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The economy that you describe, is the simplified econ 101 version. The market fixes everything, and the invisible hand steers everything to optimality. The hum

The economy that you describe, is the simplified econ 101 version. The market fixes everything, and the invisible hand steers everything to optimality. The human being you describe in your last paragraph is from the same economics textbook: A perfectly rational human being making rational decisions 24/7. Both are simplified models that help doing some undergrad economics...but are absolutely insufficient to explain the world correctly and prevent the solutions of a myriad of problems.

seibelj 8y ago
The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. I’m arguing on fundamental principles because the parent commenter is advocating a reorganization of market-based economies. I don’t care how complex the system is. If you aren’t letting me, the individual, determine what is best for my life, then you are coming from a place of superiority and belief that you know better than others. And you don’t.
- cheerlessbog 8y ago
  Often the choices made by "the individual" don't account for externalities that aren't built into the price. Viz landfills, climate change, effect on those with less economic resources.
  - seibelj 8y ago
    Are you suggesting it's better to ban individual choice because of the existence of landfills and climate change? The market could effectively and efficiently price those into products, if society would pass a law.
    - cheerlessbog 8y ago
      No. Did I say that? I like living in a predominantly capitalist society. I would like us to pay more attention to the consequences of consumption. One way to do that is to build it into prices (such as a carbon tax, or upstreaming disposal cost) or by regulation. Building cost into price is actually a very capitalist and arguably libertarian approach as it enables the market to reallocate resources to minimize what would otherwise be an externality.
      - ericd 8y ago
        So you're not disagreeing with the parent. Yes, a carbon tax would be the way to account for that externality while maintaining individual choice.
        cheerlessbog 8y ago
        That part yes, but not this, "Are you suggesting it's better to ban individual choice ...". That's not a fair characterization.
        ericd 8y ago
        Ah I see, looks like you guys cleared it up/agreed in a sibling post.
      - seibelj 8y ago
        Great, so we are in agreement. I was confused because: > Often the choices made by "the individual" don't account for externalities that aren't built into the price... You put "the individual" in quotes as if to critique some sort of free-market system based on individuals, and I wanted to emphasize that the system we have can solve those problems.
        cheerlessbog 8y ago
        Ah I see - that wasn't my intent.
      - zdragnar 8y ago
        Disposal already costs; either you pay directly, through taxes if your local municipality organizes it, or your rent if your property owner organizes it. The cost of disposal varies by where it is disposed, not where it is purchased or made. It makes no sense to add an arbitrary cost to a product when the receiver of that money is not the one dealing with the externality in the first place. The same goes for carbon emissions; a properly managed landfill that captures released methane is in fact a method of carbon sequestration. Adding a carbon tax would merely create a new slush fund or dump into an existing one.
    - AlexCoventry 8y ago
      No, only to reduce individual choice when it's clearly pushing away from significantly better global optima than individual choice can achieve.
      - Drakim 8y ago
        For example, while an individual might benefit from stealing, but hurts overall more than it helps, so we try to block that individual choice despite the fact that we might be hurting somebody who is really good at stealing.
    - gcb0 8y ago
      yes. ands this already happens everywhere around you. you can't import cars from one place to another, because of emissions. you do not have the rigth to roam on most of the world like you have still in some very select places (e.g. scotland), because of property rights and national security. You can't market any food becuase of public health. Etc. so your capricious question is already done and answered for. individual choice is already banned in many aspects. and you are still choosing to not see it. including in your arguments for buying a smart fridge. you never had the choice either way.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    In principle the market has answers for these. Landfills are a problem because they're subsidized, because we'd rather provide free/cheap garbage pickup than have people throwing their trash in the street or the ocean. The alternative would be to not subsidize it and then penalize throwing trash on someone else's property with 500 hours of picking up trash. Then there isn't trash in the streets because either people don't put it there or there are plenty of people to pick it back up, and trash collection service costs enough that the plastic junk your plastic junk comes in makes it cost more than the alternative that produces less garbage. Climate change is the same thing. You're releasing CO2 into somebody else's property, which should require their permission. Good luck getting permission from literally everyone in the entire world; might be easier to buy an electric car. These problems were created by making concessions from the principle that interactions should be voluntary. If you're creating an externality then whoever is paying for that externality should have to agree to it before you can do it, and they're not going to agree to that without being appropriately compensated.
- rndmize 8y ago
  Actually, fairly often, we do. I don't think we need to look any further than the paranoia around vaccinations to see that individuals often don't know what's good for themselves and others. There's any number of businesses that rely on their targets having incomplete information (or downright misinformation) that should probably be regulated out of existence (and many in fact have been).
- rectang 8y ago
  > The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. In real-world "free" markets, the poor have their choices made for them by the wealthy.
  - njepa 8y ago
    It is less "real-world markets" and just markets. Markets are one dollar one vote.
    - orthecreedence 8y ago
      Right, which without sane wealth (re)distribution is just a plutocracy of the banks and the hyper wealthy.
    - throwawaytoday5 8y ago
      If one dollar equal one vote, you can't honestly say markets are free because by design they favor those with wealth and power. There is nothing "free" about a system that favors the wealthy.
      - atoav 8y ago
        Except if you are wealthy, or at least a momentarily embarrassed bilionaire that soon expecta wealth and fortune
        dnautics 8y ago
        Well by that token armchair politicians who make social choices on forums on behalf of the dispossessed, in lieu of actually rolling up their sleeves and doing social work are merely momentarily embarrassed 'benevolent' dictators.
        atoav 8y ago
        Which can only turn into a true statement after individual inspection of each commenter. Assuming everybody that enters political discourse online is apolitical in their activities offline might turn out a right guess at times, but it stays a guess. As if you are only allowed to say something while you are out in the streets covered with sweat. No. Then they will complain that you say anything at all instead of fixing symptoms that have a systemic origin. Within any system, be it a society a family or a friendship, communication is important to react to shifts and regain balance (or to restructure the system). Talking is not dictating, talking is talking and the other person can always respond.
- p1esk 8y ago
  How can you be that naive? On the large scale, marketing (which includes paid for by industry, biased scientific studies) is what shapes people’s desires. Vast majority of people are perfectly happy with letting someone else choose for them, and even smart people fall for it. It has truly became a fundamental principle of our society.
  - orthecreedence 8y ago
    Not only this, but the capitalists talk of economic free choice, but you can't just go "start a business"...you need capital. And you can be lucky enough to already have it, or you need to convince someone to give it to you. In essence, we're all either lucky, forced to beg for capital (ie, someone else making decisions for you, there goes "freedom"), forced to sell our labor for less than what it's worth, or live in a van. But, hey, we have 2000 different refrigeration options, yay... On top of this, the commodification of basic essentials like housing constantly drives prices up to meet productivity levels. So, we're being more productive, but expenses are growing to match because, well, the invisible hand wants it that way, and who are we to argue?
    - htmk 8y ago
      Expanses are growing thanks to government created inflation, by printing money.
  - westiseast 8y ago
    I think thats a bad cliche. If I break down my spending, most goes on food (I have no rent/mortgage), the next biggest item are essentials like utilities/council tax/bills, then car bills (insurance, petrol, repairs), then the kids then personal luxuries for me and my wife. Marketers might shape how I spend my food budget (ie on which brands/products) but I still need food. Marketers influenced my choice of car, but I still need a car with certain qualities (big, room for kids and bikes, reliable). If I had to pay rent, a vast portion of my income would go on that - how is this being influenced by marketers? If PR/advertising/marketing became illegal tomorrow, people would still continue to spend most of their income on a place to live, food to eat, utilities, a car and their kids education.
- aiisjustanif 8y ago
  I suggest you take a but to watch https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0 https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0. Economics isn't so simple and only from the perspective of the buyer.
  - seibelj 8y ago
    I have seen this video and it's well put together. But how does it advocate for reorganizing the economy to eliminate market principles, which is the entire debate we are having? Great video, but wholly irrelevant to this discussion.
    - ddingus 8y ago
      There does not have to be a binary choice here. Markets do some things very well. They do not do everything well. The basic idea of self governance is we surrender some choice in order to maximize personal freedom. Applying market principles everywhere results in people being free to live under a bridge, or in an alleyway... We can and should very seriously constrain markets, and or eliminate them for some things. What is left will function much better because more people will be able to participate in a meaningful way. The left is moving this direction, adding economic reform to it's standard social agenda for these reasons. The party struggle over it is plain to see. Way too many people are in real economic trouble. Markets are killing them.
      - seibelj 8y ago
        The video has nothing to do with anything we are talking about, it is about short and longterm debt cycles. That was my comment. Markets aren't killing anybody, markets don't hold a gun. They are a tool to efficiently allocate resources via price discovery.
        ddingus 8y ago
        Yes they are. They are a very poor tool in some use cases and are a great tool in others. Denying that is literally pulling triggers.
- petra 8y ago
  >> The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. There might be gray areas in the middle. Some rough ideas: - banning marketing - Incentivising talented people toward roles that are best for society, and their results will pull people - Do people really choose what they want ? people want affordable housing, to see their kids more, that the job conditions to be nice, etc. They settle for cheap consumer stuff, because that's what our society is aimed towards. It's a choice.
- yeahitslikethat 8y ago
  That's just it. Sometimes you DO know better. Like we know it's better that homes aren't bought and left empty in dense urban housing markets, but wealthy people love to buy them all up. So, yes. I do. And you do too. We also don't need humvees. Or diamonds.
  - seibelj 8y ago
    Housing is a very complex subject, but in general the biggest issue with housing is that communities block new developments on artificial grounds such as environmental review, ruining their view, or "historical character". If you want to reduce housing prices, build more houses. On humvees and diamonds - if people want large cars and diamonds, let them buy them. If your unhappy about fossil fuels, would an electric humvee be better? I could go through your or anyone's home and critique the usefulness of any number of possessions based on my own subjective definition of value. That doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong, or that you don't deserve such things. We let the individual decide what is best for them.
- tracer4201 8y ago
  Look, your original description was basically the textbook definition of supply and demand in a free market. Intuitively it’s explainable, but in the 21st century, at least in many parts of the western world, the wealthy are essentially driving the ship and steering economic and political outcomes to their own advantage. You’re describing a perfect utopia, which doesn’t exist. >The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. Really because we can’t use policy or regulation to have folks pay some cost for the impact their decisions have on society? Your black and white view of the world is incredibly misguided. Your post reminds me of a recent commentator on FOX News stating socialism would turn the US into Venezuela... LOL
- ohazi 8y ago
  You are mischaracterizing the top-level comment and presenting a false choice. Nowhere in the original comment did the author suggest that he/she wants someone else to make your choices for you. They simply pointed out a few common, well-understood failure modes of unfettered capitalism as implemented in much of the western world today, namely unaccounted negative externalities and markets that can't be characterized as efficient with any sort of straight face. It's possible to honestly acknowledge these failures and speculate about possible solutions without being a socialist. But apparently it isn't possible to have this conversation without libertarians asking you if you're a communist for even thinking about possible limits to no-rules-at-all capitalism.
- perfmode 8y ago
  You’re arguing from principles but not ones which are actually relevant to the problems at hand. Your regurgitatation of economic dogma is far too simple for the authoritative stance you’ve chosen to adopt regarding how to solve one of the most complex and nuanced problems... ever.
SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
Certainly there are complications, but the question isn’t whether the free market is perfect. The question is whether (and in which cases) it’s worse than a grand social engineering program to decide what everyone’s supposed to want. Probably there are some cases where it is, but it’s hard to see what problems would be prevented by rules about how smart of a refrigerator you should make.
tdhoot 8y ago
What are the alternatives that are credible and widely accepted? No offense meant, but your comment as is just reads as talking down to someone without actual attempting to educate.

seibelj 8y ago

The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. I’m arguing on fundamental principles because the parent commenter is advocating a reorganization of market-based economies. I don’t care how complex the system is. If you aren’t letting me, the individual, determine what is best for my life, then you are coming from a place of superiority and belief that you know better than others. And you don’t.

cheerlessbog 8y ago
Often the choices made by "the individual" don't account for externalities that aren't built into the price. Viz landfills, climate change, effect on those with less economic resources.
- seibelj 8y ago
  Are you suggesting it's better to ban individual choice because of the existence of landfills and climate change? The market could effectively and efficiently price those into products, if society would pass a law.
  - cheerlessbog 8y ago
    No. Did I say that? I like living in a predominantly capitalist society. I would like us to pay more attention to the consequences of consumption. One way to do that is to build it into prices (such as a carbon tax, or upstreaming disposal cost) or by regulation. Building cost into price is actually a very capitalist and arguably libertarian approach as it enables the market to reallocate resources to minimize what would otherwise be an externality.
    - ericd 8y ago
      So you're not disagreeing with the parent. Yes, a carbon tax would be the way to account for that externality while maintaining individual choice.
      - cheerlessbog 8y ago
        That part yes, but not this, "Are you suggesting it's better to ban individual choice ...". That's not a fair characterization.
        ericd 8y ago
        Ah I see, looks like you guys cleared it up/agreed in a sibling post.
    - seibelj 8y ago
      Great, so we are in agreement. I was confused because: > Often the choices made by "the individual" don't account for externalities that aren't built into the price... You put "the individual" in quotes as if to critique some sort of free-market system based on individuals, and I wanted to emphasize that the system we have can solve those problems.
      - cheerlessbog 8y ago
        Ah I see - that wasn't my intent.
    - zdragnar 8y ago
      Disposal already costs; either you pay directly, through taxes if your local municipality organizes it, or your rent if your property owner organizes it. The cost of disposal varies by where it is disposed, not where it is purchased or made. It makes no sense to add an arbitrary cost to a product when the receiver of that money is not the one dealing with the externality in the first place. The same goes for carbon emissions; a properly managed landfill that captures released methane is in fact a method of carbon sequestration. Adding a carbon tax would merely create a new slush fund or dump into an existing one.
  - AlexCoventry 8y ago
    No, only to reduce individual choice when it's clearly pushing away from significantly better global optima than individual choice can achieve.
    - Drakim 8y ago
      For example, while an individual might benefit from stealing, but hurts overall more than it helps, so we try to block that individual choice despite the fact that we might be hurting somebody who is really good at stealing.
  - gcb0 8y ago
    yes. ands this already happens everywhere around you. you can't import cars from one place to another, because of emissions. you do not have the rigth to roam on most of the world like you have still in some very select places (e.g. scotland), because of property rights and national security. You can't market any food becuase of public health. Etc. so your capricious question is already done and answered for. individual choice is already banned in many aspects. and you are still choosing to not see it. including in your arguments for buying a smart fridge. you never had the choice either way.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  In principle the market has answers for these. Landfills are a problem because they're subsidized, because we'd rather provide free/cheap garbage pickup than have people throwing their trash in the street or the ocean. The alternative would be to not subsidize it and then penalize throwing trash on someone else's property with 500 hours of picking up trash. Then there isn't trash in the streets because either people don't put it there or there are plenty of people to pick it back up, and trash collection service costs enough that the plastic junk your plastic junk comes in makes it cost more than the alternative that produces less garbage. Climate change is the same thing. You're releasing CO2 into somebody else's property, which should require their permission. Good luck getting permission from literally everyone in the entire world; might be easier to buy an electric car. These problems were created by making concessions from the principle that interactions should be voluntary. If you're creating an externality then whoever is paying for that externality should have to agree to it before you can do it, and they're not going to agree to that without being appropriately compensated.
rndmize 8y ago
Actually, fairly often, we do. I don't think we need to look any further than the paranoia around vaccinations to see that individuals often don't know what's good for themselves and others. There's any number of businesses that rely on their targets having incomplete information (or downright misinformation) that should probably be regulated out of existence (and many in fact have been).
rectang 8y ago
> The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. In real-world "free" markets, the poor have their choices made for them by the wealthy.
- njepa 8y ago
  It is less "real-world markets" and just markets. Markets are one dollar one vote.
  - orthecreedence 8y ago
    Right, which without sane wealth (re)distribution is just a plutocracy of the banks and the hyper wealthy.
  - throwawaytoday5 8y ago
    If one dollar equal one vote, you can't honestly say markets are free because by design they favor those with wealth and power. There is nothing "free" about a system that favors the wealthy.
    - atoav 8y ago
      Except if you are wealthy, or at least a momentarily embarrassed bilionaire that soon expecta wealth and fortune
      - dnautics 8y ago
        Well by that token armchair politicians who make social choices on forums on behalf of the dispossessed, in lieu of actually rolling up their sleeves and doing social work are merely momentarily embarrassed 'benevolent' dictators.
        atoav 8y ago
        Which can only turn into a true statement after individual inspection of each commenter. Assuming everybody that enters political discourse online is apolitical in their activities offline might turn out a right guess at times, but it stays a guess. As if you are only allowed to say something while you are out in the streets covered with sweat. No. Then they will complain that you say anything at all instead of fixing symptoms that have a systemic origin. Within any system, be it a society a family or a friendship, communication is important to react to shifts and regain balance (or to restructure the system). Talking is not dictating, talking is talking and the other person can always respond.
p1esk 8y ago
How can you be that naive? On the large scale, marketing (which includes paid for by industry, biased scientific studies) is what shapes people’s desires. Vast majority of people are perfectly happy with letting someone else choose for them, and even smart people fall for it. It has truly became a fundamental principle of our society.
- orthecreedence 8y ago
  Not only this, but the capitalists talk of economic free choice, but you can't just go "start a business"...you need capital. And you can be lucky enough to already have it, or you need to convince someone to give it to you. In essence, we're all either lucky, forced to beg for capital (ie, someone else making decisions for you, there goes "freedom"), forced to sell our labor for less than what it's worth, or live in a van. But, hey, we have 2000 different refrigeration options, yay... On top of this, the commodification of basic essentials like housing constantly drives prices up to meet productivity levels. So, we're being more productive, but expenses are growing to match because, well, the invisible hand wants it that way, and who are we to argue?
  - htmk 8y ago
    Expanses are growing thanks to government created inflation, by printing money.
- westiseast 8y ago
  I think thats a bad cliche. If I break down my spending, most goes on food (I have no rent/mortgage), the next biggest item are essentials like utilities/council tax/bills, then car bills (insurance, petrol, repairs), then the kids then personal luxuries for me and my wife. Marketers might shape how I spend my food budget (ie on which brands/products) but I still need food. Marketers influenced my choice of car, but I still need a car with certain qualities (big, room for kids and bikes, reliable). If I had to pay rent, a vast portion of my income would go on that - how is this being influenced by marketers? If PR/advertising/marketing became illegal tomorrow, people would still continue to spend most of their income on a place to live, food to eat, utilities, a car and their kids education.
aiisjustanif 8y ago
I suggest you take a but to watch https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0 https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0. Economics isn't so simple and only from the perspective of the buyer.
- seibelj 8y ago
  I have seen this video and it's well put together. But how does it advocate for reorganizing the economy to eliminate market principles, which is the entire debate we are having? Great video, but wholly irrelevant to this discussion.
  - ddingus 8y ago
    There does not have to be a binary choice here. Markets do some things very well. They do not do everything well. The basic idea of self governance is we surrender some choice in order to maximize personal freedom. Applying market principles everywhere results in people being free to live under a bridge, or in an alleyway... We can and should very seriously constrain markets, and or eliminate them for some things. What is left will function much better because more people will be able to participate in a meaningful way. The left is moving this direction, adding economic reform to it's standard social agenda for these reasons. The party struggle over it is plain to see. Way too many people are in real economic trouble. Markets are killing them.
    - seibelj 8y ago
      The video has nothing to do with anything we are talking about, it is about short and longterm debt cycles. That was my comment. Markets aren't killing anybody, markets don't hold a gun. They are a tool to efficiently allocate resources via price discovery.
      - ddingus 8y ago
        Yes they are. They are a very poor tool in some use cases and are a great tool in others. Denying that is literally pulling triggers.
petra 8y ago
>> The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. There might be gray areas in the middle. Some rough ideas: - banning marketing - Incentivising talented people toward roles that are best for society, and their results will pull people - Do people really choose what they want ? people want affordable housing, to see their kids more, that the job conditions to be nice, etc. They settle for cheap consumer stuff, because that's what our society is aimed towards. It's a choice.
yeahitslikethat 8y ago
That's just it. Sometimes you DO know better. Like we know it's better that homes aren't bought and left empty in dense urban housing markets, but wealthy people love to buy them all up. So, yes. I do. And you do too. We also don't need humvees. Or diamonds.
- seibelj 8y ago
  Housing is a very complex subject, but in general the biggest issue with housing is that communities block new developments on artificial grounds such as environmental review, ruining their view, or "historical character". If you want to reduce housing prices, build more houses. On humvees and diamonds - if people want large cars and diamonds, let them buy them. If your unhappy about fossil fuels, would an electric humvee be better? I could go through your or anyone's home and critique the usefulness of any number of possessions based on my own subjective definition of value. That doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong, or that you don't deserve such things. We let the individual decide what is best for them.
tracer4201 8y ago
Look, your original description was basically the textbook definition of supply and demand in a free market. Intuitively it’s explainable, but in the 21st century, at least in many parts of the western world, the wealthy are essentially driving the ship and steering economic and political outcomes to their own advantage. You’re describing a perfect utopia, which doesn’t exist. >The alternative to letting the individual determine what they want is to let someone else choose for them. Really because we can’t use policy or regulation to have folks pay some cost for the impact their decisions have on society? Your black and white view of the world is incredibly misguided. Your post reminds me of a recent commentator on FOX News stating socialism would turn the US into Venezuela... LOL
ohazi 8y ago
You are mischaracterizing the top-level comment and presenting a false choice. Nowhere in the original comment did the author suggest that he/she wants someone else to make your choices for you. They simply pointed out a few common, well-understood failure modes of unfettered capitalism as implemented in much of the western world today, namely unaccounted negative externalities and markets that can't be characterized as efficient with any sort of straight face. It's possible to honestly acknowledge these failures and speculate about possible solutions without being a socialist. But apparently it isn't possible to have this conversation without libertarians asking you if you're a communist for even thinking about possible limits to no-rules-at-all capitalism.
perfmode 8y ago
You’re arguing from principles but not ones which are actually relevant to the problems at hand. Your regurgitatation of economic dogma is far too simple for the authoritative stance you’ve chosen to adopt regarding how to solve one of the most complex and nuanced problems... ever.

SpicyLemonZest 8y ago

Certainly there are complications, but the question isn’t whether the free market is perfect. The question is whether (and in which cases) it’s worse than a grand social engineering program to decide what everyone’s supposed to want. Probably there are some cases where it is, but it’s hard to see what problems would be prevented by rules about how smart of a refrigerator you should make.

tdhoot 8y ago

What are the alternatives that are credible and widely accepted? No offense meant, but your comment as is just reads as talking down to someone without actual attempting to educate.