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A comment on How ‘big law’ makes big money. Parent comment

Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by vageli on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @04:32PM (#22251187)
> Tyrannical dictatorships are an emergent property of Marxism. When you stop allocating resources based on competence, and instead based on other factors, whoever gets to decide these factors ends up with all the wealth and power, since they use the factors they have. For instance in intersectionality, minorities want to take from whites under various guises of white privilege and equity, with the anticipated result being they hold all the wealth and power. If you keep narrowing the criteria, you end up with a tyrannical dictatorship. This is opposite of a constitutional democracy where power is decentralized among voters and limited by a Constitution.

What is this mythical system that allocates resources based on competence?

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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by JoeAltmaier on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @04:37PM (#22251228)
The free market?
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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by smolder on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @06:06PM (#22251836)
The free market allocates resources based on competence at the task of acquiring resources, which doesn't always equate to virtuous contribution. I think it works because it gets some utility out of people's greed instead of none, while appeasing the powerful instead of mobilizing their power against it.
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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by joshuaheard on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @09:16PM (#22252905)
The free market allocates resources based on the competence of producing goods and services valued by others using money as the medium of exchange. People get utility from voluntary mutually beneficial transactions that satisfy their needs.
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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by smolder on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @10:43PM (#22253264)
That's the ideal, and you're not wrong, but it ignores the behavioral piece of what really goes on in the world.
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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by JoeAltmaier on Thursday February 06, 2020 @09:56AM (#22256393)
I saw what you did there - changed the story to 'virtuous' from 'competence'. I call foul!
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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by Spooky23 on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @11:08PM (#22253351)
Free markets have nothing to do with competence.
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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by JoeAltmaier on Thursday February 06, 2020 @10:14AM (#22256532)
They select for members that deliver goods and services at a cost (dollars, convenience, timeliness) acceptable to other members of the market. Which is a 'competence function'.
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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by Natsu on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @06:07PM (#22251845)
Capitalism. The problem is that the competencies aren't always socially-beneficial or otherwise desirable ones, e.g. one's competency at scamming others can get rewarded (see, e.g., politicians).
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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by barney54 on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @10:12PM (#22253141)
Under capitalism you don't necessarily reward politicians. Politicians get rewarded when the spoils of politics are large, not from market exchanges.
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Re:How ‘big law’ makes big money by Natsu on Thursday February 06, 2020 @04:33PM (#22260572)
I wish that were true, but the number of politicians whose businesses or children mysteriously get rich is pretty high if you look into that sort of thing.
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