What do you think regarding the statistics published by PLUM, according to which losses from cartel agreements exceed spending on antitrust policy? What do you think about PLUM in general? Has it gone downhill?

Ultra-sexy dragon

I’ll start from the end. The channel you are asking about is called “Platinum Thoughts of Young Leftists.” The theses proposed for consideration are indeed the platinum thoughts of young leftists. So why should I think that the channel has gone downhill? On the contrary, it has finally achieved harmony of form and content; it is wonderful.

But seriously, one unsuccessful article or series of articles does not yet write off a channel, especially if it is the product of collective efforts.

On the channel PLUM-TV, several notes were published with examples of how cartel agreements harm consumers, and how state antitrust measures benefit consumers. At the same time, it is not difficult to provide examples of how cartels fail to comply with their own agreements for reasons obvious in terms of economic theory (it is profitable for each participant to break the agreement). It is also not hard to find examples of how state antitrust measures harm consumers.

PLUM concludes from this that the state is a quite viable tool if it is properly tuned. Proponents of AES conclude from this that facts are simply events interpreted through one theory or another, statistics are the result of processing many facts using a theory on how facts should be processed, and the results of statistical research are simply an emotional plea in a political struggle, but by no means an argument in a dispute over which theory is correct—since in selecting countless events into what is called a fact, a certain theory is already being applied, meaning that proving a theory using facts is a distortion. PLUM concludes from this that AES is a faith, not a scientific theory, insofar as it is so deaf to facts. Proponents of AES point out that mathematics is also deaf to facts, describes its own little models and generally doesn’t care whether perfect circles exist in reality. This, however, does not prevent it from being successfully applied to real life—though not to everything and not blindly.

In general, this is a long-standing dispute, many spears have been broken, and generally, it is clear that both induction and deduction should be applied carefully. As for whether the state should be given a chance to improve, or whether it should be razed to the ground, I have touched upon this repeatedly in my previous posts. For example, you can refresh your memory with the post on under what circumstances libertarians might consider their teaching a false idea.

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