[MD] French ingredient in the soup of sentiments

[Arlo Bensinger]

All,

The dialogue between Craig and I accidently moved to a personal interchange 
rather than being sent to the MD (Arlo's fault, not Craig's). I've placed 
the exchanges below, in the assumption that someone, somewhere, may be 
interested. :-)

===EMAIL ONE===
[Arlo had responded to Craig's "hoorahs" and "boos" on the market with this]
Would you add workplace safety regulations, wages, overtime compensation, 
maternity leave, medical coverage, and injury compensation to your list of 
"boohs"? What about environmental protections, refuse disposal regulations, 
or age-labor regulations? If life was so good without these, why did 
individuals demand them?

And here's a big one I'd be interested in hearing. Copyright protection. 
Isn't patents and copyright essentially "interference by government" in the 
market? Shouldn't we let the market itself, based on individuals making 
decisions, dictate the survival of a product, not whether or not it 
"infringes on the copyright of another"? If the market can self-police 
wages/labor conditions/etc so well, why can't it self-police copyright?

In short, if I want to take Lila, put my name on the cover and sell it, why 
should the government care? Isn't the free market capable of weeding out 
"bad products" such as my plagiarism?



===EMAIL TWO===
[Craig answered this with the following]
I'm all in favor of worker's benefits; they can add to the quality of 
labor.  Just as long as the worker realizes that these benefits are coming 
out of his total compensation.  I would prefer wages & benefits be 
negotiated as a combined package, so the market can adjust.  What I object 
to is the state mandating a certain level of wages & benefits
Anti-pollution regulations, I would handle differently.  Suppose a business 
has a choice between using a cheap coal & expensive smokestack 
anti-pollution scrubbers or more expensive coal & cheaper scrubbers.  These 
expenses would be carried under "Raw Materials" or "Utilities".  If all 
firms are under the same regulations, there should be little effect on wages.
Copyrights, patents, contract enforcement, etc. are all part of the legal 
structure of the free market.  The private sector does a good job in 
helping to enforce these (e.g., ASCAP).  Take a copy of Lila with your name 
on the cover and see if Barnes & Noble will sell it.
You are confusing the free market with anarchism.  I prefer only the former.

[To which Arlo then replied]
Devil's advocate question... how is the "legal structure of the free 
market" NOT part of "government interference in the market"?

Suppose I take "my" Lila and offer it for sale on eBay, or on my own 
Internet site. Why not let the free market decide whether or not I turn a 
profit? Why use the "state" to determine whether or not I am able to offer 
this product?

I'm playing poles here, Craig, and I appreciate your good naturedness about 
that. I don't think, really, we are at odds, as I think there are many 
options other than "anarchy" and "socialism" (despite what some want us to 
believe), and we can disagree over certain regulations and the amount of 
those ! ; regulations, and the effectiveness of the bureacratic 
adminstration of such, but our options are more than Stalinism and 
Capistocracy.

Take evironmental regulations. Some may be foolishly written to hinder 
honest business practice. And those that are we can openly debate. But, it 
is obvious (from historical observations) that in an SOMist framework that 
favors "profit" over all other concerns, the market did nothing to counter 
some truly horrific environmental destruction. Thing is, "low cost at 
market" has been elevated to the pinnacle of American profit-minded 
dialogue, where consumers behave as profit-mindedly as businesses. Indeed, 
you mention "total compensation" (which I favor) and I'll mention "total 
price". When you purchase a product you purchase more than the object, you 
purchase everything from the labor practices, the environmental impact, the 
treatment ! of workers and so forth.

The trouble is, as I've sai d, the mercantistic dialogue, which is seen as 
SOMist in ZMM (the SOMist position was the one concerned exclusively with 
"power and wealth" and had lost what it means to be "a part of the world"). 
And, like I said, it was individuals responding to a market had evolved 
with the maladies describe in ZMM that demanded regulations.

Here's a tangental point. In Germany there is a law that says, if you take 
a product to market, you have to pay the state a fair amount (tax) upfront 
to handle the disposal of the waste (packaging, etc) generated by your 
product. What this has done is seriously decrease the amount of waste 
generated by packaging, and hence decreased the amount of trash produced by 
the nation. In America, this would be immediately decried as socialism, but 
consider that in America it is the consumer who pays for his neighbor's 
waste disposal through stan! dardized refuse rates. Even if I consume 
hardly anything that generates waste, I have to pay the same amount for 
refuse collection as my neighbor who eats everything wrapped in individual 
plastic shells. By making the producer consider the total impact of 
releasing goods, which includes the community's role in refuse, not only is 
the burden of waste cost shifted to the producer of the waste, but the 
individual is responsible only for his/her own waste, and not the waste of 
his neighbors. And, everyone wins because the total trash output is 
seriously reduced. Now, would you call that unfair regulation? Would you 
say it is a good/bad idea to consider?



===EMAIL THREE===
[Craig then replied]
[Are the other threadmates out of the loop?]
the devil ?:
The same way laws against slander & libel don't infringe on free 
speech.  (An analogy, not an argument.)
The question of what amount of profit "your" Lila should get versus what 
amount Pirsig's should get is not a question for the economic 
marketplace.  You should get none & he, all (including any you somehow got.)
the tangential ?:
In California when you buy a plastic container of drink, you pay a deposit 
to the grocery store (which forwards it to Gov. Arnie.)  When you're done, 
you can redeem the empty at a recycling center.  It's a pragmatic ? whether 
this is better than the German system.



===EMAIL FOUR===
[And then Arlo followed with]
[Craig]
Are the other threadmates out of the loop?

[Arlo] Apparently they pissed God off with their sacreligious banter and He 
turned them into pillars of salt. And yet here we sit, unscathed...

[Craig] The same way laws against slander & libel don't infringe on free 
speech. (An analogy, not an argument.)

[Arlo] Which is an argument that we need some rules and regulations to 
govern the market. Which you said last time (as opposed to "anarchy"). 
Which I agree with. But let me ask, in devil fashion again, why are 
regulations that prevent me from taking Pirsig's book to market as my own 
"good", while regulations that prevent me from wo! rking my employees under 
unsafe conditions "bad"? (I'll preempt this with a proposed point, that the 
mercantilistic dialogue favor laws protecting "profit" but abhors laws the 
protect "people over profit".)

[Craig] The question of what amount of profit "your" Lila should get versus 
what amount Pirsig's should get is not a question for the economic 
marketplace.

[Arlo] Agreed. There are questions which should not be answered by the 
economic marketplace.

[Craig] In California when you buy a plastic container of drink, you pay a 
deposit to the grocery store (which forwards it to Gov. Arnie.) When you're 
done, you can redeem the empty at a recycling center. It's a pragmatic ? 
whether this is better than the German system.

[Arlo] Its similar, actually. My point is not so much the particulars of a 
particular! > system, only that "total cost" is something to consider as 
well as "total compensation".



===EMAIL FIVE===
[Craig's last reply before we realized we had moved off the MD]
Both copyright laws & workplace safety laws can be good.


========
And so back to the present...

Arlo