Chapter Ǵ: Why Subjectivism? ȁȈTo determine how resources go into producing what things in what
quantities, consumers need freedom to spend their incomes as they wish,
unregimented by actual rationing. But they need more: opportunities to
make choices at unrigged prices tending to reflect true production alter-
natives.
We could speak then of “consumers’ sovereignty,” but the term is a bit
narrow. Insofar as their abilities permit, people can bring their preferences
among occupations as well as among consumer goods to bear on the pat-
tern of production. In fact, investors’ preferences, including notions about
the morality and the glamor of different industries and companies, also
have some influence; and we might speak of “investors’ sovereignty” as
well. (See RothbardȀȈȅȁ, p.ȃȄȁn.Ȁȁ, and pp.Ȅȅǿ–Ȅȅȁon what Rothbard
calls “individual sovereignty.”)
Suppose that many people craved being actors strongly enough to
accept wages below those paid in other jobs requiring similar levels of
ability and training. Ļis willingness would help keep down the cost of
producing plays, and cheap tickets would draw audiences, maintaining
jobs in the theater. Suppose, in contrast, that almost everyone hated min-
ing coal. Ļe high wages needed to attract miners would enter into the
production cost and price of coal, signaling power companies to build
hydroelectric or nuclear or oil-burning rather than coal-burning plants
and signaling consumers to live in warmer climates or smaller or better-
insulated houses than they would do if fuel were cheaper. Such responses
would hold down the number of distasteful mining jobs to be filled. Ļe
few workers still doing that work would be ones whose distaste for it was
relatively mild and capable of being assuaged by high wages.
No profound distinction holds between workers’ sovereignty and con-
sumers’ sovereignty or between getting satisfactions or avoiding dissatis-
factions in choosing what work to do and what goods to consume. Con-
sumer goods are not ultimate ends in themselves but just particular means
of obtaining satisfactions or avoiding dissatisfactions. People make their
personal tastes and circumstances count by how they act on the markets
for labor and goods alike.
Our broadened concept of consumers’ and workers’ sovereignty by no
means upsets the idea of opportunity cost. We need only recognize that
people choose not simply among commodities but rather amongpack-
agesof satisfactions and dissatisfactions. Ļe choice between additional
amounts ofAandBis really a choice between satisfactions gained and
dissatisfactions avoided by people as consumers and producers ofAand