Free-market capitalism?

Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 9 months ago to News
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  • Posted by teri-amborn 9 years, 9 months ago
    Too many "rules" and not enough principles make for very rich lawyers.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 9 months ago
      Which is one reason that we're in the state that we are. We've turned our back on principles and keep trying to legislate all behavior.

      That's one reason that I have such a problem with Megan's Law that Bill O'Reilly keeps pushing. We already have a law this just adds more opportunities for loopholes that a slick lawyer can maneuver through. If we relied on fundamental laws and had judges with good principles and good sense, we wouldn't need so many laws.

      For example, we already have laws against reckless driving. Why do we need a law against texting while driving? Isn't that reckless? Then when the law is in place, the offender causing an accident will end up getting off because his lawyer is able to manipulate through the law and say that the defendant wasn't "texting" but rather posting to Facebook, which isn't a text, and will get off.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 9 months ago
    I once saw a unique method of managing scalpers. The team (I forget which market it was) cordoned off a large spot of ground, and invited all ticket holders to come there and haggle away. A spontaneous market sprang up, similar to the New York Stock Exchange. Prices actually came down--way down.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 9 months ago
      Yes, competition will do that.

      Scalpers rely on demand, and their "limited" supply. Of course, only the source is limited, they actually have plenty of product (usually).
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  • Posted by Solver 9 years, 9 months ago
    Initiation of force or fraud has nothing do to with free market capitalism.
    People who use these methods should be identified and dealt with by a very limited government.
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    • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 9 months ago
      Damned nosey busy bodies should just shut the hell up. (Not meaning Solver's post here, but the source of the article itself.)
      Laws against scalping tickets are anti-free market and have no place in any market. The seller doesn't care, and neither does the disabled (or pensioner) buyer. If this is supposed to be a benefit to the buyer then the buyer should be free to decide if he wants the benefit of seeing the game or the benefit of cashing in on a soccer fan's irrational addiction.
      But it should be the choice only of the traders, not the 'holier than thou' looter with a cell phone camera.
      Government has no role unless there is an injured party to complain. Someone who 'feels' it is 'unfair' is not injured. The original disabled buyer of the ticket would have to come forth to complain that it was stolen for a claim against property which is one of government's very limited roles. The original seller can investigate the original buyer's claim of being disabled, but that is not likely a priority.
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      • Posted by Solver 9 years, 9 months ago
        If a fully able body person uses a (lower cost) handicap ticket, rolling in some wheel chair so they can get past the security gate looking like a handicapped individual, that is fraud. These people should be identified and dealt with by a very limited government.
        Fraud has nothing to do with capitalism or ticket scalping.
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        • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 9 months ago
          If it is a choice of the seller without any legal coersion to offer the special tickets then the seller can enforce it on site. If the seller thinks he has been defrauded after the event has ended and the seller thinks it is good business to pursue the users of the tickets in court then it should be the choice of the injured party, in that case, the seller.
          If the seller has the evidence and the identity of the party he believes is guilty of fraud then he should present it to the court in a suit.
          I don't want government to have the manpower to go chasing after unknown petty offenders like this. If it is important to the ticket seller, then he should be the one paying for such an investigation, and he should have to prove the guilt of the offender. If it is important the free market will devise a satisfactory solution.
          Government that has the power to intrude in this way will use that power in many other ways, and I do not want to live in such a society.
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          • Posted by Solver 9 years, 9 months ago
            I can see your point and I agree with much of what you said, but I counter.
            If a person was to fraudulently use your identity to benefit in a transaction wouldn't you want that person identified? Let's say it is someone under 21 wanting to buy a beer with his own money. Is there there really any harm in that? Shouldn’t it be up to you to decide whether to press charges or not?
            If a person was to fraudulently use the identity of a handicapped person to benefit in a transaction, wouldn't also some handicapped people out their want that person identified? And shouldn’t it be up to those who created the terms of the tickets or even handicapped people to decide whether to press charges or not?
            When I say, “These people should be identified and dealt with by a very limited government,” by the very concept, other (free) individuals need to take more responsibility to assist in this. Not that government should be everywhere looking for this.
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      • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 9 months ago
        How would that apply to patent law? Thinking more broadly here, FreedomForAll, consider that you license a process say, from Intel, to make some kind of chip which you claim is for smart roller skates. But you actually bring in AMD who puts the chips into boards of their own that compete with Intel's. Now what?

        You assume that the tickets are SOLD with a transfer of TITLE. Apparently, as Rozar suggested, the real terms make it a lease, not a sale.

        On a much deeper level, I do agree with your "laissez faire" viewpoint - and do so a step farther than I think you are prepared to go. See my blog article here on "Laissez Faire Criminology".
        http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/...

        Maybe it is not necessary to punish all crimes. Sometimes, you get the bear; sometimes the bear gets you. Are you that laissez faire when it comes to busybodies interfering other people's activities? If you don't care who cheats on a lease, what do you care about?
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        • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 9 months ago
          Mike Marotta -

          I read your blog article. Hmmm. Something to think about. I made the error of the below assumption once, about a martial artist who kept damaging his opponents.

          "So, when you are harmed by someone else, you assume that like you they had no intention and having committed a transgression, they are remorseful, and cannot be content until they have rebalanced themselves with some propitiatiation."

          In the long run, it did not turn out well for him, but it would have gone much better for me and my friends if we had not based some of our approach to the problem upon that incorrect premise.

          I will think over what you wrote.

          Jan
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    • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 9 months ago
      I see your point and agree in this limited context. As you say, the terms of the agreement were specific and the fans who got around it by claiming something untruthful. Indeed, the story did mention youngsters in seats assigned to pensioners (retirees; seniors, as we say here in the States). Alumni seating and pricing is common here in the States for high school and college football and basketball. If you forge alumnus credentials, that would be fraud.

      But to see the counter-argument, suppose that as an alumnus myself, I bought a ticket and "gave" it to you. (And I put that in quotes because very likely _ALL_ exchange is ritual gift-giving, not the impersonal economizing of the theoreticians: I gave you the tickets as a favor... you will do something for me sooner or later... ) So, then what? Can you not have a proxy attend the event for you?

      Again back and forth, many products and services are non-transferrable in their conditions.

      But in American English we have the phrase "Indian giver" for someone who takes back a gift.

      But in _Atlas Shrugged_ Rearden says that there can be so such thing as conditional property: either I own something or I don't.

      In that case Rozar's point above is telling: You never _own_ the ticket, you only _lease_ it. Like software...

      Technically, if you sell your computer, you are supposed to wipe the OS and all Applications, not just your own data.

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      • Posted by Solver 9 years, 9 months ago
        I'm not arguing a who is the "owner" of the ticket idea, I'm arguing a fraud that may have been used to get in the park with that ticket. It is anyone using the special ticket AND needing to fake or forge their identity to enter that is committing a fraud.

        "If you forge alumnus credentials, that would be fraud?"
        If used as above, yes.

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  • Posted by 9 years, 9 months ago
    Interesting comments, all. I assume that there are some restrictions on who can procure the tickets. If that individual then decides that it is better for them to take an additional profit by selling the ticket to a third party, should those restrictions continue to apply?

    Let's say that a pensioner buys a pensioner's ticket. They in turn sell that ticket to another pensioner at a profit. The entity from which the original ticket was purchased does not know that the current seat holder isn't the original purchaser, and since they meet the criterion, has no reason to suspect that this isn't the original ticket purchaser.

    Take the same scenario but instead the original pensioner purchaser sells the ticket to a youngster. If the original purchase wasn't done fraudulently (let's say the pensioner bought the ticket for themselves, but their grandchild cajoles him into selling it to her instead), is there any cause for the entity originally selling the ticket to be aggrieved? They sold the ticket in an honest transaction and haven't been denied their just compensation.

    If there is fraud involved (pretending to be a pensioner to obtain the ticket in the first place, for example), then I totally agree there is cause for action.

    There are probably licensing rules that go along with these tickets. What if one of those rules was that only people below 5' 3" could purchase the tickets in the first 20 rows - ostensibly so that those in seats further back could see. Would those here who are adamantly against the resale of these tickets feel the same way about someone in this section selling their ticket to a "tall" person? Or is that restriction beyond what you feel is "reasonable?"

    As I put in the heading, is this free-market capitalism at work?
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 9 months ago
    Free market? A market is not free when it is supported by unethical morally reprehensible marketers. There may be an iota of excuse for scalpers, but the whole wheelchair thing, I; e; selling handicap tickets to the non handicapped, shows the true picture of the enterprise. There is no problem in making a profit. There is a problem in making a profit through fraud or just downright despicable activity.
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  • Posted by sfdi1947 9 years, 9 months ago
    Free Market Capitalism doesn't work, only Fair Market Capitalism works; something the US Trade Representatives have totally ignored or forgotten over the past fifty years.
    When Free Market is applied somebody always assumes, "Oh free for me and F bombs on you!" With Fair Market, i.e. mirror trade laws, everybody usually makes a living.
    Fair is the objectivist lesson here!
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    • Posted by salta 9 years, 9 months ago
      But "free" markets (meaning both parties to a deal are voluntary, and therefore both are winning out of the deal) provides the best result in terms of true "fairness".
      If a third party imposes their idea of a "fair" deal, then one of the two parties dealing will not be doing it voluntarily. So the result moves away from true "fairness".
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      • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 9 months ago
        Ah, I get it... "...ensure people around the world can achieve a relative level of prosperity to live good lives, take care of their families and build strong, healthy, sustainable communities."

        ... means "to each according to their wants and needs," right? How else would that translate? How does any system 'ensure' that kind of 'prosperity' to EVERYONE in the world?

        Sounds like there might be some 'force' involved, inevitably... no? Or do you believe in altruism? I don't.
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    • Posted by Solver 9 years, 9 months ago
      "Fair market capitalism is a combination of fair trade along with social and sustainable business entrepreneurship that will ensure people around the world can achieve a relative level of prosperity to live good lives, take care of their families and build strong, healthy, sustainable communities. Fair market capitalism is for the 99% while so-called free trade is for the 1%. We know that there is no such thing as free trade - it's the work of the 1% to control the world. The 99% need a system that works for them and their communities. Fair market capitalism is the best and only way to achieve that. Also, imbedded in the philosophy of fair market capitalism is the Golden Rule - "treat others as you would like to be treated" and Tithing versus Taxation - "the way that communities and governments pay for the public services required by society and to maintain the commons for all to share and enjoy". http://upriser.com/posts/fair-market-cap...

      verses another plan that will...

      "reconcile all conflicts. It will protect the property of the rich and give a greater share to the poor. It will cut down the burden of your taxes and provide you with more government benefits. It will lower prices and raise wages. It will give more freedom to the individual and strengthen the bonds of collective obligations. It will combine the efficiency of free enterprise with the generosity of a planned economy." - From Atlas Shrugged
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        • Posted by Solver 9 years, 9 months ago
          As a response to satta, I'm just comparing the similar promises stated in two ways to centrally plan an economy using "Fair Capitalism" and the looters plan.
          I definitely don't believe in either of these ways.
          You should post your concerns and reasoning to satta above as I did.
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          • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 9 months ago
            I did, but the local software added at the next level reply and at the bottom. I deleted and attempted to move it further upthread as a direct reply to satta, as I'd intended... Thanks!
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