—–Original Message—–
From: H
Sent: Tue 4/4/2017 8:19 PM
To: Walter Block
Subject: Can private corporations waste without check?
Dear Professor Block, thank you for the book recommendations a few weeks ago. I’m trying to balance Rothbard’s ‘For a New Liberty’, Hazlitt’s ‘Economics in One Lesson’ and Sowell’s ‘Basic Economics’ at one time but I’ll finish it eventually. I’ve been talking to socialists on message boards and there seems to be confusion towards how much we should blame governments and how much we should blame corporations for a nation’s economic turmoil. I brought up the absence of a ‘profit-loss’ feedback mechanism for governments but they were insistent on the evils of large corporations and the 1% and so on. The 2 basic questions are this: 1.) Is it possible for wealthy individuals or a large private corporation to allocate a nation’s scarce resources unproductively and wastefully without check much like governments can? 2.) Are ‘profits’ the only metric we should go by in determining whether something should be produced, invested in or pursued “for the public good”? For the most part I’m convinced of the superiority of laissez-faire capitalism over socialism just by talking to socialists. I just need those two things cleared up so I can have more nails to pound in their coffins as the metaphor goes. Get back to me whenever. Thanks, H
Dear H: You are reading some good books. I am envious of you because never again will I be able to read those for the first time. Well, I take that back. Soon, I’ll be getting senile (my critics aver that this day has already come and gone). Then, maybe, I’ll be able to read those for the first time. The problem with Bernie Sanders, and, I expect, your message board socialists, is that none of them EVER distinguish between crony capitalists, who earn their profits through government favoritism, and real laissez faire capitalists, who do so by satisfying customers, suppliers, employees, etc. Yes, of course, crony capitalists can “allocate a nation’s scarce resources unproductively and wastefully without check much like governments can.” They are in effect junior partners of the statists. Yes, profits are the only proper metric, but only for free market businesses, not the crony variety.
2:06 pm on April 7, 2017
