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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: The free market (and lemons)
Message-ID: <849@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Dec-85 17:37:51 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.849
Posted: Sat Dec  7 17:37:51 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Dec-85 06:27:50 EST
References: <259@gargoyle.UUCP> <589@calgary.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 22

In article <589@calgary.UUCP> radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) writes:
>>   Or private institutions [guarantees, brand-name goods, chains] may
>>   arise to take advantage of the potential increases in welfare which
>>   can accrue to all parties.  By nature, however, these institutions
>>   are nonatomistic, and therefore concentrations of power -- with ill
>>   consequences of their own -- can develop.
>
>So your own authority says that the market can provide these benefits
>also, but that this would be bad for other reasons. What he means by
>"nonatomistic" and why he thinks any concentrations of "power" which
>the market would develop are worse than concentrations in governments
>is unclear from this quote, so I won't attempt a refutation at this time.

The problem is not that such concentrations are *worse* than governments;
it is that they may become *indistinguishable* from governments.  Look at
the medieval guilds.

Also, he is not claiming that government is *always* the best solution to
such problems, only that it *sometimes* is.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108