3 ms·

It's ironic. The free market requires a form of socialism to actually work. Education, Infrastructure, Military, etc. All socialistic enterprises funded by th

It's ironic. The free market requires a form of socialism to actually work. Education, Infrastructure, Military, etc. All socialistic enterprises funded by the general fund. Free enterprise does not work without a socialistic framework to support it. For a pure unregulated free market see Ethiopia.

conanbatt 8y ago
> It's ironic. The free market requires a form of socialism to actually work. Its not ironic, the requirement is called rule of law, and its a foundational stone from the philosophers that brought that royalty and religion from the State. The recognition of private property has been recognized as a necessity from the get go in classical philosophy and economics.
- neilwilson 8y ago
  It needs more than that if you have a labour market based around money and full time jobs. Odd as it may sound, full time jobs are essentially what cause involuntary unemployment because you are not market testing your position on a daily basis. But of course you need full time jobs to have any sort of efficiency in a business using labour - and to have any stability in the customer product market where it uses debt (housing for example) or fixed pricing rather than auctions. The gig economy is an attempt to deskill working to such an extent that individuals can be hired and fired on a daily basis - which would correct for involuntary unemployment if everybody is hired and fired on that basis and everything is bought and sold at auction.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    An interesting expose, though I dont know how this actually reinforces the idea that free markets need socialized services to survive (other than the aforementioned private property, life and liberty). I want to answer any way because its interesting tho! > Odd as it may sound, full time jobs are essentially what cause involuntary unemployment because you are not market testing your position on a daily basis. Sure, it might decrease labor flexibility which can increase unemployment, but how big an effect can that actually be? And what is the proposed solution to fix that if its an actual problem? > The gig economy is an attempt to deskill... The gig economy is not de-skilling workers, its consuming the labor of unskilled workers because the price-ratio works. Those very same companies pay 6 figure salaries to a lot of people, that provide utility to the company as well. Neither by design, or in theory, do companies increase their profits by reducing the skill of their labor, they do it by increasing their productivity. I see a tenuous relationship with the reserve army concept of Marx trying to be used here, but I'm not buying it.
neilwilson 8y ago
In the same way that a nuclear reactor doesn't work to provide power without an engineered containment vessel and control rods. If we want the nuclear power of capitalism without the boom, we need to engineer an appropriate containment vessel.
- quadrangle 8y ago
  Please note that capitalism means private ownership of core resources and means of production. It doesn't specify whether we have free or semi-free markets or whatever. Markets (free or not) have great value and are bigger and independent of capitalism (for perspective, markets are much older).
danieltillett 8y ago
I think you actually mean Somalia as Ethiopia is far from pure unregulated free market. Ethiopa is one of the places I most want to visit before I get too old.
quadrangle 8y ago
You just mean the market as we know it today. There is no generic "the free market" in existence. Even Somalia, the market is affected greatly by the military context of what's going on. It's got less centralized control, but it's not an actual free market entirely. A true free market as a complete overall social system is probably just a fantasy idea.

conanbatt 8y ago

> It's ironic. The free market requires a form of socialism to actually work. Its not ironic, the requirement is called rule of law, and its a foundational stone from the philosophers that brought that royalty and religion from the State. The recognition of private property has been recognized as a necessity from the get go in classical philosophy and economics.

neilwilson 8y ago
It needs more than that if you have a labour market based around money and full time jobs. Odd as it may sound, full time jobs are essentially what cause involuntary unemployment because you are not market testing your position on a daily basis. But of course you need full time jobs to have any sort of efficiency in a business using labour - and to have any stability in the customer product market where it uses debt (housing for example) or fixed pricing rather than auctions. The gig economy is an attempt to deskill working to such an extent that individuals can be hired and fired on a daily basis - which would correct for involuntary unemployment if everybody is hired and fired on that basis and everything is bought and sold at auction.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  An interesting expose, though I dont know how this actually reinforces the idea that free markets need socialized services to survive (other than the aforementioned private property, life and liberty). I want to answer any way because its interesting tho! > Odd as it may sound, full time jobs are essentially what cause involuntary unemployment because you are not market testing your position on a daily basis. Sure, it might decrease labor flexibility which can increase unemployment, but how big an effect can that actually be? And what is the proposed solution to fix that if its an actual problem? > The gig economy is an attempt to deskill... The gig economy is not de-skilling workers, its consuming the labor of unskilled workers because the price-ratio works. Those very same companies pay 6 figure salaries to a lot of people, that provide utility to the company as well. Neither by design, or in theory, do companies increase their profits by reducing the skill of their labor, they do it by increasing their productivity. I see a tenuous relationship with the reserve army concept of Marx trying to be used here, but I'm not buying it.

neilwilson 8y ago

In the same way that a nuclear reactor doesn't work to provide power without an engineered containment vessel and control rods. If we want the nuclear power of capitalism without the boom, we need to engineer an appropriate containment vessel.

quadrangle 8y ago
Please note that capitalism means private ownership of core resources and means of production. It doesn't specify whether we have free or semi-free markets or whatever. Markets (free or not) have great value and are bigger and independent of capitalism (for perspective, markets are much older).

danieltillett 8y ago

I think you actually mean Somalia as Ethiopia is far from pure unregulated free market. Ethiopa is one of the places I most want to visit before I get too old.

quadrangle 8y ago

You just mean the market as we know it today. There is no generic "the free market" in existence. Even Somalia, the market is affected greatly by the military context of what's going on. It's got less centralized control, but it's not an actual free market entirely. A true free market as a complete overall social system is probably just a fantasy idea.