MTG Salvation

Quote from Biomechanika

At the end of the movie, Cobb and co. start leaving the airport, right after they succeed with Inception on Fischer. On his way out of the airport, Cobb exchanges a glance with Fischer. This is what I have a problem with.

Fischer has undergone extensive training against people entering his mind. Cobb and everyone else played important roles in this dream. If he saw them immediately after Inception, why wouldn't he double-think his inspiration for dissolving the company? Wouldn't he suspect that the idea might not be his own?

I feel that Cobb should have taken steps to have the group avoid Fischer entirely, once the process was complete. If there is a part in the story that explains this small issue, let me know.

Quote from Captain_Morgan

Your blog.

Yea I think I ought to go back a few notches. Basically what I was getting at was that in order to have a "high powered nation" requires institutions to be harmonized and resonating with each other. I think it's just easier if I graph out what the hell I'm talking about for the rest, I'll get to that later if I have time or do it tomorrow.

I'm just trying to pack in too much ☺☺☺☺ without defining anything in a logical manner.

Oh I see. Well, that's old stuff (and even then I didn't self-identify as an Austrian). At this point I only consider myself to be striving to understand truths of social science regardless of whatever disciplinary boundaries exist.

You don't need to convince me that there is interplay between institutions, and synergy promotes growth.

Quote from Captain_Morgan

My basic point is that while there's a decrease in the familial influence, if they do not connect to the market at all there is no cultural shift. To skip a large summary of two Christian sects, trace the development of the Quakers (protestants) versus the Amish (anabaptists). So while Quakers connected into the larger framework are assimilated and gave us soldiers and presidents (Nixon from what I recall, maybe another one or two I can't remember) and other such things, where as the Amish right now have huge problems with drug abuse. So my conclusion would be that culture sets the source code for connectivity, followed by the markets spurring forth institutional change and reform with the obvious lag periods.

Well that's more about religious institutions than family, then.

P.S. I'm really trying hard to understand where all you're going, but it isn't the easiest thing. Why are we getting into Austrianism, for example? To my knowledge I am not one, but if you think I share some Austrian principles as you indicated before (is that why?), please explain.

Quote from Captain_Morgan

"Connectivity makes people nicer." It's not so much the "need to decrease the role of family," but rather how families connect into the larger framework. This is also in part the shift for economics away from Keynesianism and neoclassical economics and more lately toward behaviorial economics. Furthermore, there's been a shift in racial studies to focus more on poverty than on race and their 50,000 foot view of history.

And the way families connect to the larger framework is to crowd out that connectivity. The point is you need decreased kin influence to enable universal connectivity.

There's also support you'd need for your other claims, but then we might get too far afield.

Ok, I was rereading in a new light, and now I get what you're saying. I was confused before because you were talking about something different than I expected.

The interplay between institutions is indeed important. But I'd like to see more evidence for your picture. For instance, the breakdown of family ties is not a phenomenon that recent in time or complexity. It is associated in general with market integration. But it does not necessarily entail social breakdown because it is a requisite step in expanding the social universe of individuals. That is, if you want people to support and care about the wider world, you need to downgrade the importance of family to avoid nepotism.

This is why I can never read work by historians I would be better served by writing more, as we talked about, but you might try on conciseness for a little more clarity, and maybe read more theory as I'm sure is in the spirit of the Annales school. I did like this post more, and though I'm not sure how much I agree, what I understood of your broad point is well taken.

No one ever said invention and innovation are easy. My point was that they would happen quicker, and frequently they defy expectations. Yes, there is a tradeoff between the short-run and the long-run, and it could potentially be large enough to call something a troublesome monopoly. But I don't find the hypothetical of every beach in the world being owned by the same company plausible, and notwithstanding maybe you missed the existence of artificial beaches. In addition, I can't say your inability to visit beaches would be high up on my list of priorities for intervention. Many people are also unable to visit beaches without significant expenditure, namely anyone who doesn't live in a coastal area (or near an artificial beach).

Quote from Blinking Spirit

I think the underlying question is whether a competitive market is in stable or unstable equilibrium. My concern is that a firm that gains a significant advantage over its competitors will tend to snowball them with monopolistic tactics. And there are also matters of price-fixing and other collusive behavior to worry about.

Let’s assume in the first place that we have a “well-defined” monopoly here, because you can describe a monopoly into or out of existence based on factors like the scope of the product. (e.g. does The Coca-Cola Company hold a monopoly? It depends; there is no substitute for Coca-Cola if you want Coca-Cola specifically, but they compete with PepsiCo in the broader cola market, with Dr Pepper Snapple Group in the broader soft drink market, with Nestlé in the broader beverage market, with Ben & Jerry’s in the summertime refreshment market, and so on.)

To be a monopolist, you must ensure there’s nobody selling remotely close substitutes to your own goods. You have to drive any existing opposition out of business, prevent any potential opponents from taking market share, and survive and prosper the whole way through. First the prospective monopolist has to somehow amass an advantage, like having deep pockets usually thought to result from monopolist activity. How this is supposed to happen if the firm is not yet a monopolist is curious. And if it happens through having cheaper costs or the like, the firm accumulating wealth reflects the natural proper functioning of commerce. Protecting competitors is not the same as – is often antithetical to, in fact – protecting competition. Then they have to ride this advantage into monopoly status.

Predatory pricing is the most commonly alleged “monopolistic tactic”, but its practice is so doggone rare because it’s rarely sensible. There are lots of questions raised. How long will the reduced-price strategy take to accomplish the goal? It may take a very long time, during which consumers are happy as a clam. Below-cost pricing is particularly costly for the larger firm because it deals in larger volume and thus loses more money. Will the potential predator be able to destroy enough of its rivals? Small shops may be feasible, but other large businesses will not go so gently. What happens when other competitors emerge seeking the industry’s raised profits? If these processes all take time, your product may even be obsolete by the end of things. The ever-present threat of new businesses armed with new innovations is especially potent. Innovations are so difficult to predict, and they happen all the time, defying expectations. So the monopolist itself needs to keep innovating. It’s not easy or simple. No one is safe from the "perennial gales of creative destruction".

Quote from Doodle123

I also find it telling that you havent addressed the beachfront issue. Probably because your entire concept of fighting monopolies seems to be based on available supply by competition. you CANNOT compete if you cannot get the product.

You missed my post.

Quote from Captain_Morgan

<snip>

O...k...?

Quote from Blinking Spirit

I think when Valros said "Monopoly is the goal of capitalism", it would have been more accurate to say "Monopoly is the goal of capitalists". Much as you will take all reasonable measures to make money, acquire a starfighter, and woo Ms. Portman, a firm will take all reasonable measures to reduce or eliminate its competition. Obviously, the other firms will resist these measures, while at the same time taking measures of their own, but if there's enough of a power disparity the effort may be futile.

I think the public certainly has an interest in ensuring that these measures don't rise to goons-breaking-windows-and-bones levels, and also that no firm actually wins a total victory. I don't believe you disagree, but our anarchist friends seem to.

Perhaps, but I think the bar for calling "total victory" is set far too low.

Moreover Captain_Morgan made the strong claim that such a state "does come to pass without intervention" (which I presumed meant government trust-busting intervention, but he can correct me if that's not the case).

Quote from Valros

I don't know that it is, since the anarcho-capitalist side isn't against authority itself, just the State's "monopoly on power," yet also claims that in a free market monopoly won't happen...

Oh, I see.

Yes it does! There's an element to behavior that isn't always what we'd call "self-interest"; I read a very interesting paper on reciprocity, for example. Explicit contracts often yield poorer results than implicit contracts for the very reason of positive or negative reciprocal behavior.

Ernst Fehr's work?

Quote from Valros

Ah, yeah, but what kind of barrier to entry is that? I mean, where does the nice beach-y sand come from?

A lot of coastlines in the world? The ocean floor? Maybe it can be made artificially? I don't know, I'm not an expert on sand.

I wasn't quite clear. I just wanted to propose that the monopolizing tendency doesn't start with "government" but rather with "authority," so you can have it even without a government.

That was understood, but seemed beside the point.

Generally, because it's in the firm's interest to have no competition.

It is in my interest to have ten million bucks, an X-wing, and the attentions of one Ms. Natalie Portman. To my great sorrow, none of them are forthcoming.

I don't think he was saying that rule of law etc. are directly opposed to markets, but rather that they are not perfect substitutes.

He has his point and I have mine.

But where have we seen really "free" enterprise?

Anywhere voluntary exchange happens, which is a lot of places.

It may not be, but firms look to maximize profits, not social utility. And they have, arguably, far more power than individual persons in altering markets and landscapes. There definitely is industry self-regulation, but rarely to industries agree to regulations that are not a benefit in some way.

Regulation means more than explicit laws and rules.

Geez, I really didn't feel like posting.

Quote from Blinking Spirit

And, as I said, you're just taking it as an article of faith that an anarchy can successfully create an environment with no barriers to entry into markets. But what about the guy who buys up all the beachfront property? No one's making any more beach, so it's rather difficult to enter the beach market unless the monopolist generously decides to sell. He doesn't need government to enforce this monopoly, except insofar as police might be nice to chase trespassers off his land. Or what about the massive company that can afford to sell at a loss for a time and drive start-up competitors out of business? What about price-fixing and price-leading? Face it, most of the monopolist's tactics work perfectly well in a "free" market. Sometimes governments have colluded with monopolies, and that's of course a bad thing. But government is also the means by which the public can break monopolies.

On the contrary, competitors can make artificial indoor beaches. Like the ones that already exist in Japan. Predatory pricing, meanwhile, is a dubious phenomenon. Plus I think that the standard static view of monopoly understates the importance of competition and innovation over time. Economic rent attracts innovation of better methods and techniques.

Quote from Valros

Anyway, it's Adam Smith's dilemma: Economies of scale favor monopolists, yet a perfectly competitive market of small, price-taking firms is the most socially desirable. It is, really, in the best interest of businesses to collude, monopolize, and crowd out competition. But it's in the best interest of society/the public to destroy cartels, monopolies, and to encourage competition.

If you have economies of scale, then the monopolist is able to produce more efficiently than a bunch of small firms. A perfectly competitive market is supposed to be good because prices are driven down to cost. But with economies of scale, the competitive market is characterized by greater costs. The monopolist's lower costs are a force against its market power. The end result is indeterminate, so you couldn't conclude trust-busting is awesome here (leaving aside my above comments).

This isn't really an inherent quality of "Government," though, just a trend in the government we observe. And I think that comes more from a quality of authority to become more authoritarian.

Looks like your second sentence implies the first claim.

Quote from Captain_Morgan

4. Monopoly is the goal of capitalism, and does come to pass without intervention.

I have no idea why this would be the case, and everyday experience should be enough to contradict it.

5. Connectivity and the rule of law are what decrease system shocks and rebellions, not the market.

The market goes hand in hand with connectivity and the rule of law. Market integration is linked to norms and behaviour characterized by trust and cooperation, and there is evidence of economic transition leading to more progressive social attitudes.

Quote from ljossberir

He can no more deny his business on the basis of race than he can deny his friendship on the basis of race. That is to say, yes. Stupid, irrational, but yes. Both the fruits of his labor and his affection are his and his alone to give.

Who else has more claim to them?

I can't speak for ljoss, but I submit that regardless of what private business owners do, government should not be able to legitimately discriminate in terms of employment and the like on the basis of race, sex, etc. Further, government should not discriminate by proxy, so they should avoid conducting business with private enterprises that do.

Quote from Valros

The seeming paradox of "anarchist institutions" aside, Somalia just proves that there won't be any spontaneous self-organization going on unless it's armed and violent.

I was going to post the same link Aegraen did. Free enterprise is surprisingly resilient.

Because clearly, for example, business does a sub-par job (or worse) of self-regulating without some prodding from the government.

In some ways perhaps, but this can't be a blanket statement.

Quote from Aegraen

Chapter 10 in Man, Economy, State -- Power & Market brilliantly demolishes this fallacy (This might be quite long):

<snip>

In no case, therefore, on the free market can a “monopoly
price” be conceptually distinguished from a “competitive price.”

All prices on the free market are competitive.

I would also like to hear your definition of a monopoly.

"If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?'"
- Ely Devons

It's funny how the Austrians are so opposed to neoclassicism when neoclassicals do the same sort of thing that the Austrian school is centered around - this whole business of a prioriism. The neoclassicals just call it rational choice and formalize it. It's nonsense insofar as it is meant to be somehow a priori (though more than legitimate insofar as it is meant to be a description of human action), and neoclassicism is rightly criticized for it.

I'm pretty much on board with Highroller.

Quote from ganderin_dan

The relationship with Jack and Liz reminds me of House and Cuddy, but much more obnoxious and in-your-face with the stringing along.

How in the world do you get that feeling? This show and its characters are so upbeat it's hard to imagine any similarity between TGG and House.

Yes, it really is awesome. I don't even know what to say besides that.

I kinda do wonder how long it can keep going. But then just about every show (or continuing form of entertainment) is formulaic at base, including MtG. The audience needs something to hold on to and identify with.

Saw it. Tried to sign up. Only served to reinforce my hatred of content that's US-only.