Ernie: Well said, I agree with your formulation. But --not to disagree with YOUR larger point-- there is one other factor to consider. Still another assumption, namely, that markets work efficiently. Actually, while they sometimes do so, sometimes the idea is a bad joke. That is, markets are susceptible to all sorts of contingencies, everything from powerful insiders who put their thumbs on the scales to mob psychology and a variety of irrationalities. This being the case, while I do agree in principle with use of "the market" ( or specific markets ), there has to be what we don't now have, ways to judge the value of markets to do their job. Uhhh, how are we gonna do that ? ? ? Billy =================================================== In a message dated 4/20/2010 1:25:23 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Billy, On Apr 20, 2010, at 1:01 PM, [email protected] wrote: > And, here, not at all incidentally, is where libertarianism breaks down. > There is a false assumption built into libertarian logic, which says that all choices > are equally good. Not to disagree with your larger point, but I think the libertarian argument is somewhat different. As I understand it, the Libertarian claim is that: "Not all choices are equally good, but bad personal choices will eventually die out in the market, with a social cost lower than trying to prevent them in the first place." The counter-argument is that some personal bad choices create more social cost than they do individual cost, and thus it is in society's net interest to prevent them. -- Ernie P. _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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