RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)

Forwarded message:

> Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 12:34:34 -0500
> From: Petro <petro@playboy.com>
> Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone
>  	 (fwd)

> 	Assuming your definition of "free market" is "a market without
> regulation", you can't have a black market in a free market since a black
> market is trade in violation of regulations.

Actualy a black market is usualy goods gotten through theft or other illegal
means, not necessarily anything related to how or what is sold. If you don't
corrupt free-market to include legitimizing theft as a viable market
strategy then yes, you can in fact have a black market in a free-market.

Let's consider auto-theft. The issue isn't that you can't buy the car
through legitimate means, it just means you have to have more resources than
you have. So what do you do? You find somebody whose stolen a vehicle and is
willing to sell it to you at a discount.

> 	In other words, a Black market is when you trade either illegal
> goods illegally, or legal goods illegally.

Too strict and unrealistic a definition of black market.

> 	If there are no illegal goods, and there is no regulations limiting
> trading, then the black market cannot exist.

Of course not since we've now legitimized theft and murder with your
definition.


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At 6:38 PM -0500 11/6/98, Jim Choate wrote:
>Forwarded message:
>
>> Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 12:34:34 -0500
>> From: Petro <petro@playboy.com>
>> Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone
>>  	 (fwd)
>
>> 	Assuming your definition of "free market" is "a market without
>> regulation", you can't have a black market in a free market since a black
>> market is trade in violation of regulations.
>
>Actualy a black market is usualy goods gotten through theft or other illegal
>means, not necessarily anything related to how or what is sold. If you don't
>corrupt free-market to include legitimizing theft as a viable market
>strategy then yes, you can in fact have a black market in a free-market.

	Usualy != Correctly.

	Take tomatoes. Perfectly legal (AFAIK) everywhere, here in this
country a 5 year old child can buy a tomato from a farmer with a stand on
the side of the road.

	If you go back 10 years, and if "this country" was the soviet
union, a tomato purchased from the wrong person could get you in trouble.

	Entirely HOW the item was sold.

	This is true in this coutry. Licquor is legal if purchased thru the
approved store.

	Try selling the same thing out of the back of your truck.

	It is the product, or how the product is sold.

>Let's consider auto-theft. The issue isn't that you can't buy the car
>through legitimate means, it just means you have to have more resources than

	So take ampthetimines (well, don't take them, but take the case of
them), if I get them from Joe Random Drug Dealer, it's black Market, if I
get them from Paul the Doctor, it's "white" market.

	In fact, if I get them from Paul the Doctor, and then sell them to
someone else, I am selling them on the black market, even if I recieved
them legally, so in this case, it isn't how the item was aquired, it's
whether the _sale_, the *exchange* is legal.

>you have. So what do you do? You find somebody whose stolen a vehicle and is
>willing to sell it to you at a discount.
>
>> 	In other words, a Black market is when you trade either illegal
>> goods illegally, or legal goods illegally.
>Too strict and unrealistic a definition of black market.

	Not at all. It's quite wide open. It covers every non-legal
transaction.

>> 	If there are no illegal goods, and there is no regulations limiting
>> trading, then the black market cannot exist.
>Of course not since we've now legitimized theft and murder with your
>definition.

	I didn't think of theft when I wrote the above, and I don't usually
consider murder for hire markets as part of the black market, altho you
have a point.

	I still maintain that as one moves closer to a completely free
market, there is less and less of a black market, and to be the extrememe
case of a free market, there would be the potential to trade in both human
lives, and in stolen property.  In a free market, the selling of stolen
goods might not be a crime in and of itself, but the posession of those
things could be, and the aquireing would be, as well, the _hiring_ of an
assassin might be legal, as long as no killing took place. When it does,
you hang the assassin on murder, and the hirer on conspiracy, aiding and
abetting or whatever, and stick them in the same cell.
--
"To sum up: The entire structure of antitrust statutes in this country is a
jumble of economic irrationality and ignorance. It is a product: (a) of a
gross misinterpretation of history, and (b) of rather nave, and certainly
unrealistic, economic theories." Alan Greenspan, "Anti-trust"
http://www.ecosystems.net/mgering/antitrust.html

Petro::E-Commerce Adminstrator::Playboy Ent. Inc.::petro@playboy.com

On Mon, 9 Nov 1998, Petro wrote:

> 
> 	If you go back 10 years, and if "this country" was the soviet
> union, a tomato purchased from the wrong person could get you in trouble.
> 
> 	Entirely HOW the item was sold.
> 
> 	This is true in this coutry. Licquor is legal if purchased thru the
> approved store.
> 
> 	Try selling the same thing out of the back of your truck.
> 
> 	It is the product, or how the product is sold.
> 

Why is this so hard to fathom.  Black markets are simply markets
that are not approved of by the reigning force monopoly.

That could also be read as illegal, however, there are many
goods in the united states that are only illegal by color
of law, not in actual fact.

Of course the fact that the regulations are only under color
of law won't stop you from spending time in the cooler if you're
caught.

Most of these laws have to do with assigning law making to
bureacrats.

Are there any legal historians out there that have researched
the nature of bureaucracies like the FDA, DEA and BATF and the
lattitude that congress has given them in declaring various
good illegal?  How much power could congress hand over to
a department before the law giving them the power could
be declared unconstitutional?

For example, a constitutional amendment was necessary to
make alcohol illegal.  Why was this necessary?  Why
was it not necessary to do the same for every other
substance?  And if not for every other substance, then
for substances in general?

"Congress shall have the power to declare intrastate trade in
various products illegal."

It would be very simple.  It would be *the* prohibition act.
It would cover everything from encryption, to newpapers,
to alcohol and other drugs.

What is the basis for bureaucratic power and has it ever
been formally challenged in the supreme court?

My guess is that this power has not been seriously challenged
since Roosevelt stacked the Supreme Court and they decided
that the the welfare clause was a broad grant of power to
the federal government.

If I remember correctly, a closely related decision by
the Supreme stated that the commerce clause did not allow
the banning of weapons from "school zones" because even
though having weapons in school zones might effect commerce
it would effect to such a small degree that the commerce clause 
didn't reach that far.  The supreme court said they didn't know
how far it did reach.

It would be interesting to push the supreme to rule on the
welfare clause.  Could it reach far enough to ban nicotine?
Could it reach far enough to grab the fatty mc'ds hamburger
out of your hand?  Could it tell you what sports are
too dangerous?  What about skiing?  Car driving?  Parachuting?
Scuba diving?

I'm beginning to look forward to Y2K.

jim