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992 sats \ 5 replies \ @kepford 24 Jan \ parent \ on: What Role Should Governments Play in Markets? history
The FDA because it holds a monopoly like the CDC is subject to corruption in ways that would be harder to accomplish if it were market governance.
I recall listening to Bob Murphy and Tom Woods talk about this drug journal that has a very long history of finding issues with drugs 6-12 months before the FDA even looks at them. Some of the issue is with the lack of competition and part is the susceptibility for corruption because of the centralization.
I have a question for you. Do you look at Yelp and Google reviews of a restaurant or do you look up their grade by the health department. Can we not imagine how much better it would be to have multiple decentralized health reviews on restaurants? We have many examples of voluntary private review of businesses.
Another example is lab door. A great resource for looking at the quality of vitamins and supplements. One of the other issue I think of in the area is how the state monopoly and their re-enforcement of the expertise leads people to trust institutions they should be skeptical of. Most people are more skeptical of private businesses but less skeptical of government institutions like the FDA or CDC. I believe we'd be better off with competing institutions that are voluntary. The masses need to be more skeptical. We are conditioned to trust our governments. Businesses have to win our business. The state does not. We should be skeptical of both but the pysop of the state and its education system conditions us against viewing the state as a ruler. The system is designed to make us believe that we are the state. That the government is us. It is not. That's the larger lie.
Keep asking questions. I think the state has helped in some situations. I just believe on the whole the damage has been greater than the benefit. I don't think anyone would argue that if you got rid of one company the world would end, but this is the mentality about the state by its defenders.
Do you look at Yelp and Google reviews of a restaurant or do you look up their grade by the health department?
excellent point, do you know of any Yelp-like systems that were tried in the late 1800s back when people were putting cocaine and all sorts of crazy substances in food and drinks? i’m sure someone made an attempt at separating good from bad in the private market before the FDA was established…
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The free press raised the issues but I can't recall the details. Word of mouth.
As technology advances the arguments for states functioning as governments with monopolies gets weaker and weaker. I can see why paper money came to be used over gold. After reading more about the progress/evolution of money it made more sense to me. But to argue that fiat is superior to bitcoin today is crazy.
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I am. I would love to see a move in this direction. The problem is that institutions like the SEC, FDA, and CDC will NEVER reduce their size and scope. The incentives are such that they will expand and suck more life out of the economy. They are leaches. They distort the market. The temp market actors to cheat by offering bribes and favors for favorable treatment of their operations. They are a corrupting force.
Now, of course people will try to game or cheat Yelp and Google reviews. But neither have a monopoly and to the extent they have market dominance I would suggest the state creates the environment where companies like Amazon and Google can gain dominance. Regulatory capture is a thing and often I see people blaming the market for things the state creates. The state tips the scales. It can't help itself.
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makes sense.
directly fighting the continued overreach of these agencies doesn’t seem to be much help, so perhaps we need another Bitcoin moment for some system to disrupt the status quo in a completely roundabout way.
i haven’t thought much about what such a system might look like though…
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