Peaceable Conflict Resolution through Open Markets :: Business Essays

Peaceable Conflict Resolution through Open Markets Scarcity is the condition where human wants exceed the means to satisfy those wants. Human wants seldom reveal their bounds while the means to satisfy human wants are indeed limited. As a result scarcity's enduring legacy is conflict and one of the conflict issues is: who will have use rights to goods and services. A tiny example of conflict, amongst millions, is California's coastline. California might have thousands of acres of beachfront property but there might be tens of millions of families who want to reside on those beachfront properties. Given that there is not enough beachfront property to satisfy the wants of all of those tens of millions of families, some will have to make do with their wants not being satisfied. It also means there will be conflict, namely who will have their wants satisfied and who will not. Whenever there is conflict, there must be conflict resolution, in our example a mechanism for deciding who will have the right to reside on beachfront property. It so happens that conflict over who shall have the right to reside on California's beachfront property is resolved through the market mechanism. Whoever is willing and able to bid the highest price wins the right to reside on beachfront property. The conflict over who shall reside on beachfront property is resolved so peaceably that it goes unnoticed by the rest of us. There are no demonstrations, court battles, political lobbying, not to mention armed conflict by people disgruntled by the outcome. The market mechanism is not the only way to resolve conflict. Another method of conflict resolution is government fiat where the government decides who has the right to reside on beachfront property. Government officials could employ selection criteria such as age, family composition and size, length of state citizenship or most any other selection criteria. Since it is not economic criteria that decide who has the right to reside on beachfront property, of necessity it must be non-economic criteria. As such it will pay people to organize to lobby government to use selection criteria that favors them the most. Homogeneous groupings are often the most effective coalitions to lobby politicians and government officials. These groupings may be based on class, race, religion, region, age and most any other non-economic attribute. Coalitions created on these bases have been some of the most violent and divisive known to mankind.