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Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

> There's nothing in there about consumers having accurate information.

Yes, but practice has taught us that it is an important part of any functioning market.

> the absolute last thing you want is fairness to your competition or fairness to your consumer.

I completely disagree with your assertion here. I want an advantage over my competition, sure.. but I still want it to be fair. An unfair market is a fickle and unreliable one. That's not good for anyone.

Further, if my consumer walks away from the deal feeling that it was unfair then I've really done myself a disservice in the long term. It's a reason why "Goodwill and Brand Awareness" are line items in the world of corporate accounting.

> Free Markets and Capitalism don't stand for anything.

They stand for the implicit agreement that we are all created equal.

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>> Free Markets and Capitalism don't stand for anything.

> They stand for the implicit agreement that we are all created equal.

All men are created equal is a quotation from a government document, Jefferson's phrase from the Declaration of Independence. It has nothing to do with free markets or capitalism. The colonies were royally chartered corporations and these men revolted from their owner. They kept slavery but that's another matter.

Economically nobody is created equal and as important as it is to liberty its meaningless when applied to economics.

>> the absolute last thing you want is fairness to your competition or fairness to your consumer.

> I completely disagree with your assertion here. I want an advantage over my competition, sure.. but I still want it to be fair.

Thank you for that. I really dislike the common model of capitalism where the entrepreneur is viewed as a robot whose only goal is to maximize profit with the law being the only boundary.

In my social bubble the landlords that I know care about their renters' wellbeing even if it costs them a bit. I only know a handful of entrepreneurs personally but for all of them fairness and dignity have greater value than profit. Also the millions of small shops in cities around the world that are content just selling enough every month to make a comfortable living with no goal of maximizing anything.

Yes, huge cooperations are different than the guy selling Kebab at the corner. But still I would appreciate if people would see entrepreneurship and businesses not so statically as money-maximizers.

> I really dislike the common model of capitalism where the entrepreneur is viewed as a robot whose only goal is to maximize profit with the law being the only boundary.

It's something you can do if you want to. Nobody will stop you as long as it's legal, so there will be a non-trivial amount of companies doing just that. It doesn't matter that the guy on the cornerr is trying to be fair. At some point he'll be screwed by a kebab chain which pays the minimum wage and can use the economy of scale in deliveries.

And that's even before we talk about companies that go for risk*penalty<gain situations where they can ignore the law.

>> for all of them fairness and dignity have greater value than profit

the one I know too... until the definition of fairness comes from some else than them... My point is that IMHO it takes extraordinary capabilities to make money by selling someone elses's work and maintaining high moral standards when it comes to solidarity, helping others, sharing profits, etc.

"They stand for the implicit agreement that we are all created equal."

Uh, no. We are not. Both nature and nurture deal unfair cards. And markets and capitism most certainly alone do not promote solidarity. That is, in any real world scenario plaid out so far.

On the contrary, completely free markets often lead to oligopolies, monopolies and cartells.

Or is it supposed to be a bad joke in empirical economics, to start with a population with equal chances and see it tumbling into a winner takes all pyramid of distributions of wealth?

To make it clear: I believe we should treat fellow humans as equals, but we are not objectively equal in our capabilities (we are not clones), and effective business is a game. Not a zero sum game, but game never the less, that gives no bonus for fair treatment.

In a completely fair game we could choose not to do business with known unfair players. Real world does not work this way. As soon as there is capital surpluss, someone will get an upper hand in negotiations. The wealth allows the other party more negotiation tactics. Hence, anyone who can use the full leverage of their wealth will come on top. In the average case.

Money isn't the only route to power, of course. Politics and violence are an inseparable facet of the negotiation dynamics of our species, even if they don't affect every business deal. For example, by imposing dominion over supply trade unions can increase leverage of employees over employers, who then may under some situations use government sanctioned violence to increase their leverage - or vice versa. Etc.

I don't have a formal proof of this. It just seems to be the way the game is played.

Ethically, you are standing on firm ground. Unfortunately, he’s talking about free markets, where price and demand are set by the market, free of any government interference. Those who truly believe in the Free Market believe that buyers will ultimately see through deception and poor conduct and make purely rational and pragmatic decisions.

This being the Real World means pure free markets are impossible and in fact dishonesty and chincanery can utterly distort markets, leading to all sorts of perverse outcomes.

Ironically, for a free market to operate well, you must have reasonable constraints on market participants.

> free of any government interference

This is incorrect. Free markets rely on enforcement of contracts, property rights, and prohibitions on force and fraud. This requires a government.

For example, stealing from your neighbor is not a free market operation. Neither is delivering someone a Ford when you sold it as a Ferrari.

You selectively quoted me. I actually wrote:

> [in free markets,] price and demand are set by the market, free of any government interference

I said nothing about contract enforcement, property rights or prohibitions on force or fraud.

You also wrote in the next sentence:

> pure free markets are impossible and in fact dishonesty and chincanery can utterly distort markets

My point stands. Dishonesty and chicanery are not condoned by the free market, because they're fraud and theft.

That's a fair comment.

You're missing the important point that a "free market" has nothing to do with the mathematical notion of a market from economics. I suspect that it was intentionally named misleadingly to make it sound like it constituted a market, but it nearly never does.

> They stand for the implicit agreement that we are all created equal.

This narcissistic fantasy has passed it's prime.

The endgame of any truly free market, is the sale of the market. A market that is not for sale, is not a truly free market.

This is the antithesis of 'we are all created equal'.

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