Conflict of Interest

During the recent grilling of Goldman Sachs's management I was struck by an oft-repeated question about whether they were concerned more about the welfare of their clients or of the firm. It seems the deeper question, assuming that the answer was one or the other, is how a firm that has a divergence between its interests and those of its clients can continue to exist? If a firm were to have a known divergence of interests with its clients and is still in business, a number of conclusions might be drawn.

It could be possible that for this type of business no one has come up with a way in which to align the interests of both parties. This problem is one of knowledge, and might especially plague industries in which results are difficult to evaluate or are not evident until a much later date - medicine comes to mind. Or it may be that there are known ways of aligning interests, but they are illegal. For example, it is my understanding that it is illegal for stock brokers to cover client losses on stock recommendations. Finally, in a corollary to the latter case, regulations and mandates may create such a barrier to entry that innovative business models that would potentially align the interests of clients and the firm more closely are unlikely to be tried. This condition effectively produces a cartel of the already-existing enterprises that then provide uniformly mediocre services. How many times has your bank angered you, and you decide against changing because "they are all the same?"

In a free market "consumer sovereignty" has a meaning, and firms that ignore it are destined for the trash heap.

Anarchism

In the book The Socialist Tradition, Alexander Gray states (pg 3):

An anarchist society is conceivable only if all concerned are the embodiment of reason and restraint. Not merely therefore should an anarchist be a man of reason; he should also combine with his own reason a wholly unreasonable belief that all others are equally reasonable.

I would agree with this quote in the context of an anarchism that expects certain values, like abstract concepts of justice or equality, to be universally held. However, as a free-market anarchist I suggest that a society in which people hold many different values is possible, just as we live in a society in which Fords, Chevrolets and Toyotas, among others, address the values of a wide spectrum of car buyers. See my blog entry, "Competition as a Discovery Procedure or Ethics" for thoughts on that subject.

Charity vs. Investment

The tragedy in Haiti the last week has led to an outpouring of requests for charity. Haiti has been the constant recipient of charity in the form of aid from the US and others, and what has been accomplished? This creation of dependent states, from Haiti to Africa has only perpetuated poverty and throttled development in emerging countries.

So, what is the answer? The left would call it "exploitation," while I would call it "investment." Haitians would clearly be willing to accept wage rates that are below those in much of the western hemisphere, and creating manufacturing capacity there could be very attractive to many companies. To do so the Haitians would have to convince those companies that their investments would be safe from confiscation and experience minimal taxation - not an easy task for a country with such a turbulent history. Also, nations that were truly interested in Haiti's recovery would need to offer true free trade with them. With unions and other populists likely to be in opposition, another big hurdle to overcome. In the end I think we can expect that Haitians will continue to starve and be dependent - a failure that we can attribute to ongoing charity.

Investment is superior to charity because the investor is concerned about the results and expects a return. That means that he tends his garden, rather than casting the seed to the winds and hoping for the best. I believe that even families, which are commonly thought to be socialist units, are based on investments in the members. Parents invest in the kids, hoping they will be close companions and helpers in the future. Even friendship is an investment with expectations of good times, a sympathetic ear and help when something can't be accomplished alone.

Investment, not charity, is a recipe for growth and prosperity.

Liberal Fascism

I have just finished the book, Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg. The book is quite informative, although not as well-written as I would like and somewhat weakened by the religious orientation that leaks through in a number of places.

Modern liberalism (not the extension of classical liberalism that I support) is clearly linked with the the ideology of fascism of the 20th century. Unfortunately, the author does not identify the neo-cons as heirs to this same ideology, as he himself is a contributor to "National Review" and a supporter their interventionist policy. However, the extensive research as reflected in the end notes is valuable to anyone who suspects that modern liberalism is not quite the compassionate philosophy projected on the Huffington Post.

Capitalism is Inherently Long-Term

Capitalism depends upon the accumulation of capital in order to implement more indirect methods of production. Capital makes it possible to build a complex system of production, supporting those who build it and the entrepreneur in the gap between laying its foundation and bringing the product to market. As, over time, production processes become ever more complex the tendency is for the views of capitalists to stretch further into the future.

This view is in contradiction to the general view that capitalism is short term, but that view seems to be more oriented to the financial side of economic activity. Finance, especially in the world of fiat currency, is largely short term as it is not oriented to funding productive processes.

What Can We Expect From the Free Market?

All that the free market guarantees is that individuals may pursue their own values. To the extent that the market is not free, some individuals are able to pursue their values at the expense of others.

The free market is essentially an individualist utilitarian environment in which one maximizes utility. This environment is different from that of classical utilitarianism in that it is not political. Policies are not set and imposed on populations through some fantastic calculation or estimate of costs and benefits, but are lived by market participants with profit and loss being the sole arbiter of success and failure.

In such an environment, experiments are welcome and the failures affect only the participants - not society at large. It is unfortunate that Karl Popper, if Bryan Magee can be taken at his word, believed that the best society was one in which problems could be solved most rapidly through experimentation and falsification of wrong theories, but never fully embraced the free market as the appropriate avenue to do that.

The Observational Evidence for a priori Knowledge

Karl Popper, the philosopher of science, quite clearly supports the concept of a priori knowledge. Not knowledge as in knowing the laws of gravitation, but knowledge as in knowing about and how to deal with gravitation.

In the essay "The Epistemological Position of Evolutionary Epistemolgy" in the essay collection All Life is Problem Solving, Popper suggests that life must know something about the universe in order to survive through even the first few minutes of its existence.

For the adaptation of life to its environment is a kind of knowledge. Without this minimal knowledge, life cannot survive.

The observable fact that life exists tells us that this knowledge, which Popper calls "genetically a priori," also exists.