> The completely free market does not work in practice, because people are not rational, perfectly informed actors. They make non-optimal choices and tend to no

> The completely free market does not work in practice, because people are not rational, perfectly informed actors. They make non-optimal choices and tend to not learn from them, and they're easily swayed by advertising. I mean, I agree with being being irrational, but I'm not sure that that's the reason that free markets don't work. If you're comparing to government intervention, then you're also comparing to people, after all, and even worse, to people who often make a less-informed decision, because: 1. They're not as personally aware of all the relevant info, since they are removed from the situation. 2. They often care less in general because it doesn't affect them. 3. They often make decisions that tend to stick around long after they are no longer relevant - but unlike biased humans who often don't learn from their mistakes, these actors' mistakes are written into law and can't be changed. 4. They often have different motivations than the irrational people they are supposedly helping. (Of course, 4 is often the whole point - we as a society have different desires than individual people, and we sometimes want to enshrine those things, even at their expense.) The only way you're doing better than individual actors is if you're assuming the people creating the laws/regulations are better informed/better educated/smarter or for some other reason can make better decisions (which obviously is sometimes true, but sometimes not). The main places where "government" provides value, in my opinion, are where there are market failures, or where collective action gives a lot of benefit. And of course, that's assuming a lot of basics are met, like strong rule of law, police force, etc (these could themselves be thought of as collective action).