The Tea Party and the Republican Party

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Yes! And when people see this happening they should choose them over the evil competitor who does the opposite.
This is not exactly what happens today.
Most people do not care if their products were made by slaves or with stolen resources.
This is why the economy is filled with exploitation and corruption.

Blaming the private sector is a limited answer to the reason why the world is the way it is.
The consumer has more of an influence than the provider.
The provider just listens and addresses the demand.
It is rather naive to think that political laws can prevent someone from addressing the demand.
You can't stop drugs from being sold or prostitution.
As long as there are customers, they will be providers.

And as long as there are helpless people and girls there will muggings and rapes. Now we know whom to blame.

I was talking about the market and how supply and demand works.
You are trying to do what? Discredit this simple law?
Because really, you could have gone further and blame penises for rape, it makes as much sense as your irrelevant comparison of the market and crime.

There is no doubt that businesses usually have to provide goods and services for their profits but the relationship between prices and cost of production is not particularly one on one. Essentially, especially on the current scene, businesses are in business to make money and their relationship to market forces and lehalities can be quite flexible.If you ignore this slipperiness you are living in an unreal world.

I don't think it's right that you guys are really generalizing a large group of people. It wouldn't be right to generalize Obama's supporters as welfare collecting minorities, union thugs, wannabe pot-smoking college aged "intellectuals", and of course commies so don't generalize the other side.

I don't know, maybe they're both right and we're screwed.

And lack of Constitutional constraint on government is an invitation to tyranny.

Bob Kolker

I don't ignore it... I just don't conform to it !
If I advocate a complete free market and abolishing the State, or at least abolishing State intrusion in economics(which eventually leads to the death of the State) I cannot simply conform to the current state of the market.

Do you agree with free market economics at least in principle?
(Real free market, completely non regulated market)

Fatalism only guarantees nothing will change. There is an information dissymmetry between provider and consumer and also a sort of willful ignorance on the consumer's part. All things being equal, the consumer chooses the less expensive option (luxuries conveying a high sign value being an exception). The consumer doesn't often have the time, expertise, or inclination to research all his or her purchases in great depth, and so they may remain blissfully ignorant of the barbarous practices behind even a simple piece of fruit (e.g., migrant workers in Imperial County, California). Even when made aware, they may compartmentalize this knowledge because it directly challenges their comfortable lifestyle (and we are all, author included, guilty of this). Trends in labeling like country of origin and organic branding are a small reversal of this, and journalists sometimes do raise awareness of exploitation, but this is still swimming against the current.

People don't care because they just don't know better. Most people, if they were made vividly, experientially aware of the effects these practices have would agree that they are wrong. If given the option to stand in the impoverished day laborer's shoes or live a day of wretched poverty in Haiti, most would not take it; this is a tacit agreement that the current system is fundamentally unjust.

One way people remain blissfully ignorant is the entertainment and "infotainment" news that keeps us ignorant and contented consumers.

I disagree with you categorically that people in general are so callous to the suffering of others.

As I mentioned above, the consumer is on the ignorant side of an information disssymmetry. A businessperson should have the ethics not to exploit when coming to a decision. So in part, this requires a change in culture, one that regulation alone could not fully address. Our culture could do better by not glorifying wealth made at any cost and place a higher respect on those who act on good faith towards their community and the world as a whole. Those who care only about what's good for them now need to be looked upon with utter contempt.

I would support legalizing both these things within a framework (meaning I don't care to discuss the details here as it's tangential).

[quote="NeantHumain"][/quote]

At first you kinda make it sound like the ignorance of the consumer is not the cause of economic corruption but that the cause is the unethical means of the business person.
Then you go on saying it is the ignorance of the consumer is a significant factor.
You agree with me then...

Like you said, there needs to be a change in culture.
I've stressed that people should understand that they DO have a voice in the market, the places they work at and the way they spend their money DOES have an impact on the market.
We need to educate them on this.


"People prefer inexpensive things".
True!
But it is not true that what is inexpensive today is actually inexpensive.
These "cheap" products are subsidized, part of the bill is already paid by taxation, and it could be also be that these "cheap" products are low quality and filled with carcinogens, pretty often both, subsidized and low quality.
Again, we need to educate people on this.



Most people are callous to the suffering of others for their own good.
You even admit this when you say "Even when made aware, they may compartmentalize this knowledge because it directly challenges their comfortable lifestyle (and we are all, author included, guilty of this)"
They don't want to lose what they have, they rather keep their mouths shut and take advantage of slavery in a hypocritical manner.
Humans have not evolved enough to let these survivalist instincts tell them otherwise.


The world is the way it is because of a world-wide cooperation. We need to stop escapegoating just rich and powerful people, we need to understand that we don't need them to change, we just need to change individually, starting with ourselves, and educating others, of course.



We agree more than we disagree.
I hope you can see this.

There is some common ground, and I may concur with you on some points, but I don't think it's one or the other; it's systemic. I believe those with the upper hand in a power dynamic have special ethical duties. This includes especially large businesses and governments but also the wealthy and influential in general. This is because their decisions have a much greater impact, and as I said, they often have more information in an asymmetrical relationship. To be sure, consumers (I really don't like that word much, by the way) have a responsibility too.

I am not fundamentally anti-market, but I don't believe free markets will resolve the problem on their own.

People have the altruistic, cooperative motive and also the self-interested, acquisitive motive. We see humanity's compassion towards the suffering when we opened our wallets for the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti among the many other acts that show humans do care about others. Yes, obviously people do sometimes act of greed, ignorance, or apathy.

I think part of the problem is the individual sees a system and doesn't know what to do. They could retreat to the woods and live off the land, solely off their own labor; but that's unrealistic. A consumer encounters a mass of goods: heavily preprocessed foodstuffs, occasional fresh produce and meat, clothing from some far-off factory, various electronic gadgets to automate aspects of life. A little volunteering, donating some money to a charity, and maybe making a few lifestyle changes seem to assuage a little guilt; but the system remains in place, and they remain complicit by merely dealing with it.

This ethical duties has certainly degenerated, corrupted. Why? Because consumers let these opportunistic psychopaths do what they do. They will push as hard as people let them. You can't expect them to change, you have to change yourself. The State wont solve it for you either, they respond to wealth, they are in bed with the corporations(and don't say "but it shouldn't be like this" because the very nature of the State allows for this corruption to centralize and grow. Study how the State funds itself, how it enforces their arbitrary values upon others, they connections and actions, its history).

Consumer is just a word for people who demand something from a provider.
We are ALL consumers, even providers.


Perhaps you wanted to say people would not solve their problems. Then that makes you a pessimist about humanity.
Markets can fix themselves when people know how to utilize them.
The law of supply and demand would be enough in a society with higher ethics. Aren't we seeking that? We don't need institutionalized coercive regulation in a society of higher ethics.



But dealing with it as little as possible.
Evading it in any way one can.
Educating people, advocating the opposite of this system.
Referring to the State's actions/agents as THEY and THEIR and not WE and OUR.
Charity to causes of liberty.
Support the cause of others seeking independence.
Stop watching TV and Hollywood.
Oppose the war and the military.
Share information with others.
Boycott products and services from State-friendly companies.
Try to work with cash more than with checks.
...You can try some, all or more than these... There is so many things to do to harm their integrity.
You do your part, others will do theirs.

To take those proposals seriously you must have a very odd concept of human psychology.

Odd according to your perception.



Sand:
You did not respond to the question on how does the State enforces property rights.
You know very well the answer is "force/violence".

Without an intersubjective consensus there is no other way for private property to be respected.

Probably the bulk of the legal system is concerned with property rights and how to male people and institutions behave civilly with each other. I cannot understand how this is invisible to you.

The "bulk of the legal system" still uses violence as an ultimate response.
All the organs of the legal system use their tools individually within the same system to limit the use of the ultimate response.

These organs of justice can work privately(this is what I propose and have the reason of a free market to make it work)
Security, attorneys, prison, courts and the others can replace the other ones we have now(and will replace them once we stop thinking we humans need the threat of the big bully to behave).

I remember the behavior of the people when the police were on strike. It wqs not a pleasant time with shooting and looting and all sorts of uncivil behavior. You are too old to be addicted to nonsense.