Now Mark's last post certainly got my attention. Adam Smith is my favorite economist, and though a great deal of nuanced theory has developed since he wrote Wealth of Nations, the gist of it still holds true. It's not common to cite chapter and verse of Adam Smith and still have your argument slapped down, so I was somewhat at a loss here.

Mark's comment about Alan Greenspan at the end seemed to put it all together for me: In his wilder youth, Mr Greenspan wrote a number of somewhat radical economics and philosophical works endorsing a ruthless adaptation of laissez faire and libertarianism. He was also a personal friend (and philosophical bedfellow) of Ayn Rand.

I don't much like Ayn Rand. I keep suspecting I should, as from what I understand about her writing, a rigorous implementation of her philosophy would probably be beneficial to me personally. But I don't. There's too much inherent smugness to it, and the basic idea is that really really smart people shouldn't have all these restrictions placed on their ability to outcompete everyone to death, because those restrictions are just so bogus.

Probably 90% of Ayn Rand adherents I've spoken to are just so strenuously impressed by their own intellectual prowess, that having to play slightly well with others and soften the ruthlessness ever so slightly gets them all pissed off. In the post that follows there is much, much more in the same vein.

Not being sure what Mark was getting at, and starting to fear I had begun a discussion with a Randite, I kind of wandered into the weeds with this post, laying the framework for getting out quickly if I had a Randite on my hands. It turns out this wasn't really directed at Mark's main argument.

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Mr Peters,
Thank you for your remarks disagreeing with my criticism of strict laissez faire economics. If you and I cannot agree on some of the elemental principles of classical economics, we may not be able to agree on much of anything in the end. But I'll expound a little bit on why I still cannot agree with you.

I hope that I understand your main argument to be that while a monopoly may be disadvantageous to consumers, it is a still greater evil to regulate or dismantle it by an act of government. If this is not the case, and you somehow want to suggest that a monopoly isn't bad for consumers, then we have a much deeper disagreement which I doubt we'll overcome here. That assertion would contradict every economics study I've read and you won't convince me of its veracity simply by citing Ayn Rand or Alan Greenspan circa 1971.

Now if I've understood you correctly, we don't have a disagreement on economics at all, just a difference of political philosophy. You seem to advocate some kind of pure meritocracy, wherin as long as one gains one's power or economic influence legally, there should be no limitations to how one excercises that power, no matter how ruthless. In this system, anything that coddles the weak would weaken society as a whole.

I've browsed Ayn Rand's works (I assume from your posts that you are an adherent of her philosophy, or something like it) and discussed them with friends who admire her, and I have frankly found them wanting. Quite apart from the self-impressed tone I find her philosophy to take, I believe that what she advocates is essentially a return to a Hobbsian state of nature, so long as that uninhibited state of affairs is confined to the intellectual fields, where she and her adherents believe they would excel. It all strikes me as entirely too self-serving and self-impressed to be taken seriously. And my admiration of Alan Greenspan dates to after his radical period when he and Ms Rand hung around, dreaming (it seems to me) of dominating the world with their superior intellectual powers, and pulling up the ladder after them.
The point is that any society where the weak or average are utterly at the mercy of the strongest, whether that be measured by brute strength, mental acuity, or economic clout, is not a society I could fully admire. I am a fiscal conservative and a staunch supporter of free trade; but I recognize that if a company outcompetes everyone else in the field, then every consumer is at the mercy of their whim to continue as a benevolent economic despot. It's not common that a company is that successful, and if they are they need mainly to be watched: we as a society don't break up or regulate companies which become monopolies unless they actually abuse the power they've acquired. I think that's a reasonable position which I support.

I hope I've at least been on point here with respect to our disagreement. And (since it can be hard to successfully convey the intended tone in these sort of posts), I want to point out that I meant no offense in any of my remarks, even though it seems we may disagree pretty signficantly on this.

JKS.


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