[Platt to Marsha] I disagree. In a free market a dishonest entrenpreneur won't last long.
[Arlo] This myth has been brought up many times. Indeed, it was the driving question our now-lost friends attempted to pose before being hammered off the list with talk-radio drivel. To wit, Stella had written, "So, to start at the beginning; the free market as defined by Adam Smith in 1776, was a place where all individuals had access. All individuals were living in the small town where the market was, or in the close vicinity. The central idea being that everybody had access to information about the retailers, their goods and their moral behaviour. As a buyer, I could make an informed decision." To risk simplification, when the "market" was a nearly-total local community force, individuals were immediately able to decide not to "buy bread for Paul because he is dishonest". Paul's consumers were his neighbors, and the "invisible hand" was able to better ensure honesty in the market. As markets went global, and the flood of information to our brains exponentially increased, fewer and fewer people had access to the information allowing them to make informed decisions. Sure, there was (is) some information that finds its way through various outlets to our doors, but in almost all cases the impetus is on the individual to research and learn about the product-company he is buying from. Perhaps that's the way it should be. But sadly, we just don't care. Witness Platt's self-admission that he could care not one whit about the labor practices, employment practices or anything else about the products he buys so long as they are "cheap" and "work". "Paul" can now be dishonest and sell to a global market that not only doesn't know, but doesn't care. But his "bread" still needs to be of high quality, right? People wouldn't buy it if it wasn't "good"? Sadly, the facts don't jive with this myth either, as Pirsig had the foresight to see back in ZMM. Are we fed "quality" by the "vendors of style"? The overwhelming evidence says "yes". Years and years and years of marketing and advertising research, journals and publications reveal time and time again that people are simply more concerned with "style" and social image than with quality-of-product. This is simply indisputable, even if it is a sad commentary on modern life. Here at PSU, each year thousands of students and millions of dollars go to discover strategies for making people "want" a product, of masking "quality" with a veneer of "style". From this week's TIME Magazine, a short article called "Why We Buy the Products We Buy" (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653659,00.html) "Enter the world of marketing. The power of name recognition helps explain the multibillion-dollar business of plastering brand names on everything from ballpoint pens to NASCAR racers as well as the thriving cottage industry of reviving brands that have fallen out of mainstream use, like Ovaltine chocolate malt and Westinghouse televisions. "We tend to believe, If I've heard of [a product] before, it's probably because it's popular, and popular things are good," says Dan Goldstein, an assistant professor of marketing at London Business School." [Platt] Nothing compared to what governments have done to damage people. [Arlo] Governments have also given millions stable, conducive, productive and Quality social patterns in which they thrive. This ad nauseum rehash of Raygun's "government is the problem" is, well, nauseating. From ensuring a common currency, to protecting our banks, to providing roads, waterways, pubic lands, libraries, police, fire, EMT and other social services, to protecting our borders (supposedly) and giving us a court to bring grievances from local to federal concerns, I'd say government is hardly a "problem". But that's another issue. At point here is the idea that "government got in and messed up a great free market". Government, if you read any history, did not just "decide" to interfere with the "glorious free market" of the late 1890s. Labor laws, regulations, workplace safety, minimum wage, fair termination, environmental restrictions were all mandates _of the people_. It was grass roots, local Joes and Janes that demanded these things because they saw firsthand the tyranny of a wholly unregulated market. In books from Dickens to Sinclair, people witnessed the horrendous, dehumanizing reality of the "market", and they acted. Some, like Platt, struggle to make it seem that "here was this great market, you see, and everyone was happy, and then 'guvment' had to go and ruin it for everyone". The reality is to the contrary. [Marsha] Free markets are like unicorns, they don't exist. [Arlo] Well said. To bring Stella's point back, "The definitions of a free market in many books today (there isn't one Definition, but it differs slightly from author to author) still has the same base as Smith's free market, but when scrutinizing the definition, it's interesting to see on how many points the "market" today veers off from the definition and how the lack of closeness in business relationships makes it very hard to maintain the "well informed-ness" and "accessibility" to the market. We have 1) definitions of a free market, then we have 2) the live thing we call the free market, and then 3) there are several economic theories and practices, one of which is called Capitalism." [Marsha] Might self-esteem and self-respect come knowing you have value? Or from knowing you are a part of a world that has value? [Arlo] Again, well said. This takes me back to the "Arete-inspired Individual" I mentioned to counter the constant drumbeat of "returning to Victorian values". [Platt] I prefer consumerism as a force rather than government as a force. Don't you? [Arlo] This is just another ridiculous dichotomy. The reality, to use Marsha's paint brush buying which "proves your point", is that Marsha is likely happy both that she has her paintbrushes, and that they were produced by fair labor practices (as opposed to say, sweatshops) and by companies compliant with socially-mandated environmental and labor -related practices. As always, rather than relying on inane, pragamatically-useless dichotomies, the reality is in the workable balance inbetween. 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