
Market Manipulation, the 1780s Way - benbreen
http://common-place.org/book/market-manipulation-the-1780s-way-what-a-letter-to-a-flour-dealer-tells-us-about-the-early-modern-political-economy/
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dredmorbius
This is quite a fascinating historical exploration of market-cornering, with
ways and means (and limits) to same.

It comes only a decade after Adam Smith's possibly infamous, and much-
misrepresented book on the question of Nations and their Wealth, Inqueries
therewith as to cause and nature.

It's also notable that the _single and solitary_ mention of "free market" in
Smith comes as a counterpoint to similar such commercially-initiated market
constraints (here: woollens trade in England, with cheap imports of raw wool
and prohibitions on finished goods imports) favouring woollens manufacturers.

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wavefunction
A nice post. I think you will find Adam Smith in the fashion you described
because Adam Smith ultimately sympathized with labor rather than capital, from
my repeated readings of his works.

Perhaps it was his familiarity with the privileged sort combined with his
Scottish naissance which rendered him thus, but likely that's only my own
wishful thinking.

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x5n1
Why would anyone sympathize with capital over labor? At the end of the day why
anyone does is efficiency. Other than that capital is simply a means to coerce
labor to do work. Why would anyone side with coercion rather than the people?
People worship those with capital as if there is something really special
about them. At the end of the day I have observed 1/2 and 1/2, some people are
really special others just lucked into capital because of the situation. There
is no virtue to gaining capital and it does not say all that much about its
holder.

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golergka
Capital is about risk, not coercion.

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x5n1
I have 1 billion dollars. I spend maybe 20 million in 10 startups, I diversify
the risk. How much risk have I taken?

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golergka
More risk than any of workers employed in these startups have taken, unless
they are compensated with equity.

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confluence
A worker employed at a startup is entirely dependent upon the startup for the
majority of his income. An employee is in general _all in_ with their company
in most locations, which is why changing jobs is difficult.

An employee takes on more risk, simply because everything matters more to
them, than it does to the owner, you can easily drop X amount and not feel a
thing.

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golergka
How is depending on a company for income a risk? You don't lose anything if
company closes, you just find another job.

And I don't think that "feeling a thing" is relevant here; regardless of
whether your net worth a million or a billion, when a company you invested in
closes, you lose the same amount of money — unlike employees who got
compensated for their time and work regardless.

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stegosaurus
Non-linear utility of money.

Going from $1bn to $50m (a loss of 95%) in wealth might be psychologically
damaging but you're still independently wealthy. You'd lose the jet (if you
chose to buy one), but you'd keep the house, the car, the neighbourhood, etc.

Going from $1m to $50k (a loss of 95%) is absolutely enormous. You've lost the
house and the retirement fund and you're starting from scratch with a deposit.

The realistic case for most labourers is worse than that. How much risk is
involved in moving to a new town for a job? Training in a certain discipline?
Deciding to have children or not? All of those are far more impactful on the
middle class than on the wealthy.

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golergka
But what utility has to do with this?

