Diogenes' Lantern (political) (civil)

[BlackShanglan]

Of course I can't promise the second of the modifiers in the thread title, but I'd be awfully obliged if folk would try. I recognize that no one can enforce rules on a thread, and indeed to suggest it would rightfully lead to snickering jokes about "Thread Masters" and, in all likelihood, master debaters as well.

Still - might I plead for one little oasis where a horse might ask questions and receive answers free of name-calling, loaded language, straw-men beating, proselytizing, mockery, and back-biting? I'd actually like to hear serious answers for some questions that I never can seem to get a real response to, and perhaps it might do all of us writers some good, by way of a writing exercise, to see what we can do without the more common weapons of the political warfare arsenal. This isn't meant to be a thread for political debate of the "whose system is best" sort; this is a thread for learning what different positions entail and what their supporters believe.

I'm particularly looking for a capitalist of the free-market variety to help me on my first question. I want to know how a free market would best handle the issue of fraud. Absent governmental regulation, what's the free market's answer to the problem of people mislabelling goods? I'm thinking particularly of things whose quality is not immediately and easily apparent, like medicine, complex machinery, or health insurance (with details of coverage being so manifold). I realize that the most common answer is that word of mouth will put bad sellers out of business, but that seems easily circumvented by badging your bad goods with someone else's good name. Is there a non-governmental solution to this, or does a pure free market approach just accept that a certain amount of fraud is the cost of doing business?

I'll come up with something for fans of market regulation in a bit, just to be fair.

 

[lisa123414]

I believe the capitalist answer, is caveat emptor.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I believe the capitalist answer, is caveat emptor.

*nods* I'm just wondering if there are any helpful modifications or processes to it that I haven't thought of in order to address things for which the buyer really can't beware. Non-chemists, for instance, don't have any real chance of knowing if their cancer medicine really is medicine or if it's sugar pills.

 

[Saucy_Sage]

Of course I can't promise the second of the modifiers in the thread title, but I'd be awfully obliged if folk would try. I recognize that no one can enforce rules on a thread, and indeed to suggest it would rightfully lead to snickering jokes about "Thread Masters" and, in all likelihood, master debaters as well.

Still - might I plead for one little oasis where a horse might ask questions and receive answers free of name-calling, loaded language, straw-men beating, proselytizing, mockery, and back-biting? I'd actually like to hear serious answers for some questions that I never can seem to get a real response to, and perhaps it might do all of us writers some good, by way of a writing exercise, to see what we can do without the more common weapons of the political warfare arsenal. This isn't meant to be a thread for political debate of the "whose system is best" sort; this is a thread for learning what different positions entail and what their supporters believe.

I'm particularly looking for a capitalist of the free-market variety to help me on my first question. I want to know how a free market would best handle the issue of fraud. Absent governmental regulation, what's the free market's answer to the problem of people mislabelling goods? I'm thinking particularly of things whose quality is not immediately and easily apparent, like medicine, complex machinery, or health insurance (with details of coverage being so manifold). I realize that the most common answer is that word of mouth will put bad sellers out of business, but that seems easily circumvented by badging your bad goods with someone else's good name. Is there a non-governmental solution to this, or does a pure free market approach just accept that a certain amount of fraud is the cost of doing business?

I'll come up with something for fans of market regulation in a bit, just to be fair.

Tort law. Most manufacturers would rather have government regulation than leaving themselves open to the vagaries of the legal system, though. You would have to prove damages, of course.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I believe the theory is that the seller of fraudulent goods will go out of business when word of his fraud is circulated. His reputation will be ruined. The superior product will always garner more of the market.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Please, lets wait for a genuine free-market spokesperson to come along, yes?

 

[rgraham666]

Never mind.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Tort law. Most manufacturers would rather have government regulation than leaving themselves open to the vagaries of the legal system, though. You would have to prove damages, of course.

Ah! So the government doesn't pass specific regulatory laws, but it offers ... broadly-written tort law, so that I don't need a specific law saying "thou shalt not sell anything as a medicine that hasn't been proven to efficacious and safe"? I just need to prove that it didn't do what they said it would, or that it caused problems they didn't warn of?

Hmmm. Would there still be the option of class-action lawsuits? That seems like the best way to get research done. That is ... I'm trying to work out how I would go about proving that the medication I was sold either isn't what it says it is, or isn't actually useful for curing anything. I suppose that the first wouldn't be too hard with access to a testing lab, but the second seems trickier, since it would require large-scale trials to determine whether the product ever worked.

Would the tort laws have broad enough scope to enable the plaintiff to demand in-house records from the company's testing procedures? What if they didn't do any testing? Would it be illegal to sell an untested product? If it wasn't, it seems like there'd almost be an incentive not to test, because then no one could use any of your studies against you.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I believe the theory is that the seller of fraudulent goods will go out of business when word of his fraud is circulated. His reputation will be ruined. The superior product will always garner more of the market.

*nods* That's why I started with fraud, because it seems like it's at the root of a lot of other potentially tricky issues. Capitalism is meant to reward people for producing what others want, but it can also reward them for producing things labelled as what others want. Even if they know that one brand is cheap and nasty and the other is generally good, all I need is a batch of labels with the other brand's name and logo on them. It won't be a problem to ruin my reputation if I can just call myself something else.

(Well, it would be a problem for me, but if I theoretically liked money more than scruples ... )

 

[amicus]

Shanglan asks:

"... I want to know how a free market would best handle the issue of fraud. ...."

Imbedded in Shanglan's query seems to be a 'top down' perusal of the workings of a free market. I suggest that, if you truly are asking a question and seeking an answer or the means to acquire one, that you begin from the, 'bottom up.'

Aside from that I would suggest that Shanglan consider the concept of 'criminality' in general and seek to learn what tempts an individual or an artificial person, a corporation, to perpetrate fraudulent activity.

However, having crossed swords with Black Shanglan many times before, I have advance knowledge of the basic positions involved here and I suggest that, 'original sin', the concept that all men are basically evil, plays a fundamental role in both the question and the possible answers.

Further, I would suggest due consideration on the relatively new concepts of free market economics and the concept of 'private property.'

Emerging from a feudal system where individuals had no rights and there was no such concept as private property, it is only since the beginnings of America that we can attempt to understand the process and progress of the details of a free market and the legal system under which it can flourish.

And...to head detractors off at the pass...the transition from an agricultural to an industrial and eventual modern economy, although complex, is not an excuse to regulate and control simply because of quantity and expansion.

Here we must leave politics and economics and visit the oft disregarded area of philosophy to inquire as to the source of values, those of honesty, integrity, consistency and a host of others and determine their relativity to the question of fraud in a free or a regulated society.

Guess that will do for an opening shot across the bow?

Amicus...

 

[Saucy_Sage]

Please, lets wait for a genuine free-market spokesperson to come along, yes?

Imbedded in Shanglan's query seems to be a 'top down' perusal of the workings of a free market. I suggest that, if you truly are asking a question and seeking an answer or the means to acquire one, that you begin from the, 'bottom up.'

Aside from that I would suggest that Shanglan consider the concept of 'criminality' in general and seek to learn what tempts an individual or an artificial person, a corporation, to perpetrate fraudulent activity.

However, having crossed swords with Black Shanglan many times before, I have advance knowledge of the basic positions involved here and I suggest that, 'original sin', the concept that all men are basically evil, plays a fundamental role in both the question and the possible answers.

Further, I would suggest due consideration on the relatively new concepts of free market economics and the concept of 'private property.'

Emerging from a feudal system where individuals had no rights and there was no such concept as private property, it is only since the beginnings of America that we can attempt to understand the process and progress of the details of a free market and the legal system under which it can flourish.

And...to head detractors off at the pass...the transition from an agricultural to an industrial and eventual modern economy, although complex, is not an excuse to regulate and control simply because of quantity and expansion.

Here we must leave politics and economics and visit the oft disregarded area of philosophy to inquire as to the source of values, those of honesty, integrity, consistency and a host of others and determine their relativity to the question of fraud in a free or a regulated society.

Guess that will do for an opening shot across the bow?

Amicus...

Okay. Did that. Then what?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Okay. Did that. Then what?

You wait for a genuine free-market spokesperson to come along.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Just the man I was thinking of. This thread was very nearly a PM to you, but I thought that I should let everyone play.

Shanglan asks:

Imbedded in Shanglan's query seems to be a 'top down' perusal of the workings of a free market. I suggest that, if you truly are asking a question and seeking an answer or the means to acquire one, that you begin from the, 'bottom up.'

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that I should examine the workings of the capitalist market from the position of the supplier rather than the consumer? It seems to me that I would have the same problems. If I work hard to build a good reputation, it would be very frustrating to have people steal or ruin it with cheap knock-offs labelled with my name.

Aside from that I would suggest that Shanglan consider the concept of 'criminality' in general and seek to learn what tempts an individual or an artificial person, a corporation, to perpetrate fraudulent activity.

However, having crossed swords with Black Shanglan many times before, I have advance knowledge of the basic positions involved here and I suggest that, 'original sin', the concept that all men are basically evil, plays a fundamental role in both the question and the possible answers.

Actually, I'm a shockingly naughty religious person that way. I don't believe that people are basically evil. My view of human nature is part pragmatism and part optimism. I like to believe that given a kind and helpful upbringing, most people have the capacity to be good. I also believe that it's hard for most people to turn down anything that looks like a free lunch.

I don't think that that's really so different from your own position, Amicus, if I understand it rightly - that people naturally crave liberty and individual fulfillment, but that the temptation of something for nothing (to your view, through a socialist state) can tempt them into error?

It seems to me that we both acknowledge that it's hard for humans to resist the chance to get an immediate reward with little apparent effort; it's a basic impulse that even animals will show us. That's what I see as driving fraud and theft, whether by an individual or a corporation. If the market is rewarding people for delivering product X, there are bound to be people who find that you can get the same reward more easily by sticking a "product X" label on whatever it's quick and easy to lay hands on.

Further, I would suggest due consideration on the relatively new concepts of free market economics and the concept of 'private property.'

Emerging from a feudal system where individuals had no rights and there was no such concept as private property, it is only since the beginnings of America that we can attempt to understand the process and progress of the details of a free market and the legal system under which it can flourish.

And...to head detractors off at the pass...the transition from an agricultural to an industrial and eventual modern economy, although complex, is not an excuse to regulate and control simply because of quantity and expansion.

Right. This is the point where I'm questing for more specifics. Given that that transition does create more opportunities for fraud - which I think is a fair presumption due to both much greater complexity of commodities and the related much greater specialization of the workforce - what's the free market solution? Does it simply accept that with increasing complexity of products and decreasing public ability to evaluate their quality, there will be more fraud, but more good products in total, so it has a counter-balance? Or are there non-governmental options by which consumers would be able to reduce their likelihood of being defrauded?

Here we must leave politics and economics and visit the oft disregarded area of philosophy to inquire as to the source of values, those of honesty, integrity, consistency and a host of others and determine their relativity to the question of fraud in a free or a regulated society.

Hmm. Interesting thought. I haven't seen anything thus far that suggests to me that the free market itself stimulates honesty, integrity, and other vices to a greater extent than other economic systems. I also don't see any evidence that it makes people more prone to vice, although in some cases it seems to allow them more easily to engage in that vice.

But let's leave regulation of working conditions and whatnot for another day. I think I'd say from what we have here that I don't think it's reasonable to assume that fraud will be kept at bay by a great increase in general honesty and ethics in humanity; there was quite a lot of it going on in the 1800's, and that's as close to an unregulated free market as the world has ever been. I'd like to hear about some actual mechanisms that would bring the market forces to bear. One may hope that humans will do what is right, but one may much more consistently rely upon them to do what is profitable.

Guess that will do for an opening shot across the bow?

Amicus...

Very nicely, thank you!

 

[Weird Harold]

...Even if they know that one brand is cheap and nasty and the other is generally good, all I need is a batch of labels with the other brand's name and logo on them. It won't be a problem to ruin my reputation if I can just call myself something else.

A "Free Market" doesn't eliminate copyright and patent protection of trademarks, "trade secrets," and other intellectual properties.

The scenario you describe here isn't prevented by market regulation nor is it prevented by intellectual rights protections -- you can order any number of "genuine rolexes and other quality replicas" from about every third unsolicited e-mail -- nor does it really have anything to do with the theoretically proper operation of a unfettered Free Market.

One thing to consider is that "Fraud" is a crime only because there are laws against it. If there are no laws defining Fraud, there is no "Fraud" -- no requirement to sell what your advertising claims you are selling, or prove your claims.

Products that cause actual harm are another sort of problem and covered under different laws than market regulations. Witness the continued sale of Tobacco products and alcohol despite decades of evidence that proper use of either group of products can cause damage to healthy persons.

The short answer, is a theoretically perfect Free Market doesn't deal with Fraud, the injured parties and courts do.

Of course, once the courts deal with enough harm from cons and scams, the legislators start dismantling the Free Market by passing inconvenient laws about product liability and truth in advertising.

 

[amicus]

Seems we have traveled this road before, Shang, perhaps even the same subject but from a different angle.

"...I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that I should examine the workings of the capitalist market from the position of the supplier rather than the consumer? It seems to me that I would have the same problems. If I work hard to build a good reputation, it would be very frustrating to have people steal or ruin it with cheap knock-offs labelled with my name..."

~~

Yes, I wasn't clear there. What I meant to impart was that one should begin by considering the beginning of an entrepreneurship rather than when it reaches corporate status. Rather than attempting to delineate what Microsoft or Standard Oil of California is now, to direct one's attention to their beginnings.

But, you have a two part question here, the second part dealing with rip off's of labels and such.

When the automobile industry emerged and throughout the period of time up until world war two, there were dozens and dozens of car manufacturers. One even became an addition to the language as an icon, "It's a Doozy", which referred to the now defunct Duesenberg(sp) automobile, and I am sure you can think of several that have faded with time, Packard and Studebaker, to name just two.

By that, I mean to point out that the consumer, in deciding where to spend his capital, determines which producer will succeed and which will fail, in a free market.

I will also add that there are attorney's that specialize only in copyright or 'patents', again, the legal system under which a free market can prosper must guarantee and protect both property and intellectual rights of the producers.

And if you have ever bought or sold property then you are aware of the property laws, deeds, right of ways, restrictions and much, much more, that occupy shelf upon shelf in the law offices everywhere.

There was no recipe on how to bake a free market economy, it was all by trial and error and I include, passion and the nature of man to be both inquisitive and acquistive in his 'free' pursuit of happiness, however one may define that.

"...It seems to me that we both acknowledge that it's hard for humans to resist the chance to get an immediate reward with little apparent effort; it's a basic impulse that even animals will show us. That's what I see as driving fraud and theft, whether by an individual or a corporation. If the market is rewarding people for delivering product X, there are bound to be people who find that you can get the same reward more easily by sticking a "product X" label on whatever it's quick and easy to lay hands..."

~~

This is a very round-about way of trying to impart something, I ask your patience.

I became quite a good reporter for radio/television and print journalism over the years, if I may say so....in part because of my determination to learn. I took several rides in patrol cars with police officers on duty during the most dangerous hours of the night and the most crime ridden areas and gained a great deal of respect for our police forces and a greater understanding of the raw side of human nature.

I also sat in police stations during booking sessions and visited prisons to better understand law enforcement and practical and academic concepts concerning criminality, the criminal mind, and of course, the human nature underlying.

There are hundreds of books written that attempt to explain criminal behavior and although I have not read them all, I did read enough to understand that I did not want to pursue the subject on a professional level.

Hmmm...how to circle back to the ranch here...uhm...it seems that most have the opinion that a regulated and controlled society, a command economy, will solve the problem of human criminal activity by surveillance and control. I suppose, to a degree, that works. But I think it creates the kind of society that I would not wish to live in. The Orwellian concept, the 'Brave New World' viewpoint that I see so often represented in futuristic films, 'Terminator' 'Blade Runner', wherein a police state attempts to maintain order through complete control.

I rather suspect you understand me quite well and I think we share a great many observations and I often wonder just where we part company in our separate quests for knowledge.

~~

"...Right. This is the point where I'm questing for more specifics. Given that that transition does create more opportunities for fraud - which I think is a fair presumption due to both much greater complexity of commodities and the related much greater specialization of the workforce - what's the free market solution? Does it simply accept that with increasing complexity of products and decreasing public ability to evaluate their quality, there will be more fraud, but more good products in total, so it has a counter-balance? Or are there non-governmental options by which consumers would be able to reduce their likelihood of being defrauded?..."

I don't want to spend much time on this...already overly long and I want to concentrate on your final question.

I am sure you are aware on the increase security procedures in the retail market place, from stickers that set off alarms when merchandise is taken from a store without payment. Surveillance cameras everywhere, including parking lots and hallways.

I am personally amazed at some things in the modern market place, for example the container ships that seem to grow larger and larger, the automated port facilities that load and unload the vessels and the computerized disposition of thousands of containers to trucks and trains.

All of this created, by trial and error, to deal with greater quantity brought about by a global and expanding market place.

Then too, the several thousand satellites in orbit that practically control the market place on a 24/7 basis on every point of the globe.

Been watching the Military Channel off and on tonight, the progress of technology in warfare, the radar that saved England in the Battle of Britain and how the 'arms race' continues to spur research and development as each new offensive weapon is met with a defensive one. The same hold true in the free market...as newer products and methods are born, so too are those who, through fraud and theft, will attempt to enjoy that ever illusive, 'free lunch', and will risk imprisonment for it.

~~

"...Hmm. Interesting thought. I haven't seen anything thus far that suggests to me that the free market itself stimulates honesty, integrity, and other vices to a greater extent than other economic systems..."

Since I have stated, several times, that a free market engenders its own morality and apparently not been understood, perhaps it is my lack of clarity, or ability to relate a moral foundation for freedom.

Perhaps something akin to anecdotal....I do some art now and then, wood carving and water colors and I am cognizant of seasonal artist communities on the coast and have often thought of setting up a little shop.

Were I to do so...well...without burdening you with the details, let me just leave the question to you...what would it take for my little shop to become successful with just the product of my own hands to offer?

Part would be a product that people wanted...learning that would teach me a great deal about supply and demand. Part would be price competition, which again would be a learning process. Part would be the appearance of my shop, the hours it was open and the customer friendly or unfriendly atmosphere that I created to display my work.

I am sure you can easily follow my line of thinking in terms of the values mention, honesty in dealing with the consumer, integrity to presenting a product with consistency and fairness in relating, person to person with those potential buyers.

That holds true with whatever product or service one offers the market and like the derivative Protestant work ethic, it reflects the basic self interest of the individual to be successful in an endeavor.

There is a lot of common sense involved also, however you define that, and learning not to take checks from certain people.

I tire....trust that gave you a little to chew on, nice fresh alfalfa, just for you.

Amicus....

 

[Carnevil9]

The free-marketeer you have been awaiting chimes in.

The free-market solution to fraudulent business practices is privately run certification organizations. We have such organizations now, and they work well in those areas that the government doesn't already meddle. Some examples are: Underwriter's Labs, Consumer Reports, JD Powers, etc.

These organizations would specialize in various areas of expertise, such as medicine, complex machinery, or health insurance; they would study the offerings of the various providers within their chosen industry, make judgements, and publish their findings and recommendations. The general buying populace soon learns to trust their judgement. They make their money the old-fashioned way: by selling their information. They need a track record of making good judgements to stay in business, of course; therefore they have no incentive to be swayed by bribes or by biased advertisers.

Of course there would be at least two organizatons working in each area that needs oversight. The competition would keep them efficient. If somehow there were only one, they would become bloated and inefficient, and somebody would step in to compete with them, thus restoring the balance of efficiency.

That is how it will work in my Anarcho-Capitalist utopia......Carney

 

[iamincognito45]

Snip

Capitalism is meant to reward people for producing what others want, but it can also reward them for producing things labelled as what others want. Even if they know that one brand is cheap and nasty and the other is generally good, all I need is a batch of labels with the other brand's name and logo on them. It won't be a problem to ruin my reputation if I can just call myself something else.

Not to run off on a tangent here but...

Isn't this the basis of so much of the current political rhetoric?

Both sides are guilty of obviously struggling when caught off guard to stay what they think people want to hear as opposed to speaking confidently and securely from the heart of a position full of intimate knowledge and true conviction.

Just as they are currently trying to our promise each other when speaking to the voters. The citizenry wants to support the person they think we give them them the most and cost them the least personally. Never mind that the math doesn't work. You can't possible balance the budget, fix social security, fix the health care system and education, reduce the deficit and cut taxes. My calculator says the math just doesn't work. But you don't hear anyone calling them on it.

It's about offering them what they want and advertising it as such, not what they will get.

I now return you to your normally scheduled and very entertaining thread/program .

 

[Stella_Omega]

The free-market solution to fraudulent business practices is privately run certification organizations. We have such organizations now, and they work well in those areas that the government doesn't already meddle. Some examples are: Underwriter's Labs, Consumer Reports, JD Powers, etc.

These organizations would specialize in various areas of expertise, such as medicine, complex machinery, or health insurance; they would study the offerings of the various providers within their chosen industry, make judgements, and publish their findings and recommendations. The general buying populace soon learns to trust their judgement. They make their money the old-fashioned way: by selling their information. They need a track record of making good judgements to stay in business, of course; therefore they have no incentive to be swayed by bribes or by biased advertisers.

Of course there would be at least two organizatons working in each area that needs oversight. The competition would keep them efficient. If somehow there were only one, they would become bloated and inefficient, and somebody would step in to compete with them, thus restoring the balance of efficiency.

That is how it will work in my Anarcho-Capitalist utopia......Carney

This is actually how the Internet functions in the area of domain names;
ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a private-sector, non-profit corporation formed in 1998 to oversee domain names and ISPNs.

And like every other corporation, it's showing signs of moral strain... faint, but visible.

 

[rgraham666]

I'll add my usual little bit of heresy.

Economics and politics are simply tools. And like all tools they are ethic free. They can only do what their users direct them to do. The users decide whether these things are ethical or not.

One of the more amusing dichotomies of the 'free marketers' is they claim just that, they're in favor of freedom. Except when the 'free market' is involved. Then it's "Shut up and do what the market tells you to do."

I do wish they'd make up their minds.

 

[neonlyte]

I'll add my usual little bit of heresy.

Economics and politics are simply tools. And like all tools they are ethic free. They can only do what their users direct them to do. The users decide whether these things are ethical or not.

One of the more amusing dichotomies of the 'free marketers' is they claim just that, they're in favor of freedom. Except when the 'free market' is involved. Then it's "Shut up and do what the market tells you to do."

I do wish they'd make up their minds.

This is good! It's exactly the double standard I had in mind thinking about fraud from the perspective of free market employer. It is astonishing the lengths employers/producers go to to protect their 'free market merchandise' and how tardy the same people are in prosecuting in-house fraud.

 

[Pure]

notes

carnevil's reply seems like a good one

to which i would add, there can be associations of producers, e.g. of drug producers, and labels that say "member of the XYZ drug manufacturers association of the USA."

now i suppose you will ask, suppose that label is itself ripped off: then i guess you're into a civil lawsuit.

to which one might add, a pharmacy has a person recognized as a pharmacist by a professional association of pharmacists. so if you buy there, instead of phoney "Tylanol" at Joe's Bargain Emporium, you have a better chance. again, someone with a phoney pharmacist certificate would be gone after by the pharmacist's association.

i might add too, that individual companies, like Walt Disney, can be zealous in protecting a name, again through civil suits.
===

i might add that this problem was long ago consigned to a 'mixed' solution involving government, e.g. by Adam Smith. so the 'pure free market' approach is sought by relatively few persons, though it's a fine theoretical exercize. i believe even Ayn Randists envision some laws against fraud.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

to which one might add, a pharmacy has a person recognized as a pharmacist by a professional association of pharmacists. so if you buy there, instead of phoney "Tylanol" at Joe's Bargain Emporium, you have a better chance. again, someone with a phoney pharmacist certificate would be gone after by the pharmacist's association.

Your pharmacists' association comes very close to Amicus's despised notion of a "guild", a professional organization that bands together to set their own wages and qualifications for employment, thereby interfering with the free movement and allocation of labor in a purely capitalist system. With their power to meddle in the market, I don't know if these guilds would be tolerated by the business owners.

More likely the owners would band together to form regulatory associations.

Or would they? Why should they vouch for each other's quality? That makes no sense in terms of competition, where you want the market to think that your competitor's goods are crap.

No, now that i think of it, I'm not so sure you'd get these regulatory associations forming at all. Did they ever form spontaneously in our own capitalist history without the prodding of government or without an industry-wide scandal such as what was revealed in Sinclair's The Jungle concerning the meat-packing business? The guilds guaranteed quality but the guilds were a labor movement that arose in direct opposition to pure capitalism. The first Big Businesses, the wool and cloth merchants of the Netherlands, the French wine makers -- they had trade blocks but no quality assurance.

The "port" they drank in Nelson's navy was often a mixture of cheap wine, alcohol, a dye known as conchineal, and "sugar of lead" -- lead acetate, toxic as hell -- added to give body and sweetness. Fortunes were made off this stuff.

 

[neonlyte]

Your pharmacists' association comes very close to Amicus's despised notion of a "guild", a professional organization that bands together to set their own wages and qualifications for employment, thereby interfering with the free movement and allocation of labor in a purely capitalist system. With their power to meddle in the market, I don't know if these guilds would be tolerated by the business owners.

More likely the owners would band together to form regulatory associations.

Or would they? Why should they vouch for each other's quality? That makes no sense in terms of competition, where you want the market to think that your competitor's goods are crap.

No, now that i think of it, I'm not so sure you'd get these regulatory associations forming at all. Did they ever form spontaneously in our own capitalist history without the prodding of government or without an industry-wide scandal such as what was revealed in Sinclair's The Jungle concerning the meat-packing business? The guilds guaranteed quality but the guilds were a labor movement that arose in direct opposition to pure capitalism. The first Big Businesses, the wool and cloth merchants of the Netherlands, the French wine makers -- they had trade blocks but no quality assurance.

The "port" they drank in Nelson's navy was often a mixture of cheap wine, alcohol, a dye known as conchineal, and "sugar of lead" -- lead acetate, toxic as hell -- added to give body and sweetness. Fortunes were made off this stuff.

'conchineal' - beetle juice... delicious.

Bread making was regulated from way back after bakers tried to adulterate flour with all manner of substances. It is possibly one of the last fully regulated professions in France and Portugal. Chalk, Alum bark and even bones were ground and added to flour to 'stretch the dough'. In France, an Artisan Baker has strict regulations to follow if he/she wishes to acquire the 'guild' trademark asserting authentic manufacturing and ingredients. In Portugal, adulterated bread caused riots in the 1900's and spawned political cartoons condeming corrupt politicians clothed as bakers.

 

[amicus]

guilds

http://www.1902encyclopedia.com/A/ADU/adulteration.html

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cach...wine+adulteration&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us#61

..."Guilds were like small communes looking after their own..."(paraphrase)

"...Members of the guilds amassed huge fortunes..built enormous palaces for themselves, became counsellors and money lenders to Kings..."

"Fraud within the guilds and utter corruption..." plus the early beginnings of free trade destroyed the guilds much like the same failings have destroyed modern unions. They amassed too much power and money and threatened the common good...

http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/nelson/great_schism.html

(1378-1415)

Economically, the guilds were unable to adapt to shrinking markets. They exploited their own workers, limited access, cut social contributions, and were slowly replaced by capitalist organizations.

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/logos/v010/10.3gill.html (included this one just for you Shanglan)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_innovation

Despite its advantages for agricultural and artisan producers, the guild became a target of much criticism towards the end of the 1700s and the beginning of the 1800s. They were believed to oppose free trade and hinder technological innovation, technology transfer and business development. According to several accounts of this time, guilds became increasingly involved in simple territorial struggles against each other and against free practitioners of their arts.

Key word search "Sinclair the jungle criticism"

"...Sinclair spent seven weeks investigating the Packingtown district of Chicago, where he observed the living and working conditions of the meat-packing industry and talked intimately with workers. His goal was to write a tract for socialism as well as a romantic exposé of the betrayal of the American dream..."

".... For years it was circulated throughout the communist world as a faithful depiction of the inherent oppressiveness of the capitalist system in the United States..."[/QUOTE]



http://www.powells.com/review/2002_11_05.html

Probably no two words in our language are now more calculated to shrivel the sensitive nostril than "socialist realism." Taken together, they evoke the tractor opera, the granite-jawed proletarian sculpture, the cultural and literary standards of Commissar Zhdanov, and the bone-deep weariness that is paradoxically produced by ceaseless uplift and exhortation. Yet these words used to have an authentic meaning, which was also directly related to "social" realism. And the most fully realized instance of the genre, more telling and more moving than even the works of Dickens and Zola, was composed in these United States...

Like Dickens and Zola, Upton Sinclair was in many ways a journalist. His greatest novel was originally commissioned as a serial, for the popular socialist paper Appeal to Reason, which was published (this now seems somehow improbable) in Kansas. An advance of $500 sent Sinclair to Chicago in 1904, there to make radical fiction out of brute reality. The city was then the great maw of American capitalism.

This is exactly what the innocent cart horse Boxer later says as he wears out his muscles on the cynical futilities of Animal Farm. Orwell was an admirer of Sinclair's work, and wrote in praise of The Jungle in 1940, but Sinclair may have been depressed to see his main character redeployed in the service of allegory.

Eugene Debs, the great Socialist Party leader and orator of that period, announced that his ambition was to be "the John Brown of the wage slaves."

Sinclair interrupts himself at this point to quote without attribution from The Ballad of Reading Gaol (Oscar Wilde was not long dead in 1905), and it seems a sure thing that Sinclair would have read The Soul of Man Under Socialism, the most brilliant line of which says that it is capitalism that lays upon men "the sordid necessity of living for others."

Robert Tressell's novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1914) is the only rival to The Jungle in its combination of realism with didacticism and its willingness to impose a bit of theory on the readership. In both "proletarian" novels the weapon often deployed is satire: the workers are too dumb, and too grateful for their jobs, to consider the notions that might emancipate them.

The book ends with the soaring notes of a socialist tribune of the people, and the triumphant yell � thrice repeated � "Chicago will be ours."

Before this happy ending, however, there is a passage that I am surprised Jane Jacobs does not discuss. A bitter strike is in progress in the stockyards, and gangs of scabs are being mobilized. They are from the South, and they are different. Indeed, the reader is introduced to "young white girls from the country rubbing elbows with big buck negroes with daggers in their boots, while rows of woolly heads peered down from every window of the surrounding factories."

The ancestors of these black people had been savages in Africa; and since then they had been chattel slaves, or had been held down by a community ruled by the traditions of slavery. Now for the first time they were free, free to gratify every passion, free to wreck themselves...


This is no slip of the pen on Sinclair's part. He elsewhere refers to "a throng of stupid black negroes," a phrasing that convicts him of pleonasm as well as of racism. It is often forgotten that the early American labor movement preached a sort of "white socialism" and � though Debs himself didn't subscribe to it � that this sadly qualified its larger claim to be the liberator of the wage slaves.


The final way in which Sinclair's realism got the better of his socialism is this: like Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto, he couldn't help being exceedingly impressed by the dynamic, innovative, and productive energy of capitalism:





Thus, though it lives on many a veteran's bookshelf as a stirring monument to the grandeur of the American socialist and labor movements, The Jungle may also be read today as a primer on the versatility of the capitalist system. But not all its "morals" belong to the past. The anti-Jungle ethos lived on, in a subterranean fashion, through the League for Industrial Democracy, founded by Sinclair and Jack London. (Its junior branch, the Student League for Industrial Democracy, survived long enough to provide the auspices for the first meeting of Students for a Democratic Society.)

~~~

Although this thread asked the question concerning how to deal with fraud in a free economy, as usual it degenerates into an attack on the free market and America in general. I don't mind, the usual suspects never change in their criticism of human freedom.

You might also note an entire era, from the 'Dickens' writings forward, of collaboration between pro socialist, anti freedom writers and journalists. Imagine now, several generations being forced to read this tripe as part of their education...it is no wonder this generation has no understanding of the morality and efficiency of a free market among free people.

Amicus...

 

[BlackShanglan]

My God, this thread is a bonanza. I'm going to start writing some individual replies in a moment, but first let me say, THANK YOU. I haven't had this much fun in ages, and the whole thing has given me a much better understanding of what's going on - particularly what counts as regulation and what doesn't, a topic on which I can see that I have had very confused ideas!

I hugely appreciate the contributions of everyone in the thread, and particularly the kind and helpful way people have explained their ideas.

Don't make an old horse get all misty-eyed. I promised myself I wouldn't cry.