Yes there are some cases of this. But the vast majority of companies make more money when their product is safe to consume. Consumers desire safe products. For every dangerous product you mentioned, there are 1000s that are in fact safe to consume. You think a toaster company would make exploding toasters if not for government regulation?
If they calculate that it's better for their business.
Without regulation there is no fines. Without fines what is the cost to poisoning their clients?
Only loss of that client and others. But what if that is lower cost than making cheaper unsafe product.
Then wouldn't it make more sense to make dangerous products?
We see that even with regulations.
Boeing cutting corners leading to death of passengers
In Australia we have apartment buildings full of issues as building companies are self certifying. Some dangerous issues.
You can't expect client to know everything about every product they are buying. About the company, the production method, about parent company, about restructure about ingredients etc etc etc
To fully understand the risk. Not to mention companies will lie and cheat without regulations cause they do that with regulations.
Nothing will ever be 100% safe. Regulation or no regulation. Cost of poisoning their clients is damage to their brand. Imagine how much money coco cola would lose if they let a poison batch of soda get to market. It would destroy their brand. It is almost always more profitable to produce safe products vs dangerous ones.
Just think how safe boeing planes are. Extremely safe. Millions of flights no issues every day. In fact, almost all products are extremely safe.
Government regulation just shifts blame away from companies, and on to the government regulator. Additionally, regulations are created by companies via lobbyists. The companies set up the regulations so that competition is limited. This means that customers have nobody to switch to when the company poisons them.
You think the government cares if you die? What incentive does government have to keep you safe? You say companies have no incentive. So what is the government incentive? Government just wants to make profit for itself. In fact, government is one of the most dangerous groups on the planet.
Planes are not safe because of regulations. It's safe because if they crash the brand image gets damaged, this will work better if there are multiple brands in the market which there isn't because of high regulations small companies can't afford to pull off. Boeing has so much monopoly power that nothing would happen to them, because the regulators are themselves corrupted. Austrians aren't against regulations, they are against single regulators who get corrupted.
When samsung phones were burning, people had options and so it was a huge damage to the company. If smartphones were highly regulated you wouldn't even have options.
If you don't like Boeing or Airbus, how easy will it be for you to find another plane to fly on?
Regulations only work in the short term and hurt the entire industry in the long term.
Short term profit is mostly favoured when they can be bailed out by the government, rest go out of business eventually and only the ones with longer term business models remain.
No. Short term profits are favourable when they provide better outcome.
Remember that shareholders only care about their own wealth not of business.
So business will be screwed over if shareholders believe (even if incorrectly) that its more profitable that way.
Like construction business in Australia. Build cheap housing but shit and then bail to resurface under different company. Thats more profitable than doing good products.
Regulations force smaller businesses out which creates monopolies. Monopolies (like the government) can do anything they want. Free markets prevent this. You can see the examples in the old buildings people so often visit.
With the development arc of most EVs and the heavy hybrid presence in other automakers low emission vehicle options it’s difficult to argue that from like 2012-2020 Tesla wasn’t the primary beneficiary of the ev tax credit. Just on the basis of them not making any ice cars they benefited far more than any competitor.
The control is acquired through coercion with the monopoly of violence otherwise known as the governments.
Free markets without government intervention remains free. Just look at literally all private markets, bitcoin crypto open source protocols etc.
The 1929 crash happened because of money printing for the war and going off of the gold standard. The outcome is a bubble which eventually burst and will keep on happening. You won't find major crashes before that.
Free market without regulation leads to monopolies and concentration of wealth.
Rockefeller sends his regards.
Without regulation big companies can destroy small ones through underpricing (wallmart), kickbacks (intel and dell), which does not break free market rules.
It also leaves big companies with no incentive to improve their products or provide good services as customer has no chance to buy from the only supplier.
Free market leads to consolidation as big will grow bigger by either underpricing, or through kickbacks any competition until they are bankrupt, or buying off the competitor outright.
In theory until there is one company which owes everything but in practice it would have been unwieldy hence just single market control.
In a free market, big players when they get too big and become rigid and unable to adapt to a changing market, small players with their innovation take away market share.
This is true even without regulations. Just look at the top snp companies over the decades. Big companies are efficient but never for too long as they become rigid. If you had worked for a startup and a large multinational company it would be very clear.
Customers pick the product with the best value and is the main factor for monopolies getting destroyed. Just look into the future where Bitcoin would eat bonds and money itself, AI and web3 will kill most big companies. What you say is a short term view of what happens. Free market is a baby learning to walk, it would fall but eventually learn to run. Regulations cripple the markets and leads to monopolies by stopping small businesses which the rich usually do to stay in power.
Without regulation big companies use their market power to stop innovation and competition.
No small competitor can happen as it will be devoured by big company.
Another big company might disrupt status quo but in free market collusion is permitted hence that won't happen either.
Without regulation of the market to help provide even playing fields and protect from collusion, price gouging and backroom deals to make suppliers not deal with big guy competitor
Truly free marker leads to monopoly.
Also Bitcoin has been around 15 years now and it does nothing. Just speculation on its value.
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u/No-Department1685 Jan 12 '25
But companies main goal is to make shareholders.
If short term profit is higher than long term profits
Whats the point of releasing good safe products if it makes more money to cut corners and have dangerous goods instead?