To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it. — Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1776
… and …
If We Don't Act, 2% of the People Are About To Control the Other 98%. — Gen. Michael Flynn, writing an op-ed for The Western Journal, 29 Jun 2020
Special Note: Notice how Adam Smith (above) said that oppression occurs through regulation.
It’s hard to understand obstinate power-lusters, because most people have so little in common with them. Why would a few hundred, or a few thousand, people seek to “reset” the world?
Couldn’t they merely focus on making a better life for themselves?
The answer is “No.” — obstinate power-lusters refuse to focus on what it takes in order for a human being to live a good life. They cannot, and will not, be satisfied with making a better life for themselves. This is bad news for the rest of us though.
What research reveals about obstinate power-lusters
Game Theory research reveals a tiny minority of human beings who are not motivated simply by personal gain, and they are also not motivated by helping others — they are called “spiteful competitors” who are not happy with personal gain, unless that gain comes at the expense of others.
They measure “gain” using the perverse concept of dominion/oppression as a standard.
They have to personally succeed, for sure, but their motivation REQUIRES that you also fail in life. A positive-sum, or “win-win,” scenario does not interest them. They seek to create situations where the scenario is “win-lose,” and you are the loser.
Dictator Game
In one type of game researchers use, Dictator Game, one party decides how to split an endowment. Actual money is given out during research, sometimes exceeding $150 for a single round of game-playing.
When the party chosen as the Dictator is “unfair” then the other player in the game gets nothing (gets stiffed). If normal self-interest had motivated this Dictator, then it could be relied upon to predict their behavior in another game, Ultimatum Game.
Ultimatum Game
The difference with Ultimatum Game is that there is action from both Proposers and Responders. Once the first party proposes a “split” of the free money, the other party has the option to reject the proposal, leading to no one receiving any free cash that round.
When the unfair Dictators who stiffed their partner in Dictator Game act as Responders in Ultimatum Game, you’d expect them to accept uneven splits of the cash — because a self-interested person almost always accepts free cash.
If the Proposer proposes a 60:40 split of, say, $100 in free money, the Responder usually accepts the deal (because even $40 is a $40 gain for you). But a small subset of unfair Dictators are also unwilling to accept anything less than a 50:50 split of cash.
This means that they are not primarily motivated by self-interest — i.e., where any gain is interpreted as a gain — but by “doing better than you.”
Absolute gain does not interest them, only relative gain — such as a personal gain which happens at your expense. Here is a graph showing results of both games when anonymity was guaranteed while playing (City) and when your identity could become known if you were tracked or watched (Lab):
Simultaneous outcomes of both Dictator and Ultimatum
At left is the City phase of the study, when there was some guarantee that your identity would remain anonymous. Out of 132 who stiffed their partner in Dictator Game (“unfair Dictators”), 58 of them also demanded equal splits in Ultimatum — showing that they were not primarily motivated by self-interest.
That’s 8% who’d throw you under the bus for gain, if they could remain completely anonymous. Thankfully, 92% of humanity would not be willing to do such things to others.
At right is the Lab phase of the study, when there was no guarantee that your identity would remain anonymous (people in the lab could watch or track you). Out of 59 who stiffed their partner in Dictator Game (“unfair Dictators”), 17 of them also demanded equal splits in Ultimatum — showing that they were not primarily motivated by self-interest.
That’s 3% who’d throw you under the bus for personal gain, even when others are watching. Thankfully, 97% of humanity would not be willing to do such things to others. A 90% confidence interval was formed around the proportion, with a lower limit of 2%.
Amazingly, Gen. Michael Flynn wrote an op-ed for The Western Journal back in June of 2020, and he guessed correctly at the proportion of human beings each generation who are obstinate power-lusters.
Here are notes regarding the Game Theory findings of 2014:
[click image to enlarge]
Here is a cartoon image showing how it is that 2% of humanity fully intends to put the other 98% through hell:
Caveat: This cartoon takes some literary license in making the admittedly-unverified assumption that some humans would be willing to kill others over the threat of a mere 5% reduction in their living standards (i.e. that they’d rather that others actually die than to live at 95% of the comfort that they’ve become used to).
Because we have a choice about whether we let rich cronies rig the economic systems or not — i.e., because we can choose free market (unregulated) capitalism if we like — we have a say in whether the cycle of “resets” continues.
Because regulation opens to the door to rigging the economy, a catchy turn-of-phrase is that a regulated economy is a “rig-ulated” one — it is ripe for rigging by cronies.
Adverse interests will perpetually try to deceive the public with faulty arguments presumably showing that free market (unregulated) capitalism is bad. If those deceptions continue to work, we’ll remain in this cycle where the disenfranchised among us are periodically exterminated by some means thought up by rich cronies.
It explains much, if not most, of the history of human atrocity.
Reference
[Adam Smith quote about “an order of men” who don’t have public interest in mind] — Adam Smith Quotes. https://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes
[Gen. Michael Flynn quote about how 2% of humans are predators] — Op-Ed. The Western Journal. Exclusive from Gen. Flynn: If We Don't Act, 2% of the People Are About To Control the Other 98%. 29 Jun 2020. https://www.westernjournal.com/exclusive-gen-flynn-dont-act-2-people-control-98/
[2014 study on spiteful competitors] — Brañas-Garza, P., Espín, A., Exadaktylos, F. et al. Fair and unfair punishers coexist in the Ultimatum Game. Sci Rep 4, 6025 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep06025
I chose health and safety because rarely do industries want more of that taking out a chunk of their bottom line. You are talking about barriers to entry. They want barriers to entry to be established, to keep others out. But once they are established and barriers are in place, they want less oversight such as health and safety. Take for example the barriers that were put in place for any reappropriated drugs for COVID (largely denied), while the vaccines producers got the go ahead to develop and then had to do very little with regard to showing safety and efficacy (and even what was done, was laughable)
Excellent article
Loosening health/safety regulations:
Corporate expenses v
Corporate earnings ^
Population v
Cronies lifestyle ^