On Mon, Nov 05, at 07:44PM, Jim Choate wrote: | What does it take to create a 'free market'? Hayeks says 'perfect | competition'. Here you go using a Good Name(tm) in vain...again. | What is 'perfect competition'? "Perfect Competition" is not an Austrian idea, in fact, it is an idea that has been refuted by many Austrians in the past as it is not characteristic of the real world. | 3. Complete knowledge of the relevant factors on the part of all | participants in the market." "Complete Knowledge" is precisely what Hayek was refuting when he proclaimed the idea of local knowledge, since no one can know at all times what happens all around him, much less the next person. | Individualism and Economic Order | F.A. Hayek | ISBN 0-225-32093-6 | | Chapter V | The Meaning of 'Competition' Did you actually read it? Or did you gather this information off of an Amazon book review blurb? | The reality is that Tim's believe that he can refuse to serve a customer | because they hold or perhaps practice some action that (while not | involving him or his property directly, only his apparently fragile | emotional ego) he finds offensive is within the bounds of free market | econoimics is just plain crap. Tim's refusal to service whoever he wishes is directly related to the free market. By the same token that Tim is free to not service anyone he wishes, so too is anyone who opposes this attitude free to not shop at Tim's shop. | Hayek's views on fascism and socialism are well known, and not positive. | What Tim proposes is nothing more than fascism at the individual level. Where do you get this stuff? Do you make it up as you go along? -- Churchill, Winston Leonard Spencer --On the eve of Britain's entry into World War II: "If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.