[Cartertonian]

You might think it odd that I chose to post this in the Libertaranism forum, but I hope you will see the relevance if you read on.

I have been coming to this place, now, for over six years. I started precisely because I was unsure what my political views were and wanted clarity. The fact that it has taken me over six years to attempt even this first draft of my views indicates that clarity is a rare commodity on PoFo.

Firstly, I believe it is inescapable that people’s views will be founded upon that to which they have been exposed, be it by nature or nurture, over their lives. The brain is nothing more than an organic computer and it can only process (and is thus limited by) the information it contains. Therefore, I think intellectual maturity is only achieved when one is able to challenge one’s own beliefs, in acknowledgement that they are based on incomplete and subjective data, and go out and seek more data to confirm, refute or simply refine one’s beliefs.

What I see on PoFo, day in and day out, is that most (clearly not all, but most) posters are unwilling to acknowledge that their beliefs may be founded upon incomplete and subjective data and compensate for that by shouting more loudly and debating more aggressively.

This leads me to my second point. I have said before that, ‘Politics is the ‘Sales & Marketing’ of governance.’ What do I mean? In real life, my work has and continues to periodically bring me into contact with both politicians and the process of government and that exposure has led me to conclude that the two are not the same. The process of government goes on, irrespective of which particular colour of rosette is worn by those who go out and try to convince the electorate that what is being done in that process is right and proper and worthy of their support. That is, they ‘sell’ the policies of government (which is largely controlled by nominally ‘apolitical’ civil servants) to the people. Thus, a minister does not make decisions. They are merely the chief spokesperson, charged with going out and convincing everyone (including their own peers) that the decision that was made is a good one.

The means by which this is done takes me to point three, which also ties in with what happens here in our beloved PoFo. The very structure of our political debate is adversarial. It was designed that way, yet because it is all we see, we assume it is normal and reasonable and correct. It is not. At its core, an adversarial system merely accords victory to the person with the best argument. There are no quality control checks as to whether the best argument represented the best policy or position. We have allowed ourselves to be deluded into believing that the two are the same when clearly they are not. Invoking Godwin’s Law, some chap with a toothbrush moustache had some pretty powerful arguments, way back when, but most people would not now regard them as correct. The old English adage, ‘empty vessels make most noise’, is pertinent here.

These first three points, though, are about the ‘how’ of political opinion. It was important, though, to spell these things out before I went on to the ‘what’.

First and foremost, then: The Golden Rule. As at my ‘point one’, I was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended several RC schools. Aside from my view now on faith schools, that has a number of effects on me. Given the current thorny issue of radical Islam, for example, I remember as a primary school child being told, unequivocally, by the Irish nuns who taught us, that everyone in the World who was not Roman Catholic would burn in the fires of Hell. What I remember more, though, is that even at that tender age I had a profound sense of how wrong that statement was and how it did not at all match the message I had taken from the teachings of Jesus. Perhaps it was in that moment that I first saw the essence of a faith as separate from the Earthly governance of that faith through its institutions. Anyhow, setting faith issues to one side there seems to me a good deal of overlap between the Christian Golden Rule and the Non-Aggression Principle.

My personal interpretation is that if the wishes of a person or persons require the exploitation, ill-treatment, subjugation and/or extermination of other people, then those wishes are unacceptable.

The problem with that view – as is the problem with every view on anything, one could argue – is that it only works if everyone signs up to it. Thus, despite holding that view in relation to an ‘ideal world’, I acknowledge that the world is far from ideal and that there are some circumstances where those unacceptable wishes may have to be grudgingly tolerated. I suppose that makes me a pragmatist and a realist rather than an absolutist or dogmatist.

Moving on, despite (or perhaps because of) my background, I find my mature self to be surprisingly anti-authoritarian. As the son of a police officer, I was initially brought up to believe, in essence, that those who made the laws knew better than we did and it was our civic duty to obey the laws. Having had dealings with politicians and government – as previously mentioned – I have a firm belief now that those who make the laws conspicuously DO NOT know better than we do and should not enjoy the power to inflict their often dogmatic and grossly ideological views on the rest of us through the law or by any other means.

The unresolved difficulty for me, given such views, is that I cannot currently conceive of a society that could function without some sort of hierarchical structure and authority. Or rather, the only situation of which I can conceive would involve the wholesale break-up of what we collectively regard as ‘society’ and that would be as revolutionary and unachievable as any pie-in-the-sky ideologue’s dream.

Next, it would not be unreasonable to describe me as ‘anti-capitalist’, although I am not given to occupying anywhere or marching at the G20, etc. Why? Going back to my Golden Rule/NAP view about exploitation, what I see around me in the ‘market’ is not fair and reasonable exchange of goods and services, but widespread, deliberate, calculated attempts to part people from as much of their money as is physically possible. It’s not a ‘buyers market’. It’s never a ‘buyers market’. It’s an immoral and criminal game that is always stacked in favour of those who are really in control – the capitalists. It’s even enshrined in UK law that a company’s first responsibility is not to its customers – but to its shareholders. If you’re in business and therefore your livelihood – quality of life and continued existence – depends on extracting money from other people, your motivation is going to be to extract as much money as you physically can from those people. Even if you claim to be genuinely interested in ensuring your customers get a good deal, you’re only doing so to maximise your likely profits. There’s no altruism involved. Ergo, the whole process is about people being exploited.

I suspect that, like the Communists, the Capitalists will argue that their precious ideology has never had the opportunity to prove itself because extrinsic factors have always impeded it. As with religion, I’m agnostic about that. I just don’t know. All I do know is that I’m 46 years old and everything I see about the practice of business and commerce in my country seems to be about squeezing more and more money out of those with the least and directing it to those with, increasingly, the most.

Finally, for the time being, one could be forgiven for thinking I was well on the way to becoming some New-Age-Traveller-Anarchist type, but actually (and confusingly) I still see the need for a state of some description. Almost certainly because, until eighteen months ago, I had spent my entire working life as a public servant, I am drawn to the idea of managing our affairs in such a way as to ensure that everyone has access to education, healthcare and other services that can only be effectively provided on the basis of, ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its parts’; that is to say, collectivism over individualism. This sits comfortably, in my view, with the Golden Rule. If there were some way of structuring society so that it was more participative, consensual and mutually beneficial and supportive, without it becoming self-serving and authoritarian, I’d love to hear of it.

So, congratulations to those who resisted the temptation to respond, ‘tl.dr’. Given that this is a first draft, how might I further refine my views?

[slybaldguy]

I suggest you look into Jonathan Bowden.

[Cartertonian]

Is that to, 'confirm, refute or refine', my views?

I don't think the late Mr Bowden was all that keen on building the sort of society in which I might be interested.

[slybaldguy]

Mainly to challenge your views and potentially prokove insight. You do seem to be on the fence. I even persuaded Decky to sit through a 50 minute interview with the late Mr Bowden.

[youtube]aL3agVbX6K8[/youtube]

[Pants-of-dog]

You might think it odd that I chose to post this in the Libertaranism forum, but I hope you will see the relevance if you read on.

I have been coming to this place, now, for over six years. I started precisely because I was unsure what my political views were and wanted clarity. The fact that it has taken me over six years to attempt even this first draft of my views indicates that clarity is a rare commodity on PoFo.

Firstly, I believe it is inescapable that people’s views will be founded upon that to which they have been exposed, be it by nature or nurture, over their lives. The brain is nothing more than an organic computer and it can only process (and is thus limited by) the information it contains. Therefore, I think intellectual maturity is only achieved when one is able to challenge one’s own beliefs, in acknowledgement that they are based on incomplete and subjective data, and go out and seek more data to confirm, refute or simply refine one’s beliefs.

What I see on PoFo, day in and day out, is that most (clearly not all, but most) posters are unwilling to acknowledge that their beliefs may be founded upon incomplete and subjective data and compensate for that by shouting more loudly and debating more aggressively.

This leads me to my second point. I have said before that, ‘Politics is the ‘Sales & Marketing’ of governance.’ What do I mean? In real life, my work has and continues to periodically bring me into contact with both politicians and the process of government and that exposure has led me to conclude that the two are not the same. The process of government goes on, irrespective of which particular colour of rosette is worn by those who go out and try to convince the electorate that what is being done in that process is right and proper and worthy of their support. That is, they ‘sell’ the policies of government (which is largely controlled by nominally ‘apolitical’ civil servants) to the people. Thus, a minister does not make decisions. They are merely the chief spokesperson, charged with going out and convincing everyone (including their own peers) that the decision that was made is a good one.

The means by which this is done takes me to point three, which also ties in with what happens here in our beloved PoFo. The very structure of our political debate is adversarial. It was designed that way, yet because it is all we see, we assume it is normal and reasonable and correct. It is not. At its core, an adversarial system merely accords victory to the person with the best argument. There are no quality control checks as to whether the best argument represented the best policy or position. We have allowed ourselves to be deluded into believing that the two are the same when clearly they are not. Invoking Godwin’s Law, some chap with a toothbrush moustache had some pretty powerful arguments, way back when, but most people would not now regard them as correct. The old English adage, ‘empty vessels make most noise’, is pertinent here.

These first three points, though, are about the ‘how’ of political opinion. It was important, though, to spell these things out before I went on to the ‘what’.

First and foremost, then: The Golden Rule. As at my ‘point one’, I was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended several RC schools. Aside from my view now on faith schools, that has a number of effects on me. Given the current thorny issue of radical Islam, for example, I remember as a primary school child being told, unequivocally, by the Irish nuns who taught us, that everyone in the World who was not Roman Catholic would burn in the fires of Hell. What I remember more, though, is that even at that tender age I had a profound sense of how wrong that statement was and how it did not at all match the message I had taken from the teachings of Jesus. Perhaps it was in that moment that I first saw the essence of a faith as separate from the Earthly governance of that faith through its institutions. Anyhow, setting faith issues to one side there seems to me a good deal of overlap between the Christian Golden Rule and the Non-Aggression Principle.

My personal interpretation is that if the wishes of a person or persons require the exploitation, ill-treatment, subjugation and/or extermination of other people, then those wishes are unacceptable.

The problem with that view – as is the problem with every view on anything, one could argue – is that it only works if everyone signs up to it. Thus, despite holding that view in relation to an ‘ideal world’, I acknowledge that the world is far from ideal and that there are some circumstances where those unacceptable wishes may have to be grudgingly tolerated. I suppose that makes me a pragmatist and a realist rather than an absolutist or dogmatist.

I agree. Well said.

Moving on, despite (or perhaps because of) my background, I find my mature self to be surprisingly anti-authoritarian. As the son of a police officer, I was initially brought up to believe, in essence, that those who made the laws knew better than we did and it was our civic duty to obey the laws. Having had dealings with politicians and government – as previously mentioned – I have a firm belief now that those who make the laws conspicuously DO NOT know better than we do and should not enjoy the power to inflict their often dogmatic and grossly ideological views on the rest of us through the law or by any other means.

I was brought up with the idea that "those who make the laws conspicuously DO NOT know better than we do" and that we need to go make some noise every now and then to keep them in line.

The unresolved difficulty for me, given such views, is that I cannot currently conceive of a society that could function without some sort of hierarchical structure and authority. Or rather, the only situation of which I can conceive would involve the wholesale break-up of what we collectively regard as ‘society’ and that would be as revolutionary and unachievable as any pie-in-the-sky ideologue’s dream.

Next, it would not be unreasonable to describe me as ‘anti-capitalist’, although I am not given to occupying anywhere or marching at the G20, etc. Why? Going back to my Golden Rule/NAP view about exploitation, what I see around me in the ‘market’ is not fair and reasonable exchange of goods and services, but widespread, deliberate, calculated attempts to part people from as much of their money as is physically possible. It’s not a ‘buyers market’. It’s never a ‘buyers market’. It’s an immoral and criminal game that is always stacked in favour of those who are really in control – the capitalists. It’s even enshrined in UK law that a company’s first responsibility is not to its customers – but to its shareholders. If you’re in business and therefore your livelihood – quality of life and continued existence – depends on extracting money from other people, your motivation is going to be to extract as much money as you physically can from those people. Even if you claim to be genuinely interested in ensuring your customers get a good deal, you’re only doing so to maximise your likely profits. There’s no altruism involved. Ergo, the whole process is about people being exploited.

I suspect that, like the Communists, the Capitalists will argue that their precious ideology has never had the opportunity to prove itself because extrinsic factors have always impeded it. As with religion, I’m agnostic about that. I just don’t know. All I do know is that I’m 46 years old and everything I see about the practice of business and commerce in my country seems to be about squeezing more and more money out of those with the least and directing it to those with, increasingly, the most.

Finally, for the time being, one could be forgiven for thinking I was well on the way to becoming some New-Age-Traveller-Anarchist type, but actually (and confusingly) I still see the need for a state of some description. Almost certainly because, until eighteen months ago, I had spent my entire working life as a public servant, I am drawn to the idea of managing our affairs in such a way as to ensure that everyone has access to education, healthcare and other services that can only be effectively provided on the basis of, ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its parts’; that is to say, collectivism over individualism. This sits comfortably, in my view, with the Golden Rule. If there were some way of structuring society so that it was more participative, consensual and mutually beneficial and supportive, without it becoming self-serving and authoritarian, I’d love to hear of it.

You seem to be asking how the people, the market, and the state all interact to make a community, and how to improve that community by changing these parts and the relationship between them.

I think that first of all, we have to look at what works an what doesn't. Public health care seems to work well. Private supermarkets seem to work fine too. A lot depends on how well it would fit into a free market model. The right wing libertarians would have us believe that all things fit into this model. I would argue that we are in a continual experiment to see what does and what does not.

The interesting thing about the whole capitalist/communist spectrum is that the whole spectrum fits entirely within the statist perspective. Both extremes require a state. So, if you want one of these two or a mix thereof, you need a state.

But you don't need to stay on that spectrum either. You can go some other way. From what I have read of your posts, you don't seem like the type to go nationalist or fascist, or any "Third Way". But there are more than 3 ways to go about it. There are an infinite number of ways to go about things.

All this to say that having a consistent ideology may not be useful. I usually decide on a case by case basis, based on several criteria. First of all, I think about what kind of society I want (free, egalitarian, sustainable, safe, healthy, clean) and then I think about practical ways of getting there step by step.

So, congratulations to those who resisted the temptation to respond, ‘tl.dr’. Given that this is a first draft, how might I further refine my views?

It would not surprise me in the least to find out that I was not the only person waiting for you to make a thread like this.

[mikema63]

Certainly the thread gives a lot of insight, but for an ideological update it's a bit thin on actual policies.

I suppose you might be looking for a political system that acts more like the peer review process than what we have now. What I would want to see is political policies and processes to be based on actual data about what is actually achieving a goal. I don't know if you'd be interested in it, not many people agree with me that the scientific method should be applied to the political system.

[Drlee]

I agree with just about all of your conclusions. We share similar backgrounds it would appear.

I find your work in progress consistent with your "militant centrist" position. I share your belief that what is required is not a major overhaul but an evolution toward a "kinder and gentler" form of capitalism. (Or whatever you want to call it.)

Moving on, despite (or perhaps because of) my background, I find my mature self to be surprisingly anti-authoritarian. As the son of a police officer, I was initially brought up to believe, in essence, that those who made the laws knew better than we did and it was our civic duty to obey the laws. Having had dealings with politicians and government – as previously mentioned – I have a firm belief now that those who make the laws conspicuously DO NOT know better than we do and should not enjoy the power to inflict their often dogmatic and grossly ideological views on the rest of us through the law or by any other means.

So true. And you and I were soldiers. We saw the institutionalization of "right thinking" reposing it in one person.

I am not so afraid of these petty despots however. I am more afraid of the power of capital. In this form, control is exerted by faceless and therefor blameless individuals. So if capitalists are legally beholding to those who fund their efforts and politicians are allowed to be purchased as in the US system, then there is no organized representative of the common man. Bread and circuses again I suppose.

What I see on PoFo, day in and day out, is that most (clearly not all, but most) posters are unwilling to acknowledge that their beliefs may be founded upon incomplete and subjective data and compensate for that by shouting more loudly and debating more aggressively.

Or they know that quite well, as you do, but attempt to vent their frustrations here by doggedly defending the few ideas in which they feel they can honestly believe they have found some elemental truth. Doesn't applying the 'golden rule' test lead one to do just that?

There’s no altruism involved. Ergo, the whole process is about people being exploited.

And this, to me, is the most important point you make. This is why we have passed from a world view that is young and into which the entrepreneurs a capitalists are the explorers to a world in which they have become colonizers.

In my view the next great challenge is how to define people (in general) as important in a world where they are more features of the landscape that the very fiber of society. And the depersonalization of society is far more advanced than we have yet come to realize.

A couple of hours ago, I looked up repair on a Nikon camera that I own. Now two hours later, a machine (and the key is machine) in the service of some capitalist somewhere, chose to present me with a camera advert on this very site. Seems innocuous enough at first. Just good marketing. But sometimes what I post leads to political ads in the service of those same people. A machine in the service of someone I may not even know exists, decides what I should see, attempts to lure me into reading its program and produce in me a change of position or opinion.

So Carter, you and I are of an age when we can remember that we could actually get lost in the world. We could go places where nobody knew where we were and where nobody knew who we were. Our opinions were hard-won and came at the end of considerable effort on our part. There were not spoon-fed to us one byte at a time. To me this is the crux of the issue and it may already be to late to ask what I believe is the most compelling question of our time....What does it mean to be a person and what should we do to protect that meaning?

On this subject I am not unsympathetic with the libertarian view of self-agency. Sadly I believe their path to it leads us down the rabbit hole. Libertarians are oh-so caught up in their own rhetoric and I dearly wish that their pathos could be channeled to deeper and more questioning pathways. Sometimes I just want to shake them for being such dupes but then what is to be done about it?

So where does the answer lie? If it does not lie in bending government to the popular will and compelling that government to protect us, then I don't know where to go. Manning the barricades is just another Facebook exercise these days it seems.

[Cartertonian]

Thanks for the replies, folks.

You seem to be asking how the people, the market, and the state all interact to make a community, and how to improve that community by changing these parts and the relationship between them.

I suppose I wish that's what politics was.

Some would argue that that's what politics is, I suppose.

for an ideological update it's a bit thin on actual policies.

Ah-ha! There - as Shakespeare might observe - is the rub!

The problem with a forum like this is that if I were to specify a list of policies, relating to the main policy areas, some PoliSci geek would trawl all over my policy ideas and highlight how they are inconsistent with my stated views/wouldn't work/are ideologically motivated, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah... I'm not averse to meeting that challenge, but I wanted to sound out my political footing, so to speak, before committing myself.

And you and I were soldiers.

True. My NAP and anti-authoritarian views may seem at odds with my experience to some. As you allude most eloquently, there is wisdom gained in the experience of soldiering (and life in general). I've said before that you will never meet so ardent a group of pacifists as the assembled officers of many nations who gather annually for the Advanced Command and Staff Course at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom in Shrivenham, Wiltshire. With few exceptions, officers who have sufficient seniority and attendant service experience to have won a place on ACSC will know from painful personal experience that as an agent of their nation state they are charged with conducting themselves apolitically and that they may well not personally agree with the policies being pursued through force of arms by their national government, but yet that their constitutional role remains to act upon the will of their elected national government. For myself - I never made it to ACSC, but did attend for the Intermediate Command and Staff Course - I see military force as a necessary evil. I - and the aforementioned ACSC officers - would dearly love to see a world in which soldiery was no longer required. We all regretfully conclude, however, that we do not yet live in such a world. Ergo, in relation to my anti-authoritarian views, I can see the need for rigid heirarchical discipline in a military force. I wish such a force need not exist but whilst it must, I am not opposed to its employment of authoritarian principles. I do not, however, see any justification for authoritarianism in general society.

[Phred]

The process of government goes on, irrespective of which particular colour of rosette is worn by those who go out and try to convince the electorate that what is being done in that process is right and proper and worthy of their support. That is, they ‘sell’ the policies of government (which is largely controlled by nominally ‘apolitical’ civil servants) to the people. Thus, a minister does not make decisions. They are merely the chief spokesperson, charged with going out and convincing everyone (including their own peers) that the decision that was made is a good one.

Which is precisely why Libertarians insist on minimizing the areas in which government is allowed to intervene.

My personal interpretation is that if the wishes of a person or persons require the exploitation, ill-treatment, subjugation and/or extermination of other people, then those wishes are unacceptable.

Agreed.

The problem with that view – as is the problem with every view on anything, one could argue – is that it only works if everyone signs up to it.

Which is why - contrary to what Anarcho-Capitalists contend - government is a necessary evil. The sole legitimate purpose of government is to assist its constituents in dealing with those who don't "sign up to it."

The unresolved difficulty for me, given such views, is that I cannot currently conceive of a society that could function without some sort of hierarchical structure and authority.

Nor can I, hence my self-identification as a Libertarian/Laissez-faire Capitalist/Classical Liberal/Minarchist.

Next, it would not be unreasonable to describe me as ‘anti-capitalist’, although I am not given to occupying anywhere or marching at the G20, etc. Why? Going back to my Golden Rule/NAP view about exploitation, what I see around me in the ‘market’ is not fair and reasonable exchange of goods and services, but widespread, deliberate, calculated attempts to part people from as much of their money as is physically possible. It’s not a ‘buyers market’. It’s never a ‘buyers market’. It’s an immoral and criminal game that is always stacked in favour of those who are really in control – the capitalists.

And here is where you veer off into the weeds. What you see going around you today is not Capitalism, but Crony "Capitalism". Our esteemed colleague Eran calls it "Crapitalism".

It’s even enshrined in UK law that a company’s first responsibility is not to its customers – but to its shareholders.

As it should be.

If you’re in business and therefore your livelihood – quality of life and continued existence – depends on extracting money from other people, your motivation is going to be to extract as much money as you physically can from those people.

Even if this were true, so what?

Even if you claim to be genuinely interested in ensuring your customers get a good deal, you’re only doing so to maximise your likely profits.

The best way to maximize your profits over the long haul is to keep your customers happy.

There’s no altruism involved.

That's the beauty of the free market - there doesn't need to be altruism for people to get great deals. My self interest ("greed", if you prefer) leads to customer satisfaction.

Ergo, the whole process is about people being exploited.

And this conclusion pops out of nowhere. It doesn't follow from the preceding observations you just made.

You are still placing far too much emphasis on people's motivations. Motivations don't matter. What matters are actions. If my sister is saved from being raped in a dark alley by a fit young fellow passing by who hears her screams and responds by driving off her attacker, what does it matter what motivated this inarguably beneficial action of his? Maybe he hopes she'll give him a monetary award. Maybe he hopes she will accompany him on a date. Maybe he's spent a decade and a half training in the martial arts and is just itching to use them in a real life situation. Maybe her attacker is of swarthy complexion and her rescuer is an irredeemable racist who just can't pass up an opportunity for some wog-bashing. The bottom line is my sister is better off even if his motivation is not altruistic in the slightest.

All I do know is that I’m 46 years old and everything I see about the practice of business and commerce in my country seems to be about squeezing more and more money out of those with the least and directing it to those with, increasingly, the most.

Everything you see? Really? Even when you buy a Harry Potter book for your daughter at your nearest bookstore?

Almost certainly because, until eighteen months ago, I had spent my entire working life as a public servant...

Indeed. As you said earlier, your views are shaped by your milieu. If you've never had to make your living from money given to you voluntarily rather than money extracted from unwilling taxpayers with no say in the matter, your take on life will vary substantially from those who make their living in the free (relatively speaking, of course - the UK marketplace is very far indeed from being truly free) market.

I am drawn to the idea of managing our affairs...

That's the major difference between you and I. I prefer to manage my own affairs and let others manage theirs.

... in such a way as to ensure that everyone has access to education, healthcare and other services that can only be effectively provided on the basis of, ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its parts’; that is to say, collectivism over individualism.

Assumes facts most decidedly not in evidence - that these services are more effectively provided by government action than by individuals freely co-operating with each other.

If there were some way of structuring society so that it was more participative, consensual and mutually beneficial and supportive, without it becoming self-serving and authoritarian, I’d love to hear of it.

Laissez-faire Capitalism/Minarchism/Libertarianism/Classical Liberalism.


Phred

[Cartertonian]

Hi Phred

Thanks for responding to my thread.

Which is precisely why Libertarians insist on minimizing the areas in which government is allowed to intervene.

In general, I also prefer the government to legislate as little as possible. In my experience no sooner has the ink dried on a new policy, regulation or law than along comes someone whose circumstances had not been considered by the drafters of the rule (who were almost certainly ideologically motivated in drafting the rule the way they did in any case). Sadly, in our current governmental structure, the process is considered to be of far greater importance than the people and exceptions to the rule are rarely accommodated.

What you see going around you today is not Capitalism, but Crony "Capitalism".

Anticipating such a response,

I suspect that, like the Communists, the Capitalists will argue that their precious ideology has never had the opportunity to prove itself because extrinsic factors have always impeded it.

As I noted previously, these things are not allowed unfettered freedom because not everyone will sign up to the idea.

If you've never had to make your living from money given to you voluntarily....

I would have to say that I have never given my money to anyone voluntarily, but rather exceedingly grudgingly. Therefore, it’s difficult to imagine the capitalist notion of voluntary exchange. I approach every transaction I need to make from the perspective of caveat emptor – i.e. that the robbing bastard who’s trying to sell me stuff is trying to rip me off.

Now, just for the purposes of a live example, I’m currently engaged in trying to sell my car. The company I’m using recommended I list it at £4850, but I felt that was grossly over-priced, given that I know the faults of my vehicle. I listed it initially at £3995 and, after getting no interest, dropped it to £2995. At the end of the listing period (yesterday, as it happens) I got a phone call from a (sales-) lady that worked for the company, inviting me to extend my listing and offering me advice on how to better sell my vehicle. She removed all of the references I had made to things like, “age-related wear and tear”, and an open admission of a squealing fan belt and essentially re-wrote my advert, using stock phrases like “good condition for year”, etc. Now I have someone coming to view the car tomorrow morning. Hurrah for the sales-lady! But she’s not going to be there when I have to explain about the squealing fan belt and the ‘”age-related wear and tear” to the prospective buyer, who might reasonably complain that he wouldn’t have bothered travelling such a long way, had he known the truth about the condition of the vehicle (you can see why I’m not in sales, can’t you?) So, you see, there’s a good chance I won’t sell my car tomorrow, because I would hate to feel I was ripping anyone off and will insist on being honest about what I’m selling.

What a fool am I?

Yet, if one suggests that I should not be honest – or rather, be dishonest – in order to sell my car, where does that leave us? It leaves us back with the notion that capitalism is about exploitation again, as far as I am concerned. Capitalism, clearly, is about the little white lies, economies with the truth and bare-faced cheek that is needed in order to sell something for more than it is really worth. Yes, I’m a fool. But if honesty makes me foolish then so be it.

Everything you see? Really? Even when you buy a Harry Potter book for your daughter at your nearest bookstore?

Sure. The book probably cost the publishers £1.00 to make, ship and sell, so why am I paying £9.99 for it?

That's the major difference between you and I. I prefer to manage my own affairs and let others manage theirs.

That is the major difference. Again I acknowledge that it may well be my background as a nurse and public servant, but my working life to date has been dedicated to helping those who are unable to manage some aspect – or sometimes all – of their affairs. Vis my earlier position statements, I am no advocate of a ‘Nanny State’. I would like to see society evolve away from over-regulation and legislation into an enabling arrangement that helped as many people as possible achieve their potential. It’s how we get there that’s important. Another aspect, too, is how long that will take. I strongly suspect that it will take many generations for society to evolve into the kind of society I would wish to see.

[Potemkin]

Now, just for the purposes of a live example, I’m currently engaged in trying to sell my car. The company I’m using recommended I list it at £4850, but I felt that was grossly over-priced, given that I know the faults of my vehicle. I listed it initially at £3995 and, after getting no interest, dropped it to £2995. At the end of the listing period (yesterday, as it happens) I got a phone call from a (sales-) lady that worked for the company, inviting me to extend my listing and offering me advice on how to better sell my vehicle. She removed all of the references I had made to things like, “age-related wear and tear”, and an open admission of a squealing fan belt and essentially re-wrote my advert, using stock phrases like “good condition for year”, etc. Now I have someone coming to view the car tomorrow morning. Hurrah for the sales-lady! But she’s not going to be there when I have to explain about the squealing fan belt and the ‘”age-related wear and tear” to the prospective buyer, who might reasonably complain that he wouldn’t have bothered travelling such a long way, had he known the truth about the condition of the vehicle (you can see why I’m not in sales, can’t you?) So, you see, there’s a good chance I won’t sell my car tomorrow, because I would hate to feel I was ripping anyone off and will insist on being honest about what I’m selling.

What a fool am I?

The problem is that every buyer assumes (usually correctly) that the person trying to sell them a used car will understate the problems associated with their car. They therefore mentally correct whatever the seller tells them about the condition of said car. Your honesty is counterproductive precise because the potential buyer is assuming that you are not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They will therefore listen to your litany of the many problems your car has, and they will think to themselves, "If that's what he's willing to admit to, then what else is wrong with it that he's not telling me about?" You see the problem?

[blackjack21]

So, congratulations to those who resisted the temptation to respond, ‘tl.dr’. Given that this is a first draft, how might I further refine my views?

You're certainly to be congratulated on your introspection as well. One of the things that struck me is how much of your changing worldview comes from what you were taught and what you have experienced since. You are challenging your assumptions, and that is always a good thing in my opinion. I think another aspect is that including other worldviews into your analysis is also helpful. I read a fairly terse book sometime ago on the theory of finite and infinite games, and I remember someone saying something to me that reminded me of it: that you do not have a point of view until you can entertain more than one other point of view within in your point of view.

I interpreted that as more or less that as young people, we are more or less subscribers. As we mature, many of us begin to develop our own point of view. I've always found it interesting to look at alternative views as a way of testing my own.

What I see on PoFo, day in and day out, is that most (clearly not all, but most) posters are unwilling to acknowledge that their beliefs may be founded upon incomplete and subjective data and compensate for that by shouting more loudly and debating more aggressively.

I think all views are by definition incomplete. Certainty is one aspect that gets people to argue. However, I think we're getting to a point of understanding--kind of late the early 19th Century--where we're going to learn about new forces that we don't currently understand. Among the forces is that information isn't simply some sort of lifeless thing, but rather it wants to have adopters. Meme theory. When people talk about democracy as a battle of ideas, it always strikes me that ideas are doing battle and many people are often merely subscribing to them rather than doing any critical thinking.

This leads me to my second point. I have said before that, ‘Politics is the ‘Sales & Marketing’ of governance.’ What do I mean? In real life, my work has and continues to periodically bring me into contact with both politicians and the process of government and that exposure has led me to conclude that the two are not the same. The process of government goes on, irrespective of which particular colour of rosette is worn by those who go out and try to convince the electorate that what is being done in that process is right and proper and worthy of their support. That is, they ‘sell’ the policies of government (which is largely controlled by nominally ‘apolitical’ civil servants) to the people. Thus, a minister does not make decisions. They are merely the chief spokesperson, charged with going out and convincing everyone (including their own peers) that the decision that was made is a good one.

Or as Noam Chomsky put it, "Manufacturing Consent." I think there is another side of that coin, "Manufacturing Dissent."

Given the current thorny issue of radical Islam, for example, I remember as a primary school child being told, unequivocally, by the Irish nuns who taught us, that everyone in the World who was not Roman Catholic would burn in the fires of Hell.

I remember that too, and I think they have actually paid a pretty terrible price for it. I rarely go to church, but I'm surprised at how much more ecumenical American-raised Catholic priests are now. I was also as surprised when I attended an aunt's funeral, and the priest indicated that "we Catholics" believe in a very literal resurrection--that you will be brought back to life after you die.

What I remember more, though, is that even at that tender age I had a profound sense of how wrong that statement was and how it did not at all match the message I had taken from the teachings of Jesus.

I had a similar reaction, and as I think back on it, I think the reason was that even at that young age, it's rather obviously counter intuitive. If God loves us all, why would he send like 5 out of 6 people to hell? That just seems horribly punitive.

Anyhow, setting faith issues to one side there seems to me a good deal of overlap between the Christian Golden Rule and the Non-Aggression Principle.

I think that's true. I would add that I think forgiveness is also a very important aspect of Christian faith. You will be screwed over by people, and more than once in your lifetime, and you will have a very firm foundation for condemning people; however, the only way back to happiness is forgiveness. It's a bit like a finger trap: the harder you resist it, the tighter the hold on you judgement has. Yet, you cannot escape being judgmental either. Finite games like Prisoner's Dilemma have a Nash equilibrium that suggests you always have an incentive to throw the other guy under the bus. It's when you compare it to Iterative Prisoner's Dilemma that something interesting happens. In Prisoner's Dilemma, you don't know what the other player did in the move before you. In Iterative Prisoner's Dilemma you do. So when you keep playing, you have an incentive to forgive someone who through you under the bus so that on his next move, he won't do it again.

The problem with that view – as is the problem with every view on anything, one could argue – is that it only works if everyone signs up to it.

I look at this a bit like Christ's teaching of "turn the other cheek." The teaching if it is compared back to Iterative Prisoner's Dilemma has a limitation. If you forgive, and the other guy throws you under the bus again, you have to do the same to him in the next move. In other words, if you turn the other cheek, and your adversary strikes, then you kick his ass. It does work out mathematically, and if you both want to get out of prison, you both have to forgive.

Moving on, despite (or perhaps because of) my background, I find my mature self to be surprisingly anti-authoritarian.

I do as well. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Next, it would not be unreasonable to describe me as ‘anti-capitalist’, although I am not given to occupying anywhere or marching at the G20, etc. Why? Going back to my Golden Rule/NAP view about exploitation, what I see around me in the ‘market’ is not fair and reasonable exchange of goods and services, but widespread, deliberate, calculated attempts to part people from as much of their money as is physically possible.

I would say there is both fair and reasonable exchange and attempts at exploitation. Although, I think more of the exploitation comes from government interference in situations where the consumer cannot substitute or refrain from consumption.

If you’re in business and therefore your livelihood – quality of life and continued existence – depends on extracting money from other people, your motivation is going to be to extract as much money as you physically can from those people.

However, there is another side of that coin. Brokerages and banks look for depositors to use their money without risk for a time and a guaranteed return on the use of money, or with risk and potential for capital gains or losses. In other words there are people who are seeking to use your money and may provide you with substantially more in return. I did that last year--I took a voluntary pay cut, as much as I could afford--and received stock in exchange. It paid off this year very handsomely--like 20-to-1.

If there were some way of structuring society so that it was more participative, consensual and mutually beneficial and supportive, without it becoming self-serving and authoritarian, I’d love to hear of it.

I work in open source software. Software is free, but service is not. Customers pay for your labor and experience, not for a copyright or license. I think society has to get reconfigured more that way. For example, a lot of people like the notion of socialized medicine. I don't at all. Personally, if the medical system can't help you, I don't think they should get paid. I've seen too many examples now where doctors and hospitals couldn't help the patient, but the patient gets charged tens of thousands of dollars anyway. Outcomes are not a determining factor in how much a doctor or hospital gets paid, and I think in systems like that, we would do a lot better if physicians had positive financial incentive to do a good job and not just a negative incentive to avoid screwing up.

I suppose you might be looking for a political system that acts more like the peer review process than what we have now. What I would want to see is political policies and processes to be based on actual data about what is actually achieving a goal. I don't know if you'd be interested in it, not many people agree with me that the scientific method should be applied to the political system.

There could be a lot of reasons for that. In my debate over medicine, for example, I've been on and off dating a doctor who says that there is a lot of money to be made in not solving problems. I think she's right. In the movie, "A Beautiful Mind," John Nash came up with his equilibrium theorem when he saw that self-interested had to be aligned with collective interest in order to work. I think what's broken in our system is that self-interest is allowed to work out of line with the collective interest. In many cases, I think they even create a veil of collective interest. For example, our courts decided that the primary reason that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center fell was because of negligence by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Why? So they could give money to survivors. Yet, the casualty there is respect for the law, among other things. Al Qaeda was clearly the more culpable factor, but our society has a sort of degenerate streak that says, "Hey, I'm screwing over A to help B and C. See what a good person I am?"

I share your belief that what is required is not a major overhaul but an evolution toward a "kinder and gentler" form of capitalism. (Or whatever you want to call it.)

I think John Nash was much closer to it in saying that the self-interest must align with or not be in conflict with the collective interest in order to enjoy the benefits of capitalism without it becoming a Faustian bargain.

So if capitalists are legally beholding to those who fund their efforts and politicians are allowed to be purchased as in the US system, then there is no organized representative of the common man. Bread and circuses again I suppose.

Personally, I think bread and circuses is nothing more than our electorate allowing themselves to be purchased. One thing you can say about America is that we have one hell of a lot of food and almost non-stop entertainment.

Ah-ha! There - as Shakespeare might observe - is the rub!

The problem with a forum like this is that if I were to specify a list of policies, relating to the main policy areas, some PoliSci geek would trawl all over my policy ideas and highlight how they are inconsistent with my stated views/wouldn't work/are ideologically motivated, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah... I'm not averse to meeting that challenge, but I wanted to sound out my political footing, so to speak, before committing myself.

I think the issue is something a bit more orthogonal. We have a society that almost demands a lack of ethics. I have a friend who is a cop. He's going through a similar process with things like Miranda. I think part of it is because his mom just died and his father is dying, and he works in a place where people kill each other over sneakers, and other impossibly stupid reasons. He marvels that he arrests someone in good faith, and then the state provides them with a defense. He actually has an interesting point. We pay the police to go find criminals, we pay prosecutors to prosecute them, and then we pay defense attorneys to undermine the prosecution. Yet, legal ethics--assuming they are not oxymoronic--says that a representative must jealously prosecute the interests of his/her client. The problem with that is that it again leaves you outside of that Nash framework of self-interest and collective interest. The prosecution will violate your rights, and the court will allow that to happen. But why? Why does this system require such elaboration and still arrive at often times unjust results? I submit that there is a fundamental failure of ethics.

In general, I also prefer the government to legislate as little as possible. In my experience no sooner has the ink dried on a new policy, regulation or law than along comes someone whose circumstances had not been considered by the drafters of the rule (who were almost certainly ideologically motivated in drafting the rule the way they did in any case). Sadly, in our current governmental structure, the process is considered to be of far greater importance than the people and exceptions to the rule are rarely accommodated.

Well that's just it isn't it? It's as if a lack of ethics is the primary driver and it was sold as a bureaucratic process complex enough and indirectly enough that it doesn't have any real detractors. We don't want to be communists, because they don't have iPhones. Yet, we don't want to bail out bankers when they go broke. Yet, we just love home loans when we have no job and no income. What a concept!

Yet, if one suggests that I should not be honest – or rather, be dishonest – in order to sell my car, where does that leave us? It leaves us back with the notion that capitalism is about exploitation again, as far as I am concerned.

I don't completely agree. My major beef with Apple, for example, is their use of non-standard cabling like their iPhone chargers. I love the open handset alliance, because they use standard USB cables. Yet, there's nothing essential about an iPhone. It's a purely optional tool. It is an amazing value for the money, but it is also completely non-essential. Apple, in my opinion, is trying to screw you into paying ridiculously high prices for commodity items like chargers. However, you don't have to buy it at all. Capitalism as competition does work. The Open Handset Alliance and Android overtook Apple in marketshare, and some of that was just the frustration people have with Apple and their nasty little game of using non-standard form factors for standard USB so you have to pay more money.

Capitalism, clearly, is about the little white lies, economies with the truth and bare-faced cheek that is needed in order to sell something for more than it is really worth. Yes, I’m a fool. But if honesty makes me foolish then so be it.

Here, I don't agree. I don't think capitalism succeeds if people tell lies and fails if people tell the truth. I don't think there is any more dishonest political system than communism, and I'm including monarchy in that assessment. However, I think you are absolutely right that dishonesty for self-interest prevails at appalling rates and is championed in an almost ideological way.

[Truth To Power]

I suppose you might be looking for a political system that acts more like the peer review process than what we have now. What I would want to see is political policies and processes to be based on actual data about what is actually achieving a goal. I don't know if you'd be interested in it, not many people agree with me that the scientific method should be applied to the political system.

Sounds fine, but scientific method requires testable hypotheses. Whatever empirical science might have been possible in the field of public policy has been eliminated by the untestable (or, more often, known false) assumptions and tendentious definitions of neoclassical economics. It's like medieval medicine, where a practical "science" was built on the quicksand of Christian theology. How do you test a hypothesis that involves evil spirits?

[Truth To Power]

What I see on PoFo, day in and day out, is that most (clearly not all, but most) posters are unwilling to acknowledge that their beliefs may be founded upon incomplete and subjective data and compensate for that by shouting more loudly and debating more aggressively.

You're lucky. What I see is people who have seen their views proved objectively false, but rather than reconsidering them, resort to the most astonishing absurdities and dishonesty in the hope of rescuing them.

Moving on, despite (or perhaps because of) my background, I find my mature self to be surprisingly anti-authoritarian. As the son of a police officer, I was initially brought up to believe, in essence, that those who made the laws knew better than we did and it was our civic duty to obey the laws. Having had dealings with politicians and government – as previously mentioned – I have a firm belief now that those who make the laws conspicuously DO NOT know better than we do and should not enjoy the power to inflict their often dogmatic and grossly ideological views on the rest of us through the law or by any other means.

Or as Bismarck put it, "There are two things one should not see being made: sausages and laws."

Going back to my Golden Rule/NAP view about exploitation, what I see around me in the ‘market’ is not fair and reasonable exchange of goods and services, but widespread, deliberate, calculated attempts to part people from as much of their money as is physically possible. It’s not a ‘buyers market’. It’s never a ‘buyers market’. It’s an immoral and criminal game that is always stacked in favour of those who are really in control – the capitalists. It’s even enshrined in UK law that a company’s first responsibility is not to its customers – but to its shareholders. If you’re in business and therefore your livelihood – quality of life and continued existence – depends on extracting money from other people, your motivation is going to be to extract as much money as you physically can from those people. Even if you claim to be genuinely interested in ensuring your customers get a good deal, you’re only doing so to maximise your likely profits. There’s no altruism involved. Ergo, the whole process is about people being exploited.

The idea is that Smith's invisible hand ensures that the capitalist, like the worker, must serve society's interests in order to serve his own. And in a genuinely free market, that would pretty much be the case. But we do not have a free market. We have a system of privilege, where some -- mostly the rich who own the privileges -- are legally entitled to profit from the uncompensated abrogation of others' rights. Even the feudalist soi-disant "libertarians" here do not believe in liberty, justice, or a free market, because they are married to the concept of private property in land. Once you accept private property in land, the remorseless laws of economics require you to advocate the systematic exploitation and effective enslavement of the productive by landowners.

However, it is true that property in land, once the great majority of privilege, now has stiff competition from patents, copyrights, private banksters' debt money issuance, corporate limited liability, and union monopoly privileges, especially of public employees who have access to the taxpayers' purses.

I suspect that, like the Communists, the Capitalists will argue that their precious ideology has never had the opportunity to prove itself because extrinsic factors have always impeded it. As with religion, I’m agnostic about that. I just don’t know. All I do know is that I’m 46 years old and everything I see about the practice of business and commerce in my country seems to be about squeezing more and more money out of those with the least and directing it to those with, increasingly, the most.

Almost always, that is accomplished by dint of privilege; and very often, one way or another, by the privilege of landowning.

If there were some way of structuring society so that it was more participative, consensual and mutually beneficial and supportive, without it becoming self-serving and authoritarian, I’d love to hear of it.

Google "geolibertarian," and read "Progress and Poverty" by Henry George. It is available online. Unlike the feudal libertarians, geolibertarians are serious advocates of liberty, justice and truth. Private property in land eliminates liberty and justice, and can therefore only be rationalized and justified by lies.

[Truth To Power]

All I do know is that I’m 46 years old and everything I see about the practice of business and commerce in my country seems to be about squeezing more and more money out of those with the least and directing it to those with, increasingly, the most.

Everything you see? Really? Even when you buy a Harry Potter book for your daughter at your nearest bookstore?

Especially then. Rowling is a billionaire for writing a few decent kids' books and some self-indulgent stinkers. WTF? She didn't earn that money. It was shoveled into her pockets by a system of intellectual "property" that artificially creates "brands" and a few super-duper uber-rich stars at the expense of the vast majority of creative people who can't get their work published.

... in such a way as to ensure that everyone has access to education, healthcare and other services that can only be effectively provided on the basis of, ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its parts’; that is to say, collectivism over individualism.

Assumes facts most decidedly not in evidence - that these services are more effectively provided by government action than by individuals freely co-operating with each other.

Those facts are most decidedly in evidence, obviously, and are supported by economic science regarding market failures. The private market cannot invest enough in health care, education, etc. because those who need them most can't pay for them, and people cannot be owned -- among other reasons.

The private market also cannot invest efficiently in infrastructure, as its value is all taken by landowners. That is why the private firms who built roads, railroads, canals, etc. without government assistance via land grants, eminent domain, etc. all went broke for their trouble, while the landowners alongside the infrastructure got rich without contributing anything.

If there were some way of structuring society so that it was more participative, consensual and mutually beneficial and supportive, without it becoming self-serving and authoritarian, I’d love to hear of it.

Laissez-faire Capitalism/Minarchism/Libertarianism/Classical Liberalism.

Geolibertarianism. Without an understanding of land and how private property in land biases the economy against non-landowners, libertarianism, laissez faire capitalism, etc. --> feudalism.

[Drlee]

How do you test a hypothesis that involves evil spirits

?

Send it to the Rand Corporation?

[lucky]

Next, it would not be unreasonable to describe me as ‘anti-capitalist’, although I am not given to occupying anywhere or marching at the G20, etc. Why? Going back to my Golden Rule/NAP view about exploitation, what I see around me in the ‘market’ is not fair and reasonable exchange of goods and services, but widespread, deliberate, calculated attempts to part people from as much of their money as is physically possible. [...] Even if you claim to be genuinely interested in ensuring your customers get a good deal, you’re only doing so to maximise your likely profits.

That is how a market is supposed to work. The sellers are supposed to be trying to get the highest price, and the buyers the lowest price. That's how the behavior of markets is modeled in economics. If the sellers were not actually trying to maximize their profits, all economic models would be broken, and markets would not be doing their job of allocating resources.

It’s even enshrined in UK law that a company’s first responsibility is not to its customers – but to its shareholders.

I suspect that what it says is that the board of directors' responsibility is to shareholders. That's no wonder, given that the board of directors is by definition hired to represent shareholders when there are too many shareholders to manage the business directly. It's similar to how MPs are elected to represent voters. All that law is doing is defining the words "shareholder" and "board of directors".

There’s no altruism involved.

Adam Smith was famously the first to notice that. But he saw that as a wonderful thing and a reason to be pro-capitalism (before the word existed), rather than an argument against it!

Competitive markets are a way to channel productivity into mutual benefits. Altruistic charity is an alternative mechanism, where one side sacrifices for the other, with no competitive price mechanisms involved. That the first mechanism is not the second mechanism does not make the first mechanism "unreasonable".

By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it..

Besides, eliminating capitalism does not tend to increase anybody's altruism. Quite the contrary, it seems from the experience of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. So even if altruistic charity was a superior economic mechanism, being anti-capitalist wouldn't be helping.

[Cartertonian]

Thanks for bumping my thread, lucky

Competitive markets are a way to channel productivity into mutual benefits.

This is the bit I still struggle with. I can accept that pro-capitalists sincerely believe that in a free and unfettered market, all participants would mutually benefit but, like all noble ideas, when it encounters real life it all goes awry. What I see is the owners of the means of production paying those who labour long and hard to produce as little as physically possible and then sell the produce for as much as physically possible. In so doing, there is no mutual benefit. The workers are shamelessly ripped off and the consumers are shamelessly ripped off.

I'm not necessarily saying that any other economic model would be any better. As we say in the military, 'no plan survives contact with the enemy', but I feel capitalism is the model that most readily accommodates abuse and manipulation and to deregulate and unfetter it further, as its advocates wish, would merely open up more opportunities for abuse and malign manipulation.

[lucky]

What I see is the owners of the means of production paying those who labour long and hard to produce as little as physically possible and then sell the produce for as much as physically possible. In so doing, there is no mutual benefit.

Surely, the $28.73 I paid for my groceries is not the maximum physically possible price.

I feel no regrets due to the purchase and, I suspect, neither does the store.

[Cartertonian]

Groceries are, in some respects, a bad example. The retailer is rarely the producer and, in the uk at least, examples of retailers paying producers as little as possible are common. Yet another example, therefore, of the abuse and manipulation afforded by a capitalist economic model. Neither you nor the retailer may have any regrets over your specific grocery transaction, but it's highly likely that someone in the production chain has been exploited in order for you to get 'good value' at the checkout.

But hey! 'Out of sight, out of mind', eh?