Politics is Unnecessary Competition

Politics shouldn't really divide, nor should it be some divide with them over there and them over here. It's sad that it seems to be that way, though.

Politics just annoy me for the most part. Everyone calls me a communist, though.

The trend in American politics right now is very divisive. I only see it getting worse. There is so much deception in politics, and I truly truly hate it.

I'm most interested in this part:

By marketpalce, what do you mean?

I don't exactly see how the Elliot experiments correlate with the cider vs. milk debate. I especially don't understand how your conclusion is derived from these two instances. It's not like N. Hampshirites are going to segregate amongst ciderites and milkies. It's not like having brown eyes or blue eyes, black skin or white skin, or socialist views or libertarian views. Some people like both apple cider and milk.

The milk kid just seems a bit naive. He's like a kid from Wisconsin who doesn't like cheese and doesn't understand what the big deal is (to quote James Carville, "it's the economy, stupid"). But even though the milk kid is about to find out at the hearing how futile his whole campaign is, he's taking part in the democratic process. Because if this were an important and much more complicated issue with no clear majority opinion those in opposition to the bill ought to be able to challenge it in some way.

The problem with the "politics divides" statement is that it's a half-truth. Politics is a forum for people to impose their will onto others, but with a republic/democracy we are given the tools to reach a consensus, or at the very least a majority opinion. People divide without politics, there are Hatfields and there are McCoys, but politics provides a peaceful outlet for our natural divisiveness so that a compromise can be made (or, at the least a majority opinion upheld). There are Capulets and Montagues but it is the Prince that forces them to live in peace because if he did not Verona would be chaos.

"Peace unites" sounds like you're quoting John Lennon. It's really nonsensical. I was reading this interview with the Dalai Lama where he was asked what it would take for the inhabitants of earth to unite, what would end our petty divisiveness. His Holiness said (paraphrasing) "aliens would have to attack earth. If we had one universal enemy, mankind would unite to fight against it." You see, unity is a form of divisiveness because we unify against something, some greater form of divisiveness. Like the massive anti-Islamic, anti-Arab sentiments after 9/11, the anti-semitic propaganda of the Third Reich, democrats uniting against republicans and vice versa. The divisiveness of milk vs. apple cider is really just a unity of opposing factions, as is the brown eyes vs. blue eyes (hey, I found a correlation ). But in no way is this limited to politics or any social structure.

Your claim that the market always works itself out could be extended to all forms of society. It's structural-functionalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_functionalism). Politics can be viewed in the same light, continually imperfect yet always improving.

My response to the top part is amply demonstrated by RazorSharp, in a fashion even more articulate than I could have produced on the fly. Suffice to say I'm quite as baffled as he at the connections you're drawing between the noted discrimination experiment by Jane Elliott and the relatively innocuous early entry into political debate for some New Hampshire kids over a comparatively trivial matter. And likewise, I'm even more baffled by the leap to conclusion.

If both articles are taken as examples of divisiveness (which seems the most likely way to construe your argument, given the content of each) where is the counter-example for a "Peace" that somehow unites? And is a perfect kind of Peace, one that prefers tranquility over spirited and informed debate, always preferable? Would it be distinguishable from Apathy?

Perhaps even more importantly, what about the profound differences in the content of these articles and the relative magnitude of implications for each? In the one case, you have some kids learning about political process by engaging in a debate over the "official beverage" in their state. What's the real consequence in who wins? I doubt the dairy farmers have anything more than a symbolic show of concern. Even if apple cider wins, moms won't stop buying milk. They won't start pouring apple cider into bowls of breakfast cereal. Dairy farmers will be fine either way. As will purveyors of orchards. Meanwhile, a bunch of schoolchildren get to learn about public debate on a very low stakes issue.

On the other hand, the implications regarding radical forms of diversity training are immense. Big questions are raised for human relations and dealing with the spectre of racism, and a whole stock of significant questions arise regarding methodology, as well. Is it ethical to arbitrarily divide schoolchildren into two groups and to privilege one of the groups while subtly reinforcing discrimination against the other? Should a teacher ever be allowed to do that without written parental consent for all children involved? If a lack of unanimous consent prevented such an experiment from ever happening, what would be the loss in terms of valuable human knowledge? Does the brevity of the experiment safeguard the children from long-term ill effects, like suppressed beliefs about their learning potential? Is the exercise conscionable so long as the children first discriminated against become the privileged group on the very next day? How would it be if they went a whole semester in the underdog group before the switch? Are the children "debriefed" in a way that helps them fully assimilate the deeper meaning of the exercise, so that it absolutely becomes a positive learning experience about tolerance and diversity? Is there a way to gauge how well they learn empathy from the experience and how well this will situate them for never treating others as inferior? Is it true that to be an "educator" and not merely a "teacher" that you must engage students in learning at this presumably deeper and more existential level of personal experience? Should it ever be carried out without consulting developmental and educational psychologists before applying relatively harsh experimental conditions upon children?

This is big stuff. It's hard to see any parallel between tough and deep educational experience regarding discrimination compared with the mild and ultimately inconsequential milk vs. apple cider debate in New Hampshire. The later may offer some positive benefit in teaching children early lessons about public debate and political process, but doesn't begin to pose the same deep existential and moral concerns.

Political process is not inherently violent. When people engage in public debate, and furthermore, institute forms of governance to enable informed debate to rise beyond limitless argument to the level of institutions, laws, and working agreements within a society, senseless violence and brute forms of dominance are among the very things, maybe the chief things, that we are actually staving off.

In a lawless society (if that isn't a contradiction in terms) might makes right. Having bigger muscles or better weapons or more money to hire the people who do have those things, ensures that you get away with whatever you want. Let's say your son's girlfriend gets murdered and he is wrongfully accused. Well, if you're of limited means, and the girl comes from a rich and well-connected family, and that family is well persuaded of your son's guilt, then it's a cinch your son will hang or get flayed alive in a public square. If outrage is high enough, maybe vengeance and retribution will even get enacted against you and other members of your family, as well.

On the other hand, let's suppose your son really does brutally murder his girlfriend. But you are extremely rich and well-connected. The girl comes from a poor family. They can't take revenge because they have no means of doing so. You, on the other hand, have a private security firm on retainer. Even though you know your son is guilty, you call the security firm and assign personal bodyguards to watch him until the heat blows over. These guys wear Kevlar vests and carry automatic weapons. The girl's enraged father or brother isn't likely to get through them. What's more, your son can take a nice long vacation on the French Riviera, leaving the poor girl's family with neither the knowledge nor the financial means for pursuing him. Since governments and laws are evil and oppressive things and we've abolished them, there can be no extradition and no justice. The girl's father can maybe raise a civil suit and you can agree in a non-binding arbitration to pay the family a few thousand dollars for their loss. But that doesn't replace a human being. If they have any dignity or integrity, no payment you offer will suffice. Reparations of that sort are just an insult. But your son will never be extradited or faced with the possibility of imprisonment because those things involve the coercive power of government, which the good society has abolished. This means that the occasional high-profile miscarriage of justice (like the O.J. Simpson trial) where it seems that wealth enables people to get away with murder, it becomes an everyday reality. Easy flight, no extradition proceedings, and long and toothless non-binding civil arbitration of crimes gives free reign to everything that's selfish and evil in people. Especially those who can afford to do whatever they want without repercussions.

Meanwhile, poor people in this great free society are steeped ever deeper in ignorance and the deepening cycle of inescapable poverty, because we've done away with tax subsidized public schooling. When they aren't getting murdered and walked on or slaving at tough jobs for less than a living wage, they're sick with botulism or dying from Escherichia coli-contaminated beef, because there is no more USDA and only the rich people can afford meat with real guarantees of clean preparation.

Yes, I know. This is the "Parade of Terribles" that liberals always bring out against libertarian arguments. You have a clever and dismissive name for these supposed horrible things that would just never pertain in your ideal society of no government. These things wouldn't happen because these aren't the sort of things that you would want to have happen. That's the only counter-argument I've ever seen from you on issues of this kind. But the weight of history is against you and rich with the blood of innocent people caught in bad circumstances. Anglo-American culture isn't that far removed from the days of the early Industrial Revolution when six and seven-year-old children were working 18 hour days in completely unsafe and unsavory sweatshop conditions, because dire poverty gave their families no choice. And all you have to do is jet over to certain 3rd world destinations to find people in similar circumstances today.

It takes more than moral conviction and preaching to change things like that. It also takes laws and a society that imposes real consequences on the worst offenders against the rights of others and common decency. I've never seen any argument for Anarchy that convinces me the human species is evolved enough to have a good and just society in the absence of enforceable laws. That we could do so and that even the mildest burdens of governance are morally unconscionable to the extreme, these concepts seem presupposed in almost everything ever posted by Giggan, but the burden of proof for any possibility of Peaceful and Benevolent Anarchy remains with you and I remain utterly unpersuaded.

I don't even begin to stand far enough to the Left to be considered a Marxist, but it seems patent to me that the Marketplace exploits people quite as much as it empowers them, if not more so. An unchecked and unregulated Laissez-faire system (of no-system) always favors the status quo and those currently empowered, regardless of moral standing. So it's a deeply conservative position that refuses empathy for those who have very little to start out with. Conversely, those who have accumulated wealth and power, by any means, however unsavory, tend to keep and consolidate that power and accumulate even more, while others are systematically disadvantaged.

Take for example the large corporation that drives out smaller competitors by competing on price, operating as long as necessary at a loss, then snapping up the competition in forced buy-outs, subsequently raising prices as high as possible, gouging the consumer who no longer has a viable option for purchase of the same products elsewhere. This thorough-going hatred of government and regulation in the country of Gigganheim rules out, among other things, any recourse at all for the consumer against price-gouging, greedy, giant and steadily growing monopoly corporations--companies that without anti-trust laws can always force out an upstart would-be competitor and corner the market on vital goods.

To bring this down from very large and general theories to relatively current and nitty-gritty political and economic reality, just have a look at the disaster created in recent times by an unregulated derivatives market.

It's explained very clearly in this episode of Frontline:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/etc/script.html

That page delivers the full transcript, but better than simply reading it, go to the upper right and click the bar under the main menu that says "WATCH THE PROGRAM +"

It's illuminating. Even Ayn Rand disciple* Alan Greenspan has publicly recanted, before Congress, the extreme Laissez-faire Libertarianism that guided his early career.

If even Alan Greenspan is now willing to say, very clearly, that The Market Does Not Always Work Itself Out, shouldn't we be willing to listen to that?
________________

*Oh, and I mean Disciple. He didn't just read her books. Greenspan was part of her inner circle.

From the Wikipedia page on Alan Greenspan

Greenspan and Objectivism

In the early 1950s, Greenspan began an association with famed novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand that would last until her death in 1982.[22] He wrote for Rand’s newsletters and authored several essays in her book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.[30] Rand stood beside him at his 1974 swearing-in as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.[22]

Greenspan was introduced to Ayn Rand by his first wife, Joan Mitchell. Although Greenspan was initially a logical positivist,[31] he was converted to Rand's philosophy of Objectivism by her associate Nathaniel Branden. During the 1950s and 1960s Greenspan was a proponent of Objectivism, writing articles for Objectivist newsletters and contributing several essays for Rand's 1966 book Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal including an essay supporting the gold standard.[32][33]

During the 1950s, Greenspan was one of the members of Ayn Rand's inner circle, the Ayn Rand Collective, who read Atlas Shrugged while it was being written. Rand nicknamed Greenspan "the undertaker" because of his penchant for dark clothing and reserved demeanor. Although Greenspan was once recognized as a proponent of laissez-faire capitalism, some Objectivists find his support for a gold standard somewhat incongruous or dubious,[citation needed] given the Federal Reserve's role in America's fiat money system and endogenous inflation. He has come under criticism from Harry Binswanger,[34] who believes his actions while at work for the Federal Reserve and his publicly expressed opinions on other issues show abandonment of Objectivist and free market principles. However, when questioned in relation to this, he has said that in a democratic society individuals have to make compromises with each other over conflicting ideas of how money should be handled. He said he himself had to make such compromises, because he believes that "we did extremely well" without a central bank and with a gold standard.[35] Greenspan and Rand maintained a close relationship until her death in 1982.[22]

In a congressional hearing on October 23, 2008 Greenspan admitted that his free-market ideology shunning certain regulations was flawed.[36]

What I was going to get around to suggesting was that marketplace competition is not inherently peaceful.

...

Why do I always Giggan thread before coffee?

That's one very good counterpoint among several. Sorry to overwhelm what could have been a more subtle and gradual drawing out of the argument with a blizzard of counterexamples and data. But please proceed as you will. Loads of people won't even skim a lengthy post like mine above. Therefore, any smaller piece of sanity bears repeating and deserves its own emphasis.

No, no, your post what excellent (from what I read of it ). I'm just hoping for a clarification from Gig, and may take it from there.

I'd like to see any direct grappling at all with the point that an unregulated free market doesn't merely compete with itself (however peacefully or cleanly, or not) rather, it conspires, colludes, collaborates, consolidates, price fixes, price gouges, and syndicates. You end up with two or three major players utterly dominating a market and only tolerating each other because it's a big country to divide up and they can make backroom arrangements that essentially puts them in partnership with each other. And so the big players drive out or buy out or completely squash any fresh competition that comes along. Meanwhile the big players can get lazy, deliver inferior products or bad service agreements, and set prices wherever they will.