> Anton Sherwood wrote:
>
> > Well, it's more like control of all by
> > the many, since the majority are usually
> > not exempt from the rules they make (what
> > would be the point?). We might suppose it
> > redundant to *bind* the majority to that
> > for which they voted, but they may be
> > unwilling to do whatever it is unless
> > *all* are constrained to do it (because of
> > the free rider problem, for example).
>
> But the majority are also in control of the minority who choose to
> vote otherwise - in this case the majority can be seen as the centre.
>
> > If I "vote" with my money to decree that
> > cilantro is not food, even if I'm in a
> > majority there are still a minority who
> > buy and eat cilantro, and a minority of
> > restaurants who use it. And though in fact
> > I am evidently in a tiny minority, most
> > restaurants will leave out the cilantro if
> > I ask them to.
>
> The majority is in control of what food is supplied, even if you don't
> buy and eat it.
No, because we can say that the customers and the business constructed the
market -- but nobody of them can control the market. The market rules are
result of all autonomous decisions of individuals inside this market. This
is a kind of social anarchy like the social order among accidental humans
on the street controlled only by prohability calculus.
You cannot "vote" with your money. You can only make a decision what you
buy and what you don't buy. The prohability calculus proved that there are
a prohability that other customers make a decision in your way -- but you
cannot know or prove this if you are really part of a mayority. Every mar-
ket investigation based on 10 000 or 2 000 humans in each survey and the
speculation that this humans represent market trends. But anybody can know
if this is really true.
If you discuss about this you have to be avare about the paradoxy of every
election or market survey.
>
> > > But what about your firms interaction
> > > with individuals (i.e. customers)? Do
> > > you consider that a centralist
> > > relationship?
> >
> >Where's the center?
>
> The firm would be the centre, even if it is 'controlled' by the
> customers. (As I've said before, even the most totalitarian of
> governments are 'controlled' by their people.)
Theoretically, yes. But the customers didn't control the firms direct and
cannot make a real decision to sabotage this firm and strengthen an other
(what voters can!) because they don't know each others and havn't no means
to get a avareness about there mayority. And on the other hand can every
firm only make offers but cannot be in the real rule of a center. This is
the story of success of MLM because here the firm is a real center and can
act as a center because this firm know his customers and can guide and
control parts of their custom behaviour to sell the produkts.
>
> > > Your customers control (vote by money)
> > > the company which takes precedence over
> > > the decisions of individual customers or
> > > smaller groups of customers. It's a very
> > > incomplete precedence. Individual customers
> > > don't set their own prices, decide on which
> > > products you make, etc.
> >
> > Well, not in my present firm, no; I assume all
> > clients are offered essentially the same
> > contract. But my previous employer sets
> > different terms for each client (often giving
> > them a choice), because their circumstances
> > vary and they want different services. In each
> > case, clients are free to shop around for a
> > better deal, whether for a lower price or for
> > services more fitting to their needs.
>
> Perhaps because of a firm's size they can offer a more individual
> deal. But I'm sure a smaller government doesn't have to generalise
> quite so much as a larger government, yet they are both centralist
> entities.
>
> > Where's the center?
>
> Again, the firm is the centre. Just because it has not been quite so
> successful at forcing me to use its product (like a government) it is
> not decentralised. And just because there are more firms than
> governments, they are not decentralised. And just because firms are
> smaller than governments, they are not decentralised.
Smaller than governments, ey? For example, the danish government rule
about 5,8 Million inhabitants. The firm AOL/Compuserve "rule" about 15
Million customers/net-user in the hole world. Who is larger?
No, Wax, the only diffrent is: Firms wants to "rule" just about parts of
the behaviour of customers -- but governments wants to rule about the hole
behaviour of all inhabitants.
Sincerely,
Nico
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