Understood. Of course that is not really socialist, but exerting social pressure to persuade people to support a failing business just on the basis that it is local instead of patronizing the "better" business just does not feel capitalist to me.
That's really sort of your hang-up though, right? Each individual consumer has the right in a free-market economy to decide for himself what constitutes a "better" business based on what that individual values. If you personally disagree with what that other person decides to value, that's not socialism or whatever. That is, in fact, the very nature of freedom.
To be fair, it's not exactly a free choice if you're doing it just so that your neighbors won't get mad at you. I don't really know whether that counts as capitalism or socialism though.
It's absolutely a free choice. The idea of liberty should not be misconstrued to mean that your choices are free from consequences. I can use my freedom of speech to stroll down the street shouting racial slurs until my voice gives out, but that freedom of speech doesn't mean that I cannot be exposed to social judgement.
To reiterate: you can't both acknowledge the idiosyncrasy of the present disinflationary situation and then argue for a practice to be held generally.
Anyway, as I read it AMFE was arguing explicitly for a stronger currency now.
Oh... now I see what you meant by that comment.
One thing to bear in mind is that I don't expect the "present disinflationary situation" as you put it, to go away any time soon. Paul Krugman has made the point ad nauseum that it's extremely hard to get out of a liquidity trap, and Japan has been stuck in one for like two decades now.
And if we somehow get out of it and find ourselves awash in currency it would be pretty easy to phase out a local currency. If necessary the federal government could just ban it.
You may be misreading me; I was not advocating adherence to 'capitalism' on some ideological basis. I was replying to this remark:
You have two stores selling identical products, and one store sells them for more money, but you should support them anyway because they're local? How is this any less socialist than taxing me and giving the money to the store owner, or having the town take over the store, pay the former owner wages to run it, and make sure it stays open no matter what?
Which is not socialism and is indeed wholly compatible with capitalism of a fairly archetypically laissez-faire variety. Hence: it is not less capitalist.
What I was trying to say was that I'm sure you don't 'advocate adherence to capitalism' - but that just the fact that it was a phrase that anyone felt made sense was interesting to me - it shocks me that anyone does believe that, and I find often they don't notice that they have an ideology that essentially treats capitalism as a religion.
Put it this way - if supporting your local business is kind but financially inefficient, and using chain stores is unkind but financially efficient, we should examine our motives for choosing efficiency over kindness. I believe that many who prefer efficiency over empathy are doing so for reasons that are completely unexamined, and that if they do examine their motives, they would find them to be suspect.
Edit: SKFM's post above is a classic example. Someone striving to be more capitalist makes about as much sense as striving to be more Euclidean.
There are circumstances where one can distinguish a tradeoff between kindness and efficiency, but this is a strange circumstance in which to do so, particularly given that we are assuming that spending at a given business is a kind empathetic act. The point of interest is why one might regard being kind and empathetic to people next door preferable to being kind and empathetic to people in the next city, and the answer - that the appeal is baldly nationalist over being humanist - is not self-evidently an appealing quality. I think you might find it suspect on examination too.
Edit: SKFM's post above is a classic example. Someone striving to be more capitalist makes about as much sense as striving to be more Euclidean.
He has impressive allies in that - a similar argument against 'corporate social responsibility' was made by Milton Friedman in the 70s and 80s.
Oddly enough today many on the economic mainstream would readily assent to the notion that institutional trust and so on is important for material wealth.
There are circumstances where one can distinguish a tradeoff between kindness and efficiency, but this is a strange circumstance in which to do so, particularly given that we are assuming that spending at a given business is a kind empathetic act. The point of interest is why one might regard being kind and empathetic to people next door preferable to being kind and empathetic to people in the next city, and the answer - that the appeal is baldly nationalist over being humanist - is not self-evidently an appealing quality. I think you might find it suspect on examination too.
Not at all. I don't think the impulse to support a 'local' business is simply about geographical proximity. It's also about the desire to support a privately-owned business over a corporate one, because you believe the benefits of your custom will go to people who will use that wealth for purposes you empathise with (e.g. buying dinner), rather than a corporation who you believe will misuse that wealth, or at best use it in nebulous ways that you cannot identify with.
So there are two differing impulses colliding - the desire to look after those you know, which while, again, inefficient, is as human as caring for your family over others, and the desire to look after individuals whose lives you understand, rather than corporate entities which you do not understand.
I guess this leads pretty quickly to a debate about whether irrational empathy is a positive or negative force in society.
There are circumstances where one can distinguish a tradeoff between kindness and efficiency, but this is a strange circumstance in which to do so, particularly given that we are assuming that spending at a given business is a kind empathetic act. The point of interest is why one might regard being kind and empathetic to people next door preferable to being kind and empathetic to people in the next city, and the answer - that the appeal is baldly nationalist over being humanist - is not self-evidently an appealing quality. I think you might find it suspect on examination too.
Not at all. I don't think the impulse to support a 'local' business is simply about geographical proximity. It's also about the desire to support a privately-owned business over a corporate one, because you believe the benefits of your custom will go to people who will use that wealth for purposes you empathise with (e.g. buying dinner), rather than a corporation who you believe will misuse that wealth, or at best use it in nebulous ways that you cannot identify with.
So there are two differing impulses colliding - the desire to look after those you know, which while, again, inefficient, is as human as caring for your family over others, and the desire to look after individuals whose lives you understand, rather than corporate entities which you do not understand.
I guess this leads pretty quickly to a debate about whether irrational empathy is a positive or negative force in society.
There's also environmental considerations: if you're concerned about greenhouse gasses and carbon footprints, that might factor into your decision as to whether you'll buy an out-of-season fruit imported from an equatorial country or whether you'll restrict yourself to local produce.
I think posh said it well when he suggested that there are impulses colliding. There are many, many things people consider when deciding whether or not to buy a product. Sometimes, you can't find a product that addresses all of your values. You can absolutely wish that your purchases represented a smaller overall carbon footprint and still purchase cheaper imported goods because the locally-produced alternative is too expensive for your budget and you need to save that money for something else. You can absolutely wish Chinese factory workers the very best in the world while buying an American-manufactured good because you worry about trade deficits or unemployment and how those influences might affect you.
There's also environmental considerations: if you're concerned about greenhouse gasses and carbon footprints, that might factor into your decision as to whether you'll buy an out-of-season fruit imported from an equatorial country or whether you'll restrict yourself to local produce.
Amusingly enough, depending on a whole host of factors, raw distance isn't a good predictor of carbon footprint. Per weight and miles, single-occupant vehicles and small pickup trucks are extremely inefficient forms of transportation, compared to large intercontinental container boats.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
0
Options
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Edit: SKFM's post above is a classic example. Someone striving to be more capitalist makes about as much sense as striving to be more Euclidean.
He has impressive allies in that - a similar argument against 'corporate social responsibility' was made by Milton Friedman in the 70s and 80s.
Oddly enough today many on the economic mainstream would readily assent to the notion that institutional trust and so on is important for material wealth.
There are circumstances where one can distinguish a tradeoff between kindness and efficiency, but this is a strange circumstance in which to do so, particularly given that we are assuming that spending at a given business is a kind empathetic act. The point of interest is why one might regard being kind and empathetic to people next door preferable to being kind and empathetic to people in the next city, and the answer - that the appeal is baldly nationalist over being humanist - is not self-evidently an appealing quality. I think you might find it suspect on examination too.
Not at all. I don't think the impulse to support a 'local' business is simply about geographical proximity. It's also about the desire to support a privately-owned business over a corporate one, because you believe the benefits of your custom will go to people who will use that wealth for purposes you empathise with (e.g. buying dinner), rather than a corporation who you believe will misuse that wealth, or at best use it in nebulous ways that you cannot identify with.
So there are two differing impulses colliding - the desire to look after those you know, which while, again, inefficient, is as human as caring for your family over others, and the desire to look after individuals whose lives you understand, rather than corporate entities which you do not understand.
I guess this leads pretty quickly to a debate about whether irrational empathy is a positive or negative force in society.
There's also environmental considerations: if you're concerned about greenhouse gasses and carbon footprints, that might factor into your decision as to whether you'll buy an out-of-season fruit imported from an equatorial country or whether you'll restrict yourself to local produce.
I think posh said it well when he suggested that there are impulses colliding. There are many, many things people consider when deciding whether or not to buy a product. Sometimes, you can't find a product that addresses all of your values. You can absolutely wish that your purchases represented a smaller overall carbon footprint and still purchase cheaper imported goods because the locally-produced alternative is too expensive for your budget and you need to save that money for something else. You can absolutely wish Chinese factory workers the very best in the world while buying an American-manufactured good because you worry about trade deficits or unemployment and how those influences might affect you.
I'll let my ally respond to this second post:
What does it mean to say that the corporate executive has a "social responsibility" in his capacity as businessman? If this statement is not pure rhetoric, it must mean that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers. For example, that he is to refrain from increasing the price of the product in order to contribute to the social objective of preventing inflation, even though a price in crease would be in the best interests of the corporation. Or that he is to make expenditures on reducing pollution beyond the amount that is in the best interests of the corporation or that is required by law in order to contribute to the social objective of improving the environment. Or that, at the expense of corporate profits, he is to hire "hardcore" unemployed instead of better qualified available workmen to contribute to the social objective of reducing poverty.
In each of these cases, the corporate executive would be spending someone else's money for a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in accord with his "social responsibility" reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is spending their money.
The stockholders or the customers or the employees could separately spend their own money on the particular action if they wished to do so. The executive is exercising a distinct "social responsibility," rather than serving as an agent of the stockholders or the customers or the employees, only if he spends the money in a different way than they would have spent it.
But if he does this, he is in effect imposing taxes, on the one hand, and deciding how the tax proceeds shall be spent, on the other.
. . .
The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This justification disappears when the corporate executive imposes taxes and spends the proceeds for "social" purposes. He becomes in effect a public employee, a civil servant, even though he remains in name an employee of a private enterprise. On grounds of political principle, it is intolerable that such civil servants–insofar as their actions in the name of social responsibility are real and not just window-dressing–should be selected as they are now. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be elected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expenditures to foster "social" objectives, then political machinery must be set up to make the assessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served.
This is the basic reason why the doctrine of "social responsibility" involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses.
Edit: SKFM's post above is a classic example. Someone striving to be more capitalist makes about as much sense as striving to be more Euclidean.
He has impressive allies in that - a similar argument against 'corporate social responsibility' was made by Milton Friedman in the 70s and 80s.
Oddly enough today many on the economic mainstream would readily assent to the notion that institutional trust and so on is important for material wealth.
Edit: I understand SKFM's weirdly formatted post now. Everyone educated is familiar with those arguments. The simplest problem I have with them is the idea that once at work, as an agent, we should discard our humanity and moral responsibilities to be a more effective agent. There is much more to say, such as the idea that our responsibilities to our employers are complex, and that serving their short-term desires may not be serving their long-term interests (e.g. your employer at a petroleum company may wish for his great-grandchildren to not be killed by the effects of global warming). But it's not a new idea, and there are many other authority figures arguing that maximising economic efficiency is not equivalent to 'good'.
Regardless, striving to be more 'capitalist' rather than striving to be 'productive' or 'fair' or even 'wealthy' is still very very odd.
I should note that we are not discussing a Pareto efficiency improvement, since we are readily acknowledging that some people will be made worse off through either decision; even if other people are made better off 'more' in some way, we are not proposing any means by which the winners compensate the losers. As always, this is a value judgment that some people deserve it and some people do not.
I think this is the political judgment. You could increase your level of material support of local businesses by buying foreign and donating local rather than buying local. Of course this would not flatter your neighbors of their comparative productivity but you are not setting out to achieve that, are you?
The problem with the Friedmanite account was always that we don't live in a capitalist utopia to begin with and legal enforcement of contracts is not free. Instead it is tremendously costly - this is a world of incomplete contracting, where (for good or for ill) businesses have to be able to make credible commitments to good behavior that don't rely on the state and tort law for enforcement. If waving the flag of social responsibility is it, then so be it. Evolutionary game theory has always told us that signals have to be costly to be meaningful...
A more new-institutionalist-flavored argument would be that CSR lends itself to corruption, bluntly speaking, because political and popular-mobilization forces to reward apparent responsibility are erratic and easy to game. Buying the most cost-effective product and then donating to a charity, on the other hand, is easier to keep clean for simple specialization reasons.
0
Options
Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
The problem with the Friedmanite account was always that we don't live in a capitalist utopia to begin with and legal enforcement of contracts is not free. Instead it is tremendously costly - this is a world of incomplete contracting, where (for good or for ill) businesses have to be able to make credible commitments to good behavior that don't rely on the state and tort law for enforcement. If waving the flag of social responsibility is it, then so be it. Evolutionary game theory has always told us that signals have to be costly to be meaningful...
A more new-institutionalist-flavored argument would be that CSR lends itself to corruption, bluntly speaking, because political and popular-mobilization forces to reward apparent responsibility are erratic and easy to game. Buying the most cost-effective product and then donating to a charity, on the other hand, is easier to keep clean for simple specialization reasons.
Or just tax dividends and capital gains and apply the proceeds directly.
Edit: SKFM's post above is a classic example. Someone striving to be more capitalist makes about as much sense as striving to be more Euclidean.
He has impressive allies in that - a similar argument against 'corporate social responsibility' was made by Milton Friedman in the 70s and 80s.
Oddly enough today many on the economic mainstream would readily assent to the notion that institutional trust and so on is important for material wealth.
There are circumstances where one can distinguish a tradeoff between kindness and efficiency, but this is a strange circumstance in which to do so, particularly given that we are assuming that spending at a given business is a kind empathetic act. The point of interest is why one might regard being kind and empathetic to people next door preferable to being kind and empathetic to people in the next city, and the answer - that the appeal is baldly nationalist over being humanist - is not self-evidently an appealing quality. I think you might find it suspect on examination too.
Not at all. I don't think the impulse to support a 'local' business is simply about geographical proximity. It's also about the desire to support a privately-owned business over a corporate one, because you believe the benefits of your custom will go to people who will use that wealth for purposes you empathise with (e.g. buying dinner), rather than a corporation who you believe will misuse that wealth, or at best use it in nebulous ways that you cannot identify with.
So there are two differing impulses colliding - the desire to look after those you know, which while, again, inefficient, is as human as caring for your family over others, and the desire to look after individuals whose lives you understand, rather than corporate entities which you do not understand.
I guess this leads pretty quickly to a debate about whether irrational empathy is a positive or negative force in society.
There's also environmental considerations: if you're concerned about greenhouse gasses and carbon footprints, that might factor into your decision as to whether you'll buy an out-of-season fruit imported from an equatorial country or whether you'll restrict yourself to local produce.
I think posh said it well when he suggested that there are impulses colliding. There are many, many things people consider when deciding whether or not to buy a product. Sometimes, you can't find a product that addresses all of your values. You can absolutely wish that your purchases represented a smaller overall carbon footprint and still purchase cheaper imported goods because the locally-produced alternative is too expensive for your budget and you need to save that money for something else. You can absolutely wish Chinese factory workers the very best in the world while buying an American-manufactured good because you worry about trade deficits or unemployment and how those influences might affect you.
I'll let my ally respond to this second post:
What does it mean to say that the corporate executive has a "social responsibility" in his capacity as businessman? If this statement is not pure rhetoric, it must mean that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers. For example, that he is to refrain from increasing the price of the product in order to contribute to the social objective of preventing inflation, even though a price in crease would be in the best interests of the corporation. Or that he is to make expenditures on reducing pollution beyond the amount that is in the best interests of the corporation or that is required by law in order to contribute to the social objective of improving the environment. Or that, at the expense of corporate profits, he is to hire "hardcore" unemployed instead of better qualified available workmen to contribute to the social objective of reducing poverty.
In each of these cases, the corporate executive would be spending someone else's money for a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in accord with his "social responsibility" reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is spending their money.
The stockholders or the customers or the employees could separately spend their own money on the particular action if they wished to do so. The executive is exercising a distinct "social responsibility," rather than serving as an agent of the stockholders or the customers or the employees, only if he spends the money in a different way than they would have spent it.
But if he does this, he is in effect imposing taxes, on the one hand, and deciding how the tax proceeds shall be spent, on the other.
. . .
The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This justification disappears when the corporate executive imposes taxes and spends the proceeds for "social" purposes. He becomes in effect a public employee, a civil servant, even though he remains in name an employee of a private enterprise. On grounds of political principle, it is intolerable that such civil servants–insofar as their actions in the name of social responsibility are real and not just window-dressing–should be selected as they are now. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be elected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expenditures to foster "social" objectives, then political machinery must be set up to make the assessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served.
This is the basic reason why the doctrine of "social responsibility" involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses.
Because of the way the new forum displays quotes, you're not going to get to see the part I bolded unless you voluntarily expand it, so I'm going to instead pull out part I would have otherwise highlighted:
The stockholders or the customers or the employees could separately spend their own money on the particular action if they wished to do so.
And you know what? This is fucking exactly what the fuck I am saying. As a consumer, I find extra intrinsic value in products made by companies that demonstrate shared social and economic principles, and I'm willing to pay a higher premium for that added value. As a shareholder, I don't invest in companies that, for instance, use child labor. I use my position within the economy as both an investor and as a consumer to incentivize social and economic behaviors that I like and to disincentivize those behaviors I don't like. I also did this when I was an employer. A business is free to do what it wants, but if it becomes apparent that a business doesn't share my values, then it becomes increasingly unlikely that the business will ever see a dime of my money, which hurts its bottom line. If enough consumers or shareholders likewise spend their money in a way that recognizes an intrinsic value on social responsibility, that influences the company's bottom line to the point where the executive actually has a responsibility to the major stakeholders in his corporation to court our business.
It's vaguely frustrating to have you quote Milton Friedman back at us like we don't know what's going on when the thing is that if anything, we've taken the writings of Milton Friedman more deeply to heart than you have.
The tricky part, and an issue I think Friedman was particularly concerned with given the era, was the marketization of corporate management - there is no easy way to merge both the classically liberal idea of using your own money to pursue your own social goals with a financial market of publicly tradable instruments. Minority shareholders only reliably share the interests of majority shareholders when their interests are both "maximize shareholder value". Likewise if shareholders want to incentivize managerial behavior through stock compensation, their interest must also be "maximize net present shareholder value".
That's also true, but my point is that even while he's writing about the role of the corporate executive as an agent for the shareholder, Milton Friedman still recognizes the agency of the consumer, the shareholder and the employee as discrete decision makers. He certainly could not have foreseen the advent of the Internet or its role in disseminating information and opinions among shareholders, employees and consumers, but I imagine that if he had written that same article today, he would have had to spill a little more ink recognizing not only the agency of these groups, but also that the proliferation of information and increased potential for organization means that these groups are more capable of utilizing that agency to influence corporate behavior than they had been 30 years ago.
0
Options
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
That's also true, but my point is that even while he's writing about the role of the corporate executive as an agent for the shareholder, Milton Friedman still recognizes the agency of the consumer, the shareholder and the employee as discrete decision makers. He certainly could not have foreseen the advent of the Internet or its role in disseminating information and opinions among shareholders, employees and consumers, but I imagine that if he had written that same article today, he would have had to spill a little more ink recognizing not only the agency of these groups, but also that the proliferation of information and increased potential for organization means that these groups are more capable of utilizing that agency to influence corporate behavior than they had been 30 years ago.
Influence corporate behavior to what end? I actually think Friedman's writing would not have to bend to accomodate any of the changes you are discussing, other than to the extent that the shareholders can express goals other than profit motives, although, as ronya pointed out, the minority shareholder is a difficult issue to deal with here. Incidentally, we have systems for allowing shareholders to direct a company to act in a socially responsible manner, they just are not utilized much (which may actually say something about shareholder preferences).
0
Options
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Edit: SKFM's post above is a classic example. Someone striving to be more capitalist makes about as much sense as striving to be more Euclidean.
He has impressive allies in that - a similar argument against 'corporate social responsibility' was made by Milton Friedman in the 70s and 80s.
Oddly enough today many on the economic mainstream would readily assent to the notion that institutional trust and so on is important for material wealth.
There are circumstances where one can distinguish a tradeoff between kindness and efficiency, but this is a strange circumstance in which to do so, particularly given that we are assuming that spending at a given business is a kind empathetic act. The point of interest is why one might regard being kind and empathetic to people next door preferable to being kind and empathetic to people in the next city, and the answer - that the appeal is baldly nationalist over being humanist - is not self-evidently an appealing quality. I think you might find it suspect on examination too.
Not at all. I don't think the impulse to support a 'local' business is simply about geographical proximity. It's also about the desire to support a privately-owned business over a corporate one, because you believe the benefits of your custom will go to people who will use that wealth for purposes you empathise with (e.g. buying dinner), rather than a corporation who you believe will misuse that wealth, or at best use it in nebulous ways that you cannot identify with.
So there are two differing impulses colliding - the desire to look after those you know, which while, again, inefficient, is as human as caring for your family over others, and the desire to look after individuals whose lives you understand, rather than corporate entities which you do not understand.
I guess this leads pretty quickly to a debate about whether irrational empathy is a positive or negative force in society.
There's also environmental considerations: if you're concerned about greenhouse gasses and carbon footprints, that might factor into your decision as to whether you'll buy an out-of-season fruit imported from an equatorial country or whether you'll restrict yourself to local produce.
I think posh said it well when he suggested that there are impulses colliding. There are many, many things people consider when deciding whether or not to buy a product. Sometimes, you can't find a product that addresses all of your values. You can absolutely wish that your purchases represented a smaller overall carbon footprint and still purchase cheaper imported goods because the locally-produced alternative is too expensive for your budget and you need to save that money for something else. You can absolutely wish Chinese factory workers the very best in the world while buying an American-manufactured good because you worry about trade deficits or unemployment and how those influences might affect you.
I'll let my ally respond to this second post:
What does it mean to say that the corporate executive has a "social responsibility" in his capacity as businessman? If this statement is not pure rhetoric, it must mean that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers. For example, that he is to refrain from increasing the price of the product in order to contribute to the social objective of preventing inflation, even though a price in crease would be in the best interests of the corporation. Or that he is to make expenditures on reducing pollution beyond the amount that is in the best interests of the corporation or that is required by law in order to contribute to the social objective of improving the environment. Or that, at the expense of corporate profits, he is to hire "hardcore" unemployed instead of better qualified available workmen to contribute to the social objective of reducing poverty.
In each of these cases, the corporate executive would be spending someone else's money for a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in accord with his "social responsibility" reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is spending their money.
The stockholders or the customers or the employees could separately spend their own money on the particular action if they wished to do so. The executive is exercising a distinct "social responsibility," rather than serving as an agent of the stockholders or the customers or the employees, only if he spends the money in a different way than they would have spent it.
But if he does this, he is in effect imposing taxes, on the one hand, and deciding how the tax proceeds shall be spent, on the other.
. . .
The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This justification disappears when the corporate executive imposes taxes and spends the proceeds for "social" purposes. He becomes in effect a public employee, a civil servant, even though he remains in name an employee of a private enterprise. On grounds of political principle, it is intolerable that such civil servants–insofar as their actions in the name of social responsibility are real and not just window-dressing–should be selected as they are now. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be elected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expenditures to foster "social" objectives, then political machinery must be set up to make the assessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served.
This is the basic reason why the doctrine of "social responsibility" involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce resources to alternative uses.
Because of the way the new forum displays quotes, you're not going to get to see the part I bolded unless you voluntarily expand it, so I'm going to instead pull out part I would have otherwise highlighted:
The stockholders or the customers or the employees could separately spend their own money on the particular action if they wished to do so.
And you know what? This is fucking exactly what the fuck I am saying. As a consumer, I find extra intrinsic value in products made by companies that demonstrate shared social and economic principles, and I'm willing to pay a higher premium for that added value. As a shareholder, I don't invest in companies that, for instance, use child labor. I use my position within the economy as both an investor and as a consumer to incentivize social and economic behaviors that I like and to disincentivize those behaviors I don't like. I also did this when I was an employer. A business is free to do what it wants, but if it becomes apparent that a business doesn't share my values, then it becomes increasingly unlikely that the business will ever see a dime of my money, which hurts its bottom line. If enough consumers or shareholders likewise spend their money in a way that recognizes an intrinsic value on social responsibility, that influences the company's bottom line to the point where the executive actually has a responsibility to the major stakeholders in his corporation to court our business.
It's vaguely frustrating to have you quote Milton Friedman back at us like we don't know what's going on when the thing is that if anything, we've taken the writings of Milton Friedman more deeply to heart than you have.
Saying people are free to buy what they want is fine, but seems different from the idea that people "should" buy local. That said, I had the same initial reaction to your posts as Pi r-8 did, but now that I understand what you meant, I don't have a problem with it. You buy what you want for whatever reasons you want. But I still don't understand why we would not want local businesses (who are paying more for labor) to provide better service, selection, or products than the big box stores. I think Ronya's suggestion to buy foreign and give local makes much more sense.
0
Options
AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Buying locally makes sense for things like produce or meat or other goods as vary by location.
It cuts down on transpo costs and can help reduce your carbon foot print.
Local honey can help with allergies, too.
But there are certain things you just can't get on a local level and in the end it's a personal choice.
0
Options
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Edit: SKFM's post above is a classic example. Someone striving to be more capitalist makes about as much sense as striving to be more Euclidean.
He has impressive allies in that - a similar argument against 'corporate social responsibility' was made by Milton Friedman in the 70s and 80s.
Oddly enough today many on the economic mainstream would readily assent to the notion that institutional trust and so on is important for material wealth.
Edit: I understand SKFM's weirdly formatted post now. Everyone educated is familiar with those arguments. The simplest problem I have with them is the idea that once at work, as an agent, we should discard our humanity and moral responsibilities to be a more effective agent. There is much more to say, such as the idea that our responsibilities to our employers are complex, and that serving their short-term desires may not be serving their long-term interests (e.g. your employer at a petroleum company may wish for his great-grandchildren to not be killed by the effects of global warming). But it's not a new idea, and there are many other authority figures arguing that maximising economic efficiency is not equivalent to 'good'.
Regardless, striving to be more 'capitalist' rather than striving to be 'productive' or 'fair' or even 'wealthy' is still very very odd.
Would you prefer if I said that companies which are inefficient should go out of business or that we should try to avoid distorting the market through irrational behavior?
Edit: I know that irrational behavior is a market force too. I just don't like the idea of a company succeeded based on nothing but people's feelings towards it, when it is worse than its competitors on key things like price, selection, quality or service.
To reiterate: you can't both acknowledge the idiosyncrasy of the present disinflationary situation and then argue for a practice to be held generally.
Right. In other words, it's fine for you to say "local is valuable to me, for my own reasons, so shove off." However, that is very different from the argument that "this is what everyone should be doing, for great justice." In many ways, these are opposite arguments, so you can't hop from one to the other.
If you start with "everyone should buy local," and then ronya brainrapes you with "that doesn't really do any good," you can't jump ship to, "well if local is important to me, what's wrong with that?"
Posts
Anyway, as I read it AMFE was arguing explicitly for a stronger currency now.
It's absolutely a free choice. The idea of liberty should not be misconstrued to mean that your choices are free from consequences. I can use my freedom of speech to stroll down the street shouting racial slurs until my voice gives out, but that freedom of speech doesn't mean that I cannot be exposed to social judgement.
Oh... now I see what you meant by that comment.
One thing to bear in mind is that I don't expect the "present disinflationary situation" as you put it, to go away any time soon. Paul Krugman has made the point ad nauseum that it's extremely hard to get out of a liquidity trap, and Japan has been stuck in one for like two decades now.
And if we somehow get out of it and find ourselves awash in currency it would be pretty easy to phase out a local currency. If necessary the federal government could just ban it.
What I was trying to say was that I'm sure you don't 'advocate adherence to capitalism' - but that just the fact that it was a phrase that anyone felt made sense was interesting to me - it shocks me that anyone does believe that, and I find often they don't notice that they have an ideology that essentially treats capitalism as a religion.
Put it this way - if supporting your local business is kind but financially inefficient, and using chain stores is unkind but financially efficient, we should examine our motives for choosing efficiency over kindness. I believe that many who prefer efficiency over empathy are doing so for reasons that are completely unexamined, and that if they do examine their motives, they would find them to be suspect.
Edit: SKFM's post above is a classic example. Someone striving to be more capitalist makes about as much sense as striving to be more Euclidean.
He has impressive allies in that - a similar argument against 'corporate social responsibility' was made by Milton Friedman in the 70s and 80s.
Oddly enough today many on the economic mainstream would readily assent to the notion that institutional trust and so on is important for material wealth.
Not at all. I don't think the impulse to support a 'local' business is simply about geographical proximity. It's also about the desire to support a privately-owned business over a corporate one, because you believe the benefits of your custom will go to people who will use that wealth for purposes you empathise with (e.g. buying dinner), rather than a corporation who you believe will misuse that wealth, or at best use it in nebulous ways that you cannot identify with.
So there are two differing impulses colliding - the desire to look after those you know, which while, again, inefficient, is as human as caring for your family over others, and the desire to look after individuals whose lives you understand, rather than corporate entities which you do not understand.
I guess this leads pretty quickly to a debate about whether irrational empathy is a positive or negative force in society.
There's also environmental considerations: if you're concerned about greenhouse gasses and carbon footprints, that might factor into your decision as to whether you'll buy an out-of-season fruit imported from an equatorial country or whether you'll restrict yourself to local produce.
I think posh said it well when he suggested that there are impulses colliding. There are many, many things people consider when deciding whether or not to buy a product. Sometimes, you can't find a product that addresses all of your values. You can absolutely wish that your purchases represented a smaller overall carbon footprint and still purchase cheaper imported goods because the locally-produced alternative is too expensive for your budget and you need to save that money for something else. You can absolutely wish Chinese factory workers the very best in the world while buying an American-manufactured good because you worry about trade deficits or unemployment and how those influences might affect you.
Amusingly enough, depending on a whole host of factors, raw distance isn't a good predictor of carbon footprint. Per weight and miles, single-occupant vehicles and small pickup trucks are extremely inefficient forms of transportation, compared to large intercontinental container boats.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'll let my ally respond to this second post:
Adam Fucking Smith.
Edit: I understand SKFM's weirdly formatted post now. Everyone educated is familiar with those arguments. The simplest problem I have with them is the idea that once at work, as an agent, we should discard our humanity and moral responsibilities to be a more effective agent. There is much more to say, such as the idea that our responsibilities to our employers are complex, and that serving their short-term desires may not be serving their long-term interests (e.g. your employer at a petroleum company may wish for his great-grandchildren to not be killed by the effects of global warming). But it's not a new idea, and there are many other authority figures arguing that maximising economic efficiency is not equivalent to 'good'.
Regardless, striving to be more 'capitalist' rather than striving to be 'productive' or 'fair' or even 'wealthy' is still very very odd.
I think this is the political judgment. You could increase your level of material support of local businesses by buying foreign and donating local rather than buying local. Of course this would not flatter your neighbors of their comparative productivity but you are not setting out to achieve that, are you?
A more new-institutionalist-flavored argument would be that CSR lends itself to corruption, bluntly speaking, because political and popular-mobilization forces to reward apparent responsibility are erratic and easy to game. Buying the most cost-effective product and then donating to a charity, on the other hand, is easier to keep clean for simple specialization reasons.
Or just tax dividends and capital gains and apply the proceeds directly.
Because of the way the new forum displays quotes, you're not going to get to see the part I bolded unless you voluntarily expand it, so I'm going to instead pull out part I would have otherwise highlighted:
And you know what? This is fucking exactly what the fuck I am saying. As a consumer, I find extra intrinsic value in products made by companies that demonstrate shared social and economic principles, and I'm willing to pay a higher premium for that added value. As a shareholder, I don't invest in companies that, for instance, use child labor. I use my position within the economy as both an investor and as a consumer to incentivize social and economic behaviors that I like and to disincentivize those behaviors I don't like. I also did this when I was an employer. A business is free to do what it wants, but if it becomes apparent that a business doesn't share my values, then it becomes increasingly unlikely that the business will ever see a dime of my money, which hurts its bottom line. If enough consumers or shareholders likewise spend their money in a way that recognizes an intrinsic value on social responsibility, that influences the company's bottom line to the point where the executive actually has a responsibility to the major stakeholders in his corporation to court our business.
It's vaguely frustrating to have you quote Milton Friedman back at us like we don't know what's going on when the thing is that if anything, we've taken the writings of Milton Friedman more deeply to heart than you have.
Influence corporate behavior to what end? I actually think Friedman's writing would not have to bend to accomodate any of the changes you are discussing, other than to the extent that the shareholders can express goals other than profit motives, although, as ronya pointed out, the minority shareholder is a difficult issue to deal with here. Incidentally, we have systems for allowing shareholders to direct a company to act in a socially responsible manner, they just are not utilized much (which may actually say something about shareholder preferences).
Saying people are free to buy what they want is fine, but seems different from the idea that people "should" buy local. That said, I had the same initial reaction to your posts as Pi r-8 did, but now that I understand what you meant, I don't have a problem with it. You buy what you want for whatever reasons you want. But I still don't understand why we would not want local businesses (who are paying more for labor) to provide better service, selection, or products than the big box stores. I think Ronya's suggestion to buy foreign and give local makes much more sense.
It cuts down on transpo costs and can help reduce your carbon foot print.
Local honey can help with allergies, too.
But there are certain things you just can't get on a local level and in the end it's a personal choice.
Would you prefer if I said that companies which are inefficient should go out of business or that we should try to avoid distorting the market through irrational behavior?
Edit: I know that irrational behavior is a market force too. I just don't like the idea of a company succeeded based on nothing but people's feelings towards it, when it is worse than its competitors on key things like price, selection, quality or service.
Right. In other words, it's fine for you to say "local is valuable to me, for my own reasons, so shove off." However, that is very different from the argument that "this is what everyone should be doing, for great justice." In many ways, these are opposite arguments, so you can't hop from one to the other.
If you start with "everyone should buy local," and then ronya brainrapes you with "that doesn't really do any good," you can't jump ship to, "well if local is important to me, what's wrong with that?"