Exactly! While I do find this particular theoretical discussion somewhat interesting, to me it is a perfect example of the constant intellectual masturbation that economists and libertarian intellectuals waste their time with. Musing about how things will work in a system which will never happen if all we do is muse about what it will accomplish.

If you actually want to live in freedom, devote your time to thinking about how to increase freedom. If you want to daydream about freedom, then by all means, continue spending your intellectual efforts trying to determine a priori what the free market will quickly tell us if we ever get one.

No wonder libertarians never get anywhere in the real world.

“‘A friend wrote me the following, regarding Klein’s and others’

“Kinsella, when you say a friend do you mean yourself? Cause that’s what it looks.”

“Eduardo,” do I seem like a guy who is afraid to state his own opinions and put his name to them?

Being anti-corporate seems to me to be perfectly inline with a hardcore free market stance.

As for that one, go and bloody look. I did not ‘claim that Long does not envision a whole-new structure of production, “only” a return to organizational forms common during the industrial revolution’. I claimed that “Long is not talking about a whole new structure of production but rather an updated version [emphasis added] of an old one, the sort that was common during the Industrial Revolution”. That’s not a return, rather a back track and go forward again – but that’s not “whole new”, which was the point of that claim.

Long’s claim is “In a free market, firms would be smaller and less hierarchical, more local and more numerous (and many would probably be employee-owned)”. Have a look at what was typical during the Industrial Revolution, and see how close a match it is. Then see if the differences amount to an update.

P.M. Lawrence makes no sense because he continues to obfuscate and deny that Long is taking positions that he quite plainly is, and then whines that his opponents are straw-man bashing. (A good case in point is his claim that Long does not envision a whole-new structure of production, “only” a return to organizational forms common during the industrial revolution.)

Hopefully that wasn’t abusive, although P.M. Lawrence richly deserves it.

No, I simply quoted Long’s “In a free market, firms would be smaller and less hierarchical, more local and more numerous (and many would probably be employee-owned)” because it was sufficient to back up my earlier “He thinks that it would be dominated by smaller firms than we have now” and address Ktibuk’s idea that it could only mean “Yes if there wasnt any state, and thus any taxes, accounting departments of every firm would be marginally smaller”. As it happens, it also refutes Klein’s misrepresentation “Roderick Long thinks… that a pure market economy would be dominated by small, worker-owned cooperatives”.

Certainly, if motivations had been the subject of that particular point, we would need more background – in fact, the whole article and possibly other works of Long’s.

But let’s look at your stuff:-

“In addition to some sweeping, unsubstantiated claims, it should be pretty obvious from this passage that Long does not simply believe firms will be *smaller* absent state intervention (itself debatable, since Long’s premise is not simply that state action has made firms different than they otherwise would be, but in fact bigger than they othewise would be), but that they will be *small*”.

Well, if you only look at a short passage and don’t follow up the other stuff Long mentions or cites, naturally it won’t stand by itself. But you are setting up a straw man if you wilfully, recklessly or negligently read that much more into what he wrote. He simply didn’t make that claim, at any rate in that article, any more than he ruled it out.

As for ‘”ktibuk” is right to wonder about motivations here’ – well, if I were that interested, by now I would wonder about everybody’s motivations around here. But I’m more interested in chasing down what the research means and keeping it properly presented.

“Incidentally, I offered the comic strip Dilbert not as evidence of the irrationality of corporate hierarchies but as a reminder of it. Those who have worked in such environments know from their own experience how completely clueless the highly paid upper managers tend to be about what is actually happening, and how much of the firm’s success depends on workers simply ignoring the insane directives from above and doing what needs to be done.”

He offers no examples of people who have actually worked in corporations seconding his views; he just assures us that they exist. And he continues to offer up a satire (Dilbert) as having some relevance to this discussion! Can he not fathom that the reason this comic strip is popular (I find it amusing) is precisly because it takes situations with *some* basis in reality, and exaggerates them to the point of humor? Does he seriously think Dilbert offers an accurate picture of corporate life? Let me assure him, it does not. I cannot believe Long has ever held a job outside of academia.

“In a free market, firms would be smaller and less hierarchical, more local and more numerous (and many would probably be employee-owned); prices would be lower and wages higher; and corporate power would be in shambles. Small wonder that big business, despite often paying lip service to free market ideals, tends to systematically oppose them in practice.”

In addition to some sweeping, unsubstantiated claims, it should be pretty obvious from this passage that Long does not simply believe firms will be *smaller* absent state intervention (itself debatable, since Long’s premise is not simply that state action has made firms different than they otherwise would be, but in fact bigger than they othewise would be), but that they will be *small*. “ktibuk” is right to wonder about motivations here.

Kinsella, when you say a friend do you mean yourself? Cause that’s what it looks.

Yes, Long has worked in the for-profit sector, read his review of “Nickel and Dimed” where he mentions that fact in passing.

As for Carson, I believe he still works in the for-profit sector- I think in healthcare, or something like that.

Also, you would get the sense “this is backward socialism” only if you have not attempted to understand their arguments, and/or you are ignoring the various defintitions and nuances regarding socialism. I wish I had time to say more…but I really don’t know if I could add anything of great value to the discussion.

Second, Dr. Klein’s replies to Roderick have been excellent and respectful, but several others here (and elsewhere) have totally missed the point. It’s incorrect (and disrespectful) to claim that Roderick is “taking it on the chin.” Klein’s contribution may give us reason to doubt one of Roderick’s claims, but there is much more to Roderick’s original analysis that has not been effectively disputed. For example, Charles Johnson and Dr. Long have, I think, effectively refuted the criticisms of Kinsella. Also, Walter Block and J.H. Huebert’s response was at best a complete misunderstanding of Roderick’s essay or at worst a blatant misrepresentation.

I also get the sense this is backdoor socialism…e.g. every business is built on “exploitation,” every person who ever used state-run roads, anyone whose ancestors held slaves, every dollar of capital which was “exploited” from workers, all the land “stolen” from Native Americans…all of us, you, me, them,,,guilty of this “original sin.”

Of course, the only solution for this “original sin” is to collectivize. We are all guilty, so we must all pay. Am I wrong, or do others get this sense?

“When Long presided over a symposium issue of JLS on Carson’s work, it was obvious that he sympathizes with it, but he played it safe by criticizing a relatively minor mistake by Carson.”

It seems a bit odd to cite the JLS simposium where only Robert Murphy provided a considerate response. Reisman’s critiques, in comparison, were quite embarrasing to read, just from the tone of the writing and the regular accusations that Carson was a “Marxist”. Did Mises spend so long arguing against polylogism in vain?

I guess the left-right friction needs a lot more resolving over time, but it certainly fractures the libertarian world.

“In a free market, firms would be smaller and less hierarchical, more local and more numerous (and many would probably be employee-owned)”.

Long is not talking about a whole new structure of production but rather an updated version of an old one, the sort that was common during the Industrial Revolution. There were a lot of businesses of different kinds then, sole proprietorships, partnerships, trusts, mutual societies like building societies, and even a few limited liability companies that had arranged to have special legislation or charters (but not very many of those at all). Many were quite small.

What you wrote is just a straw man, though I’m sure you’re only telling it the way you see it. I think what is going on is something I’ve seen a lot of in threads around here, that many people are so blocked off by tunnel vision that they literally do not see what they are being told but instead fumble for the closest thing they are reminded of. You, for instance, can only imagine the same firms with smaller accounting departments, and when you don’t see the plain words “smaller firms” but instead hear meaninglessness or perhaps “small companies” – when “firm” is not just another way of saying company but you literally cannot conceive of a firm that is not a company – you put it down to the teller and start in with suspicions.

Question: If you look at the size of companies providing all of the goods and services to an economy as a statistical distribution, would the current US economy or a free-market economy have a larger standard deviation?

It seems to me that a free market would lead to a larger diversity in the size of business entities, and thus a larger standard deviation in the question above. I say this because it seems that compliance with government regulations for operating a business (eg, accounting and tax requirements) constitutes a fixed cost which may be a relatively small cost for medium and large businesses but can be onerous for small companies. In other words, larger companies have the advantage of economy of scale in complying with government requirements.

One minor point, the small company I work at competes for SBIR grants, and these benefit big companies as much as small ones. The end goal of the SBIR program is to “commercialize” a new technology, typically by transferring it to a large, market-established company. This effectively turns the SBIR program into outsourced R&D for large companies, but paid for on the government dime.

This is a cop out. Yes if there wasnt any state, and thus any taxes, accounting departments of every firm would be marginally smaller. But I dont think that is the point Long is making. Reduction of the work force of a firm from 10000 to 9000 is not the situation Long is talking about. He is talking about a whole new structure of production.

And the rest of your answers make no sense at all. You dont argue but keep asserting you and Long are all misunderstood while making no effort in clearifying your position. This of course strengthens my feelings about the motives here.

That is sheer misrepresentation. He thinks that it would be dominated by smaller firms than we have now. Small, worker-owned cooperatives are possibilities he mentions, but there are other possibilities too; he doesn’t claim that those would dominate.

No, ktibuk, Roderick Long and I are not missing a part of the big picture. Quite simply, the things you bring up are about whether the state preys on larger corporations, as compared with “small companies [which] are more efficient in a lot of ways because they are off the radar of the state”. But that’s not the point at all! Both of those are corporations. It’s like watching Jurassic Park and wondering whether the Velociraptors are more efficient than the Tyrannosaurus Rex, without ever realising that both are artificial additions to the ecology. So, of course “one must recognize that every big corp was once a small company” – but that has nothing to do with whether companies or not, only with which companies. And it’s not a question of whether companies serve their customers but with whether – given their assists – they crowd out other ways of doing those things, done by other people organised in other ways. Things not seen, the forgotten man, and that.

“There is a hint of Marxist paradigm in this hate against corporations and seeing them beneficiaries of the state but not the victims. I am sensing a subtle anti capitalist mentality and I find it totally unwarranted.”

Then you shouldn’t let that sort of figment of your imagination prey on you.

Exactly. Why waste time on hypotheticals of what we all agree the market can and should decide?