Robert Schmid wrote: Faith in the market is misplaced faith, indeed. The "great, invisible hand of the marketplace" fails as often, if not more often than it succeeds and smoking is a perfect example of that. If the market truly worked, then very, very few people would smoke. They would understand that "benefit" of smoking is far outweighed by its costs and never start.
And yet, they do. Why is this? It's because the marketplace, like democracy, fails when the consumer/elector is not properly educated. (Two American economists won a Nobel prize proving this point.) When the consumer is overmarketed and undereducated he makes bad choices and supports bad products. Mark Anderson replies: So whenever you disagree with someone else's consumption behavior, that's market failure? (Oh sorry, whenever the consumer hasn't been "educated" sufficiently as to their proper market behavior, that's market failure.) Under that standard, I would agree that the market fails quite often. On the other hand, if one believes that people have the right to make their own consumption choices, the market works rather well. Mark V Anderson Bancroft REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
