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'People need to stop wishing for the "free" market. The term is abused by orators and manipulators who prey on peoples desire for a market which is free in the

'People need to stop wishing for the "free" market. The term is abused by orators and manipulators who prey on peoples desire for a market which is free in the spirit of the word, and deliver to them a market which is technically "free" and horrible.' Don't call it the free market. Call it what it is: COMPETITION. "Free market" implies "I can do what I want", but frankly we don't WANT people to be free to pull anti-competitive shenanigans. Competition is the priority, not "the free market".

ericHosick 10y ago
> "Free market" implies "I can do what I want" I always though free implied free from non-consensual acts. It's not much of a free market if your actions are non-consensual (1). (1) Defining what makes an action consensual is difficult but doable.
- masklinn 10y ago
  "Consent or die" is not a choice, but on free market it is.
- darpa_escapee 10y ago
  That's the American libertarian definition.
- jaredklewis 10y ago
  Difficult indeed. An ordinary American internet user consents to countless pages of legalese in adhesion and other unread contracts (TOSs, privacy policies and so on) everyday day. These days, every website, piece of software, digital service or product comes with pages upon pages of contracts to which the user must consent to even walk in the door. Reading all of them is easily a full time job. So, no one has coerced anyone into anything, just a bunch of consenting parties in theory. In practice, getting consumers to throw away their rights and consent to stridently anti-competitive behavior by companies seems kind of easy. Taken in the sense of an economy of mutual consent, "free market" is too low a bar to hop over. I can see why people don't think that the barebones style of "free market" is very free.
  - ericHosick 10y ago
    This is a deep discussion to have: too deep for a medium like HN. That being said... Your points pre-suppose parties consented to a dispute resolution system: one that is based on arbitrary boundaries and quite monopolistic (1). > I can see why people don't think that the barebones style of "free market" is very free. So, I agree that it is hard for people to understand what consent is when they were never given a chance to choose which dispute resolution system(s) they can participate in. (1) Example being I was born in the USA so somehow automatically consented to the rules of the land.
    - eropple 10y ago
      You're given that chance every day you choose not to go elsewhere where the legal situation is more to your liking. The social contract has an opt-out. But that'd be hard, so...
      - derefr 10y ago
        There being no good place to move because every other government also allows these things, is a sort of monopoly problem of its own...
        eropple 10y ago
        Have you considered that maybe there are reasons for that that don't involve the twirling of mustachios?
    - jaredklewis 10y ago
      What you say is true much of the time, but it is also true that consumers often do "choose" their arbiter. The aforementioned adhesion contracts often stipulate a private (non-government) arbiter, which the consumer (probably you, too) consents to of their own free will. I see your points. But I kind of feel like we were having a rather nuts and bolts discussion about how to improve security in Linux, and then someone chimes in that we should probably rewrite everything in Haskell. If achieving a free market requires a complete upheaval of all of our governments and laws, then the idea isn't very useful.
- scythe 10y ago
  The ability of consensual exchange to increase utility for both parties frays at the limits of the ability of the parties giving consent to predict the results of their decision. Our ability to express the inherent failings of consensual contracts requires us to understand the limits of our own predictive power, which turns out to be a monstrously difficult scientific question. However, it seems to me that, if one party to a negotiation takes actions which are intended to limit the other's understanding of the exchange, the usefulness of consent as a mechanism to prevent bad trades is degraded. This is not quite violence, but it is scummy, and it doesn't seem that it would be "anti-capitalist" to restrict it.
  - ericHosick 10y ago
    Fully agree. It wouldn't surprise me if acting 'scummy' was considered, by at least one party, to be non-consensual.
nebabyte 10y ago
Yes, I can understand the desire to die on the "but the term as used correctly is what we want" hill. The far more pertinent fact is that just calling it 'the free market' allows others to advance their own concepts under the same guise (there's no regulators nor 'false advertising' when it comes to terminology differences) and you end up getting screwed. Call it competition; refer to the literal changes it entails; use strong examples like the one above about safer needles. (My go-to was always airless tires till now; I'm sure we could compile a list of technology advancements we're sitting on but haven't adopted because of our LSC society.)
vira 10y ago
I've always preferred the term 'open market' rather than 'free market' to counter this exact point.
vira 10y ago
I've always preferred the term 'open market' rather than 'free market' to counter this exact point.
RangerScience 10y ago
I like this. "Competitive Market" is what you want, "Free Market" has a shitty steady state.
mcv 10y ago
I like "open market". It implies it's accessible to everybody.

ericHosick 10y ago

> "Free market" implies "I can do what I want" I always though free implied free from non-consensual acts. It's not much of a free market if your actions are non-consensual (1). (1) Defining what makes an action consensual is difficult but doable.

masklinn 10y ago
"Consent or die" is not a choice, but on free market it is.
darpa_escapee 10y ago
That's the American libertarian definition.
jaredklewis 10y ago
Difficult indeed. An ordinary American internet user consents to countless pages of legalese in adhesion and other unread contracts (TOSs, privacy policies and so on) everyday day. These days, every website, piece of software, digital service or product comes with pages upon pages of contracts to which the user must consent to even walk in the door. Reading all of them is easily a full time job. So, no one has coerced anyone into anything, just a bunch of consenting parties in theory. In practice, getting consumers to throw away their rights and consent to stridently anti-competitive behavior by companies seems kind of easy. Taken in the sense of an economy of mutual consent, "free market" is too low a bar to hop over. I can see why people don't think that the barebones style of "free market" is very free.
- ericHosick 10y ago
  This is a deep discussion to have: too deep for a medium like HN. That being said... Your points pre-suppose parties consented to a dispute resolution system: one that is based on arbitrary boundaries and quite monopolistic (1). > I can see why people don't think that the barebones style of "free market" is very free. So, I agree that it is hard for people to understand what consent is when they were never given a chance to choose which dispute resolution system(s) they can participate in. (1) Example being I was born in the USA so somehow automatically consented to the rules of the land.
  - eropple 10y ago
    You're given that chance every day you choose not to go elsewhere where the legal situation is more to your liking. The social contract has an opt-out. But that'd be hard, so...
    - derefr 10y ago
      There being no good place to move because every other government also allows these things, is a sort of monopoly problem of its own...
      - eropple 10y ago
        Have you considered that maybe there are reasons for that that don't involve the twirling of mustachios?
  - jaredklewis 10y ago
    What you say is true much of the time, but it is also true that consumers often do "choose" their arbiter. The aforementioned adhesion contracts often stipulate a private (non-government) arbiter, which the consumer (probably you, too) consents to of their own free will. I see your points. But I kind of feel like we were having a rather nuts and bolts discussion about how to improve security in Linux, and then someone chimes in that we should probably rewrite everything in Haskell. If achieving a free market requires a complete upheaval of all of our governments and laws, then the idea isn't very useful.
scythe 10y ago
The ability of consensual exchange to increase utility for both parties frays at the limits of the ability of the parties giving consent to predict the results of their decision. Our ability to express the inherent failings of consensual contracts requires us to understand the limits of our own predictive power, which turns out to be a monstrously difficult scientific question. However, it seems to me that, if one party to a negotiation takes actions which are intended to limit the other's understanding of the exchange, the usefulness of consent as a mechanism to prevent bad trades is degraded. This is not quite violence, but it is scummy, and it doesn't seem that it would be "anti-capitalist" to restrict it.
- ericHosick 10y ago
  Fully agree. It wouldn't surprise me if acting 'scummy' was considered, by at least one party, to be non-consensual.

nebabyte 10y ago

Yes, I can understand the desire to die on the "but the term as used correctly is what we want" hill. The far more pertinent fact is that just calling it 'the free market' allows others to advance their own concepts under the same guise (there's no regulators nor 'false advertising' when it comes to terminology differences) and you end up getting screwed. Call it competition; refer to the literal changes it entails; use strong examples like the one above about safer needles. (My go-to was always airless tires till now; I'm sure we could compile a list of technology advancements we're sitting on but haven't adopted because of our LSC society.)

vira 10y ago

I've always preferred the term 'open market' rather than 'free market' to counter this exact point.

vira 10y ago

I've always preferred the term 'open market' rather than 'free market' to counter this exact point.

RangerScience 10y ago

I like this. "Competitive Market" is what you want, "Free Market" has a shitty steady state.

mcv 10y ago

I like "open market". It implies it's accessible to everybody.