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Originally Posted by Clutch Munny
Well, I think the answer is supposed to be the classical Smithian one: The purchasers will punish you by not buying your product, if you do nasty things like pollute or use child slaves or corrupt the political process.
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This is the answer I get most frequently. Yet in actual practice this fails for a number of reasons. A good example is the "science" that tobacco companies paid for, then hid when it turned out bad, or spun depending on their mood. When I first started smoking I had all the "smoker" spin points memorized. "There has never been a link between smoking and cancer proven", "The science is soft...or wrong...or stupid"...well you get the idea. I was misled by the company that was selling the product that was poisoning me. Nor is this the first time, for a really sad record check out the story behind Lead. We were mislead about the dangers of lead for years, and not by the government either.
Another consideration is that in this magical marketplace, where no rules reign was is to stop companies from forming monopolies, or under the table agreements to keep cost steady and danger hidden? The only way the magic works is if companies suddenly stopped doing what they have been doing for years, misleading the public. I don't see that happening anytime soon.
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This answer, I'm told, works wonderfully in Libertarian Heaven. Here on Earth, of course, it is transparently false, indeed, hilariously idealized market-fundamentalism.
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Now that is the best line I have heard all week.