5 ms·

I've lost faith in "free markets", which seem to devolve inevitably to market failures such as monopolies, and in those who advocate "free market capitalism" wi

I've lost faith in "free markets", which seem to devolve inevitably to market failures such as monopolies, and in those who advocate "free market capitalism" with no acknowledgement that market failures happen. For now, I'm finding the phrase "competitive markets" more attractive.

ekianjo 9y ago
> I've lost faith in "free markets", which seem to devolve inevitably to market failures such as monopolie Despite the fact that about no free market exists in practice?
- Joeri 9y ago
  Plenty of them exist. Just go to where no government exists, like any war zone, and see the beautiful ruthless efficiency of the unregulated market at work.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    War zones are not free markets - just because your existence is constantly under threat. This is a silly argument.
    - Joeri 9y ago
      Exactly my point, unregulated != free.
stephen_g 9y ago
It's also a bit of an ambiguous term. The more classical idea was a market free from economic rents and monopolies, whereas now the term is more understood to mean free from regulation and free for rent-seekers to do what ever they want...
nickik 9y ago
People keep arguing that free markets create monopolies. If you actually look at this history you see almost no monopolies rise from the market, but government created monopolies and cartels are all over the place. If this is such a huge problem please give me some examples where a company established a monopoly AND actually raised prices for consumer higher.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Standard Oil is the usual one. AT&T highly relevant as well.
  - nickik 9y ago
    Standard Oil massively LOWERED oil prices and improved both Oil quality and transport. If that's a monopoly then we should have more of them. If you actually apply Modern Anti-Trust law rather then Progressive Politicians who engaged in 'Trust Busting' as political program, you will see that it would not be possible to convict Standard Oil. The people who brought Anti-Trust against Standard Oil were competitors. In fact, the hole history of Anti-Trust is basically the history of weak and failing business to bring in the government against their more dynamic competition. Butcher were at the forefront of that, Anti-Trust was a way to defeat the evil refrigerated train and centralised slaughterhouses who were making monopolies. You know the kind of monopolies were you massively lower prices for consumers. I'm not as familiar with AT&T but I'm pretty sure there is a significant government involvement and providing it with monopoly power. You are kind of proving my point. People all believe capitalism leads to monopoly, but its almost impossible to find a good case. I do think that there are some cases, but the general theory that free markets always lead to monopoly is totally false. Even when markets create monopolies most of the time these monopolies can't (or want) do monopoly prices. Also think about it like this. There are very few cases where government somehow helped to break a monopoly bought I could easily point you to lots and lots of cases where government created monopolies. Overall governments involvement in the idea to regulate competition in markets is a absolute failure that has only lead to lots of corruption.
    - 9y ago

ekianjo 9y ago

> I've lost faith in "free markets", which seem to devolve inevitably to market failures such as monopolie Despite the fact that about no free market exists in practice?

Joeri 9y ago
Plenty of them exist. Just go to where no government exists, like any war zone, and see the beautiful ruthless efficiency of the unregulated market at work.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  War zones are not free markets - just because your existence is constantly under threat. This is a silly argument.
  - Joeri 9y ago
    Exactly my point, unregulated != free.

stephen_g 9y ago

It's also a bit of an ambiguous term. The more classical idea was a market free from economic rents and monopolies, whereas now the term is more understood to mean free from regulation and free for rent-seekers to do what ever they want...

nickik 9y ago

People keep arguing that free markets create monopolies. If you actually look at this history you see almost no monopolies rise from the market, but government created monopolies and cartels are all over the place. If this is such a huge problem please give me some examples where a company established a monopoly AND actually raised prices for consumer higher.

pjc50 9y ago
Standard Oil is the usual one. AT&T highly relevant as well.
- nickik 9y ago
  Standard Oil massively LOWERED oil prices and improved both Oil quality and transport. If that's a monopoly then we should have more of them. If you actually apply Modern Anti-Trust law rather then Progressive Politicians who engaged in 'Trust Busting' as political program, you will see that it would not be possible to convict Standard Oil. The people who brought Anti-Trust against Standard Oil were competitors. In fact, the hole history of Anti-Trust is basically the history of weak and failing business to bring in the government against their more dynamic competition. Butcher were at the forefront of that, Anti-Trust was a way to defeat the evil refrigerated train and centralised slaughterhouses who were making monopolies. You know the kind of monopolies were you massively lower prices for consumers. I'm not as familiar with AT&T but I'm pretty sure there is a significant government involvement and providing it with monopoly power. You are kind of proving my point. People all believe capitalism leads to monopoly, but its almost impossible to find a good case. I do think that there are some cases, but the general theory that free markets always lead to monopoly is totally false. Even when markets create monopolies most of the time these monopolies can't (or want) do monopoly prices. Also think about it like this. There are very few cases where government somehow helped to break a monopoly bought I could easily point you to lots and lots of cases where government created monopolies. Overall governments involvement in the idea to regulate competition in markets is a absolute failure that has only lead to lots of corruption.
  - 9y ago