Chris Dillow — On arms races

There’s a nice headline in the Times today:

Make us sell healthy food, supermarkets implore May.

This invites the obvious reply: if you want to sell healthy food, why don’t you just do so?

The answer lies in competitive pressures. If any individual supermarket tries to cut salt in its products or refrains from special offers on unhealthy foods, it would lose market share to rivals.

Each individual supermarket’s rational attempts to maximize profits thus leads to an outcome which none of them really wants – the over-marketing of unhealthy food. This is an example of an arms race, a process whereby individually rational behaviour has results which are collectively undesirable. Here are some other examples:….

Stumbling and Mumbling
On arms races
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

Marcelo Ridenti — Dilma Rousseff impeachment: Brazil threatens to descend into a disguised police state

Capitalism has always been supported by an alliance between the ownership class and the security services. This is unnoticed when things are going well, but as conditions deteriorates the veil comes down and the iron fist becomes more and more visible.

The modern state is a trifecta of security, order and welfare. As welfare declines, then increased security is brought to bear to maintain "order," that is, the status quo of ownership. Adjustment is forced on "the little people," and security ensures compliance.

The has noticeably slipped in this direction since 9/ll, although it has in the making since the launch of the "war on drugs," and it was already in evidence during the Sixties and Seventies anti-war movement and demonstations. SDS was known to be infiltrated by the FBI, for example, which was meant more as intimidation than legitimate surveillance of an actual threat to national security.

nsnbc
Dilma Rousseff impeachment: Brazil threatens to descend into a disguised police state
Marcelo Ridenti | Professor of Sociology, Universidade Estadual de Campinas.