https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/#hca
'It's not that conservatives aren't sometimes right – it's that even when
they're right, they're
highly selective about it. Take the hoary chestnut
that "incentives matter," trotted out to deny humane benefits to poor people on
the grounds that "free money" makes people "workshy."
There's a whole body of conservative economic orthodoxy, Public Choice Theory,
that concerns itself with the motives of callow, easily corrupted regulators,
legislators and civil servants, and how they might be tempted to distort
markets.
But the same people who obsess over our fallible public institutions are
convinced that private institutions will never yield to temptation, because the
fear of competition keeps temptation at bay. It's this belief that leads the
right to embrace monopolies as "efficient": "A company's dominance is evidence
of its quality. Customers flock to it, and competitors fail to lure them away,
therefore monopolies are the public's best friend."
But this only makes sense if you don't understand how monopolies can prevent
competitors. Think of Uber, lighting $31b of its investors' cash on fire,
losing 41 cents on every dollar it brought in, in a bid to drive out
competitors and make public transit seem like a bad investment.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
