Ridley’s Case For Free Market Capitalism

05 Saturday Aug 2017

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Capitalism, Corporatism, crony capitalism, Invisible Hand, Liberalism, Markets, Matt Ridley, monopoly, Profit Motive

Matt Ridley delivered an excellent lecture in July addressing a generally unappreciated distinction: markets and free enterprise vs. corporatism. Many don’t seem to know the difference. Ridley offers an insightful discussion of the very radical and liberating nature of free markets. The success of the free market system in alleviating poverty and increasing human well-being is glaringly obvious in historical perspective, but it’s become too easy for people to take market processes for granted. It’s also too easy to misinterpret outcomes in a complex society in which producers must navigate markets as well as a plethora of regulatory obstacles and incentives distorted by government.

I agree with almost everything Ridley has to say in this speech, but I think he does the language of economics no favors. I do not like his title: “The Case For Free Market Anti-Capitalism”. Free Markets are great, of course, and they are fundamental to the successful workings of a capitalistic system. Not a corporatist system, but capitalism! Ridley seems to think the latter is a dirty word. As if to anticipate objections like mine, Ridley says:

“‘Capitalism’ and ‘markets’ mean the same thing to most people. And that is very misleading. Commerce, enterprise and markets are – to me – the very opposite of corporatism and even of ‘capitalism’, if by that word you mean capital-intensive organisations with monopolistic ambitions.“

No, that is not what I mean by capitalism. Commerce, free enterprise, markets, capitalism and true liberalism all imply that you are free to make your own production and consumption decisions without interference by the state. Karl Marx coined the word “capitalism” as a derogation, but the word was co-opted long ago to describe a legitimate and highly successful form of social organization. I prefer to go on using “capitalism” as synonymous with free markets and liberalism, though the left is unlikely to abandon the oafish habit of equating liberalism with state domination.

Capital is man-made wealth, like machines and buildings. It can be used more intensively or less in production and commerce. But capitalism is underpinned by the concept of private property. You might own capital as a means of production, or you might operate an enterprise with very little capital, but the rewards of doing so belong to you. Saving those rewards by reinvesting in your business or investing in other assets allows you to accumulate capital. That’s a good way to build or expand a business that is successful in meeting the needs of its customers, and it’s a good way to provide for oneself later in life.

Capitalism does not imply monopolistic ambitions unless you incorrectly equate market success with monopoly power. Market success might mean that you are an innovator or just better at what you do than many of your competitors. It usually means that your customers are pleased. The effort to innovate or do your job well speaks to an ambition rooted in discovery, service and pride. In contrast, the businessperson with monopolistic ambitions is willing to achieve those ends by subverting normal market forces, including attempts to enlist the government in protecting their position. That’s known as corporatism, rent-seeking, and crony capitalism. It is not real capitalism, and Ridley should not confuse these terms. But he also says this:

“Free-market ideas are often the very opposite of business and corporate interests. “

Most fundamental to business interests is to earn a profit, and the profit motive is an essential feature of markets and the operation of the invisible hand that is so beneficial to society. Why Ridley would claim that business interests are inimical to free market ideals is baffling.

I hope and believe that Ridley is merely guilty of imprecision, and that he intended to convey that certain paths to profit are inconsistent with free market ideals. And in fact, he follows that last sentence with the following, which is quite right: capitalism is subverted by corporatism:

“We need to call out not just the worst examples of crony capitalism, but an awful lot of what passes for capitalism today — a creature of subsidy that lobbies governments for regulatory barriers to entry.“

And, of course, crony capitalism is not capitalism!

Now I’ll get off my soapbox and briefly return to the topic of an otherwise beautiful lecture by Ridley. He makes a number of fascinating points, including the following, which is one of the most unfortunate and paradoxical results in the history of economic and social thought:

“Somewhere along the line, we have let the market, that most egalitarian, liberal, disruptive, distributed and co-operative of phenomena, become known as a reactionary thing. It’s not. It is the most radical and liberating idea ever conceived: that people should be free to exchange goods and services with each other as they please, and thereby work for each other to improve each other’s lives.

In the first half of the 19th century this was well understood. To be a follower of Adam Smith was to be radical left-winger, against imperialism, militarism, slavery, autocracy, the established church, corruption and the patriarchy.

Political liberation and economic liberation went hand in hand. Small government was a progressive proposition. Insofar as there was a revolution during the Industrial Revolution, it was the weakening of the power of the aristocracy and the landed interests, and the liberation of the bulk of the people.“

Do read the whole thing!

Code Word: Sustainability

16 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by pnuetz in Uncategorized

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central planning, George Leef, Locavorism, Markets, National Association of Scholars, Progressive dialectic, Sustainability, Technocratic elite

Sustainability is a meaningful concept that has been bastardized as a code word for virtually anything that suits the progressive narrative. It is used as a catch-all for presumed goodness, while “unsustainable” is a catch-all for anything deserving of condemnation. Strictly speaking, a sustainable activity, or level of activity, is one that can be maintained indefinitely. That does not mean that the activity itself or its level is optimal; as any economist or engineer can demonstrate, “sustainable” in that sense does not necessarily imply that something is “too fast” or “too much”. In fact, a thing or an activity can occur at a rate that is unsustainably slow, or too little.

Progressives seem to have stumbled into the use of “sustainable” in another sense: that a thing or idea can be defended in argument as part of their dialectic. The broad array of things deemed to be sustainable, and those deemed unsustainable, map nicely to the progressive policy agenda. This is brought forward in “Sustainability: A new college fad with fangs“, by Geaorge Leef, a review of a paper published by the National Association of Scholars. Some colleges have established “sustainability” programs offering such challenging courses as “Ethics of Eating”, “Trash Studies”, “Environmental Poetry,” and Small Spaces Studio”:

“Frequently, courses link some ‘identity’ belief with sustainability, such as that ‘patriarchy’ is the enemy of sustainable life and therefore must be ended. … Most often, however, courses involve the supposedly unquestionable science of global warming and impending catastrophe.“

And here is a critical assessment of “sustainability” as an academic discipline:

“It’s just a farrago of beliefs, attitudes, and grievances centering around the general notion that most humans aren’t living the right way and unless we make drastic changes, we’re doomed. … [The authors] argue that sustainability is not really an academic discipline; rather, it’s an ‘ideology that unites environmental activism, anti-capitalism, and a progressive vision of social justice.’ Like a religion (hence the reference to fundamentalism), sustainability never questions its tenets. It posits them and even has ‘pledges’ for students and school officials to adhere to.“

It’s fascinating for me to read hysterical claims that capitalism is “unsustainable”. I suppose that means that market prices are simply useless at conveying information about scarcity, and that elite technocrats from the progressive tribe can make better decisions about what the rest of us can do and have. All that in the absence of incentives and information needed to align benefits with costs. I suppose it also means that strong property rights are useless for encouraging individuals to husband resources, and that the tragedy of the commons is a wicked fiction. I suppose it also means that resources should not be directed to their most valued uses, but instead to those uses most valued by the subjective judgement of the technocratic elite.

There are many other logical contradictions in the progressive sustainability mantra. This Scared Cow Chips post from several months ago, “Locavoracious Rent Seeking“, covered the uncritical acceptance of locavorism as “sustainable”.

“The reactionary mindset of today’s locavores prevents them from understanding the true nature of “sustainability,” which is best promoted by markets and a willingness to engage in trades that are mutually beneficial.“

America’s academic institutions should keep progressive sustainability doctrine at arms length. It is fine as a campus movement, but it is not worthy or appropriate as a set of governing rules for a community of higher learning. Ultimately, it has nothing to do real learning and the process of inquiry.

Put Consumers In Charge

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by pnuetz in Markets

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Comparative advantage, competition, Consumer Sovereignty, Contrived Scarcity, Free trade, Legalized Restraint of Trade, Markets, Matt Ridley, regulation, rent seeking, Richard Ebeling, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

The interests of consumers should always be placed first. That’s what happens in a free market economy, with the consent of competitive producers, and that is how public policy should be crafted. Too often, however, regulations and the laws on which they are based are written primarily with producer interests in mind. Don’t be cowed by the appealing names given to pieces of legislation or their ostensible purposes. These may be couched in terms of consumer protections, but more often than not they create barriers to entry, stifle innovation and confer advantages to big players, thus restricting competition. A case in point is occupational licensing, which inflates prices by preventing the entry of innovative and less costly competitors. In this political exchange, consumers gain “protections” that are often of questionable value, especially when incentives for improved service are blunted by the licensing rules.

Consumer primacy is of value in a general sense, as Richard Ebeling explains in “Consumers’ Sovereignty and Natural Vs. Contrived Scarcities“. When consumers are sovereign in their ability to decide for themselves among competing alternatives, including their own personal comparison of value to price, they essentially take charge of the flow of resources into and out of various uses. And they capture a positive gap between value and price as a personal gain in any transaction to which they are (by definition) a voluntary party. At the same time, producers must reckon with real costs, which reflect natural scarcities. But, by virtue of competition, it is in the interests of producers to deliver the best values to consumers at the lowest prices compatible with costs. Here is part of Ebeling’s introduction:

“One of the great myths about the capitalist system is the presumption that businessmen make profits at the expense of the consumers and workers in society. Nothing could be further from the truth. … In the free market, consumers are the sovereign rulers who determine what gets produced, and with what qualities and features. … The ‘captains of industry’ are not the businessmen, but the buying public who steer the directions into which production is taken.”

Ebeling gives a number of good examples demonstrating the ways in which this efficient market process is compromised by the hand of government. Regulations, mandates, licensure, price floors and ceilings, taxes and subsidies all act to distort the normal workings of the market, creating direct and indirect scarcities. The perverse effect is to generate a flow of economic rents to producer interests at the expense of consumers (and taxpayers). And that is why is those same producer interests are often inclined to seek market interventions. The successful rent-seeking effort ends in legally-sanctioned restraint of trade.

An example of contrived scarcity given by Ebeling results from protectionist trade policy, which ostensibly “protects” domestic producers and workers from “cutthroat” foreign competition. The plight of workers seems to be an easy sell to the public, though historically protectionism has inured to the benefit of relatively highly-paid workers, often unionized, who have an interest in restricting competition. Consistent with Ebeling’s point of view, Matt Ridley writes that trade policy should be driven by the benefits to domestic consumers, rather than producers. Ridley focuses on the UK’s interests in negotiating a free trade agreement between the United States and the European Union: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The following thoughts from Ridley should be taken to heart by anyone with an interest in trade policy, and especially those who fancy themselves liberal:

“The argument for free trade is paradoxical and much misunderstood. Free trade benefits consumers because it is the scourge of expensive or monopolistic national suppliers. It benefits both sides: yet it works unilaterally. Your citizens benefit if you let them buy cheap goods from abroad, while foreigners are punished if their government does not reciprocate. This creates more demand for local services and hence more growth and jobs in the importing country.

Contrary to what most people think, therefore, it is imports that bring the greatest benefit, not exports — which are the price we have to pay to get the imports. At the centre of the debate lies David Ricardo’s beautiful yet counterintuitive idea of comparative advantage — that it will always pay a country (or a person) to import some goods from another, even if the first country or person is better at making everything. Truly free trade cannot be a predatory phenomenon.“

Statists Make a Mess of Markets

20 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by pnuetz in Markets, Regulation

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Foundation for Economic Education, Government Interference, Howard Baejter, Mark Perry, Markets, Mises Daily, Over-regulation, Patrick Barron, regulation, Self-Regulation, statism

Government is not well suited to regulate markets in many respects. In the first place, regulation is never absent from free markets: consumers, competitors, technology and all factors of production such as labor ultimately represent a network of forces that regulate market outcomes. The power of market self-regulation, and the often destructive results of government regulation, are discussed by Howard Baejter in “There is No Such Thing as an Unregulated Market“. Beyond the efficiency with which markets direct resources, Baejter notes that markets regulate the quality and pricing of goods and services. Mark Perry reviews Baejter’s post approvingly and adds some thoughts of his own:

“… the ruthless consumer-regulators also waste no time praising, endorsing and recommending the products, restaurants, movies, services, sellers, contractors and businesses they like, both by supporting them with plenty of their regulatory certificates of approval (dollars), and by giving them positive, sometimes even glowing reviews on Amazon, Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes, eBay, Angie’s List, Uber, etc….”

Baejter’s concluding section covers some ways in which government regulation short-circuits healthy market regulation. Regulatory actions not only impose significant compliance costs, but they often have the effect of suspending market price signals and hampering voluntary adjustments to change that would otherwise lead to improved welfare. Furthermore, regulated firms are often successful in “capturing” regulators, enabling the most powerful players in an industry to manipulate and obtain regulatory treatment that blunts competition. As Baetjer says:

“… government regulation often “crowds out” regulation by market forces and consumer-regulators, and markets therefore operate less efficiently because the interests of the producers take priority over the interests of consumers…”

The Mises Daily ran a post in early January by Patrick Barron in which he elaborates on the truism that peaceful, voluntary exchange necessarily improves well-being relative to third-party interference. Such interference may take the form of forced exchanges, rules, mandates, price controls, or distortions from taxation. A recent post on Sacred Cow Chips, “The State and the Invisible Future Lost“, emphasized the sacrifice of human well-being brought on by over-regulation. From that post:

“Our society routinely destroys economic opportunities as a matter of policy. This includes immediate discouragement of economic activity via tax disincentives and regulatory obstacles as well as lost capital investment and innovation. And it includes actions that grant protected status for monopolists, a steady by-product of the regulatory state.“

Unicorns, The State and Sustainability

15 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by pnuetz in Uncategorized

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Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux, Government Failure, Markets, Matt Ridley, Michael Munger, Platitudes, Sustainablility, Unicorns

Every time someone says “the government should …,” ask them to replace the “G word” with “politicians I actually know, running in electoral systems with voters and interest groups that actually exist.” Does the speaker still think “the government should?” It’s a good test suggested by Michael Munger in his article “Unicorn Governance.” His point is that nearly all calls for state intervention really profess a kind of belief in unicorns. So let’s remove the unicorn from the argument. He says:

My friends generally dislike politicians, find democracy messy and distasteful, and object to the brutality and coercive excesses of foreign wars, the war on drugs, and the spying of the NSA.

But their solution is, without exception, to expand the power of “the State.” That seems literally insane to me—a non sequitur of such monstrous proportions that I had trouble taking it seriously.

Along the same lines, Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek offers a quote from Matt Ridley’s book, The Rational Optimist:

Economists are quick to speak of ‘market failure’, and rightly so, but a greater threat comes from ‘government failure‘. Because it is a monopoly, government brings inefficiency and stagnation to most things it runs; government agencies pursue the inflation of their budgets rather than the service of their customers; pressure groups form an unholy alliance with agencies to extract more money from taxpayers for their members. Yet despite all this, most clever people still call for government to run more things and assume that if it did so, it would somehow be more perfect, more selfless, next time.

Finally, Boudreaux has a recent piece in which he proposes a little Platitude Test. Is the speaker offering up a platitude? Well, “ask yourself if you can imagine a normal human adult believing the opposite.” If so, then there is truly something of substance at issue. Boudreaux notes that this is usually not the case when the word “sustainability” is trotted out:

p style=”padding-left:30px;”>You’ll discover, of course, that you can’t imagine anyone seriously supporting ‘unsustainability.’ Therefore, you should conclude that mere expressions of support for ‘sustainability’ are empty. And they can be downright harmful if they mislead people into supporting counterproductive government policies. Substantive issues involving sustainability invoke questions that have non-obvious answers. For example: At what rate must the supply of a resource fall before we conclude that continued use of that resource is unsustainable?

Ultimately, market mechanisms are fabulous guardians of real sustainability, since they price scarce resources so as to allocate them efficiently across time and space, providing incentives for conservation, to bring forth new supplies of the resource, and to develop rational substitutes. Unicorns and the state don’t do nearly as well.

NOTE: I apologize for the haphazard formatting in this post. I cannot seem to get the editor to cooperate tonight. I had similar problems last night but resolved them, though not in a fully satisfactory way. Tonight the issues seem worse.