Perfect Dangers

Exposing the Inversion of ‘Perfect’ & ‘Imperfect’ in Pro-Government Economics

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Industrial-style, cookie-cutter, homogeneous architecture. Photo by Tim D on Unsplash.

Are you a perfectionist? Do you know any perfectionists? The perfectionist can spot the tiniest flaws and wants them to be remedied. In their own work, they seek to be error-free. This can be a good thing! Mistakes identified are best corrected before a bigger problem occurs.

You may, however, have heard the term “perfectionist” used as an insult, to describe someone seen as spending too much time and effort nitpicking. Perhaps you’ve heard a similar sentiment expressed in an old saying, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

In these negative connotations, the conflict is between degrees of good. The perfect, while a greater good in one sense, also brings tradeoffs in resources that might not be worth pushing beyond “almost perfect” or “pretty darn good.”

But there are also uses of “perfect” that refer to terrible conditions, even though the people talking about “perfect” hardly ever realize it.

And the most dangerous part? This form of “perfect” — and its linguistic counterpart, “imperfect” or “failure” — is employed to justify government intrusions into people’s lives and livelihoods. It’s an economic, semantic sleight-of-hand that obscures what’s beneficial and elevates nonsense.

Here’s how it happens.

Economics includes a theoretical concept called, “perfect competition.” It’s a hypothetical scenario in which all buyers and sellers have all the information they need to make decisions, all the buyers and sellers are completely rational in their decisions, and there is no “economic surplus” (which also means profits tend toward zero).

In “perfect competition,” the market for goods and services becomes completely homogeneous: Every producer, regardless of size, will “sell products with minimal differences in capabilities, features, and pricing.” Everything produced is neatly consumed.

Sounds great, right? Not so fast . . .

Perfect brings terrible poverty

Let’s spell out what makes “perfect” markets/competition both ironic and awful.

First, the irony. Perfect competition was theorized as the opposite of a monopolized market. A monopoly has no competition and no incentive to improve products. But a perfect market contains basically the same major characteristics as its alleged opposite. Competition ceases in any meaningful way. There’s no dynamism, no incentives for any innovation in the goods and services.

New ideas? Innovation? Inspiration? Not in a “perfect” market! Photo by Rainer Bleek on Unsplash.

Now, the awful part. Economists who talk about “perfect markets” or “perfect competition” know they’re referring to something that’s not really attainable. But because “perfection” tends to mean a good outcome, its opposite term, “imperfection” is seen as bad.

The imperfections are often called “market failures,” and they’re cited as justification for government intrusions into people’s lives and livelihoods. A page on the USDA website gives the basic argument:

• Markets fail when exchanges between willing buyers and sellers are impeded and efficiency is compromised.

• Overcoming such market failures is a role for government, but devising a solution that improves upon the status quo may not always be possible.

It’s good that the agency site admits the government intrusions might make things worse. But it’s maddening that the writers don’t connect the dots: Government meddling is the very impediment and compromising of efficiency that they bemoan!

And besides, the “perfect” markets are scams.

As I said as a roundtable guest Saturday on the Haman Nature livestream celebrating the podcast’s 200th episode:

You want a perfect market? It has existed in history. And it’s dirt poor. It’s absolute poverty. To consume everything that you produce is a perfect market; that’s subsistence-level poverty.

The “imperfections” and “failures” of markets and competition are what brought most people in the world out of extreme poverty.

The “imperfections” and “failures” are where you find the lower time preference that allows for investment in better ways of producing goods and services.

The “imperfections” and “failures” are precisely the dynamic qualities of innovation, of a willingness to confront uncertainty (some might call it nonrational confidence, guy!), of competing for the consent of one’s fellow humans in trade.

The “imperfections” and “failures” are actual humans exercising their natural human rights.

Genuine Christians and anarchists/voluntarists know the benefits of these so-called “imperfections” and “failures,” and are also wary of the evil, destructive aspects of the misguided kind of “perfect.”

Predictably negative results

There’s also a type of poverty of the soul that happens from too much regularity and planned sameness in what people create and build.

Drew Treglia’s graphic for my recent appearance on his podcast. Find the show page at Substack, with links to listen at YouTube, Rumble, PodBean.

Drew Treglia interviewed me about my book, Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen, for his Maverick in the Machine podcast episode released Feb. 7.

During our discussion of good chaos and evil order, Drew revealed something profound about the homogenizing of modern architecture:

DREW: I’m in Phoenix [Arizona], but I’m north in the mountains, so it’s much more of a better aesthetic. But down in the city of Phoenix, the order there, it can literally, physically make me ill sometimes. It’s very weird. I go through certain neighborhoods, these pre-planned housing communities where every house is brown. They’re built the same way. … It does something dark to me. … It just feels dead.

DOM: There’s something that seems inhuman about that, right?

We then spoke about the difference between emerging (or spontaneous) order and imposed order. The latter is what governments do, and with great harm.

Using ridiculous notions of “perfect” and “imperfect”/“failure,” officials and cheerleaders of monopoly-violence institutions (governments!) argue for overriding people’s natural human rights.

In reality, the “imperfect” is more honest and more lifelike than the lie of the “perfect.” What’s worse, the “perfect” is static; it’s dead and deadly oppressive.

Sure, competitive risk-taking can be dangerous, but the “perfection” of pro-government economics is worse.

Perfect/imperfect Comments section

All comments posted will be read! Does this make the Comments section a “perfect” scenario?

Of course, a really good Comments section is dynamic and emergent, not homogeneous. So maybe that aspect is beautifully “imperfect” and a “failure” of dictatorial control. Good!

Ever hear of “perfect” competition and markets, or “perfect equilibrium” in game theory?

Know any perfectionists?

Anything else on your mind regarding today’s themes?

Let me know your thoughts below …

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My book, Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen, is available at:

• Amazon (paperback & Kindle)

• Barnes&Noble (paperback)

• Lulu (paperback)

Find me on X: GoodNeighBadCit

And, as always: Be a good neighbor, even if it makes you a bad citizen.