Markets in Everything
Following up a bit on my “General America” piece, I wanted to add that I find the “all markets all the time” position within conservatism to be somewhat unfulfilling as well. Market solutions are only solutions insofar as they do not necessarily perpetuate problems quite so badly as government solutions. Choice and economic liberty are only useful instruments within society because they avoid many of the traps that come along with big government picking winners, rewarding rent seekers, and so forth. To base an entire philosophy of governance along these lines is somewhat short-sighted, I would argue.
Perhaps this comes down, paradoxically, to the philosophy of choice –that very thing which rests at the heart of both liberalism and capitalism and, for that matter, contemporary conservatism. There is something fundamentally antithetical to conservatism – or to the way conservatism has been classically understood – about the notion that choice should rest at the epicenter of society, should so inform all public debate and should so define who we as a people. With choice you must also parcel competition, liberty, and a host of other ideas which conservatives and libertarians especially hold dear. That these things are the best vehicles for our economy is hard to debate, but that a world of limitless choice, fierce competition, and little if any public sector (or ‘commons’ for that matter) is best for society in the long run is a more difficult claim to make.
This is not to say that we should scrap free trade or limited government or any of these things – only that as a philosophy, man cannot live on free trade alone. A conservatism not rooted in tradition is not really conservatism at all. A conservatism focused too entirely on market solutions inevitably ends up falling short, and may as well be libertarianism with a dash of culture war populism sprinkled on for flavor.
Similarly, a conservatism which takes its first philosophical baby-steps only as far back as the American revolution is doomed to perpetual immaturity.
Free choice presumes you have enough information to make a choice. Yet that’s often not the case. Simple time constraints prevent this for most people.
I live in a state without a building code for single family homes, so it’s a good example.
When my state government holds a hearing (an annual event, btw) on single-family building codes, the attendees at that hearing are typically the lobbyist from the home-builders association (for the codes, they want to get rid of sub-par builders,) insurance lobbyists (for the codes, they want to limit liability), and the lobbyist from the state’s municipal association, representing town governments (against the codes, it creates more oversight problems which impact local taxes.) I have been to several of these hearings, and I’ve yet to see a single homeowner attend out of self-interest; who has the time? And seeing a reporter in those hearings is even less likely — what news agency has the money for that? The press hoards its resources to report on the things that are controversial.
To date, the legislature has not adopted a building code because they think folks ought to have choice in how their homes are built. And they’re very cautious of creating mandates for town governments.
Meanwhile, the homeowner generally doesn’t even know to ask a builder, “Do you conform to any building codes? Will my new home/remodel meet any minimum safety standards?” Most will hire the builder with the lowest bid, because, you know, money’s tight, and that extra $5,000 will buy granite counters instead of laminates. Yet that lowest bid contractor is the one likely to cut the corners on safety to come in with that lowest bid.
On the other end of the legislate/fail to legislate issue is the attorney general who receives all the complaints about shoddy building, and only has the resources to go after the most egregious cases. In the meantime, there’s homeowners with no remedy except the courts, which is just another money suck after they’ve already had to pay repair the shoddy work done in their homes in an unregulated environment.
But hey, it’s okay because their property taxes didn’t go up $2/year because the town had to have a code enforcement officer inspect their new/remodeled house for safety.Report
Wow, I’m shocked that you don’t have homeowner’s insurance companies pushing equally hard for the codes. I would imagine any savings people make from lower property taxes in this case are gobbled up by insurance premiums even without having to pay for repairs.Report
we do. I wrote insurance lobbyists (for the codes, they want to limit liability)
And I forgot to add that the codes typically adopted (BOCA code, usually) are proprietary publications, you’ve got to pay for them. So there’s a market for codes that are written into law, but the codes are not available on-line, though the law referencing the code usually is.
Markets in everything.Report
It seems to me that, “a world of limitless choice, fierce competition, and little if any public sector (or ‘commons’ for that matter)” is a fairly decent short description of ‘ancien regime’ France under the Bourbons, Russia under the Romanovs, early-17th-century Great Britain, and just about any medieval monarchy, east or west, you care to name.* As a general rule, these regimes tend to fall apart in bloody revolutions, not infrequently winding up in a tyrannical autocracy that is worse than the regime overthrown. I think the general lession here is, at some point, enough people in the society are fed up with their lack of power and wealth, and are more than happy to put their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor on the line to try and get rid of the social parasites in charge. One would hope that some of our free-market theorists would realize that their path to the future will take them right over the edge of a cliff.
*”Free choice” and “fierce competition” in these cases apply only to the active members of society, e.g., the nobility or aristocracy. The vast majority of people, peasants and artisans, simply don’t count.Report
Scylla and Charybdis are, indeed, a fine needle to attempt to thread.
But if you have to pick one of them to accidentally get too close to?
Get to close to Scylla.Report
Dangit. *TOO*.Report
I’d go for the Sirens, with some lime-green foam ear plugs in my pocket.Report
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of recession may speedily pass away. Yet, if the Market wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the banks’ ten years of wild coke orgy shall be sunk, and until every drop of wealth earned by the working man shall be paid by layoffs and evictions, as was said (at staggering length) fifty-three years ago , so still it must be said “the judgments of the Market are true and righteous altogether.”Report
The superficial criticism of free markets amazes me, especially since our market hasn’t been free in a long, long time. Criticism is only effective if it hits the right target — free markets aren’t the problem — un-free, government/corporation controlled markets are the problem. There’s are smallish, negative ideas regarding the libertarian position which are more cartoon-like than helpfully critical.
I wrote something tangentially related to this — http://bonzai.squarespace.com/blog/2010/3/4/the-shallow-argument.htmlReport
Free markets and socialism are exactly the same: they work perfectly in their pure state, but no one’s ever tried that.Report
No, Mises proved socialism can’t work, even in a pure state.Report
AGI proved the same about capitalism.Report
You mean AIG? They aren’t operating in a free market — they are operating in a system closer to socialism, or fascism, than capitalism.Report
There are smallish..
I can’t type todayReport