So The Free Market is a Failure ?

                                                       


                                                          Driving in to work today on a local radio program was a discussion on the legislation that phases out the incandescent light bulb, a proponent of this mandated phase out was a Gentleman named Daniel Weiss. His fundamental argument was the reason such a phase out is required for progress in the 120 year old technology of light bulbs was there is such a thing as Market Failure. Very interesting. In other words the idea that I will exchange my labor, for money, so that I can then use that money to have someone else exchange there labor for money, has a flaw. To quote Spock from Star Trek ....... fascinating !
                                                                       There are academics who espouse a school of thought that believes there are " externalities "  in the economy and those externalities both positive and negative keep producers and consumers from achieving rational decisions with out the influence of an outside referee if you will, that referee in our case is the United States Federal Government. A negative externality in this case is that the incandescent light bulb, is inefficient and  uses to much energy, and in order to produce electricity for that incandescent lamp, the coal fired power plant is harming the health of the citizens who live within the downwind areas of that coal plant, inhaling mercury and other toxins that are spewing in the air. The other negative externalitie is that producers will not take capital risks to produce a more efficient light bulb, or rather there is no one producer willing to take the risk of being the first to produce a more efficient light bulb, due to the fact that there is no level playing field, or standard that all producers have to follow so therefore why take the risk, and lose lots of business and capital ?
                                                                        What really is being laid out here is that unless there are mandated standards for all industry's and services, there will not be real competition in our economy. This attitude makes business less competitive. This attitude makes for a statist planned economy. This attitude will make the American manufacture and service provider a failure in the global economy. Just take a small trip down memory lane, Edison had a completely different view of how to provide Electricity than did  Westinghouse, by the standards advocated  by academics And Mr. Weiss the United States government should have mandated how electricity would be provided to consumers and then the experimentation of how to build the plants would be regulated, and then the capital would be laid out, and then there would have been competition. The Electricity we enjoy today would never have been created. It was thru learning, building, experimenting, and risking capital in a free market that created both the power to create electricity, and the light bulb that was screwed in a socket to the consumer.
                                                                           Have we lost the spirit to create in this country ? Are the producers of this nation nothing more than managers of concerns ? I hope not, if that is indeed the case than there will be more innovative ideas from abroad, and those innovators will be the winners in the global economy, and our standard of living will surely fall, and our position as a leader will indeed be diminished. I personally like the compact fluorescent lamp, and have been an advocate of it's use for well over 20 years, but that is me, I do not think there should be a referee telling you or me or any one else how to light our homes or business. If you have a problem with pollution fine, that is a valid " property rights " issue. So the pants off of utilities, or the coal mining company, sounds good to me, but to regulate an entire economy, in particular as if a Central Authority could be wiser than 300 million people all trying to satisfy their individual needs is promoting fascist ideas, and have no place in the United States, or within a world of Liberty.



For further reading on this please check out these links:



http://www.fff.org/freedom/0593f.asp





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Westinghouse






http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=IssueItems.Detail&IssueItem_ID=f10ca3dd-fabd-4900-aa9d-c19de47df2da&Month=12&Year=2007