Listener writes in - I respond

Libertarian Rants

I received an e-mail from our listener asking if Wal-Mart was too big a la the article in July Harpers. Here is my response.

David,

Thanks for listening. I hope you can tell that we have a good time
doing these shows, and we might have another one up by the end of the
week with Jack Rhodes sitting in as #4.

I pulled down the Harper's article from their website, and as I write
this, I have only finished about 2 or 3 pages, but I find it hard to
believe that what I am about to say will change much upon further
reading.

There was a very erudite refutation of this article in an op-ed
somewhere, but for the life of me I cannot seem to locate it. That's
the curse of reading about 20 publications each day.

The Harper's article is so chock full of erroneous premises leading to
false conclusions that it is difficult to know where to start, so
let's do one.

"The problem is that Wal-Mart, like other monopsonists, does not
participate in the market so much as use its power to micromanage the
market, carefully coordinating the actions of thousands of firms from
a position above the market."

There is no such thing as "above the market" any more than a man can
be above humanity. Wal-Mart, like every human action is part and
parcel of the market and subject to it's natural, self-correcting
control.

Every single human action involves a choice, and those are of exactly
two varieties: voluntary and coerced. Voluntary choices are exactly
like the coerced ones with one exception: coerced means that one of
the parties has a gun and will use it.

This is not to say that some voluntary choices are almost equally
unpleasant, but at least they do not have certain death as one of the
choices.

Somehow it is thought that because of its size that Wal-Mart is
different from the average consumer. This is not so. When I go garage
sailing, I often dictate the price I will buy at. And often the price
I am willing to pay is below the price I know I can sell the item for
on Ebay. The seller may groan and moan, but in the end he has a
choice, and no guns are involved.

Involving the state in a Wal-Mart transaction as the article suggests,
would be no different than if the garage sale seller enlisted his
armed neighbor to force me to pay the price he wanted.

There are other less obvious costs and problems when one involves the
state. What if they are wrong? Who regulates the regulators? Who holds
the reins if you "bridle" free enterprise? Who pays for the
regulators? Do you think that there might be a chance that politics
might enter into the equation along with the state?

The state is the camel's nose in the tent. And the camel is armed.

To (finally) answer your question(s): There is no such thing as "too
big" as long as guns are not involved. The same holds for your
question #2 on Laissez Faire.

Thanks again for listening. Write any time.

"jimmy"