[PLUG-TALK] The Corner Newsletter: The Death of BuzzFeed News (fwd)

[Paul Heinlein]

On Fri, 28 Apr 2023, Rich Shepard wrote:

> On Fri, 28 Apr 2023, Paul Heinlein wrote:
>
>>  I have a long-standing fear that the corporate consolidation in the US
>>  economy over the past 40 years or so, in all markets (including
>>  journalism), has not been particularly beneficial to our society. It has
>>  ...
>
> Paul,
>
> I'm glad that I've found someone else who feels this angst.

A writer named Daniel Herriges helped me clarify my fears here:

What a lot of pro-market folks don’t understand is that the invisible 
hand is really just a large number of real, visible hands. The whole 
idea is a consequence of the Law of Large Numbers: it depends upon 
there being many actors in a market, none of whose decisions have 
outsized influence.

The invisible hand of the market simply doesn’t exist in situations 
where a few people—whether developers who decide where to build, or 
regulators who decide where building up is allowed—make all the 
crucial decisions.

[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/6/11/a-city-shaped-by-many-hands]


As the number of market suppliers dwindles, Adam Smith's "invisible 
hand" withers accordingly.

-- 
Paul Heinlein
heinlein at madboa.com
45°22'48" N, 122°35'36" W