Consider the state of the world

WW1, WW2, Korean war, Vietnam war, Iraq -- innumerable wars and conflicts, poverty, plague, misery ---

This is the invisible fist: the political counterpart to the invisible hand. It is the result of just letting things happen as they will without any effort to make things better -- the 'natural' forces of greed and lust for power. If there were some 'invisible' force controling things then we should be living in a relative paradise, and should always have done so -- no intelligence, planning, contstraint, or knowledge needed.

But who is it who argues for no rules? Look now: we see Bush arguing that the Geneva Conventions, international law, the Constitution, any laws -- are obsolete and of no value. And look at the results.

The invisible hand has a name; it's name is 'chaos'.

by Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 997 comments) on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 3:06:42 PM
 

individuals vs. corporations

Note that the original quote by Smith refers to an individual. Indeed a case can always be made that when individuals trade between themselves, the trade tends to be somewhat equitable.  The old barter system does work fairly well in small groups.  The problem arises when "corporations" are substitute for "individuals" in Smith's model.  Who am I trading with when I trade with a corporation? How can such a trade be equitable, especially when one of the parties (the corporation) can more easily modify the laws to their advantage?   Smith's model of free markets is not applicable to a market consisting of both individuals and corporations.  If libertarians really wanted a free market system, then they should call for the immediate abolishment of corporations (since a corporation is essentially a voluntary self-governmental organization, with specific internally-defined rules (i.e., laws) used to control how their product is created and marketed, and is thus, by definition, not a free market system).   Results from studies of game theory (an area of mathematics which studies the interaction of "intelligent" systems) show that without specific and consistently applied  penalties, interactions between players (i.e., buying and selling) will always lead to massive wealth inequities between players.  Smith's model of the free market cannot be applied when the rules for trade are not consistent for all possible trades (the rules for trading between corporations and for trading within a corporation differ). Any conclusion based on this incorrect assumption is not logically valid.

by djl (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments) on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 5:51:03 PM
 

individuals vs. individuals

Trade between individuals of equal power has a chance of being fair, but there are numerous examples of individuals exploiting other individuals, ranging from the classic unscrupulous used-car dealer to the equally classic well-heeled businessman offering a starving runaway $5 for a blowjob.

It's true that a corporation has way more power than any individual, but it doesn't let  the exploitative individual off the hook either. 

by lwarman (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 61 comments) on Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 9:32:58 PM
 

Corporations as Persons

You are dead on point. The day the Supreme Court ruled that a corporation was a person under the Constitution was the day America ceased to exist as it was envisioned.

by W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 387 comments) on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 at 10:18:39 PM