• barsoap@lemm.ee
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      13 days 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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        13 days 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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          13 days 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.

          • lud@lemm.ee
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            13 days ago

            Being free to innovate and keep your own ideas to yourself sounds like it should be part of the free market though.

            Forcing people to disclose their (mental) secrets seems bizarre.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              13 days 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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                  12 days 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”.

                  • lud@lemm.ee
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                    12 days ago

                    And why should I listen to someone that defines a word differently than everyone else?

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      13 days ago

      Yeah, the huge companies would dominate over small companies even more than they already do.

      • ConsistentParadox@lemmy.ml
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        13 days ago

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

        • lud@lemm.ee
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          13 days ago

          Really? Calling it a government enforced monopoly seems very disingenuous.

          Good luck trying to make a movie without Disney stealing it or making an invention with really effective solar panels or something without the biggest companies stealing it and bankrupt the original creator.

          Copyright and patents protect everyone involved in creation and while there are a LOT of problems with the systems. Removing it entirely seems like the biggest overcorrection possible.

          • ConsistentParadox@lemmy.ml
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            13 days 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.