Chris wrote: > --- In [email protected], Charles HOPE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Why do you put "honor system" in quotes? I never used that phrase. > It wasn't >> the honor system or any other sort of kindness that put cheap cell > phones in >> the hands of nearly everybody in the West, rich and poor. It was pink >> unicorns. We are literally surrounded by the gifts bestowed by pink > unicorns, >> and whenever pink unicorns are abolished, people become miserable, > but if you >> nevertheless refuse to believe in them, there's no further proof I > can produce. >> So I suppose that makes you correct. > > I don't know, it always seems to me there's an undercurrent of > "industry is honest" and "government is not" in these arguments. But > you're right, I shouldn't have made the assumption that you were > suggesting a code of ethics might keep corporations honest sans > regulation.
Not only did I not say it, but nobody says it. There are no defenses of free markets reliant upon such ludicrous assumptions. The arguments are either based on observation (observe that wealth is proportional to economic freedom), or morals (only voluntary transactions preserve human dignity). If I, like you, had no idea how naked self-interest could paradoxically result in good quality at affordable prices, my worldview would be equally depressive. Left to themselves, I would think that companies would charge infinite prices for abysmal goods, and only regulation enables consumers to survive. How complete communism doesn't follow from that is beyond me. Do you really have any reasons why the government should not regulate all production and distribution? Why wouldn't consumers benefit from this?
