• barsoap@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Or trade secrets. “Perfect information” is a bitch. Not to speak of “perfectly rational actors”: Say goodbye to advertisement, too, we’d have to outlaw basically all of it.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        8 months ago

        Trade secrets don’t need to be enforced much by law. You can create an ad hoc trade secret regime by simply keeping your secret between a few key employees. As it happens, there are some laws that go beyond that to help companies keep the secret, but that only extends something that could happen naturally.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          To get closer to the free market there would have to be a duty to disclose any- and everything that’s now a trade secret, no matter how easily kept. To not just get closer but actually get there we all would need to be telepathic. As said, perfect information is a bitch of a concept.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              I’m not arguing for any policies, just explaining what would be necessary to make the theoretical model of the free market a reality in actual reality: It assumes perfect information and perfectly rational actors, it’s a tall order.

                • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                  8 months ago

                  Adam Smith’s. He pioneered rational choice models in general. Came up with the whole shebang that 20yold econ 101 students love to ignore in favour of “free market is if I get a fat payout”.

      • ConsistentParadox@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Copyrights and patents are literally government enforced monopolies for huge companies. Without them, there would be a lot more competition.

          • ConsistentParadox@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            Companies such as Disney have armies of lawyers to enforce their monopolies. Copyright and patent laws are designed exclusively for the rich.

            Disney can very well “steal” other people’s work and get away with it under this system. Without such laws, everyone else would be able to “steal” from Disney as well, which would level the playing field.