Does anyone else here like the Wikipedia?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon
Yes it does. If people don't seek the maximum price for their wares, then that disturbs the price setting mechanism, which sends a message to producers to produce less of them - hence not enough hats or shoes will be produced to satisfy consumer demand.

What maximum? What shortage? I want to make hats, I start a shop and make hats. I charge what I need to charge. Nothing about that is going to result in the great hat shortage of '05.

Consider the case (I got this from some economics book) of the big freeze in Quebec some years back. The Quebec government prevented people who had generators for sale from price gouging. But this was a stupid thing to do because if the price had risen high enough, people outside of Quebec would have found it worth their while to take their generators to Quebec and sell them. Because of the price freeze, many Quebecers went without generators that they were prepared to pay for and people elsewhere were left with generators that they didn't need as badly as the Quebecers. That was an inefficient distribution of resources.

A crisis with government intervention is a really sad excuse for an argument about markets. I'm sorry, but there's no other way to say it.

They don't. People still behave this way towards their friends and family. It only works in small groups because it is only possible to build up trust and empathy with people you see all the time. In large groups things become anonymous and the potential for successful free riding is much greater.

You obviously haven't heard of the back biting families that some of my acquaintances come from. Although, I'd like to agree with you. I come from an very large extended family that behaves more like you describe. However, from what I know from my friends, it is the exception and not the rule.

[Agathon]

What maximum? What shortage? I want to make hats, I start a shop and make hats. I charge what I need to charge. Nothing about that is going to result in the great hat shortage of '05.

OK. You start a shop and make hats. How much do you charge for your hats? If you want to sell them, you will have to charge the same or lower than your competition, or you will end up with unsold hats. If you just charge as much as you need and everyone else does, then what incentive is there for people to invest in hat factories when they can get a higher return elsewhere? If everyone starts selling below the price the market will bear, people will fund other things than hat factories and there will be a hat shortage.

A crisis with government intervention is a really sad excuse for an argument about markets. I'm sorry, but there's no other way to say it.

The example is quite generalizable. Let's take the hats example again. Let's say that the Quebec hatmakers' guild decides to standardize prices at a 10% markup from cost. But how do we know that you will make the right amount of hats - the amount people that people are prepared to pay for? If you keep the price fixed, you will probably end up with a hat shortage (if they are too cheap and people buy lots) or a glut of hats (if they are too expensive and people buy fewer hats). The price mechanism operates to keep supply and demand in synch. A high sale price (vs. cost price) for hats is a sign to would be hat makers to get into the business - it's a sign that not enough hats are being made.

Without the price mechanism you end up with inefficiencies - either productive resources are wasted on making too many hats which people don't want or it is wasted on other things when it should have been used to make hats.

This is first year economics NYE. The fact that I, a raving communist, am having to inform you about why capitalist markets work, is an irony rarely seen on Apolyton.

You obviously haven't heard of the back biting families that some of my acquaintances come from. Although, I'd like to agree with you. I come from an very large extended family that behaves more like you describe. However, from what I know from my friends, it is the exception and not the rule.

Being able to behave badly towards your family members is a sign of the economic independence that the market system has brought people. In a traditional society, behaving that way would have been life threatening to its members.

[Agathon]

I think there is a big gap between selfish at one extreme and selfless, or altruistic, at the other. I think most people would fall in between.

That's right. But that doesn't change the fact that natural altruism exists.

Of course, there are a whole lot of other factors in human psychology, like competitiveness, that your scenario completely ignores. However, it is an interesting yarn you weave.

It ignores it because competition has no value in a small hunter gatherer society unless it is to spur people on to more kills for the admiration of the womenfolk. But that's not market competition. A hero who would bask in the glow of the kill would still share it out equally. This is called a prestige economy, it's not a market.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by notyoueither
What maximum? What shortage? I want to make hats, I start a shop and make hats. I charge what I need to charge. Nothing about that is going to result in the great hat shortage of '05.

Really, NYE. This passage shows a basic lack of understanding of business and economics on your part.

Originally posted by notyoueither
A crisis with government intervention is a really sad excuse for an argument about markets. I'm sorry, but there's no other way to say it.

There's no "free market" as in a market with no laws. Very simply laws are just government interventions. ["No, you cannot do that. No, you cannot do that, either."]

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Is prehistory altruism though? Joining together so you can survive isn't altruism... or else cartels are altruistic.

So, are you saying that 90%+ of humanity's existence was unnatural and the recent 10% natural?


Altruistic instincts are simply cheaper and more effective than selfish ones. "If you see a drowning child, jump in and save it" is better on all counts than "If you see a drowning child, stand around on the shore, verify it's yours, and only then jump in and save it".

[Imran Siddiqui]

So, are you saying that 90%+ of humanity's existence was unnatural and the recent 10% natural?

How is saying that prehistory may not necessarily be altruism saying it wasn't natural? I'm not following what you are attempting to say.

[St Leo]

Hmm.

I don't think we understand altruism the same way. GTG.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Perhaps so. I guess I'm with nye in thinking that cooperation for survival isn't really altruism. I think of altruism as doing something for someone without expecting to be paid back for it. A cooperative society isn't like that, you do expect the others in the society to pay/work their fair share.

[Agathon]

Those two aren't mutually exclusive. One can be an altruist and expect others to adhere to the moral code. That is the default position for most people.

[Imran Siddiqui]

One can be an altruist and expect others to adhere to the moral code.

But I don't consider having a group where everyone has to pitch in for survival to be altruistic. It isn't merely adhereing to a moral code at all, but a societal (kind of contractual) code... pull your fair share if you want to be included.

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by Agathon
It ignores it because competition has no value in a small hunter gatherer society unless it is to spur people on to more kills for the admiration of the womenfolk. But that's not market competition. A hero who would bask in the glow of the kill would still share it out equally. This is called a prestige economy, it's not a market.

Not true.

Killer gets the lion share.

Meat was currency. Check out our ancestors. Men traded the meat for sex from the women.

You really need to go down to the basement of your ivory tower and check out primitive societies that live in the fashion you speak. There's still plenty of such societies in the world, today.

Goods exchanged for services = Market.
Services exchanged for services = Market
Goods exchanged for goods = Markett
Services exchanged for goods = Market

You buy into this "The noble savage" image too much. They were just like us. They are still just like us. Human is human. Whether you have to hunt the rabbits yourself, cooperate to hunt the deer, or cooperate to get payed by a company to get money to trade for food, the basics haven't changed.

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by Darkstar
And throughout most of history, the heart of society's moral code has not been "altruistic". It's been "Shut up, stay in your place, and do what you are told." From your statements, you are not very familar with many societies. Feel free to actually go read a bit about the ancient cultures. We know about the teachings and morality of most cultures that lasted for several generations at least since ancient Egypt.

There's a lot more prehistory to go around than there is history.

The trick, St. Leo, is that societies codes haven't changed significantly since the first stable human societies. What works, works. We see the same values, over and over. And they are:

* Shut up.
* Stay in your place.
* Do as your are told.

If you could observe the first stable human societies, you'd find they teach and believe in those things. And the beings that came before Modern humans would also be along the same lines. Heck, all of our genetic kindred (the primates) all hold the same basic social behaviors.

Welcome to the jungle...

[Kuciwalker]

[q] Originally posted by Agathon
Can you not read or something? For most of the time of the existence of our species, people have lived in small, clannish groups. Our sense of values is largely shaped by this fact due to natural selection.[/QUOTE]

Stop right there. Natural selection of ideas, maybe, but not evolution. And that same natural selection acts quickly enough that our values have changed since those times.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Is prehistory altruism though? Joining together so you can survive isn't altruism... or else cartels are altruistic.

So, are you saying that 90%+ of humanity's existence was unnatural and the recent 10% natural?

Both are natural, obviously. So what if we behave a certain way in small communes? Guess what - we don't live in small communes! And the market is the natural reaction to such a situation!

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Darkstar
Not true.

Killer gets the lion share.

Meat was currency. Check out our ancestors.

Most of them are dead, but OK. That has never stopped me before. In fact, one time I got banned from graveyards in six countries...

Men traded the meat for sex from the women.

You are assuming that women didn't hunt and forgetting that women traded the roots and berries for sex from the men.

You really need to go down to the basement of your ivory tower and check out primitive societies that live in the fashion you speak. There's still plenty of such societies in the world, today.

Please excuse my skepticism about you yourself having spent any time away from the Ivory Tower.

Goods exchanged for services = Market.
Services exchanged for services = Market
Goods exchanged for goods = Markett
Services exchanged for goods = Market

Perhaps, but it is not necessarily the Free Market kind of market. Pure Communism with worker control of the means of production[0] will still have the exchange of goods and services.

[0] Don't Wikipedia's contributors have control of the means by which they produce the content?^-^