On Monday, March 10, 2003, at 04:50 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Sat, Mar 08, 2003 at 02:44:44AM +0100, Anonymous wrote:But let's cut to the chase. Assume that all private grocery store owners want to exclude people from their stores. Now assume that 100% of them agree that effective Tuesday, only those people who have a receipt for a $100 or more donation to George W Bush (or Hillary Clinton, whatever) may enter their property to shop for groceries.
Their right? Why not?
Let me take your hypothetical and move it closer to home.* I take
photographs and occasionally license them or sell prints. I post some
general terms on my website:
http://www.mccullagh.org/cgi-bin/photodownload.cgi?name=licensing- conditions
Yes, I have the right to license (sell) my photos only to Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, or socialist Eurotrash, as Tim might call them. And these same folks have the right to shop elsewhere if they conclude my terms are onerous or objectionable.
In fact, I've declined to do business with the Disclosure Project,
a we've-seen-UFOs type of group, because I didn't want to support their
cause. (http://www.mccullagh.org/theme/disclosure-project-ufo-may01.html)
Many newspapers and magazines will choose not to do business with people who want to use their photographs for derogatory purposes. (http://www.politechbot.com/p-03181.html) And so on.
This is a Good Thing. It's called voluntary transactions, and it's part of living in a free society.
Indeed, voluntary transactions are at the core of our freedoms. Some say this is a "right" which emerges from theology (God gave us these rights), some say such organizing principles arise as Schelling points for noncoercive interactions (e.g., I won't try to enter your house to check on your reading materials if you don't try to enter my house to check on mine, i.e., a kind of territorial boundary mutually agreed-upon without much, if any, explicit negotiation).
Free markets are not perfect, but they are an excellent price discovery and knowledge-auctioning system, as the past century has amply shown. And there are many connections to organization of complex systems in general (top-down vs. bottom-up, issues of emergence, etc.), communication in diverse systems (command economies move too slowly), and issues of multiple values (what I value something at is not what others do, and vice versa).
Free markets and voluntary transactions are a natural political system, against which all other systems must be measured. This does not always mean that the "optimum" will be achieved (whatever that is!) in a free, uncoerced market. It may be that Declan, for example, will price his photographs "too highly," and thus they will not get wide distribution. And it may be that Red Hat Linux will price its software "too lowly" and thus eventually go out of business, hurting many. Such is the market. Schumpeter rightly called this the "creative destructionism" of capitalism. Ideas and businesses come and go, succeed and fail, propagate their genes/memes to descendants, merge with other companies, and on and on.
This is one of the "basics" that I urged newcomers (and eurotrash) to brush up on.
(Although I have no hope whatsoever for those who have reached the age of 23-25 and are still "social democrats" or interventionists of one sort or another. Sometimes a college socialist wakes up and become a free market supporter, but this is rare. And such transformations typically happen around age 20-22, if they are going to happen. (Many of us were Randites and Heinleinites since reading them in our teens...) In particular, here on this list, I cannot ever recall seeing one of the Eurotrash trollboys ever giving up his leftist leanings and switching to a free market stance. The folds in the brain are just too set by age 25.)
Anyway, there are many arguments in favor of capitalism and freedom of choice, though recounting them here or on the Usenet (or in a blog) is pointless--preaching to the converted.
Still, I will add to my pile of tens of thousands of such futile attempts.
Another argument in favor of free choice is the issue of "wisdom of the market" and "evolutionary learning." This is a practical reason why voluntary transactions are favored by so many: the diverse nature of markets makes for more rapid evolutionary learning, through mistakes, borrowing of ideas, and even disasters. The process of "creative destructionism" aids in rapid learning. (Critics refer to this as "social Darwinism" and moan about displaced or fired workers...but not even the socialists and Social Democrats can alter reality on the ground, as shown by the bailouts of dying industries in many countries.)
An example may help. Our Anonymous Coward above makes a point about grocery stores banning those of some political parties. (His unstated, at least in the clip above, point is clearly that this is a Bad Thing and should probably be banned.)
With many grocers in a market, and with free entry of new grocers, some may only cater to Republicans, some only to Democrats. Most will, however, give in to greed and will accept anyone as a customer, provided the costs of serving that customer are not too high (costs might be: obnoxious behavior driving others away, body odor, etc.). "Greed is good." (This is why this line of reasoning has been used so many times here on this list to explain why merchants will generally not turn away business for lack of Official Identification and permission slips from the government...a truth seen around the world, from the neighborhood Safeway to the flea market to the bazaars of Baghdad. Official ID and credentials are of (debatable) use to government, but of little or no or even negative use to merchants.)
By contrast, it is the State which can enforce a monoculture: no blacks allowed (in almost all cases this was a ruling by state governments, not local grocers!). It was the Republic of South Africa which implemented apartheid, not IBM or Ford or DeBeers.
(Again, folks need to read the archives. This has come up over and over again, though not in recent years. Searches will turn up many articles.)
In a market society, some restaurants will ban smoking, some will allow smoking, some will set up different sections. In a nonmarket society, smoking may be Officially Encouraged (as it was in the 1950s, when government scientist shills were saying smoking is good for the lungs and for digestion). Or it may be Officially Banned, as it is now in California and other places.
Choice is lost, the monoculture wins.
On another note, here's an item I wrote back in the late 80s on the issue of "choice in public schools." The theme was about vouchers, and giving parents some choice in where to send their kids to school. Opponents of vouchers and choice were clamoring that giving people choice would destroy the local school system. Hence my essay:
- - - - - begin included message - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Timothy C. May) Subject: Access to Food Must Be Equal! Date: Thu, 17 Sep 92 2:55:27 PDT
(The following modest proposal was first posted several years ago to one of the talk.politics groups. For those who enjoyed the saga of BioHarvest, I hope you'll like this, too.)
Access to Food Must Be Equal!
The Bush Administration is proposing radical changes in the way food has been purchased by Americans for the past hundred years. Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter is floating the idea of a "voucher" system for groceries which would allow families to make their food and beverage purchases at any supermarket, regardless of location. Allowing this kind of choice would destroy the system which has made America so competitive today!
Equality of access to food, regardless of income or personal wishes, has long been the hallmark of our food distribution system. Every family knows which food district it is in and where its assigned supermarket is, just as it knows which school district it is in and which schools are in the district. Citizens elect members of the District Food Boards, thus assuring democratic input into the food distribution process. And parents are urged--without much success, I might add--to join their regional Grocer-Parent Association (GPA) to further ensure a wholesome food selection for their children.
It should be noted that temporary shortages of such basic products as milk, real, and high-fiber bread have almost become a thing of the past, despite criticism from so-called libertarians that a free market would eliminate all shortages (doubtful). It is true that some luxury food items remain unavailable, but is it fair for some to eat quiche while others can't get sushi? And we applaud the recent progress by State Food Boards in eliminating unhealthful foods from the diet of Americans. This progress would likely be undone if people were free to choose their food stores.
Consider the implications of free choice of supermarkets. The "food voucher" system proposed by these nutritional anarchists would surely encourage some supermarkets to offer needless luxuries and variety of choice so as to lure gullible families into spending their food vouchers at these stores. What would then happen is that some stores would begin to cater to the tastes of these consumers and so become more popular. This would draw even more shoppers, resulting in a kind of spiraling prosperity for these opportunistic, greedy stores. However, the remaining stores--no doubt disproportionately located in inner cities and other poor areas--would suffer lost business and so would be less able to provide the luxuries sought by selfish shoppers. Some of these stores would obviously close, thus causing hunger and unemployment in the affected regions. People of color and victims of the class struggle would thus carry the burden of rampant capitalism, as they have for thousands of years.
Every American has the right to an equal share of the pie, regardless of their income or personal spending habits. Say no to deregulation of supermarkets! Competition just isn't the American way.
Timothy C. May, Aptos, CA - - - - - end included message - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
