of government to 1) prevent this action , or if they fail in that 2) to prosecute the parties involved. Pollution is a typical example of a third party cost. In the case of pollution the costs of pollution have to be weighed against the consumer surplus provided by the sale and use of the good.

Now I understand. Externalities is the economic term for that I believe. Key in the definition is that the third party does not give his consent to the impact.

From my reading, externalities, like monopolies, are over-sold as problems. They exist, but government doesn't limit it's role to just externalities (as you said in your post), and in fact, government ironically creates huge externalities itself. The majority foisting it's will on the minority fits the externality definition perfectly.

Here's a good article on just that, if anyone's interested...

The Ultimate Externality by Donald J. Boudreaux

Of course not, if those people know they're being taken advantage of. But how can you take advantage of someone who knows they're being taken advantage of? This is just an example: Mechanics don't try and rip off other mechanics because other mechanics know what's going on. Mechanics can rip off people who don't know much about cars and therefore wouldn't know the difference. The only thing that keeps those people from being ripped off is honest mechanics who don't allow it to happen by informing people of the truth. But if you're the only mechanic in a certain region (i.e. the only company that provides a given service) you can take advantage of people all you want without them ever knowing.

Edited to add: I'm not just talking about monopolies. Patented drugs are another good example.

It's a thought-provoking article, but it does contain a few flaws. The first is a rather questionable example:



In other words, post hoc ergo propter hoc. It's as though it never occurred to the authors that there might have been other factors involved that drove an increase in pollution since the 1970s despite the Clean Water Act. Come to think of it, why did the Clean Water Act come into being? Was it because legislators were sitting around bored and hit on that as something to do, or because they had noticed a mounting problem? These thoughts probably did occur to the authors, but they apparently don't want them occurring to anyone else.

Here's another bit:



They almost make it sound as though democracy is a bad thing. What alternative do you suppose they'd suggest, where something that the majority had voted for is nonetheless prevented from happening? That would be the long-hoped-for but mythical deus ex machina. Unfortunately, the system is not perfect and does require human participation. Their complaint about the democratic process seems to be either losers' envy or an attempt to remove government by requiring an unattainable level of consensus before it can act. No surprise from an article on a website that pays homage to the long-discredited Austrian school of economics.

I guess it's just too bad that the majority in the US has rejected the kind of government these folks think would be ideal. Maybe they should find somewhere more accomodating, and for you I suggest a broader selection of reading material.

I would like to reply to the following comment by PrismPaul:

You say that the SUV is an example of "people in high places" pulling our strings and influencing our decisions. Are you claiming that people who buy SUVs really don't want to buy SUVs but are somehow manipulated into doing so? If so, do you think they learn their lesson and never buy another SUV, and warn their friends against the same mistake, or do they just go on with the mistaken impression that they like the vehicle they chose? (end of comment)

Yes i am definitely saying people are manipulated into buying SUV mostly by marketing. There was the forerunner(mini-van) which was appropiate and the automakers wanted to make more porfit. Hence the SUV was brought to the public. The SUV is one of the most unsafe vehicles(if not the worst) on the road. This has been reported on the news countless times but the public still buys them. Why? Marketing. The general public will fall for almost anything. Market presents an item as something you MUST HAVE and the public does not even question it.

SUV is only one small item as an example of 'people in high places' pulling our strings. Oil is another,but that is another story.

I read the Donald J. Boudreaux article, which was interesting but somewhat elusive to me. I'm sure others have a better grasp of his significant points. Here is the concluding paragraph just to give us some focus:



I would think there are more than a few private externalities being perpetrated out there but he might have put his finger on a dilemma worth looking into. Unfortunately he was short on specific examples of what he was talking about so noticing a comment box below I offered a possible example of what he might be saying, hoping to get further guidance. Here it is:



I'll pass along the reply if and when I get it.

I disagree with you to some extent, popeye. There's no question that people want to drive SUVs, partly because of marketing and partly because they like to drive big vehicles. People feel safer and more powerful in SUVs, and it's that feeling that sells them.

However, some people feel like they need an SUV. This is definitely due to marketing, and it's completely untrue. No one needs an SUV, even people who go off road and camp and all that crazy stuff you see in commercials. A Jeep Cherokee is not a large SUV, and it does all of those things. An Escalade would be next to useless on a really tough path because it's so big and would bottom out on big bumps. Besides, no one would want to get dirt on their shiny black Escalade. And most people can go as far into the wilderness as they want to with an '85 Honda Civic.

Thanks Pheeler:

I needed that. I had been trying to get people to see that point for days and no one seemed to agree. I was beginning to think I was going mad and everyone else was sane. lol!!!

People do think they are safer in a SUV but aren't. If i remember correctly the rate of accidents is higher with SUV than other vehicles. This is mostly because people think they are the bigger vehicle on the road and drive like hell in them. This causes the top heavy SUV to turn over.

This overall seems like a debate about freedom. What does money mean, or do?
is it just one thing, do you survive by money, have fun with money, and in most parts of the world you live your life via money, its a founding element of our society, culture and reality. Now what do you do with money, what if you were the only person with money in a place that did not recognize it?

The bottom line is your life and labor or your economics can never be truly free, even if you train yourself to be a survivor in the wild, you still must work to feed yourself, keep some form of shelter, maybe even fight other animals for survival.

Economics or whatever you want to call it is just a reflection of that to me, we have taken the human reality and turned it into the human condition in its various forms all over the world. The bottom line is to be apart of society or to not, you cant escape being alive, and something somewhere will always require your attention in some form. The word free implies no strings attached, that is not what it means to be human to say the least. Thus we must develop an illusion of freedom and sell it to people. When in fact it is just a more comfortable reality, or one that is not harsh.

Call it what you want, even in a libertarian reality, human nature or survival would have to take some kind of a form, and once again you would not be free.

You can strive for freedom, make a democracy or whatever, but you still have to deal with being human, either alone as an individual or part of a society. How much does ones perspective on what freedom is determine political alignment? does this use of freedom detract from another’s?

You work for money, then you buy your life with money, its just some form of organized reality that stems from being alive. Can true freedom be attained, to me the answer is no, but one could shape realty to his or her likening and make life more free, i guess that is what all the ruckus is about

At one time the dangers of government were well recognized. Our Constitution originally had many protections against the whim of a temporary majority. The electoral college, super majorities required for amendments, indirect election of Senators, the 9th and 10th Amendments and the 14th Amendment which limited the power of local and state governments and most importantly Article 1 Section 8 that limited the authority of the federal government, before judicial misinterpretations of the commerce and general welfare clauses, severely.

In our own history everyone can see the abuses of government. From the disenfranchisement of women, to slavery to genocide. All sanctioned by government. All universally recognized as wrong today. Now, rather than gender or racial groups, it is the individual himself being attacked. People can be locked up for years, because a majority think smoking crack is wrong, sodomizers can go to jail, because a majority think homosexual sex is wrong, a business can be driven into bankruptcy, because a majority think allowing smoking in your own property is wrong.

A quote from Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom"



At one time we had a constitutional republic.

Your argument seems long on theory but short on history and policy. Impoverished persons aren't "free" to pick up and leave from their jobs in many cases. This was especially true in the age of "the company store" and union-busting, but remains true today, particularly in rural areas. You don't need a monopoly to have the individual at great disadvantage to their employer, you just need it to be difficult for the person to find other employment. Additionally, even where monopolies don't exist, you need gov't to prevent collusion among competitors, which can lead to the same results as monopolies.

"Taking advantage" of someone doesn't need to be long-term to be destructive to the fabric of society. A company can exist for quite sometime cutting corners and covering it's tracks, but even if it couldn't, accountability is needed. If a product causes cancer over a period of use, a company can enrich many a CEO before the link becomes apparent; regulation aims at preventing anyone from having to contract cancer to discover this.

A party is weaker when it's difficult to obtain information necessary to fully understand their transaction. Consent, as understood by the courts, is somewhat more enlightened than "you took the risk that I was purposefully misleading you". With that view, to be empowered w/o an intermediary, one would have to be well-researched on every transaction they make, large or small, everyday.

"Freely chosen" is kinda the key here. The government isn't the only organization that can interfere with one's freedom. Assuming a government that does nothing but break monopolies or collusion, you'd still have to assume that the remaining companies always seek the rational, long-term, and moral course. They may or may not tend that way, but "tending to" implies some not doing so. To assert that it would be otherwise is to make a claim logically no different than that a rational gov't won't overstep it's bounds. I prefer an elected, divided, acountable gov't insuring that corporations focus on clean, productive competition to some anarcho-capitalist acid-trip.

Outside of extreme Jean-Paul Sarte existentialist definitions of freedom, plenty of room for coercion exists in our economic lives. Assuming that both sides of any transaction must benefit presumes all of the wacky presumptions (rational-self interest, no coercion, equal info, etc.) used in economic theory. This is why 10 economists will produce 10 answers to most real-world questions, and why freshman year textbook Economics is a bad place to start a policy argument.

I plead guilty to having an argument based on theory. It is based on sound theory. I think that's a good place to start when formulating policy. As for history, history verifies everything I believe very consistently.



Whether impoverished or not, we are all free until someone imposes their will on us by force. By that I don't mean "free from want" or "free from hunger" or "free from disease" or "free from annoyances" or anything like that. I mean "free to live our lives as we choose", which includes deciding for ourselves how to deal with the want, hunger, disease, annoyances, etc, that are part and parcel of reality.

If we were to each live totally independent lives (the "hermit" argument that some have made here), we would be free, but horribly impoverished. By interacting with others, we are able to improve our situations through the processes of division of labor and trade. When this interaction is freely chosen, it tends to better all parties involvement in the long term. Of course, we make decisions along the way that we regret, and come away from some decisions worse off than we would have otherwise been. Like all the mistakes we make in life, we learn from the consequences of these mistakes (some faster than others), and do better next time.

Why isn't your impoverished person free to pick up and leave his job? Is it because there is no other job for him that gives him a better return on his time and skills? If there is such a job, he should take it. If he has to move to find it, he should consider doing so. If there is not such a job, then he should keep his job, and do everything he can to improve his ability to find that better job.



Both examples involved companies using force (or the threat of force) to interfere with the freedom of their employees. I think we both agree that this is wrong, and that it is a proper function of government to prevent such use of force. That role does not require government to "exercise significant influence over your economic life", which is the point under debate.



It is a strange way to look at things to say that a person who has great difficulty finding other employment is at a disadvatage to their employer. They are certainly at a disadvantage in general, meaning that they don't have great options, but their employer is clearly offering them an advantageous situation, or why would they work there?

Let's look at a silly hypothetical. Say I have ONLY two possible ways to get a loaf of bread: 1) make it myself or 2) buy it for $100 dollars per loaf from a greedy baker. You would say, I suppose, that I am at a great disadvantage to the baker. But there are (at least) two important points to make.

First, the baker is offering me the best deal available to me. It would cost me well over $100 in time, equipment, training, materials, and effort to make my own loaf of bread. So, given my hypothetically limited range of options, the $100 loaf is advantageous.

The baker is offering me a good deal compared to all my other options. His offer is an advantage to me, not a disadvantage, because I am better off with the $100 loaf option than I would be without it.

If I was to say that I am at a disadvantage to the baker, what I am saying is that I wish I had better options.

Second, in a free market I DO have better options. The outrageous profit being made by the baker gives me a high incentive to find something else to eat, or some other source of bread. It also sends a signal to others that they could profit by selling bread cheaper than the baker is. So, as long as everyone is free to act, the baker is not going to stay in business long without lowering his prices.

Your impoverished person in a rural area is not at a disadvantage to his employer. He works for his employer because doing so offers him an advantage over all his other options (or at least the ones he's willing to pursue). His problem isn't an employer that takes advantage of him. His problem is that HE HAS LOUSY OPTIONS!!!! There's only one way out of that situation, and that's to improve his options: something that the vast majority of people are capable of. His current job, if anything, gives him an advantage in doing so, since it makes him better off than he would be if he didn't have that job.

(All this assumes of course, that the employer is not using force to retain his employment.)

Unfortunately, so many people buy the line that they are the downtrodden and disadvantaged, that they don't see their own power to improve their lives. You should realize that you are reinforcing that sad message with your political philosophy.

Third point. Every economic transaction involves people taking advantage of one another. In most cases, both parties take advantage and also gain advantage. If I am dying of thirst in the middle of the desert, and a man offers me a glass of water in exchange for my life savings, he is taking advantage of my dire need for the water. If I take him up on the deal, I am taking advantage of his keen interest in my life savings.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't think much of that guy. Personally, I think his method of getting rich off of other people's bad situations is immoral, and just plain "icky". But he is free to do it. It's his glass of water.

Fortunately, we don't live in the middle of a desert where only one person has a glass of water. We live in the most vibrant, extravagantly wealthy society ever known to man. We all have options. Tons of options. If I'm thirsty, I have people falling all over themselves to give me a drink for next to nothing - with free refills to boot!

So the only way the immoral, icky folks can get their way is through the use of force. (Nowadays, the primary means of doing so is through government.)



You don't need government for this. Collusion only works if you can get everyone to play along.

Going back to my "bread" hypothetical, it could be that all the bakers in town get together and decide that they will all charge $100 per loaf. So what? That's no different than the "one greedy baker" situation. Someone is going to see the great opportunity and take advantage, either an insider that splits from the group, or an outsider that comes in. Unless the collusion is backed up with force, it makes no difference if 1 company is overcharging or 10 companies are all deciding to overcharge together. That's just suicide vs. mass suicide.

Collusion, historically, is always backed up by force. Usually, that force comes from the government you entrust to prevent it.

Ooops, family's waking up. I'll get to the rest of your post as soon as I can. But please feel free to respond to what I've got so far...

Gee, PrismPaul, I think I'm going to wait until you finish your book in it's entirety before responding. But a couple of questions to guide your response:

1.) Perhaps most important: What do you consider "significant influence"? I've been assuming you think the gov't currently exercises such influence. You've conceded that the gov't should break monopolies and prevent multiple forms of coercion. If you somehow thought I was arguing for a command economy, I wasn't. I'm arguing that the gov't must be vigilant in protecting consumers and employees while insuring that companies compete fairly. Mostly I'm for a tweeking of current regulations (esp. re: stock manipulation).

2.) Do you believe the individual worker was freer in 1900? That they're freer in specific 3rd world countries whose economic policies are like ours were then? How about safe consumers? Where's your consistent verification of your theory, the performance of IMF "shock therapy"?

3.) Do you agree that for a real "freely chosen" interaction one must know what one's getting in to, or at least have reasonable access to such information (think FDA, etc.)? Or at least have a means of redress if the nature of the transaction is intentionally misleading (Enron)?

4.) If you're saying that the gov't currently has too much influence, then can you better define what you mean by use of "force" that the gov't may intervene to prevent? Your 10 bakers scenario is something Adam Smith warned about, and it happens in real life, until the gov't intervenes. The market might eventually right the situation, but where's the harm of having a collusion law on the books?

5.) On your "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" argument: This goes to my presumption you were arguing for less government interference. I agree that one can improve one's lot, if the person has access to education, knowledge of options, free-time, and a high enough wage. You have to be able to locate, qualify for, and settle at your new job. I would also agree that those exist in most of the U.S., although I'm certain things are borderline on at least the "knowing your options" count in parts of Appalachia and some inner cities. But to the underlying issues: do you agree with the existence of a min. wage, public schools, regulations on overtime, etc.? That seems like significant gov't influence to me.

6.) If your best friend was standing behind the guy demanding your life savings for his water, but had no water himself, and you're close to the death, isn't your friend a complete @#$#^$#% if he doesn't "force" the guy to give it up cheaper to save another's life? To de-abstract it somewhat, if a company is doing severe damage to the public health in order to rake in profits well above what is needed for it's employees and shareholders to flourish, is the gov't right to intervene to protect it's citizens from anothers greed? This is a better analogy to the question at hand than having only two parties, as it doesn't dodge the possibility of gov't intervention. What if there were many guys with water, but they were splitting the life savings, until your water-less bud shows up with an Uzi? Are you going to hate your friend if he "insists" they sell for fair compensation?

Mill finishes "On Liberty" with these statements:



Government can be a significant factor for good without being a tyrant. We don't have to exclude the middle. A classically liberal government protects the individual from government and other forms of tyranny.

My first read of Plat's sig is that he is more comfortable with regulation from our Congress than he is with the WTO, IMF, and other appointed international organizations.



In this I was inspired by the original post and not by Platypus. Can you imagine anyone acting economically without the existence of a government? Is it happening anywhere today? So since a government is going to be involved, is ours that bad of a form?

Do these quotes from Hugo contradict or make up parts of a consistent argument?




Is the individual supposed to be free to treat other people as property and conduct his own business in his own way, or should a government be there to lead these social changes? If our own history is a story of acting too slowly to the wrongs of slavery, disfranchisement of women, genocide etc. doesn't this mean that our government should be reacting more quickly to alter our social behavior?

Also I do not see where our economic life has become subject to the whims of the majority. Even with direct election of senators the rules for getting a law passed are essentially the same. Each state gets two senators. Our Bill of Rights protects us (in theory) from abuse from the government. And it is these activist judges who interpret the law to keep the government out of our bedroom. I think the IRS and the police have been given tools of seizure that go beyond their right and I never got to elect an IRS official.

Sorry about losing focus in this comment, but I had trouble finding a starting point in here.

Eeyore,

What you are not recognizing is that many of these evils in our history were as the result of government. The Constitution, before the 14th Amendment, allowed states to enslave a portion of its populace. Similarly state laws relagated women to a subordinate role. The strike busters in the 19th and early 20th Century were often local, or state, officers of the law. It was Jim Crow laws that kept black Americans in a subordinate role.

We do need government to protect individuals against internal and external aggressors. For all of our history government has supported aggression by some against the liberty of others. Slavery could not exist with a government dedicated to preserving individual freedom, slavery could only have existed on a small scale without a government dedicated to it's preservation.

What was so brilliant about the 14th Amendment and 15th Amendments was it properly limited the powers of state and local governments over the individual.

Yes, a democratic government, which allows slavery, does need to be changed by government. It would have been much better if we had a libertarian government in the first place. There are proper roles for government. The most universally recognized role is to protect it's citizens from internal and external aggressors. We have a government that takes money from citizen A and gives it to citizen B. We have a government that will lock someone up for choosing to use a drug in his own home. We we have a government that will prohibit someone from allowing smoking on his own private property. We have a government which limits individuals rights of association.

If you remember many of the early civil rights leaders spent a bit of time in jail cells. That is because they were often in violation of state and local laws that enforced discrimination and segregation. The fact is that government has turned it's aggression away from minority groups and found new targets.

Providing adequate answers to all your questions would indeed require a book-sized post. Let me try to express my basic views, and maybe we can go from there:

I believe that each human being has a natural right (meaning that it exists in nature – it is not granted to them by any other human being or government) to live their own life the way they chose as long as they don’t interfere with other’s rights to do the same.

I believe that a natural extension of this is property rights. That is, each human “owns” himself and the fruit of his labor, and this means he has the natural right to do with each as he sees fit. Again, this is limited only by the prohibition on infringing on other’s equivalent rights.

Humankind has learned that we can live much better lives if we cooperate voluntarily with others. Trade allows people to maximize their productivity and live better with less effort. Trade is a natural result of free people exercising their freedom.

Contracts are a natural extension of trade. They allow people to deal with time differences in trade (example: I’ll trade 8 hours of my labor each day this week for a paycheck on Friday).

Trade and contracts allow for a gargantuan improvement in the lives of those involved.

Unfortunately, because men are not angels (as Madison famously said), some people try to use force and theft rather than trade to get things from others, and some people use fraud to take advantage of other’s trust.

So another of our natural rights is to protect ourselves against force, theft, and fraud. If someone tries to take my home by force, I have a natural right to use force to protect it. If someone defrauds me by accepting my labor, then failing to deliver the promised paycheck, I have a natural right to get the money I’m owed, by force if necessary.

Now this is key: Government’s only legitimate power is delegated to it from the people. We don’t want a bunch of people running around settling their own scores with people who they think have defrauded them, stole from them, etc. Plus, it is impractical to protect our rights from outsiders (foreign invaders) without some central organizing entity. So we create a government and empower it to do these things for us: through the police power, justice system, armed forces etc.

So, government’s legitimate role is to carry out our natural right to protect our natural rights to liberty and property, and to carry out our natural rights to redress violations of our rights through force, theft, and fraud.

But we can’t grant rights to government if we don’t have those rights in the first place!

Once we allow government to take money from Peter and give it to Paul, then we have let the government that was meant to be our rights protector become itself a rights violator. I have no right to take money from Peter and give it to Paul. Therefore, I cannot have government do it for me.

I DO NOT have a right to use force to stop Peter from selling Paul a drug that Peter says will cure cancer, even if I feel the drug has not been proven “safe”. So I cannot have government do this for me.

I DO NOT have a right to use force to make Peter pay me a certain wage. So I cannot have government do this for me.

I DO NOT have a right to use force to make someone provide me with what I consider safe working conditions. So I cannot have government do this for me.

I DO have a right to use force to avoid paying coerced protection money to the mob. So I CAN give government the right to do this for me.

I DO have the right to use force against a local cartel, if they are using force to prevent me from selling a product at a price lower than they like. So I CAN give government the right to do this for me.

You get the idea.

There’s my short (and necessarily incomplete) thesis on the appropriate role of government.

Now here’s the kicker. That’s the theoretical basis, but I believe this has a utilitarian basis as well. That is, if government were limited as I describe, we would ALL be profoundly better off.

Now, if anyone wants to keep this going, I’d be glad to field specific challenges to this: minimum wage, FDA, labor regulations, and on and on. My view is that none of these are legitimate roles of government, nor are they a net benefit to society.

What if the sale and transportation of this drug is characterized by violence? What if the purchase of this drug by Paul creates a market for a product that causes Mary to be murdered?

Further, and perhaps more importantly, I challenge you to apply your theory to the federal regulation of electricity. (I'm setting a little trap for you here because this is my area of expertise, but I feel like you should be able to apply your theory in that area if you are going to apply it elsewhere.)

If the sale and transportation of a drug is "characterized" by violence, government has the correct and proper role of dealing with the violence, but has no business interfering with the sale or transportation of the drug. If you are eluding to the violence surrounding illegal drugs today, I'm sure you're aware that this violence is the direct result of government prohibition on the drugs, which creates a black market run by criminals, and hence violence pays.

You don't see much violence associated with the sale and transportation of alcohol these days, but there certainly was during prohibition.

Now for your trap.

I have no right to interfere with the peaceful exchange of money for electricity, so I can't grant that power to the federal gov't.

Trap away!!!!

So you do favor the late 19th century/early 20th century scheme of things on many issues. I assume, in our earlier example of the worker in a rural area where there may only be one company hiring, even w/o a guarantee of a certain wage, a safe work place, and some free time w/o getting fired, I'll have enough time and money to locate, apply for, secure, and move to a new job. This where your view of what constitutes an "advantage" seems odd to me.

If my boss can do as he pleases to me and knows I can be replaced w/o hassle, and I can only try to change work after months of scrimping and saving during long hours in a dangerous work place, I'm negotiating from a position of weakness. accept this as advantage simply b/c the worker has a choice between a crappy job and nothing. My options are fewer and worse. You If you think this is negotiating on even ground, I'll happily do business with you. This is really just informal indentured servitude. I don't know if those where the labor market is bigger would necessarily fare better, as they didn't when we used to have just such a system. Where the demand for labor was larger than the supply- like now, for instance- unregulated companies were historically free to put hardworking people through the ringer, b/c they needed to pay their bills.

I don't buy that simply having the gov't not prevent unions would be enough. Contrary to what you say, there was plenty of "private" union-busting and enough techniques that could only be stopped by "labor regulations".

Finally, I think the role of information is important here, for consumers, employers, prospective businesses, etc. Without clear and accessible info, the mechanics of the free market fail to work the wonders attributed to it. The FDA and similar regulation protect us against false advertising. It is irksome where something is banned solely b/c it's going through testing or in a "gray" area, but without any such organization, there'd be no neutral authority to appeal to regarding different products. I'm sure w/o the FDA drug companies would be swearing by a cancer pill in weeks, it's just unfortunate that it'd have a better chance of causing it than curing it. I, for one, do not miss the days of snake oil salesmen and Coke made with real coke.

Can your refutations this time include the real-world examples you've been promising? Not hypotheticals, but history and nations where such deregulation has worked out for the common good. Natural law property theory is fine and nice, but I'm a pragmatist.

We have a diverse population of around 280 million people in this country alone. With who knows how many people in the next ten years. The corporate world is fast pace and cut throat. The environment is slowly falling apart, racism proves to destroy the lives in America. All the possible things that can be exercised by an individual give us one volatile society to live in. How would you regulate such to provide stability?

Would you prefer private organizations to do such, even though they may be bias, geographically isolated, do you think the individual can solve the problem?

I am not saying that an individual cannot make a difference, we know that not to be true. More or less i am getting at the fact that these individuals live in a society.

When i think of a libertarian world, the movie mad max comes to mind. If no one has ever watched that movie, well its just a general chaos that barely sustains human existence, and is a typical stereotype of various things anyways, probably stemming from history of life in America. At any rate, some people could see such a libertarian government working, i too could see it work if humans were not what they are or can be.

To get to my point "freedom" is a fine line that can be beneficial and damaging to society, and this itself is open to opinion. Being this society like many others makes its way with money, that is what people if not elected officials work with.

So i guess one could look at that as a current failure in our government model, as we elect officials with stark contrasts that in turn must work with each other and previous officials works at the same time, or that America lacks a truly organized sheet of music to work with.

I see your point regarding violence associated with drugs. (I disagree, but I see your point and find it logical and defensible.)

Now for electricity:

I agree that federal regulation of electricity does not meat your standard for power capable of being transferred to the gov't from the people. However, I see centralized oversight of this industry as a benefit for the people of this country.

The fact is that in today’s world, we can do almost nothing without electricity. Massive power outages like this one are extremely costly for the public and private industry.

Now, because of the physics behind electricity, utilities with seemingly separate transmission systems depend heavily on each other for reliability. Essentially the electric system east of the Rocky Mountains excluding Texas and part of Canada is one big machine. If one piece breaks, it affects everything. On the physical side of the industry, everyone is tied to their neighbor closely. In other words, even if every utility acts in its own interest to maintain its own reliability, we end up with an unreliable network. (As an example of this fact, we can look at the electric transmission system we have set up today. Lines were built with corporate self interest in mind, which is the way it should be, but the result is a shaky overall network.)

Despite the close relationship resulting from the physics of electricity, the business and contractual side of the industry is organized in a very anti-cooperative manner. There is little incentive for individual utilities to build transmission upgrades that are needed to ensure the reliability of the whole system. The utilities act in their own self interest, as we hope they would in our capitalistic society, but like I said above, this results in a shoddy network.

So we have:
1) An industry critical to our well being and very costly to shut down, even temporarily.
2) An industry whose physical network’s reliability depends on everyone working together.
3) An industry that functions in a capitalistic society characterized by acting in corporate self interest.

Now, left alone these three factors add up to a shaky network for something that everyone depends on. I believe the government has a role in bridging this disconnect. I think the government should act to distort the market in such a way as to encourage or at least make possible the coordination between transmission owning utilities for the good of the public, even though this action does not meet your standard.

To understand why I think the job you describe constitutes an “advantage”, just apply this simple test: Would your worker be better off or worse off if the job disappeared? The answer is, clearly, that the worker would be worse off. Otherwise, he would not choose to work at that job! How can you say that X is a disadvantage to someone if taking away X makes that person worse off? I would love to hear your answer to that question…

I do not favor the late 19th/early 20th century scheme of things in the following way: I disagree with the use of force, private or government, in retaining workers (among other things). Other than that, it was a great system. The industrial revolution, combined with our laissez faire policies lifted millions of people out of the most desperate kind of poverty. We look back at some of their conditions from our current state of wealth and find those conditions unacceptable, just as we now look at third world factory workers and find their conditions unacceptable. But we have to ask, “compared to what?”



No, servitude requires force.

Look, I think we are using the term “disadvantage” in two different contexts. I am not saying that all negotiations take place on “even ground”. In fact, in a free market, a large profit on one side of a transaction indicates an uneven exchange. It could be said that this uneven ground puts one party at a disadvantage within the context of the transaction. (Case in point being my “glass of water in the desert” hypothetical, in which I was at a severe negotiating disadvantage.) But you cannot say that the transaction as a whole is a disadvantage to either party. If it was, then we would not both agree to engage in the transaction.

But the good news is that any unevenness within the context of a particular transaction, signaled by high profit on one side or the other, is a clarion call to others that, in a free market, can move in to take advantage. This leads, in a free market, to a rapid evening out of the disparity.

Let me illustrate with two examples, looking at this process from both sides. If the worker has a more advantageous position, as is the case in some technical fields where demand outstrips supply, the result is a large profit for the qualified worker, in the form of a large salary. These salaries send a signal to others that it would be good for them to get the necessary training to qualify for those sorts of jobs. As more people answer that signal, the supply and demand disparity lessens, and the “outrageous profits” that workers were making come down. Competition for these jobs tends to bring things toward equilibrium.

If the employer has the more advantageous position, as is the case with unskilled labor and few employment options, then the supply outstrips demand and the employer is at an advantage and can make out nicely. But this sends a signal to other employers that they can benefit by offering these workers slightly higher wages and/or better working conditions. This process again tends to even out the disadvantage. Competition for these workers tends to bring things toward equilibrium, which improves options and conditions for workers.

The key to this working is freedom to choose on both the employer and employee side of the equation.

If the gov’t steps in and says that company A must pay its workers a certain minimum wage, or provide a certain standard of working conditions, then this process is destroyed. Competition for the least skilled workers does not occur at all. Instead, they are simply unemployed because no company is willing to hire them at the costs mandated by gov’t. Thus, the bottom rungs of the ladder out of poverty are removed.

Another bad effect of gov’t intervention is that it artificially drives up the costs of production (by eliminating the option of low cost unskilled labor). This, of course, hurts the poor as well, as goods become more expensive.

To think that the gov’t is doing “good” by setting minimum wages and working standards is a classic case of looking at a very narrow desired effect, without looking at the big picture consequences of the action, which often hurt the very people the intervention was designed to help.



You don’t have to buy it, because I’m not trying to sell that. Private union busting via the use of force is contrary to individual freedom, and government should prevent it and address it when it occurs. This is consistent with what I’ve proposed as the appropriate role of government: enforcement of property rights and the rule of law.



I’ve already used too much space, so I can’t go into detail, but I’m sure we’ll get there in a later post… But the short answer is: if consumers want nuetral, reliable, third-party information, then it will be profitable for someone to fill that need in the private sector. If you rely on government to provide this information, you have established an unnatural monopoly by force, with all the problems that stem from that. Gov’t regulatory agencies are far from “neutral”, and believing this is extreme naiveté. They are staffed by human beings: fallible, self-interested human beings just like those that run and work for profit-seeking companies. Like I said, this is incomplete, but that’s a preview sketch…



Real-world examples are all around us. Look at the miserable condition of the most regulated sectors of our economy (ex: health care, education) where costs continually rise while quality goes down. Look at the sectors with the least regulation (ex: computers, consumer electronics) where we actually complain because the money we spent last year for a computer, dvd player, or camcorder could buy us far more today.

Looking around the world and throughout history, the least regulated societies have had the most rapid economic growth and most upward mobility among the poor.

My brain is like a sieve for numbers and statistics (I often forget how old I am, for example) so I’m not the guy to rattle off stats. But I can recommend the following as a good comprehensive, fact-based overview of the correlation between free market capitalism and “the common good”.

Chapter 2, "In Defence of Global Capitalism" by Johann Norberg

This chapter has a lot of the "theory" that I've been going on about, but backs the theory up with lots of stats.

If this is true you can offer some class-mobility statistics. They should not be hard to find. Speaking specifically to regulations however; two of the most robust national economies in the West are Ireland and Canada; two which practice the most government intervention. This would contravene your argument would it not?

If we are to be guided by an invisible hand, does it really make sense that the market will be handle us better than a government; or a combination of the two?

The chapter I linked in my last post contains such stats...



Actually, Ireland and Canada both rank toward the top in terms of economic freedom, in comparison to the more repressive governments in the world, so the fact that they have comparitively good ecomonies is consistent with my view.

Both countries at least have the basic institutions of private property and the rule of law, which the poorest countries lack.

Most western economies are "mixed", so those who believe that more government is good can point to government regulation and interventionism as the cause of good outcomes, while those, like me, that think regulation and interventionism are bad, can point to the free-market components of these countries as the cause of good outcomes.

That is why understanding sound ecomomic theory is so important. Without it, it is easy to be hoodwinked into the wrong conclusion.

But while Canada compares well to say... Zimbabwe, it also clearly has less economic freedom than the US, and it's economic growth reflects that.

The Fraser Institute does an annual "Economic Freedom of the World" report and recently added an "Economic Freedom of North America" report. Both can be viewed in detail here

Here is an interesting quote regarding Canada as compared to the US:



And here is an interesting summary of the world-wide results:



As for your last statement:

.

I can't make heads or tails of it.

Condascension aside, your entire posts seems to hinge on a misunderstanding of what I was saying, or a deliberate attempt to expand my arguments beyond their original scope to discredit them.



I did not compare them to the more repressive governments in the world. Your comparison is akin to saying that America is wealthier than Jamaica because America is more free. I was using two examples that can very easily be contrasted to neighbours or other countries in similar circumstances.



Either this is an insult (which I doubt) or you are suggesting that the economic theory that you subscribe to is superior and the one that I value is misinforming me. Where you are making a fatal error is assuming that one is right and another is wrong. Differing economic theories (from the standpoint of an observer) are ways of interpretting information, that is all. You interpret it differently than I do. To say that one is right and one is wrong in the same post in which you say that there is evidence of both seems contradictory. If there is evidence that regulation in a mixed economy decries the need for it, or supports it, then that means that there is more than one way of looking at the evidence, not a right one and a wrong one.



I'm not sure how you're structuring your comparison, but the last time I checked the Canadian economy has grown faster in recent years than the U.S., wouldn't that pretty much invalidate your argument?



The Second-Quarter Gap Between Canadian and U.S. Growth Is Less Than It Seems

Your citation of the Frasier institute is interesting as well, as it is essentially an ultra right-wing pulpit that forecasts doom and gloom if Canada continues to experiment in slightly left-wing politics. In Canadian circles they are held as pretty much worthless by everyone except those in the right wing.

As for my last statement... It is important when understanding economic theory to have an understanding of the origins of said theory. Otherwise it is easy to get confused by people like me.

More specifically, lets look at the words that sparked this debate.



The founder of capitalist thought, Adam Smith, wrote on this very subject. Surely you are familiar with the "Invisible Hand." Smith was clearly writing about market forces; and how they would guide a free economy to growth and prosperity. That is a basic presumption of his work, and the following theories of capitalism. Yet you rejected this assumption in your first post. This is what I find confusing.

You address this yourself- I believe you were initially reacting to my point about one party bargaining from a weaker position. I never brought up a worker living on a deserted island. My focus is the coercive disparity in power, as you say later (after quoting a fragment and responding to what you agree is a misreading):



You don't account for labor supply being greater than demand, as is often the case, regardless of regulation. Where is the company's interest in raising wages when low wages keep costs low and keep workers around? And in hiring past capacity to sell? A third-party employer would likely have the same low wages, all their positions filled, scabs for unions, and high profits. At the very least, it'd be some time before the problem worked it self out. A min. wage does not destroy employer competition for unskilled labor- there has historically been little competition for such employees, regardless of regulation. W/o a min. wage, unskilled laborers compete for limited job slots in a "race to the bottom". A min. wage only set a reasonable floor above which wages are free to vary. This plus simple safety restrictions, etc., would only force significant cost increases in cases of extremely inefficient/unproductive businesses, and the poor would have the direct benefit of more money.

Your assessment of our current position versus the third world/industrial revolution seems somwhat odd. We're repulsed only b/c things are better now, with regulation, therefore, we should remove regulation? I think Industrial Revolution improvements had more to do with the technology of the times improving standards of living. The era was a time of increasing regulation, whereas the nation had long been governed by "capital L" Liberal economic policies.

The "force" req'd in indentured servitude was enforcement of contractual debt. Your definition of "force", now apparently including the use of scabs, seems to grow wider when you're pressed. I never said gov't regulation was "perfect", bit I believe that open and accountable agencies that provide their info to everyone protect the public good better than a for-profit group that would likely have an interest in the industry. Who wants to buy JAMA so everytime they buy cold medicine, to make sure they won't be peeing blood tomorrow?

As for your "proof", I'm unswayed in regards to the continually improving quality of life for our workers in today's more regulated world. There's much more going on in economies than regulation and growth and a thousand tricks one can do to create the appearance of a correlation between two variables- ever hear about murders and ice cream sales?

Anyway, my main beef with Libertarian economic policies are that they remind me too much of Marxism, actually. It all hinges a great deal upon breezy, simple theories of how it should be, and jumps of logic are made to justify one's position. Where we've seen them both in the past, times were worse. With Marxism it's a belief the employee won't be corrupt and lazy and the gov't won't be inept; with Libertarianism it's the belief that corporations won't make the lives of individuals worse when the gov't's too weak to protect anyone. I realize that's a characterization, but that's where I see the "fuzzy logic" on both sides. I'd prefer the middle road that has made our living standard so high.

For all those people who credit government with pushing up wages; Why don't we set a minimum wage of $50 an hour? Hey we can all drive Cadillacs and live in luxurious homes. It is totally absurd to give government the credit for raising living standards. What people confuse is cause and effect, prosperous nations can afford to put obstacles in the path of economic growth.

Let me ask again the question no liberal will answer; why don't we immediately set a minimum wage of $50 an hour?

I apologize if I came across as condescending. And reading my last post, I can see why you thought so. I think I tend to get caught up in the competitive nature of this stuff, and my tone evolves into something that feels like "amicably cocky" as I'm typing it but ends up reading as disrespectful ( ... ... ). Rest assured that I respect your views and appreciate the opportunity to debate with you. If I didn’t respect you I wouldn’t bother.

I did not intentionally distort or expand your argument. I'm sorry if I got it wrong.



Here I think you misunderstood my earlier post. I had not meant to say that both economic theories are true, I was saying that proponents of both economic theories will claim that the success of mixed economies supports their particular theory.

I strongly disagree with the idea that there is no right or wrong economic theory. If two economic theories are contradictory, they can both be wrong, but they can’t both be right. The minimum wage, for example, can’t be both a net harm to the poor and a net benefit to the poor. But there is no doubt that statistics are slippery, which is why I think it is important to focus on the underlying logic of a theory rather than relying on stats.



The Frasier study I quoted covered data up to either 1999 or 2000, I can’t remember which. Since that time, according to your source, Canadian growth as exceeded US growth on average. That fact alone does not contradict my argument for two reasons:

1) We have no input on how economic freedom fared in Canada vs. the US during the three years in question. While I don’t follow Canadian economic policy, your article indicates that the years of solid growth corresponded with tax cuts, while the recent period was characterized by more spending on health care and infrastructure with less emphasis on easing the tax burden.



Better growth corresponding with years of tax cuts and contraction corresponding with higher government spending are consistent with my economic theory.

2) There are way too many things going on in a complex economy to easily isolate cause and effect in a limited data set. The article you quote illustrates this nicely, as it mentions the effect of “special causes” like the war on terror, the SARS scare, mad cow disease, oil prices, and other things that all play into the economic picture. In order to derive conclusions about the correlation between economic freedom and economic growth, you need to look at lots of countries over many years, so that these “special cause” items even out. That’s what the Frasier study does.



How surprising is that? Naturally when a scholarly body puts out research that challenges the status quo and threatens the powers that be, they will be labeled “extreme”. It is an old and tired debate fallacy to attack the opponent when you can’t attack the opponent’s argument.

BTW: do you consider nationalized health care “slightly left wing politics”? Okay, don’t answer that. Wrong thread.



I am very familiar with the concept of the Invisible Hand. But I don’t think I contradicted that idea with my first post. Maybe you can explain to me how you feel that I did.

Plat’s quote says that “Some powerful entity” is going to have influence over your economic life “whether you like it or not”, and implies that if it’s not the government, it will be someone else. My first post challenges folks to tell me who this “powerful entity” is that will exercise influence over my economic life (whether I like it or not) if the government doesn’t do so. The Invisible Hand that Smith spoke of is not an “entity” at all, but the market system as a whole operating in a free economy. It is a phenomenon that occurs specifically because no powerful entity can wield influence over others against their will.

Now on to pennDerek's post...



Okay, let me try to be as clear as I can and see if I can get your position straight:

If someone voluntarily works at a lousy job for low pay under poor working conditions, because he considers it to be the best option he has, than I say that job represents an "advantage" to him.

I agree that he is at a "negotiating disadvantage" in terms of setting his salary, working conditions, etc, basically because he needs the job more than the employer needs him.

But that fact does not in any way detract from the fact that the job is a net advantage to both the worker and the employer. It is mutually beneficial, or else the worker would not participate.

Now, what part of that don't you agree with, if any?



"Labor supply being greater than demand" is the easily predicted condition that results from minimum wage policy. Just as government setting an artificial ceiling on rents creates apartment shortages, setting artificial floors on wages creates job shortages. The minimum wage creates unemployment among the very poor, as the vast majority of economists recognize.



You don't have to rely on any particular "third-party employer". There is a market of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of potential employers, assuming that one is free to negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement without the restrictions imposed by government.



Can you back that assertion up with any evidence?



Again, you are making assertions without giving evidence or explanation. I think all these assertions are false, but I'll put the put the burden of proof on the one making the assertion...



Huh? I do not think that the use of non-union workers constitutes "force" - not sure where you got that.



This illustrates the difficulty people have envisioning the non-government-regulated world as it could be because we're stuck in a government-regulated paradigm. You would't have to buy or read JAMA to feel confident buying a cold medicine, any more than you now have to read the "Journal of Electrical Engineering" to decide whether it was safe to buy a certain hairdryer.

There is a whole network of non-government, self-interested participants that lead to our confidence in the safety of our electrical devices: Underwriters Laboratory (homepage), manufacturers who fear product liability lawsuits, insurers who require minimum safety requirements of those manufacturers, competitors that would take advantage of them if their products didn't meet industry standards, consumer groups, retailers that care about their reputation for providing safe products, etc.

Now, if there happened to be a single, monolithic "Federal Department of Electrical Device Safety" that approved all electrical devices in the country, I'm sure there would be many who would argue that eliminating the FDEDS would endanger all of us and expose us all to the dangers of the greedy, reckless Electrical Device manufacturers. For many, it would be hard to imagine that the free market would do a great job of ensuring safety at a far more reasonable cost, and in a way that was far less obstructive to innovation and progress.

Same goes for the FDA.



No argument there. But you're the one that asked for real-world history and data.



I could say exactly the same thing about those that feel government interventionism in the economy makes sense.

So, I guess your job, rather than just asserting that libertarian's have "simple theories" and make "jumps of logic" would be to point out what's wrong with those theories and where those jumps of logic are being made...

And I'll continue to do the same from my side.

You really need to avoid double posting Paul, even given the circumstances.

You're right in a way that we can't use simple economic data to argue over complex economic interactions, so lets shed that debate and focus on the theory, in particular the closing of your argument. You suggest that the "invisible hand" is merely a force that exists in the vacuum of a free economy. Your basically making a semantic argument here. How exactly is a market force not an "entity?" Webster's defines entity as

1. Being, existing.

Unless you are suggesting that market forces do not exist then they are an entity, an observable force that exists. The only difference I can see between a market force, and a government force, is the value judgement you apply to each based on your personal politics.

On the Fraser institute: I am not speaking merely to debase your argument, but to establish a fact. They are called an 'institute' merely because they are funded by some deep-pocketed patrons. They have no academic credibility in this country when it comes to research. The best example I can think of was their lauding (a few years ago) of Ontario's handling of environmental issues. They fully endorsed a government initiative to privatize water testing which was handled so poorly that 7 people died as a direct result and approximately 2,000 others were stricken when E. Coli penetrated a water supply. The man who led this initiative (who is also being investigated by an inquiry exploring whether or not he encouraged the killing of an unarmed native protestor) is now a member of said institute despite the fact that he has no training in economics. His name is Mike Harris.

FYI - 12 hours had passed. His edit window closed. He had no alternative. Carry on with the debate. - Jaime