Article Link
From the article:
What, then, of profits and the income disparities associated with market processes? Is not the pursuit of profit the goal of capitalism? Absolutely not, and to say that is to fundamentally misread the argument for capitalism. Capitalism is that system that best ensures consumer sovereignty.
Full stop. Profits, and income inequality, are waste products,
byproducts of the attempts by entrepreneurs to serve consumers. And
like by-products in any other context, the idea that the world would be
better if the level of external effects were reduced to zero is quite
mistaken.
and
The problem with this formulation– explicit the (selected) quote from
Mill, and implicit in Rawls–is a question-begging premise: “The things
once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can do with them as
they like.”
The things once there? Seriously? And economists get mocked
for their facile question-begging assumptions! (“Assume a can
opener”). We have no basis for assuming that “the things” will be
there, unless prices and profits can perform their directive functions.
Without the promise of profit, the things are not there. In
fact, the things are not even “things” yet, but rather ideas that no one
has ever thought about until some entrepreneur imagines them.
Source: Mike Munger, "A Libertarian Mungerfesto, Part IV: Consumer Sovereignty, and Getting 'The Things' There," Bleeding Heart Libertarians, January 16, 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment