1) Indirect power over regulators is still power—if the consumers demand it, it will happen.
2) So are businesses. An equivalent in business would be the cost of entering the market that keeps small competitors out—this varies for different sectors, and is most visible in infrastructure-heavy businesses like water companies. Larger companies also get economies of scale that new ones can’t. The overall effect in both politics and business is a status quo bias.
3) This is a good point—I think the problem might be more about the time lags between promise, delivery, and evaluation. Some businesses do weakly exploit similar phenomena, but not nearly like politics. Still, a large private regulator would probably have more problems with this than current businesses. A similar, though weaker, effect might also be achieved in businesses by evading accurate evaluation, either through not releasing information, selective release of information, or just plain advertising.
I’m willing to discuss theoretical libertarian solutions, but if we just compare current government and business without solutions, I don’t see much reason why private regulators would be less corruptible than government ones. The remaining libertarian position is then that solutions to these problems would be much more effective for businesses than for governments.
1) Indirect power over regulators is still power—if the consumers demand it, it will happen.
The question isn’t of capacity but of magnitude of signal.
2) So are businesses. An equivalent in business would be the cost of entering the market that keeps small competitors out
Are you aware of just how many different regulations there are which create the effect of mitigating the presence of smaller businesses? Just one example; each and every employee costs a small business (under 50 people) something like 25-40% more (in the US) than it does a large corporation (over 1,000) in regulatory-burden-per-employee. There are also a number of diseconomies of scale which our current government scheme protects larger corporations from. Also, it’s largely a myth that economies of scale can only be achieved by larger corporations. Smaller businesses that focus on providing a widely-distributed product to a number of companies can create the same effect. Case in point: managed systems administration services firms. Why pay your own full-time employee when you can pay a company to provide a suite of employees who each specialize in their field, and only pay for the hours you really use (and thus get greater expertise at a quarter the cost?) And then there’s payroll companies; all they do is provide payroll. Again, economies of scale in the hands of smaller businesses.
A similar, though weaker, effect might also be achieved in businesses by evading accurate evaluation, either through not releasing information, selective release of information, or just plain advertising.
Which is why I included “strong disclosure” as a necessary element for a libertarian society. Personally I would see this done by a social campaign of vigorously restoring the belief in and appreciation for investigative journalism, and further by widely broadening the scope, scale, and definition of fraud-type crimes. (I would in fact make it a penalizable act to simply make a mistaken statement in a public venue, though I’d make it at most a misdemeanor whose penalty would be somehow tied to the monetary damages resultant to the statement, with a minimum of something like $20.00. This would breed a culture of desire for truthfulness. You can’t get around half-lies and the like—but you can impede them.)
but if we just compare current government and business without solutions,
Well, I’ll admit to having worded that poorly. I mainly meant that I didn’t want to go too far down that rabbit hole. :)
The remaining libertarian position is then that solutions to these problems would be much more effective for businesses than for governments.
People always tie libertarian solutions to businesses. Even libertarians do this. I don’t think that’s a sufficiently valid/viable solutionspace. Nonprofits, voluntary social collectives, and the like all deserve their place. For example; I think it would be interesting to see a “single-payer” system (for healthcare provision) which actually was four or five such systems initially, with people permitted to create their own if they so chose ‘later on down the line’. -- but with one caveat: short of creating your own system, once you contract with one it’s for life as term of the contract, barring violation of contract by the payer. I would love to see a social order where competing government structures could mutually overlap the same geography. (There are limits to this; property rights have to be monolithic since there’s only one 777 S 7th Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona.)
1) Indirect power over regulators is still power—if the consumers demand it, it will happen.
2) So are businesses. An equivalent in business would be the cost of entering the market that keeps small competitors out—this varies for different sectors, and is most visible in infrastructure-heavy businesses like water companies. Larger companies also get economies of scale that new ones can’t. The overall effect in both politics and business is a status quo bias.
3) This is a good point—I think the problem might be more about the time lags between promise, delivery, and evaluation. Some businesses do weakly exploit similar phenomena, but not nearly like politics. Still, a large private regulator would probably have more problems with this than current businesses. A similar, though weaker, effect might also be achieved in businesses by evading accurate evaluation, either through not releasing information, selective release of information, or just plain advertising.
I’m willing to discuss theoretical libertarian solutions, but if we just compare current government and business without solutions, I don’t see much reason why private regulators would be less corruptible than government ones. The remaining libertarian position is then that solutions to these problems would be much more effective for businesses than for governments.
The question isn’t of capacity but of magnitude of signal.
Are you aware of just how many different regulations there are which create the effect of mitigating the presence of smaller businesses? Just one example; each and every employee costs a small business (under 50 people) something like 25-40% more (in the US) than it does a large corporation (over 1,000) in regulatory-burden-per-employee. There are also a number of diseconomies of scale which our current government scheme protects larger corporations from. Also, it’s largely a myth that economies of scale can only be achieved by larger corporations. Smaller businesses that focus on providing a widely-distributed product to a number of companies can create the same effect. Case in point: managed systems administration services firms. Why pay your own full-time employee when you can pay a company to provide a suite of employees who each specialize in their field, and only pay for the hours you really use (and thus get greater expertise at a quarter the cost?) And then there’s payroll companies; all they do is provide payroll. Again, economies of scale in the hands of smaller businesses.
Which is why I included “strong disclosure” as a necessary element for a libertarian society. Personally I would see this done by a social campaign of vigorously restoring the belief in and appreciation for investigative journalism, and further by widely broadening the scope, scale, and definition of fraud-type crimes. (I would in fact make it a penalizable act to simply make a mistaken statement in a public venue, though I’d make it at most a misdemeanor whose penalty would be somehow tied to the monetary damages resultant to the statement, with a minimum of something like $20.00. This would breed a culture of desire for truthfulness. You can’t get around half-lies and the like—but you can impede them.)
Well, I’ll admit to having worded that poorly. I mainly meant that I didn’t want to go too far down that rabbit hole. :)
People always tie libertarian solutions to businesses. Even libertarians do this. I don’t think that’s a sufficiently valid/viable solutionspace. Nonprofits, voluntary social collectives, and the like all deserve their place. For example; I think it would be interesting to see a “single-payer” system (for healthcare provision) which actually was four or five such systems initially, with people permitted to create their own if they so chose ‘later on down the line’. -- but with one caveat: short of creating your own system, once you contract with one it’s for life as term of the contract, barring violation of contract by the payer. I would love to see a social order where competing government structures could mutually overlap the same geography. (There are limits to this; property rights have to be monolithic since there’s only one 777 S 7th Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona.)