Stroking the Invisible Hand of the Market
An article in Saturday’s New York Times tells us that “…deep within the turgid pages of the Federal Register, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a regulation that would forbid the public release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles, saying that publicizing the information would cause ‘substantial competitive harm’ to manufactures.
Now, the unwashed and the ignorant might think that the purpose of publishing the safety defects of given model would be to cause “substantial competitive harm”, thus forcing the manufacturer to correct the defects. Economists tell us this is one of the benefits of a free market--shit don't sell. What these innocents fail to understand is that in corporatist America the sole purpose of a “free market” is to minimize expenses and maximize profits. This is a concept the Bushits understand quite well.
This would be a good time to retell the story of Lee Iacocca and the Ford Pinto. Shortly after Iacocca’s success with the Ford Mustang, he told Henry Ford II that he could build a car that would weigh less than 1800 pounds and cost under $1800. The only glitch was that to meet these criteria, Iacocca had to tuck the gasoline tank up against the back of the rear seat. His designers expressed concern that the tank might explode in the event of a rear-end collision thus incinerating the occupants. Iacocca told them to stop acting like girly-boys and get back to work.
The Pinto went into production. Tests with the actual car confirmed the designers’ fears. What to do. In this case, Ford did what any corporation would do when faced with a similar ethical situation—they called for a cost-benefit analysis.
The cost-benefit analysis proved, quantatively, that the cost per unit to pay lawsuits arising from exploding gas tanks would be less than the cost per unit of redesigning the car. The Pinto hit the streets unmodified.
And so all the victims of the Pinto, all the burn victims, all the paraplegics and quadriplegics, the widows and the orphans, all the beneficiaries of corporate cost-benefit analysis may sleep better tonight knowing that, at the end of the day, the invisible hand of the market will balance everything out, and that their misery and suffering is contributing to a strong economy and to a strong America for the few
For those of you who would like to see the invisible hand of the market, do the following: place your elbow on the table, your forearm perpendicular to the surface; make a fist; and extend your middle finger heavenward. There you have it—the invisible hand of the market.
7:44:37 AM 
|
