I don’t know much about sports, but I don’t think Shaquille O’Neill played for the Seattle Super Sonics.

Outside of that, most libertarians have no clue about how anything works.  They spout Truthiness and claim it’s their intellectual superiority that allows them to ignore the actual brain work to follow their thought through to the logical, REAL-WORLD-REALITY-BASED-NOT-HYPOTHETICAL results.

They also don’t even bother to read the actual source material but airily regurgitate something they heard from some guy that read the Cliff Notes version of an economic theory that supports their preconceived notions.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that the one thing Libertarians forget about is advertising.  It’s probably the biggest factor in what we buy, and it’s certainly rational for a manufacturer to invest more in marketing than in product quality.  But I think it goes along with a lot of other denial that outside forces can influence people in general.  They don’t want to believe that commercials word to persuade them, just like they don’t want to believe that cultural influences can influence gender role behavior or that watching violence can affect the behavior of children.  I think the most rational discovery I ever made is that nobody is ever completely rational.

Catgirl, try bringing that up to a libertarian next time they talk about rational decisions by consumers.

You’ll get to see their head explode.

Power bands are obviously a scam. They don’t use Extenze’s “real science.”

Amazon.com is selling Power Balance Bands for $2.50 or so.

That isn’t a bad deal for bracers of giant’s strength.

Except, y’know, those don’t exist.

Libertarians will gladly point out how totalitarians are anti-humanists because they refuse to accept a core part of what it means to be human, which is that you have individuality.

Somehow it never comes to their mind that rejecting another core part of humanity, which is that humans are social beings, is also a denial of humanism.

“A market that’s dictated by a bunch of people getting ripped off all the time is, by definition, not self-regulating.”

So, so true.

That isn’t a bad deal for bracers of giant’s strength.
Except, y’know, those don’t exist.

Comment #5: Falconer

I hate you for destroying my dreams.  :p
Next you’ll be telling me this isn’t a +5 Holy Avenger Blade

On the other hand, all of the tricks in the Criss Angel Platinum Magic Kit are guaranteed to FREAK YOUR MIND (warning: 28 minute video, but well worth get fired or killing your day).

Yeah, I’ve noticed that the one thing Libertarians forget about is advertising.

Nope.  They argue, with straight faces, that advertising is just there to inform consumers of their choices in the market.

Why this information needs to be presented so often by young women wearing skimpy clothing, especially when it comes to beer or soft drink options, somehow never gets addressed…

I knew a nuclear physicist who joked about selling americium bracelets—“with real atomic nuclei!”

If consumers in a “capitalist” society like the US made their purchases based on cold, rational, logic, the economy would collapse within months.

The whole thing is based on cultivating irrationality on the part of consumers.  Information asymmetry is critical to maintaining the necessary levels of irrationality.

The ultimate achievement of modern capitalism, as practiced in many western countries, is to get consumers to make irrational decisions while believing they are actually making rational decisions.

Brilliant!...

BTW, I bet if those bracelets had magnets in ‘em, then they’d work great!...

[/irrational consumer]

I saw a PowerBand commercial the other day.  It was the first time I saw one.  I started yelling, “People will buy it!  People will buy it!”  The cat was in the room, so technically I wasn’t talking to myself.  She giggled, by the way.  Even my cat recognized how ridiculous the claims made about that bracelet are.  But people aren’t as rational as cats.  People will buy it!

The problem with libertarians is that they live in an age where we have regulation.  When I point out to them that markets where largely unregulated originally and that regulations were put in place because of the failure of unregulated markets, they don’t know what to say.  They don’t know anything about history, many of them, or why regulation was introduced in the first place (under Teddy Roosevelt, that old socialist Republican).

BB, to paraphrase Heinlein, you can drive a human crazy with too many people or with solitary confinement.

I didn’t know until a few years ago that the original penitentiaries were designed so that the convict could think and reflect on his crime by himself:

The original design of the cells were separated by a metal door and a wooden door to filter out noise. The halls were designed to have the feel of a church. Some believe that the doors were small so prisoners would have a harder time getting out, minimizing an attack to a security guard. Others have explained the small doors forced the prisoners to bow while entering their cell. This design is related to penance and ties to the religious inspiration of the prison. The cells were made of concrete with a single glass skylight, representing the “Eye of God”, hinting to the prisoners that God was always watching them. Outside the cell, there was an individual area for exercise, enclosed by high walls so prisoners couldn’t communicate. Each exercise time for each prisoner was synchronized so no two prisoners would be out at the same time. Prisoners were allowed to garden and even keep pets in their exercise yards. When prisoners left the cell, a guard would accompany them and wrap them in a hood.[5]

It was widely believed (then and now) that the policy of keeping prisoners in intense isolation, rather than leading to the spiritual actualization and social reform it intended, induced significant mental illness among many of its prisoners instead. The system eventually collapsed due to overcrowding problems. By 1913, Eastern State officially abandoned the solitary system and operated as a congregate prison until it closed in 1970 (Eastern State was briefly used to house city inmates in 1971 after a riot at Holmesburg Prison).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_State_Penitentiary

There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t harbor some irrational beliefs.

I notice that the (usually) selfsame libertarians who’re totally cool about Stupid People Deserving What They Get sure do piss and whine about women not being willing to sleep with them/continue sleeping with them/carry their potential child.

Consistent thinking fail, but then, what’s new?

If you side consistently with the scumbags and con artists against decent people trying to make good choices within the limited framework of being human, then it’s really time to rethink your “philosophy”. 

This is one of those things that libertarians simply can’t process. I’d like to think that pointing this out to a libertarian would change the direction of his argument, but the fact is that this point simply “doesn’t process” to the libertarian mind, which is more focused on, “if the government tells anyone what they can or can’t do with ‘their’ stuff, then it’s wrong.” But when the Snelling of your philosophy is handing the economy over to conmen and sleazeballs, there’s something wrong, just as when “states’ rights” gave governments carte blanche to beat black people up for the crime of registering to vote.

The ultimate achievement of modern capitalism, as practiced in many western countries, is to get consumers to make irrational decisions while believing they are actually making rational decisions.

People have always made irrational decisions while believing they are rational.  Capitalism just took advantage of that tendency.

They’re selling that same shit here in the U.S. as iRenew bracelets and also use the same bullshit “balance” trick as “proof” of it’s effectiveness.  Garbage.

#5 and #8, I love it but want I really wanted for the holdidays is a Staff of the Magi and a Robe of the Archmage.

  There is a libertarian dodge around Amanda’s point. When confronted with this argument, they’ll just say that it isn’t what we mean when we say that people are rational. They will say that by rationality, we mean that people know what they want and when they want it even if they aren’t being logical about it. In this case, the libertarians would make an argument that most people knew Gizmondo was trash and wouldn’t work but purchased it anyway because they wanted it. They would call this rational. Libertarians are very prone to sophistry.

The problem with the notion that all consumers are rational enough to control the markets with regulatory interference is that people don’t make choices on strictly rational bases.

Even if humans were rational creatures, the libertarian wet dream fails because it turns consumers loose in an economy that features a high level of collateral damage.

Let’s say I start up a car company.  And my cars have a nasty habit of exploding when the key is turned in the ignition.  The libertarian claim is that [in a free market] my car manufacturing days will be over once word gets out that my vehicles go kablooey on ignition.

The problem is that actual human beings will have to die to prove the “unsafety” of my cars.  So in the libertarian model, the consumer becomes the market’s guinea pig.  Of course, your average libertarian lives in his privileged little world where he would never be the free market’s collateral damage.  That kind of thing only happens to the other people, the unworthy, the foolish.  The libertarian would somehow (super-duper powers imparted by power bands, maybe?) know not to buy the explodey cars.

My mother, who had been a smart, savvy, critical business executive her entire adult life, suffered a brain tumor. Interestingly, in the ten months after diagnosis and before her death, she became completely suggestive to advertising. Not unlike my young children, she thought what she saw on TV in ads was the gospel truth and in no way could see past the gimmicks they used. She (like my children) could quote commercials with earnest and if they told her she needed it, she must need it.

It wasn’t so much based on irrationality as on trust. She believed that if they said, “you need this! It is the best thing ever! It will change your life!” that they were telling the gospel truth. She didn’t understand to what extent advertisers can lie.

I believe that sometimes elderly people also lose their critical eye as well. The brain works in mysterious ways.

It seems to me that requiring advertisers to be truthful is a much more rational response by the government than victimizing millions of children, elderly and mentally disabled people by lying to them.

I think it’s important to note, as Amanda gets at, that asymmetric information and market failures can exist even with perfectly rational behavior.  I know that non-economists like to go to the well of “people aren’t rational!” to point out the silliness of libertarian policies, but as an economist, almost all of their policies are nonsense even with rational decision-making.

I notice that the (usually) selfsame libertarians who’re totally cool about Stupid People Deserving What They Get sure do piss and whine about women not being willing to sleep with them/continue sleeping with them/carry their potential child.

Consistent thinking fail, but then, what’s new?

Libertarians are often case studies of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Since they can’t imagine that they themselves are stupid, they do achieve a sort of “consistent” thinking in this regard.

More specifically, this thinking leads to their believing that the only way they can get laid is by using shoddy scams to trick those intellectually inferior and greedy aliens known as women into bed. The grifter mindset, more than claims of hedonism, is why members of the PUA “community” are more likely than not to declare themselves Libertarians.

The MRAs come from a similar place, a more bitter and played-out version of the PUAs who feel entitled to keep their maids/baby machines/chattel by any means necessary.

What makes the Libertarian PUA particularly amusing, by the way, is that Libertarians are happy to reduce sex and romantic relationships and baby-making to cold economic transactions between rational actors, even as they clearly believe that one of the actors is a mark. That’s the real failure of consistent thinking.

It’s rare that you read a legal opinion handed down by a U.S. Circuit Court that causes you to burst into laughter, but I found one that just did. In January 2008, the 7th Circuit Court upheld a lower court’s ruling in favor of the FTC in a suit filed against the makers of the Q-Ray ionized bracelet. Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote the opinion, and its language is so hilarious and condescending towards the defendants that it will have you rolling on the floor…

But how could this conclusion assist defendants? In our example the therapeutic claim is based on scientific principles. For the Q-Ray Ionized Bracelet, by contrast, all statements about how the product works—Q-Rays, ionization, enhancing the flow of bio-energy, and the like—are blather. Defendants might as well have said: “Beneficent creatures from the 17th Dimension use this bracelet as a beacon to locate people who need pain relief, and whisk them off to their homeworld every night to provide help in ways unknown to our science.”

I think I’m going to ask Judge Easterbrook to buy me a new keyboard, since coffee just flew out of my nose onto the one I have.

A market that’s dictated by a bunch of people getting ripped off all the time is, by definition, not self-regulating.

From what I can gather from arguing with libertarians, this is exactly how they think a self-regulating market works.  In a perfect economic world, they would have the freedom to use their superior intelligence and perfect rationality to scam people of inferior intellect, who deserve to suffer.  The idea that they themselves might be susceptible to scams never occurs to them.

This is one of the reasons libertarianism appeals to nerdy left-brained types.  They (okay, we) tend to have an exaggerated idea of their own ability to think rationally and an inflated idea of the value of pure rational/logical thinking, often coupled with huge chips on their shoulders about their mental inferiors who got laid more in high school.

The success of “power bracelets” is pretty ridiculous, but it demonstrates why professional fields like medicine need to be regulated: not everyone is a professional, and many people are so swayed by appeals from authority that they’ll believe outright lies from someone who claims to know better than they do.  It’s unrealistic to expect consumers to become experts in every field, from medicine to law to banking to auto mechanics to hairdressing, just to guard against scam artists.

“If you’re the kind of person who thinks this cape will make you fly, you’re not going to let a little warning label stop you.”

As a child I wore one of those with the same label in the mid-60s.

I knew it couldn’t make me fly, that’s why I wanted the Amulet of Anubis for my birthday. 

The ultimate achievement of modern capitalism, as practiced in many western countries, is to get consumers to make irrational decisions while believing they are actually making rational decisions.

Technically called “Need creation”  the litmus test of success for advertising.  And boy, do humans learn it early.  Listen to ANY 3 y o in the checkout line.  It’s never Mommy/Daddy “I want”  but instead, ” I need” that candy, gum, new Pokemon/Barbie shoes, etc.

If you side consistently with the scumbags and con artists against decent people trying to make good choices within the limited framework of being human, then it’s really time to rethink your “philosophy”.

To many libertarians, at least the kind I was before I got better, the purity of the ideology is all-important. Taxation is theft, period. Regulation is interference, period.  So if it’s wrong to interfere in contracts between individuals, then that’s that, whether you’re selling land, a used car, or magic bracelets. The libertarian might even be sympathetic personally*, but still, tough luck for the buyer.

* though, as pointed out here, I think laughing at the “fool” is more likely; people who advocate a dog-eat-dog society tend to imagine themselves as top dog.

I think it’s important to note, as Amanda gets at, that asymmetric information and market failures can exist even with perfectly rational behavior.

George Akerlof picked up his Nobel in economics for his papers on asymmetric information.

As I’ve said before, the fundamental core of my liberalism is the right of people to be informed. 

One thing I learned while studying for an MBA, the real conflict now in the business world, that isn’t discussed, is not management vs labor, but management vs owners.  Financial disclosure rules are becoming more opaque, which makes investment decisions more difficult for outsiders—another symptom of a failed market system.

Wow, for the first time in months I’m tempted to chime in.  Where to begin?

I would also like to take this time to point out that the libertarian argument that markets correct themselves without interference from the government is neatly disproved by the very existence of Power Balance bands, and alternative medicine in general.

Hmm… so the Australian government was needed to stop the sales of these things, they were so damaging to the people who bought them, who were so ignorant they needed the protection and care of the government.  Oh wait, they didn’t.  From the gizmodo article:

The company has been under attack by consumer associations all over Europe because of their bogus claims and pseudo-scientific mumbojumbo,

Right.  So, first off, anyone who bought a Power Balance wristband was free to Google the product and find a range of opinions from dissatisfied consumer groups.  And if they didn’t take the time to do that, they were out $2.50 on a piece of plastic that didn’t work.  Because of this, governments should regulate and approve every product sold, no matter the cost or risk to consumers. 

You accuse libertarians of crackpot economic theories, and yet you’re advocating a system whereing the government controls the sale of even the tiniest trinket with what would clearly be a massive regulatory system.  What would the average person rather have?  $2.50 lost on a crap product?  Or, say, 10% of their gross income to pay for an army of bureaucrats to make sure they didn’t buy it in the first place?

But if the bracelets cost $250, would people still buy them like hotcakes?  No.  My marketing courses taught me that people’s research into a product and the involved decision making increases directly with the sales price. 

And what exactly prevents individuals from grouping together to sue these corporations for making fraudulent claims?  Why is government regulation necessarily better? 

The person who loses money on a Power Balance wristband and maybe injures himself by thinking he suddenly has a lot more strength than he did before might otherwise be an excellent worker, a good father, and a decent citizen.

And maybe he doesn’t injure himself.  How do you know that the same person wasn’t given a little bit of a boost in their self-confidence and achieved a fitness goal they weren’t able to before?  When I was a little kid I played soccer better after eating Frosted Flakes, because I believed they worked.  Obnoxious jocks at the gym who yell encouraging slogans at each other to “feel the burn” have been proven to perform better. 

This is such a poorly thought-out argument for regulating the sale of all products everywhere.  A $2.50 wristband isn’t the same as alternative medicine, which is only damaging if it prevents people from seeking medical help, and can actually be beneficial. 

Clearly, however, voters aren’t capable of finding the balance for themselves in allowing governments that choose to regulate medicine and building codes but not plastic trinkets and sugar pills.  They’re being irrational and ignorant.  Maybe they should be forced to vote?

Gee whiz, who knew Petey would come and defend conmen, as well as throw out hilarious stupidity like alternative medicine can actually be beneficial, and he *actually* played soccer better after eating Frosted Flakes because of the magic power of positive thinking.

I’m sure that his evaluation of his soccer abilities must have been evaluated via double blind studies and were not just based on the confirmatoin bias of an overexcited child on a sugar rush.

Peter,
Your argument is exactly the one that has been lampooned steadily throughout this thread.  You are arguing that the “free market worked” because, after a bunch of people had been conned out of their money, some folks realized it was a con and stepped in and got the government involved.

Reading the comments section on this blog always makes me wish that there were at least one liberal out there who was just as nasty and self-serving as your average libertarian wingnut. Because said liberal would have the stomach for developing and selling a product that appeals wildly to libertarians (like Galt beans that make your penis grow and fill your pockets with an endless supply of gold coins). Then when libertarians buy it and realize it is a total fraud they will have the unenviable choice of standing on their mindless “principle” (no government regulation) or availing themselves of the government run legal system to sue the maker of this crappy product for fraud.

On the other hand, intelligence and education are no defense. My sister is studying for her masters degree, and she’s STILL a Truther and believes her salt lamp from the Dead Sea does something more (With IONS!) than look pretty.

The only alternative medicine I endorse is chiropractic and only for certain kinds of back pain. It does work. It won’t help your sinuses, improve your memory or get you over birth trauma, but it will help get your range of motion back after a car accident.

Also, @PeterZeroOne: You say people would not buy useless trinkets if they cost 250$ or more.

Sadly, no.

http://www.ilikejam.org/blog/audio/audiophile.html

Ah. Ions. The magical explanation for a lot of woo. Reminds me of Idiocracy.

“Brawndo. It’s got what plants crave. Electrolytes!”

So, first off, anyone who bought a Power Balance wristband was free to Google the product and find a range of opinions from dissatisfied consumer groups.  And if they didn’t take the time to do that, they were out $2.50 on a piece of plastic that didn’t work.

And if the person buying these bracelets was, as is typically the prey of con men, an unsophisticated elderly and ill person on a fixed income, for whom every penny counts, you’d still have no problem with a company making unsubstantiated medical claims about its product?

Why bother asking? When it comes to a contest between a technophobic and arthritic senior citizen who didn’t have the character and smarts to become a grad-school educated millionaire retiree on the one hand, and a blessed corporate entity on the other, we know which you’ll choose.

And what exactly prevents individuals from grouping together to sue these corporations for making fraudulent claims?  Why is government regulation necessarily better?

Nothing at all is preventing a lawsuit, regulation or not. Pre-emptive government regulation of products making medical claims is better than tying up the (government) courts after the fact—especially if someone is injured or killed. It’s sort of like this esoteric concept called “insurance.”

This is such a poorly thought-out argument for regulating the sale of all products everywhere.

Or it would be, if that was what she was arguing for. What she is saying is that the persistent presence of con artists in this particular market segment indicates that markets in general cannot automatically be considered (per the Libertarian fantasy) self-regulating.

Clearly, however, voters aren’t capable of finding the balance for themselves in allowing governments that choose to regulate medicine and building codes but not plastic trinkets and sugar pills.

When science-based medical powers, alternative or conventional, are being ascribed to any item, that item should be subject to government regulation. Not everyone is a scientist or physician, not everyone has graduated college, not everyone is mentally sound, and (judging by election results) at least 45% of the population is stupid enough to vote for the GOP against their own self interests.

To be clear, if a grifter says “this bracelet will channel the power of Jesus and heal you,” that’s not a medical claim. If a grifter says “this bracelet will serve as a confidence booster and heal you,” that’s not a medical claim. When a grifter says “this bracelet takes advantage of well-understood physics (or some other scientific principal) to heal you,” that is a medical claim. I add this because you seem to have trouble making the distinction.

When I was a little kid I played soccer better after eating Frosted Flakes, because I believed they worked.

According to what medical claim? That they’re grrrrr-eat!? The only medical claim that cereal has ever made is that it’s part of a balanced breakfast.

Let me clue you in: your completely baseless childhood belief didn’t have anything to do with your playing soccer “better”—the frosted part of those flakes gave you a temporary sugar high.

Obnoxious jocks at the gym who yell encouraging slogans at each other to “feel the burn” have been proven to perform better.

“Obnoxious jocks,” eh? Someone’s still stuck in a middle school mentality. With “tells” like that, I’m sure you’re in high demand on poker nights.

Reading the comments section on this blog always makes me wish that there were at least one liberal out there who was just as nasty and self-serving as your average libertarian wingnut. Because said liberal would have the stomach for developing and selling a product that appeals wildly to libertarian (like Galt beans that make your penis grow and fill your pockets with an endless supply of gold coins).

I was thinking the same thing after reading PZ1’s ode to medical woo. If the PUA gurus can sell their BS to desperate Libertarian dudes, just think what sort of “medical” products they could be compelled to buy.

Sadly, no.

You’ll enjoy this, BlackBloc:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1Sz58a/xkcd.com/841/

#27:

“Beneficent creatures from the 17th Dimension…”

...is a great name for a band.

Petey doesn’t seem to mind that conmen peddling crap can get rich, if they just have the wit and discipline get out before people catch on to their scam.

So, Petey is apparently taking Christ’s admonition to hang out and give succor to criminals LITERALLY.  What a guy!  And we know when HE gets taken to the cleaners by somebody, he’ll just chuckle and hugs his libertarian principles closer and shake his head while laughing, “Boy, they sure got me!”

#41:

Indeed. I would love to sit in a courtroom listening to a federal judge mockingly reference beneficent 17th dimension creatures to blatantly ridicule the hacks who sell these magic bracelets.

Would it be wrong of me to start a nonprofit to sell worthless trinkets marketed directly to conservatives and libertarians, then give all proceeds to CSICOP?

“Because said liberal would have the stomach for developing and selling a product that appeals wildly to libertarians (like Galt beans that make your penis grow and fill your pockets with an endless supply of gold coins). Then when libertarians buy it and realize it is a total fraud they will have the unenviable choice of standing on their mindless “principle” (no government regulation) or availing themselves of the government run legal system to sue the maker of this crappy product for fraud.”

...but this situation already exists, except it was Ayn Rand who created the fraudulent product and not a mean liberal.  But since the product (Atlas Shrugged and the “philosophy” of Objectivism) is worshipped instead of being understood as a fraudulent pile of crap, none of them are smart enough to seek redress from the government, despite the obvious theft (of money and brain-capacity) involved. 

As long as the consumers of such tripe are going to be stupid, getting screwed by their own system is a just punishment.  I’d be cool with it if they would stop trying to drag the rest of us down with them…

“What would the average person rather have?  $2.50 lost on a crap product?  Or, say, 10% of their gross income to pay for an army of bureaucrats to make sure they didn’t buy it in the first place? “

So if the product is cheap, it shouldn’t be regulated even if it is sold with fraudulent claims or possibly causes harm to people?  That’s not a very intelligent argument.  Certain over the counter chemical products were unregulated and killed a bunch of people (I’m thinking of the ones that contained GHB or GBH, whatever that stuff was).  They were marketed as being safe, effective, and natural.

See, Peter, we tried it your way. That’s why I posted a comment earlier about why we have regulation to begin with.  You’re just another libertarian who is a libertarian because it might cost you a buck to have a safer marketplace, not because of some philosophical notion.  You are ignorant of history.  And you’re ignorant of the cost of an unregulated market, which is pretty high.

You’re in the wrong blog.  The folks here tend to know what they’re talking about.  You might want a blog where people already agree with you.

The existence of a bunch of (relatively) harmless shit like Power Balance bracelets and the other stuff we’re seeing now are also an argument for regulation by what we’re not seeing anymore. Sure I can buy Enzyte and my penis will only grow when compared to the shrinking of my wallet, but I can’t run down to the drugstore and pick up a bottle of Doctor Bob’s Cocaine & Heroin Tonic For Irritable Children (Now With Nourishing Mercury and Lead!!!). All that evil regulation has made actively harmful snake oils thing of the past. Get rid of that regulation and that sort of thing will be back within a year. And people would buy it in droves because of advertising.

@serious bette: They’d sue you into oblivion without a moment’s pause. The only principle they have is “Government is only good when it directly benefits me and doesn’t cost me anything.”. Suing someone is directly good for them, so they support that. At least until they get sued by someone, then it’s tyranny.

Speaking of courts, another funny thing about Libertarians is that they’re the first to yell “I’ll sue” and seek redress with the help of the bad ol’ state when they’ve been conned.

Sure, some of them will talk about how they wish such matters could be settled with guns or fists, but deep inside they’re still those same little jr. high debate club dorks who, when faced with the prospect of dealing with the physical force majeure of (what was the term PZ1 used? Ah, yes…) “obnoxious jocks,” go running to the teachers they otherwise hold in contempt.

”...but I can’t run down to the drugstore and pick up a bottle of Doctor Bob’s Cocaine & Heroin Tonic For Irritable Children (Now With Nourishing Mercury and Lead!!!).”

...which is why we Americans no longer have Freedom™ and Liberty™, but are instead treated like children by our overbearing and overly-powerful Government, just like Karl Marx and Al Gore want us to be!  We need to get back to the days when you could just buy some literal snake-oil (worthless and dangerous) from some sleazy con-artist and get sick or die after using it.  It’s the only way to ensure we’re free!...

By the way, where can I get some Doctor Bob’s Cocaine & Heroin Tonic For Irritable Children?  My supply has just about run out, and I can’t seem to get ahold of Doctor Bob to buy some more.  Damn good stuff…

[/libertarian wacko]

I’ll let you know that the snake oils salesmen seem to still be doing quite well. It’s just that now they sell Coke, Doctor Pepper, Pepsi, tonic water, mineral water and such as food products instead of medicine.

They do put a little bit less cocaine and heroin in those, though.

And what exactly prevents individuals from grouping together to sue these corporations for making fraudulent claims?
Comment #33: PeterZeroOne

Some people do exactly that.  I believe they call it “Government.”

You know who’s damaged?  It’s not the $2.5 each.  Although that’s there too.

What’s damaged is every other product and salesman who is honest.  Everyone else who doesn’t lie or cheat loses when someone lies and cheats and isn’t hauled on the night’s news in chains or glue and feathers.

How are we to know what claims are false or not when all claims are equal?

Angelia Sparrow @37:  It does do something with ions, it collects dust and smells nice.

#5 and #8, I love it but want I really wanted for the holdidays is a Staff of the Magi and a Robe of the Archmage.

I point out that it really reaklly is a Bracelet of Wealth Accumulation (-1)

Reading the comments section on this blog always makes me wish that there were at least one liberal out there who was just as nasty and self-serving as your average libertarian wingnut.

[Buffs fingernails modestly]

Libertarians really wouldn´t care very much whether a product was ¨good¨ or ¨bad.¨  And Libertarians doesn´t necessarily have to believe that people who purchase objectively bad products deserve what they get.  They would just argue that the demand for the product justifies its existence, because there is a market for the product, whatever its objective merits or dangers.

My problem with Libertarians is that they are perfectly willing to deploy the coercive power of government to protect the integrity of markets for products, and private property as it is currently distributed (regardless of the justice of the distribution), but then they balk at deploying the coercive power of government for other ends, which many argue persuasively are valuable—such as protection for consumers from harmful products on the market.

So Libertarians don´t really believe in no regulation of markets or property; they just want government to regulate markets in certain ways.  They certainly want to use the coercive power of government to protect property rights, as noted above.  But why allow government coercion in some circumstances, and not others?  Once you argue that markets and property are worthwhile ends, why not be open to debating other worthwhile ends for governmen regulation?  (And freedom of choice is not a meaningful distinction, because Libertarians don´t permit people freedom to choose strong-arming markets with brute force, or freedom to choose robbery, and the like.  And if individual rights are how Libertarians wish to proceed in this argument, then what is the basis for the rights Libertarians selectively identify as important, and the basis for excluding others—such as the right to product markets free of harmful or deceptive products—that Libertarians don´t think are very important?)

@BlacBloc

Gee whiz, who knew Petey would come and defend conmen, as well as throw out hilarious stupidity like alternative medicine can actually be beneficial

Yes, it can be, if the customer believes it’s beneficial.  It’s called the placebo effect, and it’s the reason why we have double blind placebo controlled studies in the first place. 

@Gracchus

When science-based medical powers, alternative or conventional, are being ascribed to any item, that item should be subject to government regulation.

No.  That is too broad a category.  If the aforementioned bracelets claimed to make you stronger, using some pseudoscientific mumbojumbo and they’re a health claim, then so are many things.  What about learning products?  Should all of the “make you smarter” products be subject to government oversight if they use the words “synapse” or “glial cell” or “occipital lobe”?  What about beauty products and services?  Want to ban any face cream that uses the word “epidermis” in its marketing?  These things should be banned only if they get people killed or cause harm.  That’s the reasonable cutoff. 

This is such a poorly thought-out argument for regulating the sale of all products everywhere.

Or it would be, if that was what she was arguing for. What she is saying is that the persistent presence of con artists in this particular market segment indicates that markets in general cannot automatically be considered (per the Libertarian fantasy) self-regulating.

So if markets in general can’t be considered self-regulating, then markets in general should be regulated.  Sounds like she’s saying exactly what I think she is, then.

There are failures in market economics, however, the efficiency of free markets overwhelmingly justifies their use. 

DBK

So if the product is cheap, it shouldn’t be regulated even if it is sold with fraudulent claims or possibly causes harm to people?  That’s not a very intelligent argument.  Certain over the counter chemical products were unregulated and killed a bunch of people (I’m thinking of the ones that contained GHB or GBH, whatever that stuff was).  They were marketed as being safe, effective, and natural.

See, Peter, we tried it your way.

Those are two separate things.  Sold with fraudulent claims is one thing.  Harm to people is another. The latter justifies intervention.  The former does not.

Oh yeah, DBK, we tried it your way too.  I came from a dump where everything was run by the government.  Life expectancy for males was 59 years.  Or for a less extreme example, how about when the telephone industry was regulated and it cost $4/ minute to make a long distance call?  Is the cost of regulation worth the trade off?  That is the question. Plastic bracelets don’t make the cut, sorry.

Back to Gracchus

“Obnoxious jocks,” eh? Someone’s still stuck in a middle school mentality. With “tells” like that, I’m sure you’re in high demand on poker nights.

I come for the intelligent debate, but I stay for the shaming language and personal attacks.  Been fun guys, see you in another few months.

@Petey: There’s no such thing as the placebo effect, at least not under the flawed understanding that you demonstrate. Metastudies have shown that placebos show no significant effect compared to no treatment at all. What you call the ‘placebo effect’ is simply the baseline, what happens when *nothing* of use is done to help the patient. The reason to use double blind studies is to remove researcher bias, not because the placebos themselves have an actual effect on the patient.

MikeEss @ #13

BTW, I bet if those bracelets had magnets in ‘em, then they’d work great!…

[/irrational consumer]

But Magnets! How the fuck do they work?

And what exactly prevents individuals from grouping together to sue these corporations for making fraudulent claims?  Why is government regulation necessarily better?

And this is one big area where libertarians fail, because it shows how libertarians consistently fail to understand what regulations are for. Laws and regs standardize these things so the courts aren’t choked with ad hoc lawsuits that could create contradictory precedent; some are reactions to previous cases, some are preemptive against foreseeable dangers. Those who are anti-regulation are either on the take, hoping to be on the take, or are too dumb to think in terms of consequences.

I come for the intelligent debate, but I stay for the shaming language and personal attacks.  Been fun guys, see you in another few months.

Flounce, flounce, flounce. You sound like r3v with the moronic guilt trip.

serious bette @ #36

Reading the comments section on this blog always makes me wish that there were at least one liberal out there who was just as nasty and self-serving as your average libertarian wingnut. Because said liberal would have the stomach for developing and selling a product that appeals wildly to libertarians (like Galt beans that make your penis grow and fill your pockets with an endless supply of gold coins). Then when libertarians buy it and realize it is a total fraud they will have the unenviable choice of standing on their mindless “principle” (no government regulation) or availing themselves of the government run legal system to sue the maker of this crappy product for fraud.

Actually, not really. See, when they’re conned, they’re the wounded parties decieved by false and misleading claims. When others are conned, the idiots got what’s coming to them.

Hypocritical? Very. But what do you expect.

And of course, I’ve been beaten to the punch long ago.

But Magnets! How the fuck do they work?

You buy them at $2 each in bulk.  You stick two of them on a $0.60 plastic bracelet using cheap El Salvadorian labour costing $5 an hour, plus $2.50 overhead, in which they do 20 bracelets.  You then sell the result for $19.95, with about 20% of that going to packaging, handling and transport.

Next stupid question?

Yeah, I know, the joke is old PitaoR.

Should all of the “make you smarter” products be subject to government oversight if they use the words “synapse” or “glial cell” or “occipital lobe”?

Such products should be (and are) subject to oversight concerning false advertising. If a company is going to make medical claims about a product, it should be expected to back them up. If that product has the potential to cause physical harm (e.g. due to ingestion or application), then the company has to show it’s safe. This is the purpose of laws and standards.

What about beauty products and services?  Want to ban any face cream that uses the word “epidermis” in its marketing?

Again, if it’s making a medical claim, then it’s subject to laws against false advertising and/or safety regulation. In your example the epidermis is simply where it’s applied, not necessarily what it cures medically. Nice try, though.

So if markets in general can’t be considered self-regulating, then markets in general should be regulated.  Sounds like she’s saying exactly what I think she is, then.

That’s exactly the same as “regulating the sale of all products everywhere?” You’re really sticking by that? Now I’m beginning to suspect that you really are still in high school.

There’s a balance to be achieved, and no-one here is the second coming of Chairman Mao or calling for a state command economy. But when you start arguing against things like anti-fraud legislation (sold with fraudulent claims does not require state intervention), you reveal yourself to be as much of an ideology-blinkered fool as whatever brand of political commissar ran your birthplace. Congratulations.

I come for the intelligent debate, but I stay for the shaming language and personal attacks.  Been fun guys, see you in another few months.

A Libertarian asking for pity when his arguments fall flat is like a Libertarian asking for charity when his railroad and metal alloys scheme fails—it’s just not done.

These things should be banned only if they get people killed or cause harm.

No one is saying that any product that references the epidermis should be banned. But when products start making medical claims like “this makes your epidermis healthier!” then yes, they should be regulated. Because those claims are actual verifiable/falsifiable statements, which means they can be lies, and society generally (rightly) takes lies about medical issues quite seriously.* At the very least regulation will allow the public to actually know whether or not the claims are lies; surely a rational consumer must also be an informed one? You can’t make rational decisions about whether to use a product if the manufacturer is allowed to say whatever they want to about it, veracity be damned. Words have to mean something.

*when those lies might adversely affect middle-class white dudes, that is…

To illustrate the wisdom of the international free market in operation, do you remember the pet food melamine poisoning episode and the poisonous cough syrups and toothpastes episodes in 2007? The former affected many pets and pet owners in the United States, the latter was mainly in Latin America, but in both instances the poisoning was the result of manufacturers’ sourcing ingredients internationally, for the lowest, supposedly most “rational” price. Even when there was no fraudulent intent, ingredients were shipped through many intermediaries and the proper labeling was lost.

As usual with libertarians, they’ve never lived in countries where the lack of regulation means that you must be vigilant at all times or be victimized.

You buy them at $2 each in bulk.  You stick two of them on a $0.60 plastic bracelet using cheap El Salvadorian labour costing $5 an hour, plus $2.50 overhead, in which they do 20 bracelets.  You then sell the result for $19.95, with about 20% of that going to packaging, handling and transport.

Don’t you know how to exploit?  $5/hour?  Try 50 cents…  Think of the savings and extra profits.

“These things should be banned only if they get people killed or cause harm.”

You’re not much of a believer in the free market after all.  Now, does defrauding people and taking their money for a product that dos not work as claimed cause harm?  You have ten seconds to answer.

Now where did anyone propose that the government regulate “everything”?  Nice straw man ya got there Peter.  Does it do anything besides disappear?

Don’t you know how to exploit?  $5/hour?  Try 50 cents… Think of the savings and extra profits.

Shows how smart YOU are. 

In the above example, the biggest cost by far was the bulk magnets, followed by packaging/handling/transport.  It’s cheaper to pay $5 an hour to immigrants in the US than $.50 to the same people outside the US, if it raises that transport cost any significant amount.

The true exploiter will be screwing around with the magnets.  You could, for example, just package iron bars and claim that they’re “omnidirectional magnets”.

If you’re a Real Libertarian, you can claim that governmental regulation creates the false-advertising problem it purports to adddress, because without laws forbidding false advertising no one would believe ad claims. Whereas once the govt steps in there’s a default assumption that everything on TV or in print is true…

Yeah, I’ve actually seen crap like that.

What libertarians miss is the huge value that regulations offer to business. If I make a product and it conforms to relevant regs, there’s a strong presumption that any damage someone does to themselves with it is their own damn fault.  Without that presumption, any time some idiot brought a nuisance suit I’d have to establish the safety-in-proper-use of my product from square one with expert witnesses. And that’s even before I’d have to do all the safety research for each product from square one, instead of just looking up relevant standards and regs.

Of course, some soi-disant libertarians are also against general access to the courts for litigation to redress liability claims, so maybe in their own minds they’ve solved this problem.

“Want to ban any face cream that uses the word “epidermis” in its marketing?  These things should be banned only if they get people killed or cause harm. “

um…duh? you’re now in the zone of making things up and not understanding english words. if you can copy and paste where someone said we should BAN all products making a medical claim, please do. otherwise i’m forced to conclude you’re dumb or a liar. NO SHIT harmful things should be banned. do you know what the word regulate means? it means there are rules. how about, you can’t lie? how about, ingredients known to be harmful have to be marked, or if they are seriously toxic, consider banning them.

cigarettes are regulated. you do know it’s still legal for adults to buy them , right? we REGULATE who can buy them, how they are advertised, and how they are labeled. THAT is what the word means. ban is a different english word.

crack a book sometime, dumbass. any book.

These pseudo-libertarians (I refuse to call them true libertarians) are just crazy.  I was watching this video on Reason.com (out of twisted curiosity) and the dude comes out and says, “seatbelts save lives, but I don’t think they should be mandatory.”  I’m thinking to myself, “seatbelts save lives because they are mandatory.”  Society would be scary if these people were ever in charge.

a dilution of duck, which especially qualifies as “quack medicine”.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck… dilute that shit down, it’s way too concentrated! :p

But more seriously… um… like, an entire duck? Diluted? Is it part of a duck? Is it some liquid of duck extraction? Do they just sort of make a duck paddle around in a bathtub and bottle the water? I genuinely need to know now. How do you dilute a duck?

But more seriously… um… like, an entire duck? Diluted? Is it part of a duck? Is it some liquid of duck extraction? Do they just sort of make a duck paddle around in a bathtub and bottle the water? I genuinely need to know now. How do you dilute a duck?

I’m gonna bottle a bit of the ocean and offer it as a homeopathic Pamela Anderson…

But a homeopathic Pam Anderson would reduce one’s pulchritude. Where’s the market for that? “Reduce your sexiness today!”

Dude, we’re talking homeopathic pr0n here - my target audience is really stupid horny males lacking critical judgement.  Besides, chacon a son goat (*)

And the beauty of it is that if they don’t sell, I can offer the exact same bottles as homeopathic Natalie Portmans or Hayden Panettieres based on these pictures I have of them frolicking bikini-clad in the waves (**).

(*) “Each to their own perversion”

(**) Acquired entirely for market research reasons.

There’s no such thing as the placebo effect, at least not under the flawed understanding that you demonstrate. Metastudies have shown that placebos show no significant effect compared to no treatment at all. What you call the ‘placebo effect’ is simply the baseline, what happens when *nothing* of use is done to help the patient. The reason to use double blind studies is to remove researcher bias, not because the placebos themselves have an actual effect on the patient.

I hate to back up anything PZ1 said, but this is all extremely wrong. Like, the exact opposite of true. If you’ve got a reference for the metastudies that would be interesting.

Ben Goldacre writes about the placebo effect very well, so I googled to find this video of him talking about it.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/02/ben_goldacre_on_the_placebo_ef.php

And PZ1 isn’t wrong about alternative medicine working due to this effect either. And I’m sure the stupid bracelet worked for a lot of people too, although of course that doesn’t mean that they should have been allowed to advertise it with lies. I will never fucking understand the libertarian anti-information agenda. Even in theory people need perfect information for markets to work efficiently.

And what exactly prevents individuals from grouping together to sue these corporations for making fraudulent claims?

Oh I love this. Who do you think provides the courts, the judges and the bailiffs for execution of judgement, you twit?  Unicorns?

Why is court action more libertarian than regulatory action?  Both involve the government and state power, after all.

I will never fucking understand the libertarian anti-information agenda.

The only thing most of these dorks have going for them is assymetric information. If the Internet didn’t give mopes like PZ1 a place to spout off, they’d be decrying this information leveller as the artifact of big government that it is.

Why is court action more libertarian than regulatory action?

Since PZ1 bravely ran away, I’ll answer as if he took an honesty pill:

“Regulatory action applies equally to all citizens, whether they’re malingerers and moochers or upstanding types like my Galtian self. Courts, while open to all citizens in principle, are mainly used by (and run by) upstanding types like myself.”

I don’t know too much about PZ1, but I’m guessing he’s male, white, straight, and middle class. I’d add educated, but his comments here make me question that.

As an anarchist socialist I have a lot of objections to Leninism. These days it looks like my number one objection is that it creates a lot of damaged individuals fleeing countries that implemented Leninism, who then end up in the West and waste the rest of their lives and ours writing libertarian garbage out of resentment (Ayn Rand, PeterZeroOne).

I’d add educated, but his comments here make me question that.

Hey now, you can be educated without being knowledgeable or smart. Or wise.

Or observant. Or curious. Or in tune with reality ...

kristin #86:

That’s what think tanks are for…

@Comment #57: Phoenician in a time of Romans on 01/04 at 05:14 PM

Reading the comments section on this blog always makes me wish that there were at least one liberal out there who was just as nasty and self-serving as your average libertarian wingnut.

[Buffs fingernails modestly]

I also would like to be in the running.

The problem with the notion that all consumers are rational enough to control the markets with regulatory interference

I think you meant “without”. Other than that, spot on.

Hmmm. Should we now arrest the grandma owner and regulate my local Jewish Deli, which claims its chicken soup cures all ills? What about the local priest on the efficacy of prayer? Or the local politician on his promises? Or this blog on its product opinions?

The “nutty product argument” has been made many times to suppress products later found beneficial.

The Libertarian point is as I understand it that all programs should be voluntarily provided, and insured products and open information encouraged. This includes regulatory entities. Their critique is that coercive programs such as these regulatory agencies are typically smokescreens to hide bad products and decieve the public. The appropriate response is to put the claims in front of a jury, which may, based on the actual representations, decide the item is a harmless bauble or a dangerous deception…and to inform consumers to look for insured products certified by open and objective outside entities themselves insured and NOT rely on entities that are coercive monopolies, uninsured and legally immune from mis-informing the public…which I suspect this regulatory agency is.

http://www.Libertarian-International.org has some other interesting information on what Libertarians are doing. Thanks for an interesting post.

Ralphs: Because randomly selected panels of citizens are guaranteed to be better informed and educated than than actual experts. Riiight…