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What you're describing is a fair market, not a free one.
by zeusk 10y ago
What you're describing is a fair market, not a free one.
- shmerl 10y agoFree market means free from monopolies as well.
- Qwertious 10y agoNonsense. Free market means the ideal market of whatever one's personal ideology thinks will work best. It's the economic version of "a perfect world", and everyone has a different vision of what "a perfect world" even means.
- zeusk 10y agoNonsense. Free market, which btw has grown to become a economical and political buzzword, is not "the ideal market of whatever one's personal ideology thinks will work best"; The core ideology behind it was to let the buyer and seller work on what works for them and keep third party interference to the least. Fair market imply either party is made aware of all the details behind the trade in case of which price discovery is impossible as the buyers won't buy above real value and sellers won't sell below real value. Anti-trust and Anti-monopoly laws that are sub-points of a fair market are inherently against the ideal free market. Also, theory does not really work in practice and no market is entirely free or fair.
- adrianN 10y agoNo it doesn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
- shmerl 10y agoIt does: > One view is that a free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority. That's how I define it. Monopoly makes the market non free.
- bluejekyll 10y agoConversely, a free market is free for monopolies to form; is free to charge whatever they want; is free to block other companies from entering and selling to a company via any means short of bribery (although even that could be thought of as free); is free to to do anything when competing short of breaking the law. We do not live in a free society, we are not free to do whatever we want; for example, I don't think anyone says we should be 'free' to murder anyone we want. I think the GP is more accurate with fair. I'd actually say, it's a guaranteed to be 'open market' we want; meaning everyone must play by the same rules. Of course the challenge is that whoever sets the rules, will end up protecting their own interests, and then we end up where we are anyway. Maybe we can turn to AI to be absolutely fair in creating rules to establish open markets... and then AI becomes the pure benevolent dictator, except for that pesky off by one error I left lurking in the code :/
- valuearb 10y agoFree markets means they are free to entry, which means creating a monopoly is impossible.
- pg314 10y agoThat is nonsense. There are plenty of natural monopolies [1], where competitors are free to enter the market but simple can't compete. E.g. if there are economies of scale (e.g. Google search engine) or network effects (e.g. Facebook). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
- shmerl 10y ago> Conversely, a free market is free for monopolies to form; Which will make it non free. Free market requires mechanisms of preventing monopolies by its definition.
- bluejekyll 10y agoBut what guarantees this freedom? And as I understand it, it doesn't prevent monopolies from forming, it is meant to restrict monopolies from controlling the market. According to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market "... are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority." The government is supposed to step in to block monopolies from controlling the market, but that implies that the government is intervening in the market. All I was pointing out is that there is no perfect system where politics, monopolies and private interests won't compete to control the market.
- s73ver 10y agoWho cares what it's called? Wouldn't we all prefer a fair market, even if it does mean regulation?
- conanbatt 10y agoWho decides what is fair?
- kamaal 10y agoMerit. If you have a better product. A bigger corporate shouldn't be allowed to use its war chest to swing things in favor through buying out politicians, law or other such stuff.
- zeusk 10y agoand who decides what is a better product and on what basis? a `better` product isn't always what a consumer wants - value for money is a thing.
- s73ver 10y agoWhile I agree with the second part, "Merit" isn't an unbiased descriptor. At the end of the day, deciding what criteria constitutes "Merit" and who has earned it is up to people. People with their own biases.