(no subject)

The optometrist put the nasty drops in my eye (all three, actually - numbing, fluorescing dye and pupil enlarger) and now my eyes feel all funny and my vision is blurry and it is making me grumpy and stupid. grrrr

(no subject)

From Making Light, fully quoted for clarity:

The *normal operation* of economic markets makes some people poor. Not because they are lazy, or fail to take initiative, or lack foresight, or have insufficient gumption and moxie. Just because.

It’s just what happens. Ask Vilfredo Pareto.

Since *that is what happens* when free economic markets do their thing, and since we want more rather than less free markets, if we have any intelligence or basic sense of responsibility at all we will take steps to mitigate the harms that flow from that.

If we fail to do that, we are being irresponsible. If we fail to do that because we only like the upside of the free market, and are content to let other folks absorb the downside, then we are in fact the freeloaders. If “freeloader” is too harsh a word, feel free to read that as the more neutral economic term of art “free rider”.

I like it. Just as those who benefit from roads should pay for the costs of the roads (construction, maintenance, end of life), so those who benefit from the capitalist system should* pay for the costs of it. And one of those costs is the natural rate of unemployment. It’s not oppositional, any more than paying for the candy bar before you walk out of the supermarket is oppositional.