Freedom Entails Responsibility

[RankStranger]

Freedom is a lack of restraints.

 

Responsibility = social restraints.

 

One does not entail the other. We all want freedom... but life will suck for the group without responsibility (which is counter to freedom).

[oddbird1963]

Living entails responsibility if you are a sentient, intelligent being with a capacity for empathy.

 

Freedom eliminates the excuse "There's nothing I can do . . ." in the face of a situation where a thoughtful person would ponder what the right thing to do would be.

 

In the absence of freedom, one must ponder responsibility as well. The first question to ponder is revolt. Must I rebel against whatever power enslaves me in order to be responsible to myself, my family, my community and posterity.

 

So it all goes back to the burden of living - living as an intelligent, empathetic being. Responsibility is always there. How to implement that responsibility is determined, in part, by the degree of relative freedom one holds.

[Vigile]

for example, corporations were free of environmental regulations and ended up being good stewards of the land and air (either because the people in charge thought it was important,

 

Don't you see, people will stop buying their products if this occurs. And if the media they also control covers it up, people don't have to read or watch the news. It's their choice. The invisible hand will solve all problems. You just gotta have faith.

 

The proof is in the pudding. Now that this has occurred, consumers will demand that their clothes are no longer made in Cambodian sweatshops: http://www.leaderpost.com/Hundreds+faint+garment+factory/5309669/story.html

 

We can all be confident that the market will self regulate this. Forget the fact that this has already happened several times in the recent past. The invisible hand knows best and will eventually get around to doing what's right.

[AlphaToOmega]

I have my own theory that is based on the invisible cock.

Basically the invisible hand strokes the invisible cock.

The invisible cock then goes and screws everyone for its own satisfaction since its own satisfaction overrides others desires not to be screwed.

This shows up as billionaire's claiming they earned every cent on their own but ignoring the fact that they employed people at $1 per hour.

Basically by screwing over many others a little you can get to have great wealth.

 

Then you can make up a little story, kind of like Cinderella, where if you work really really hard you to will get everything that's owed to you as well.

These people believe the story and then fight for the rights of people to screw over anyone they want based on the notion that they can always go work somewhere else.

When the people try to stop this systematic process by forming unions they are vilified instead.

Take it up the ass, enjoy the delight of the invisible cock they say.

Soon you may be the one doing the screwing if you work real hard.

The people believe this because its similar to what the invisible man says in the sky.

Sometimes the people who claim to represent the invisible man in the sky are the ones that wield the most aggressive invisible cocks.

 

The moral is protect the invisible cocks right to screw people because eventually you may have cock of your own and you get one by stomping on people below you.

The more you do that and then claim that you did it all on your own, the bigger your cock grows.

[Vigile]

I personally think it's a matter of scales. Smith's theory works well on smaller scales. But when monopolies and cartels form or when businesses become so successful they can influence the government, essentially writing their own rules, the theory breaks down in what can be only described as diminishing returns on the benefits of free markets. In fact, at some point, returns reverse and become liabilities if there is no intervention.

 

And this makes perfect sense even within the confines of Smith's theory. If businesses have undue influence on policy making, competition disappears.

[AlphaToOmega]

Smith's original principle was specifically addressing using domestic labour rather than going overseas for labour.

He did however start making some vague references that could be interpreted to mean the current understanding.

I totally agree with his original proposal. Its the universality that's been applied to it like its somehow a fundamental basic law of physics is where I diverge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vigile]

I agree, but Smith and all those from his era were also unaware of the principle of competitive advantage. Going overseas for labor isn't always a bad thing. If people in India can produce shirts at a lower cost than people in the US and if people in the US can produce televisions more efficiently than people in India, people in both countries benefit from the lower cost of goods and wealth in the world increases.

 

During Smith's time, wealth was supposed as a constant and pursuit of it was considered zero sum. We know today that wealth can actually be expanded through new technology and comparative advantages.

 

What we are discussing here is the distribution of wealth and indeed, it can be a real problem for local economies when the pursuit of increased wealth is accompanied by companies that do not return their increased wealth back to the home front, but instead hoard it or take it offshore. Again, this would be a much smaller problem if there were in fact more competition, which is what Smith envisioned. Competition is eroding in the modern era, not wealth. We live in times where there are massive market inefficiencies due to competitive advantages caused by sheer size of corporate conglomerates.

[OpheliaGinger]

Maybe children should only be raised by grandparents, I don't know ... the young can be baby factories and hand them over to the old-timers. My fiancee and I both have incredibly warm memories of our grandparents. Then again, I'm talking about changing the current child-grandparent dynamic, which would probably cause it to quit working for what it is and introduce some of the same limitations that parents "enjoy".

 

The only reason why grandparents are so good is because they have experience raising children.

[Legion]

We live in times where there are massive market inefficiencies due to competitive advantages caused by sheer size of corporate conglomerates.

Please overlook my ignorancee, but I thought there were anti-trust laws that tried to deal with this. Are they inapplicable, unenforced, or something?

[Ouroboros]

We live in times where there are massive market inefficiencies due to competitive advantages caused by sheer size of corporate conglomerates.

Please overlook my ignorancee, but I thought there were anti-trust laws that tried to deal with this. Are they inapplicable, unenforced, or something?

My understanding is that what is to be considered antitrust or not is up to FTC. The antitrust laws do not make monopoly illegal. Monopoly is legal in US. Unfair business practice based on size is not, but it's still up to FTC to decide and act on it.

 

FTC did the right thing with Bell/AT&T etc, but personally I think they failed in the Microsoft case.

 

Another problem is patents and how some companies make patent lawsuits a business, like SCO. But they got what they deserved when the court favored Novell.

[Vigile]

I think Hans answered this. I only understand anti trust laws on a very thin level, but it's my thought that they give government agencies power to break up companies if they can prove a trust case and if no charges are brought, the law won't be enforced. It's not like speeding, where an infraction is easily and quickly determined. First, someone needs to recognize a monopoly or something akin to it. I doubt that's easy to do.

 

Pure monopolies aren't really the issue here though. We have huge corporations squeezing out their smaller competition because they can afford political access and the smaller up starts can't. This isn't a monopoly, but it's also not free and fair competition.

 

For example, currently there are 3-4 major cell phone provider companies in the US. This sounds like fair competition, but why is it that Americans have to sign contracts promising to stick with one provider for a certain number of minutes for a certain number of months? Other countries have many providers and phones aren't locked and no contracts need to be signed and rates are lower. I suspect this is due to self-beneficial regulations these big corporations have lobbied for. They keep their profits high in an almost cartel like fashion, they lock in their customers and they ensure no smaller new kids on the block don't come along and offer a better product that steals their customer base away.

 

The last time I drove across America, every town and every city had the exact same shops, stores and restaurants. True competition is never going create a homogeneous environment; especially in a market with 300 million people. Probabilities are just stacked against this. I admit my evidence is merely built on observation here. It would be nice to have more studies and facts to get a clearer picture and a fairer assessment than I'm personally able.

[VacuumFlux]

The last time I drove across America, every town and every city had the exact same shops, stores and restaurants. True competition is never going create a homogeneous environment; especially in a market with 300 million people.

 

I hate going on vacation only to discover that every place I go is exactly the same. There's even one shopping center in multiple cites with most of the same stores, the same architecture, and even some of the same street names! It takes effort to find the unique local places that make it feel like I've actually gone somewhere.