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Originally Posted by rcentros
. In the Middle ages they had the guilds, where (at least ideally) rules were followed that insured those who worked hard weren't run out of business.
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Guilds??
Sorry, but no.
That is not why, historically, guilds were created.
https://www.ancient.eu/Medieval_Guilds/
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Guilds of merchants and craft workers were formed in medieval Europe so that their members could benefit from mutual aid, production standards could be maintained, competition was reduced and, by acting collectively, a certain political influence could be achieved. Entry requirements to guilds became stricter over time as those who controlled the guilds became part of a richer middle class and set a higher membership fee for outsiders. This new bourgeoisie successfully sought to maintain their position above workers without the means or skills needed to run their own small businesses. There were two main types of guilds: merchant guilds for those who controlled trade in a particular item and craft guilds for skilled artisans such as weavers, shoemakers and bakers.
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Guilds were created as barriers to entry, to keep newcomers out and enforce prices and practices. The memory of guilds is where price fixing and trusts come from. Guilds were unions of owners, not of employees. or consumers.
Guilds were anti-tech, anti-union, anti-progress.
*That* was rampant capitalism, nowhere ndar the restrained economic system of the western economies.
Look around and you'll find that where guilds were strongrst and hung on the longest is where modernization and living standards lagged the most.
Now, modern guilds are more typically unions and coops and professional associations, all good things for tbeir members even those have little concern for consumers or the "greater social good".
Like it or not the modern world is consumerist in focus.
Even the most authoritarian regimes know the masses must be dealt with carefully. That was the key failure of communism. And if the CCP regime falls in China that will be their undoing come the end. They are in a constant struggle to maintain control under their social contract of "prosperity in exchange for freedom". And that is getting harder and harder for non-economic reasons.
Western capitalism (because there's at least three others) needs antitrust to provide a brake to human nature because, yes, greed is an intrinsic trait of humans. (Just put a young child in front of a plate of candy and watch.) Animals too. (Junkyard dogs are not unique.) And because self regulation doesn't work. Fear yes, but absent the stick there is no carrot to prevent people of striving for their own best interests well beyond what might offend others sensibilities. And fear doesn't work too well, anyway.
Without effective antitrust regulating otherwise free commerce you get oligarchs and kleptocracies regardless of whether you have laissez faire, directed economies, or state-granted monopolies (which is what medieval guilds were.)
To date the only two ways to run an economy are still either market-driven and state-directed. And state directed has always led to stasis and collapse. Bad as rampant consumerism might strike many, the alternative is worse.
There is no long-term middle ground so far.
Even small attempts at state-directed ("national champions") has always led to inefficiency, lack of competitiveness, and come disruption time, collapse.
Self-restraint is non-existent. (Look into the Tragedy of the Commons. Samaritanism has limits.)
And directed economies always fail.
In the end it all comes down to efficiency.
Open markets are dynamic and self-correcting, as we've seen with ebooks, which are a textbook case. A market driven by change and innovation, hampered by producer attempts to limit competition and keep out new entrants, seeking to maintain the stasis prevailing since the 90's, until ebooks hit the mainstream.
Stasis has been losing steadily this past decade, the rear guard attempts of the quasi-guild of the BPHs have lost them most of their market power and now they're in danger of losing their ground level enablers.
We're about to enter the third era of ebooks and even stalwart pbookers like Daunt are realizing the hole they've dug for themselves.
I personally think it's too late for the parrot.
We'll see.