janw@inmet.UUCP (11/24/85)
[tedrick@ucbvax] >In general, the idea that a competitive market allocates resources >well has a lot to be said for it, but the competition needs to occur >within an overall framework of cooperation/regulation. Without ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >this regulation what is to stop the competitors from lieing, ^^^^^^^^^^ >cheating, stealing, destroying the environment, and killing each other? You omitted "cooperation" the second time over. Can cooperation go on *without* regulation from above ? That is the whole question, isn't ? A lot of it does. E.g., unmoderated net.groups do not dissolve in flames. Companies make products compatible to each other. Cars on a road avoid collisions. All of these are notoriously imperfect - but so are regulated systems. People who want to do away with *government* don't want to abolish *society*. And society, of course, means cooperation. Jan Wasilewsky
tedrick@ernie.BERKELEY.EDU (Tom Tedrick) (11/27/85)
In article <28200328@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: > >[tedrick@ucbvax] >>In general, the idea that a competitive market allocates resources >>well has a lot to be said for it, but the competition needs to occur >>within an overall framework of cooperation/regulation. Without > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>this regulation what is to stop the competitors from lieing, > ^^^^^^^^^^ >>cheating, stealing, destroying the environment, and killing each other? > >You omitted "cooperation" the second time over. Can cooperation >go on *without* regulation from above ? That is the whole >question, isn't ? A lot of it does. E.g., unmoderated net.groups >do not dissolve in flames. Companies make products compatible >to each other. Cars on a road avoid collisions. All of these >are notoriously imperfect - but so are regulated systems. > >People who want to do away with *government* don't want to >abolish *society*. And society, of course, means cooperation. > > Jan Wasilewsky Excellent point. I have been thinking about that problem for a long time. It is rather deep. A lot depends on social conditioning (i.e. if the population has adopted a belief system that restrains certain behavior it may not be necessary to attempt to restrain it through regulation). It seems to me that an enormous amount of social interaction *IS* based on cooperation and trust. When some elements of the population are willing and able to successfully exploit the situation for their short term advantage it may become necessary to overtly restrain behavior that was formerly unregulated. (examples might be leaving doors unlocked in houses: when I was young it was normal to leave houses in our area unlocked. With all the thieves these days it is normal to have alarm systems, etc.) Like I said this is a deep subject. There are other aspects of the problem to be considered besides the above. Perhaps I will say more later. Thanks for your contribution to the discussion. -Tom