Correction

I guess I AM the hypothetical pro-capitalist you are discussing, though a moderated one, so perhaps I'll articulate what arguments stick for me. I'm totally unmoved by the intrinsic "none of your business," but I'm also not sold on the idea that markets are perfectly efficient when given perfect information. That idea has taken a severe beating since Markowitz et al first put it out there, especially in the last 18 months.

One argument that sticks with me is the monopoly argument. Not that literally all aggregators need to be sued (though some might for other reasons!), but that there is a more general argument to be made that if Google has 70% of all our data (65% market share in all ads, 75% and growing in search), the barriers to entry preclude competitors being able to act efficiently on a systemic turn towards more transparent information. In other words, the access to data, as currently structured, might impede rather than improve competition. To Dana's point, this is where free markets and personhood intersect: a true capitalist believes you fulfill your personhood by being empowered to capitalize on it; if you can't, because the imbalances are too great, that's called market failure and it requires us to hit "reset." Privacy laws need to be pitched as a reset button.

Another argument that sticks with me is the argument about regulation. Most pro-market people want government to be effective but limited in exercising authority over the economy, and I see many problems with asking the state to regulate the companies who provide it with intelligence/law enforcement data. So there's the cronyism argument.

-- MahaAtal - 20 May 2009