The stupidest essay ever entitled "The Death of Main Street: Are big chains to blame, or is excessive regulation? " courtesy of Reason magazine. This stuff rivals creationist drivel for sheer stupidity.
Briefly, Balko argues small businesses fail because regulations price them out of business, not because of Wal-Mart. The evidence? Old Town Alexandria! Ha!
Old Town Alexandria is an historic, charming stretch of city just outside of Washington D.C. that features lots of shops, restaurants, parks, cobblestone streets, and a waterfront teeming with American history. George Washington was a regular in Old Town, as was a young Robert E. Lee.
The Alexandria Times article explained how Old Town Alexandria's onerous permit process and regulatory system have put a strain on small businesses, especially the small, independent outfits that give Old Town all of its charm. I'm fairly anti-regulation, but even I don't have too much of a problem with city ordinances that attempt to preserve unique neighborhoods with a distinct vibe or identity, particularly when the aim is to keep the quaint, historical atmosphere of a place like Old Town. These sorts of regulations are about as localized as you can get, in this case covering just a couple dozen or so city blocks.
For example, if you want to do something as simple as change the lettering on, or repaint the sign outside of your business in Old Town, you need to both apply for and pay $50 to obtain a "ladder permit," and apply for and pay $55 for a "building permit."
It can take more than two weeks to get the proper paperwork, even if all you want to do is replace the "e" on your "Ye Olde Sandwich Shoppe" sign. More significant changes, obviously, require more bureaucratic hassle.
...
The question is, should you really need to have to keep lawyer on retainer in order to open a business in Old Town? Is that really the kind of business atmosphere the city's elected officials want to create? And if Old Town is going to make that a requirement--intentionally or not--what effect is that going to have on the small boutiques, art galleries, and antique stores that make up the very atmosphere the regulations are trying to promote?
The answer, I think, lies in what's happened to Old Town over the last decade or so. It's been Gap-i-fied. The independent spots are closing down, and they're being replaced by familiar national chains. Old Town now has a Gap, a Chipotle, a Nine West, a Ross, a CVS, a Restoration Hardware, a Banana Republic, and loads of other stores you can find in just about every other part of the country. Parts of it are like a strip mall now, albeit one outfitted in Virginia red brick and quaint colonial architecture.
...
People who decry the Wal-Mart-ification and Gap-ificaiton of America need to realize that regulation often does more harm to local businesses than predatory pricing, loss-leader business models, or some other imagined corporate evil.
I've lived in or near Old Town for most of the last 10 years. It's not at all common to see an independently-owned antique shop or art gallery get boarded over, only to be replaced in ensuing months by a franchise. It's not difficult to see why. Franchise operators can tap the resources of the parent company, particularly when it comes to accessing legal help with experience navigating through and working with local zoning laws and business regulations.
I challenge this idiot to find a single business in Old Town that had to move out because of "excess regulation", and not the fact that property values have skyrocketed there to the point it's impossible for anyone but the ultra-rich to survive. This guy supposedly has lived there for 10 years and he can't figure out this simple relationship? Instead he blames signage regulations and historical regulations? And then generalizes observations of Old Town, one of the most uptight, wealthy, and downright rare neighborhoods in the country to small businesses across the country?
This is off topic for me, but I simply can't believe these nitwits get to call their magazine "Reason", when clearly they're so out of touch they can't even analyze what's going on in their own neighborhoods. Either that or the property values have so little effect on their net worth they don't feel the pinch.
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Ok, it is one bad article. What publication does not have that now and again? I do not think that should condem the whole magazine.
I'm fairly anti-regulation, but ...
How come no one ever says "I'm anti-law, but..."?
Actually, although I generally like it much of the time, Reason is a bit too prone towards publishing global warming "skepticism."
Well, that and picking up every single crank report and repeating it with total gullibility. They were some of the few fools that got picked up in the recent hoax global warming report, and they loved that BS "hummer more efficient that Prius" report which anyone with 1/10th of a brain could read and see was nonsense. How about their attacks on the FDA? Agreeing with Epstein and the the anti-regulatory quacks that want to return us to 1930?
They are the classic cherry-pickers, incapable of evaluating any topic except through the lenses of their incredibly small worldview, and unwilling to synthesize any contradictory data. Not to mention, completely incapable of critically evaluating science or should I say, pseudoscience?
How come no one ever says "I'm anti-law, but..."?
Because that would give the game away.
How come no one ever says "I'm anti-law, but..."?
Because that would give the game away.
Hey, I'm anti-law, but then I'm a closet Anarchist, so I guess it works out...
Ok, it is one bad article.
I claim Two of Hearts.
This is off topic for me
Well, maybe, but I hope you move out of your comfort zone: I think the really interesting challenge for denialism analysis is the issues where denialist tactics are used by both sides, like immigration or (in Britain) Europe, not one-sided stuff like creationism or troofers.
how come no one ever says "I'm anti-law, but..."
laws are passed by legislative bodies, regulations have the power of law but typically come from commissions (zoning, planning,..), agencies(EPA, FDA FCC, OSHA,...)and various other quasi-governmental pinhead collectives established for the sole purpose of providing gainful employment to the ass-kissers, incompetents, and hangers-on that are the life blood of any political party
I recently got a free subscription to Reason as a "bonus gift". My first issue was last month--the one with the cover story claiming that Rudy Giuliani is the One True Liberal in the presidential race. This from what is supposed to be the foremost libertarian magazine in the country.
This article at least has the excuse that it's consistent with their self-proclaimed biases. Even, so, it's mostly egregiously wrong. Old Town Alexandria is a historic district, thankyouverymuch--that's why the sign ordinances are so strict there (yet another reason why Old Town is not representative of downtowns in America).
The one part he gets right: The deep pockets of Wal-Mart, the Gap, etc., are a factor. But it's not local regulations that make it a factor, it's the resources the parent company can supply--mostly start-up money, which would-be mom and pop operators have to borrow from banks who are in general not eager to give them the loan. For big-box stores like Wal-Mart, these resources make it easier for them to convince local government to change the zoning laws, if any, to their benefit.
You're being a little crazy here. Like others have said, you can't condemn them for one bad article. And don't even say that they're anti-global warming, because they're not (well, at least the science correspondent isn't). And that "hoax" that they picked up? He urged caution in believing it and said that more study was needed, it wasn't just undying praise.
I'm starting to think more and more that this blog is just ad-hominem attacks against anyone you disagree with.
"Stupidest essay ever..."
"Rivals creationist drivel..."
"I challenge this idiot..."
"I can't believe these nitwits..."
And then, of course, the obligatory insinuation that they're rich, and therefore completely out-of-touch (Ad Hominem? What?).
Gosh, it's good to see that there's at least one blog left on the internet that provides really dispassionate, rational analysis of current events.
Nothing like this Radley Balko douchebag.
Do we really need to have a discussion of what an ad hominem attack is? Really?
I include insults yes, but my argument isn't "this guy is stupid".
Ad hominem attack is not being merely insulting, it is making an argument that is solely an insult. I am making the argument that this analysis is pathetic, poorly reasoned, and excessively generalized + that this guy is an idiot.
Learn the difference.
"Gosh, it's good to see that there's at least one blog left on the internet that provides really dispassionate, rational analysis of current events."
Being dispassionate is greatly overrated.
In addition, I think the comparison to creationism is apt in at least one respect. Whereas the creationists torture logic to pin every historical and contemporary evil on "Darwinism", there is a similar tendency among libertarians to claim that just about every problem we face is due to big, bad gubmint and those evil regulations. In both cases you start with the assumption that something maleficent and deduce from there.
My former brother-in-law had a shoppe in Ye OldTowne Alexandria, and he went out of business. He didn't have a solid business plan, misread the market, and threw money at problems with relatively simple fixes. All the deregulation in the world wouldn't have saved him. If Alexandria had dropped a small bundle of money at his doorstep every morning it wouldn't have saved him.
Sure, Reason has published its share of dumb articles. But comb through Mother Jones (I had a subscription in the '80s) and see how well some of its analyses have fared. And at least Reason has Peter Bagge. Reason's attacks on bio-Ludditism converge remarkably with pro-biotech liberals; compare SF Gate's Mark Morford with Reason's Ronald Bailey on human genetic engineering.
"But comb through Mother Jones (I had a subscription in the '80s) and see how well some of its analyses have fared."
Yes, Mother Jones is certainly a kooky granola publication. I don't see why the existence of kooky publications of the left is really relevant to the post, however. You won't get any argument from me on the fact that they exist.
I'd venture to say that most polemical publications have plenty of stupid things in them, because they don't exist to stimulate debate or thinking. They exist to reflect the readers sentiments in myriad but slight variations. Kind of like a funhouse with the diversity minimized.
To change metaphors: Facts are a mere ingredient in the dish they are serving up. Sometimes a very lightly used one.
Why readers (of all political stripes, as far as I can tell) require this service, I don't know.
Pish. Regardless of the bulk of "Reasons" articles we can all agree that the argument in this particular article was ridiculously flawed for the reasons (hah) given, and for more. About 15 years ago the yellow line of the metro system subway was just finishing it's Huntington and King streets stops. Ka-boom! go real estate prices. Subsequently, the area of Alexandria city that is NOT Old Town had a boom in local defense contractors establishing offices in the areas just outside old town. Further, large hotel chains began buying up property and establishing sites close to the metro, and therefore D.C. without the prices of actually being D.C. These effected the property values in and around Old Town. I lived there for seven year and used to ride my bike through old town. I left the area for two years and upon my return couldn't even recognize the city it was built up so much. By focusing on Old Town and regulations without discussing the much more likely growth of the area around Old Town the author misleads in a way that can only be described as UNreasonable. The article is useless and the criticism of it is justified. What this has to say about the magazine is open to debate, however.
Tyler DiPietro: Point well taken. It's not as if Mother Jones has the title "Rigorous Analysis," in which case my mention of it would be more pertinent.
Unfortunate magazine titles: Charles Coughlin's magazine Social Justice, Christian fundamentalist The Plain Truth.
Reason at its best: Peter Bagge on immigration
http://www.reason.com/news/show/118271.html
Yeah, but Crystal City is much more generous, you can get large bundles of money dropped at the doorstop every morning.
I personally cut Radley a ton of slack because he's been fighting the good fight against SWAT raid abuse, among other things. He's done wonders for the case of Cory Maye, a guy who was on death row in Miss for shooting a cop during a drug raid, thinking the cops were burglars.
The regulation thesis is probably wrong. Hell, if there's enough money in the town, they probably get a fair number of dilettantes opening boutiques thinking they can't fail to make money, who then fail.
Do we really need to have a discussion of what an ad hominem attack is? Really?
I include insults yes, but my argument isn't "this guy is stupid".
Ad hominem attack is not being merely insulting, it is making an argument that is solely an insult. I am making the argument that this analysis is pathetic, poorly reasoned, and excessively generalized + that this guy is an idiot.
Learn the difference.
Come now, Mark. You know that I wasn't trying to call your entire argument an ad hominem attack. Despite my generally libertarian beliefs, I think your claim probably has more merit here than Balko's. (Frankly, I don't know enough about local business regulations to be able to comment in depth on the matter.)
Rather, I was calling your suggestion (at the end of your post) that Balko might be wealthy and out-of-touch an ad-hom attack. First, as clarification, I see no reason to assume that Balko is rich. Second, it's definitely an ad-hom attack to simply say that, were he rich, he would be "out of touch," and that this is the reason he holds the invalid opinion that he does.
You rightly criticize denialists for using logical fallacies and ridiculous arguments all the time. Please take care not to fall into that trap yourself.
I was merely suggesting a hypothesis that fits the data. He says he's lived in Old Town for 10 years. Having family that has lived there as well, and relocated, I have trouble believing that he hasn't noticed the primary variable that fits with his observations. I consider two possibilities likely. First, he is so blinded by ideology that he blames regulation despite any real evidence and the far more likely alternative explanation of property values (and is therefore a total fool). The second, that for economic reasons he hasn't felt the pinch of property taxes and therefore they have eluded inclusion into his analysis.
If you ask me, the second possibility is more kind. He is just rich and naive. Let them eat cake as it were.
Reason Magazine is the libertarian equivalent of the Watchtower Society
(Jehovah's Witnesses), Plain Truth magazine (the Armstrong clan's journal)
and a whole lot of other religious and secular "think tanks". They are the
propaganda mills that provide the fodder to channel the thinking of the loyal
ranks by providing innumerable examples where righteous upholding of "TRUE"
principles "always" make life better. They usually ignore or dismiss the
counterexamples and hard cases. It's full of of prejudiced, petty, petulant sniping.
A much more accurate title would be "Confirmation Bias Magazine".
Complaints that Balko's is "just one article" ignore the general patterns:
* Blatantly hostile reviews of counter-libertarian books.
* Gleeful hindsight about failed government programs, while ignoring similarly enormous failed private sector programs like the dot.com boom and bust.
* Pollyanna views of popular science where they favor libertarianism.
* A generally snarky attitude of "we're rational, and they're not, thus we are superior." Associated with the usual delusions of adequacy.
* Their presumption that market populism is always right.
Wow. Mark, lighten up. Reason makes a good case for the small business owner in Old Town. A low turn "boutique" will neither generate the sales tax nor property tax revenue a trendy chain would. I have spent a lot of time in Old Town and the influence of the Starbucks, Chipotles and Limited stores is significant. These are not shops which are being offered by local merchants. Why the vitriol in assaulting Reason? Their comments are unrelated to the impact of large scale chain openings in small town America, which have almost always benefited consumer and taxpayer alike.
Yeesh.
Although - it is your blog.
In defense of Radley Balko, some of his other work might just save a man's life and overturn an injustice.
http://www.theagitator.com/category/cory-maye/
If you knew who Radley Balko was and what he's done, you'd never call him an idiot. You'd disagree with him, but your tone throughout is really petty.
I, too, was puzzled by Balko's focus on regulation as the source of Old Town's Gap-ification. As you say, it would be silly to suggest that regulations and permit requirements are the largest factor in any store's closure in the face of the high-and-getting-higher property values. And since the regulations were probably around before rents went sky-high, you probably couldn't even say that they were the precipitating event that pushed the small retailers out of the neighborhood. But clearly it's also true to say that though the regulations probably didn't by themselves force anyone to shut down, they definitely had some marginal effect. There may well have been some local retailers in Old Town -- maybe not a lot, but a few perhaps -- who would have been able to handle either the regulations or the high rents, but couldn't or weren't willing to deal with both at once. And though the city government can't do much to keep property values in a place like Old Town from rising (nor would it want to), they could get rid of the banal inerventions and permit requirements that don't really serve any purpose besides acting as a regressive tax that hits small, local businesses harder than corporations.
But even that's not the point of the article. He's not blaming signage regulations for shutting down local retailers in Old Town. The question in the article's subtitle was, "are big chains to blame, or is excessive regulation?". And you've -- rightly, I think, in Old Town's case -- answered "neither, property values are to blame." But instead of stopping there and calling him stupid, why not ask what the second-most important effect was? Because the point of his article was this:
You've not refuted that.
If you're just interested in making fun of someone who disagrees with you, by all means laugh up your sleeve. But Radley's got a blog of his own, and I'm sure he'd be willing to hear your opinions. Because even if his economics-related articles are kind of dippy (which I'm by no means conceding), he's a very reasonable person.
Oh, and for what it's worth, surely if you've been there you ought to know that just because he's lived "in and around Old Town" doesn't make Radley Balko filthy stinking rich. I know plenty of people living in Old Town on a first year college graduate's income. And if you drive into town on Jefferson Davis highway from the north, you'll pass through some areas within spitting distance of Old Town that are far from wealthy.
Also, "dippy" was a poor word choice, in retrospect. "Poorly argued" would have been better perhaps. But I can forgive a few unfocused and over-generalizing articles in the face of you should read a bit more of his work before calling him a stupid idiot nitwit. Let me suggest a few places to start:
http://reason.com/news/show/121671.html
http://reason.com/news/show/123214.html
http://reason.com/news/show/123589.html
http://www.theagitator.com/category/rack-n-roll-billiards/
http://www.theagitator.com/category/paramilitary-police-raids/
http://www.theagitator.com/category/cory-maye/
Complaints that Balko's is "just one article" ignore the general patterns:
* Blatantly hostile reviews of counter-libertarian books.
* Gleeful hindsight about failed government programs, while ignoring similarly enormous failed private sector programs like the dot.com boom and bust...
Hmm. Nothing blatantly hostile about your review of Reason, but I suppose from your viewpoint, that's only fair.
As to "ignoring...failed private sector programs", here's the difference. No one needs to criticize failed private sector programs, because when they fail, they go away. When a public sector program, or a private sector program that is favored by the public sector, fails, its failure becomes a rationale to pour more tax money into it.
While I agree with its premise, this poorly named 'Science Blog' offers anecdote in an effort to refute an article about regulation.
I feel you owe Balko an apology. The man is a tireless and relentless defender of the weak against he power of the state. His work on the over use of SWAT tactics by police is incredibly valuable. His expose on Micheal Hayne is one of the most important pieces of journalism this year, if you judge it by impact on peoples lives. He's definitely put more of himself into actually helping people than this self-righteous blog.
You disagree with his point, fine. You got worked up, fine. I have a suggestion stop reading Reason. I have, its been great. Now I just follow Balko's work at his blog. I disagree with him on a lot of stuff, but there is no doubt that the world is a better place due to Balko's presence. I don't know that I can say the same thing about myself. And while my sample size is just this post I can't yet say this about you.
Anyone here ever tried to make a living by owning a small retail business?
I have. Turned a profit, too. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of the Old Town situation, but my experience leads me to believe that nationally over-regulation is a huge handicap for small retailers trying to compete against large chains. So when I read Balko's article it rings true. But perhaps Old Town is an exception to the national trend.
The blaming of sky high rents for the closure of some businesses but not others requires analysis of the reason why it would particularly affect that subset.
The fact that the Reason article attempts to provide that and this 'denialism' article doesn't, along with the relative weight of insultmongering gives me a fair idea why Reason is a magazine and this is a fringe interest blog.
Ha!
You libertarians crack me up.
I think Mike Huben above explains why I'm mocking reason. This one article doesn't encompass the idiocy of that magazine and their unscientific crankery. In recent memory I can think of two great examples. One was their inability to see through the global warming hoax paper, even though it was laughable (since it conformed to their anti-AGW worldview they published it immediately). Second their support of the BS marketing report that suggested Hummers were more efficient than a Prius, which even a cursory inspection reveals is total nonsense. It conforms with their general willingness to believe anything as long as it fits a simplistic worldview, and as Mike said their "prejudiced, petty, petulant sniping."
If Balko takes on SWAT tactics that's wonderful. I don't think you have to be a libertarian to oppose the militarization of police. But I stand by the statement that this is some of the poorest "reason" I've seen in terms of economic analysis. I suggested one actually try to test this laughable hypothesis by finding a single business owner that had to close down in Old Town over regulation, I doubt you'd be successful (and then they'd probably still be outnumbered 100:1 with the property value folks). And I reject the notion that I personally have to provide an explanation for the financial woes of middle America to tear down rubbish like this. I'm sorry I insulted one of your libertarian heroes. Trust me, you don't want to read what I've written about Milton Friedman either.
Let me break this down into simpler terms as you apparently didn't get it the first time. Sky high rents may indeed be a problem for businesses but they don't explain why smaller and more individual stores are closing while chain store brands are thriving and moving in.
If sky high rents were driving everyone out of business then clearly property prices would be the key factor, but where some businesses are being squeezed out by others the high rent prices are much more likely to be a symptom than a cause. If Starbucks, Gap etc. move in and push rent prices up across the board then shouting 'rent prices are too high!' clearly doesn't explain anything and one has to examine the reasons why chain stores baseline profits are high enough to justify the extra rent.
The Reason article postulates that the difference between the chain stores and the individual ones going under is their access to collective resources (legal, accounting etc.) in dealing with the regulations the city put forward and that as a consequence the more onerous the regulations become the better this suits the chain stores.
Whether this is true or not for Alexandria I've no clue, but the fact that you don't even understand the model and focus instead on a variable that isn't directly relevant shows that you have nothing like the expertise to judge their conclusions competently.
The irony is that the substitution of proper analysis for patronising rhetoric ('those wacky libertarians!') and oversimplified single variable causation ('it's the property prices, stupid!') appears to be exactly what your blog is railing against.
Are you sure you're the right man for the job?
Corporate retail can avoid dealing with high rent prices at individual locations because they value market saturation more than necessarilly having to turn a profit at every single store. This has been incredibly successful as a business model, but also makes them a poor reference point for comparison to small business woes concerning high rent.
The Reason article is full of dubious claims ("regulation often does more harm to local businesses than predatory pricing") and loaded questions ("The question is, should you really need to have to keep lawyer on retainer in order to open a business in Old Town?"). With these kinds of whoppers, it's no wonder Mark took it down with zeal (and proponents of these ideas should take note, BS can only take you so far.)
"The irony is that the substitution of proper analysis for patronising rhetoric ('those wacky libertarians!') and oversimplified single variable causation ('it's the property prices, stupid!') appears to be exactly what your blog is railing against."
I don't recall anyone saying this blog couldn't have a sense of humor. One of the things I love about it is that I get a chuckle every now and then, but there's almost always serious thought and consideration given to the topic at hand. There is certainly more than enough "reason" to go around here, at least.
Steven, you say 'The Reason article is full of dubious claims ("regulation often does more harm to local businesses than predatory pricing")'
Is that really a dubious claim? A brief exploration of small business association websites (for eg. http://www.nsba.biz/issues/) finds that their key issues include concerns over both accounting/tax and other regulations (items 1 and 9) and none on predatory pricing. It's always possible that they have their priorities mixed up, or that this particular association is out of the ordinary, but you'd need to show me some solid data to convince me. The 'regulatory reform' item includes the following paragraph:
~
Unlike big corporationswhich have legions of accountants, benefits coordinators, attorneys, personnel
administrators, etc at their disposalsmall businesses often are at a loss to keep up with,
implement, or afford the overwhelming regulatory and paperwork demands of the federal government.
U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) research demonstrates that, in total, companies
with fewer than 20 employees pay more than $7,600 per employee to comply with federal regulations
each year. Small firms pay about 45 percent ($2,400) more per employee than large firms.
~
Does that sentiment sound familiar?
As for the idea that Mark 'took it down with zeal', I've already noted that all I see is one line of unexplained counter argument and a lot of hot air. If that's his idea of a takedown then a role at Fox News might be for him.
On the question of whether their economies of scale make big chain businesses a fair reference point for gauging the woes of small business the obvious point is that if they weren't more profitable on average than individual local stores they wouldn't be so successful. If those advantages are due to brand power and internal efficiency then the local stores are inevitably fighting a losing battle but if, as the Reason article postulates, the regulatory burden makes it necessary to be a certain size purely to make compliance viable then it looks like a good piece to me.
On the question of jokes, those are fine, but don't be surprised to find him ranting a few posts later about an anti-global warming guy using cheap shots in lieu of real analysis to wow a sympathetic audience. It's no different in that context than it is this.
I often find libertarians - especially the Objectivist type - to be a bit silly, like Marxists. My view of hard libertarianism is that while it might make apparent sense in a pristine, simplified economic and social model, the starting assumptions of this model fail to take into account critical variables.
However, I have some questions for Mark and Chris:
1) Do you consider libertarianism itself a species of denialism?
2) Was there any validity to 20th century libertarian critiques of socialism, social democracy, the welfare state, and Keynes?
3. In the 80s and 90s the new "neoliberal" variant of American liberalism and the new Third Way variant of European social democracy assimilated some libertarian critiques of their parent movements. Was neoliberalism/Third Way a mistake?
4. Federal Reserve policy since Volker has been heavily influenced by (though do not strictly adhere to) libertarian economic ideas. In general, have these policies been wrong?
Colugo, I know your questions are targeted at Mark and Chris, but I think it might help if you do a couple of things.
1.) Specify what you mean by "libertarianism". Libertarianism is generally a fractured movement that includes everyone from economic conservatives who lack the traditional hang-ups about sex, gender-roles, etc. to hardcore anarcho-capitalists. For instance, on the question of "is libertarianism itself a form of denialism?", one could point to followers of von Mises and "Austrian economics", the latter of which is widely regarded as the economic equivalent of creationism (even hardcore libertarian types like Bryan Caplan dismiss and argue vigorously against it).
2.) Specify what libertarian ideas you see as being assimilated into welfare-state liberalism. There was certainly economic backlash against the excesses of post-War liberalism and social democracy. Some of it was reasonable (e.g., 90% top marginal tax-rates were too high), but a lot of it was disasterous (e.g., the Chilean experiment under Augusto Pinochet, Margaret Thatchers privatizations of public utilities in Britain, etc.). IMO, the reforms have to be evaluated individually.
Bernard,
"Steven, you say 'The Reason article is full of dubious claims ("regulation often does more harm to local businesses than predatory pricing")'
Is that really a dubious claim?"
The claim is dubious because regulation is extremely difficult to compare to predatory pricing. Regulation, as you are probably well aware, comes in all shapes and sizes, and can be beneficial to small businesses, large corporations, and individuals by protecting them much more often than it might hinder their ability to compete. Predatory pricing can be a powerful attempt of anti-competition and a ridiculous scapegoat/boogeyman overused by people who should be worrying about more serious problems (like the explosion of corporate lobbying, the hollowing out of our industry by contacting work, and maybe industry capture of regulatory bodies.) It seems that so many on the right, including the SBA and Reason, want to make their own boogeyman and call it "regulation."
But I would really hate to turn this into a discussion on whether or not Friedman was wrong or right.
"Does that sentiment sound familiar?"
I'm not saying they aren't completely unrelated (regulation/predatory pricing), but a real comparison of the costs of each would have to be inundated with caveats and distinctions, rendering it a flawed and uninteresting debate. It seemed like a reach, and even couching it with terms like "often" doesn't make it more sensible to me. It would be interesting to see more information regarding those SBA figures. I wonder if the massive corporate bureaucracy that it takes to keep those "per employee" numbers down is figured into the analysis.
"On the question of jokes, those are fine, but don't be surprised to find him ranting a few posts later about an anti-global warming guy using cheap shots in lieu of real analysis to wow a sympathetic audience. It's no different in that context than it is this."
Honestly, I'm not sure we're even reading the same blog. The only reason I return here is because so much of what's said is heavily defended, and is usually a great read. I see plenty real analysis on this blog (and some of the others linked here).
'The claim is dubious because regulation is extremely difficult to compare to predatory pricing.'
Should journalistic articles avoid any complicated issues altogether then? While you're right that evidence in support would be very difficult to accumulate it seems to me that the model given (namely that the regulatory burden creates an artificial economy of scale which advantages bigger businesses) is both hypothetically sound and supported by, if not rigorous statistical analysis that I have access to, a large volume of anecdotal data from small business owners themselves and the associations that represent them.
That doesn't make them right, but neither does it make the author an 'idiot' or the article 'the stupidest essay ever'. The fact that the counter-analysis offered is based on causation from a single-factor that affects all parties and that any attempt to draw more sophisticated analysis leads to a denial that any is needed (and further ad hominem abuse) gives me the initial impression that rather than being anti-denialist the author takes the more common position of demanding sophisticated analysis from those he disagrees with while using the same cheap tactics he derides in his opponents.
As for the rest being a great read, that's always possible, but I'd be surprised if his other forays into economics were wildly more objective. He's not an idiot and nor is this the stupidest blog ever, but the hypocrisy is amusing.
Tyler DiPietro:
True, "libertarianism" is multifarious, like "socialism" or "conservatism." It's also the case have many strands of libertarianism have puristic tendencies, and any purist belief system can be conducive to conspiracy theories and blatant disregard for facts.
I believe that libertarian thinking has been valuable in countering the excesses of socialism and welfarism, even if in doing so it has indulged in its own excesses. The same is true of the earlier socialist critique of capitalism.
In terms of assimilation of libertarian ideas, I had Blairism and Clintonism rather than Pinochet in mind. And you're right; each specific policy should be evaluated individually.
Bernard,
"That doesn't make them right, but neither does it make the author an 'idiot' or the article 'the stupidest essay ever'."
I'm not really interested in defending the language Mark used as it's not how I would have gone about it (calling people names is something in the internet world that will surely come back to bite you), but because I've been coming here for so long, and I've been exposed to the serious examination of issues with more couth, I guess I gave him an unconscious pass on a few words. I can see your point though, in that it doesn't help his case.
However, he would have to go much farther than that for me to use the term "hypocrite".