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As a friend of Chuck, I can tell you he means it as follows: Originally he believed that we had a well-functioning free market, and that everything that got bu

As a friend of Chuck, I can tell you he means it as follows: Originally he believed that we had a well-functioning free market, and that everything that got built was just the market expressing consumer preferences. Over time he (and I and many others) began to realize that the system was not a functioning free-market at all, but rather a strange amalgam of layers of public policy and social engineering with really bad side effects. This isn’t super easy to see because it’s hidden in a bunch of cultural stuff we just take for granted. Things like how so many postwar neighborhood have 40’ wide paved streets with curb and gutter, sewer, and buried utilities. That must be because it’s practical and affordable, right? But when you really dig into it you find that the homes lining that street don’t even pay a meaningful fraction of the maintenance cost of that infrastructure... so where does the money come from? That turns out to be very opaque and hard to answer. (You can read about it here: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme) And so on. So as we began to figure this stuff out, we built Strong Towns to share what we were finding and try and get a lot more people to look at it in their own communities so we could figure out how widespread these phenomena were, and start to figuring out what to do about it. That journey is still in progress.

Torwald 7y ago
Then the title of the series is badly worded. The journey is not from free market ideology to another viewpoint, as the title suggests. It is more an awakening to the fact that we do not have a free market or at least to a set of facts about how strongly the markets are inhibited by governments.
- deleted 7y ago
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- voodootrucker 7y ago
  Absolutely no idea why this is being down-voted, given the grandparent gave all the evidence required to support this argument.
  - TomMckenny 7y ago
    The article explicitly warns of that sort of confirmation bias. In particular, it points out that the free market had already failed the people in the community. The remedy, essentially government financial incentives to business, was the only thing that made enterprise possible. But since the whole system innately runs at a loss for the comunity, a harsh future reckoning arises. So it points to a possible deep flaw in our economic system and underling assumptions that simple theories obviously do not explain. After all, one should believe the simplest working explanation, but certainly no simpler. The complete confidence in completely unfettered markets is apparently overly simplistic. Likewise, some forms of business incentives are counter productive.
ksdale 7y ago
Thank you for responding! I'm not super familiar with Strong Towns, but I really appreciate the work that's gone into it and I'm definitely going to read more. As for the hidden costs, it reminds me of assessments in HOAs and condo associations. Once infrastructure starts to age, it can become unbelievably expensive to perform even basic maintenance, as you mention. In instances where the people who live in a place are responsible for way more of the costs themselves, the picture starts to look a lot less rosy! I guess my issue with the free market vs not free market framing is that, while I agree completely with you that the system in not a functioning free market at all, the title of the series implies that we need to move away from a free market? But then, as you say, the system is already not that. I don't have much of an opinion one way or another, besides believing that this sort of financial analysis is very important. Thank you for taking the time to respond!
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
Tell Chuck I'm a big big fan of his writings!
gcbw2 7y ago
> This isn’t super easy to see because it’s hidden in a bunch of cultural stuff we just take for granted. This is why sociologist mostly clump all the ism (capitalism, socialism, etc) into religion. They work within the same framework. If someone said "give all the poor people money to improve the life of a rich person who owns thousands of hotels" you would trhow that person out of the window. Now dress it in the complex Myths, which the article tries to unwrap, and everyone buys!

Torwald 7y ago

Then the title of the series is badly worded. The journey is not from free market ideology to another viewpoint, as the title suggests. It is more an awakening to the fact that we do not have a free market or at least to a set of facts about how strongly the markets are inhibited by governments.

deleted 7y ago
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voodootrucker 7y ago
Absolutely no idea why this is being down-voted, given the grandparent gave all the evidence required to support this argument.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  The article explicitly warns of that sort of confirmation bias. In particular, it points out that the free market had already failed the people in the community. The remedy, essentially government financial incentives to business, was the only thing that made enterprise possible. But since the whole system innately runs at a loss for the comunity, a harsh future reckoning arises. So it points to a possible deep flaw in our economic system and underling assumptions that simple theories obviously do not explain. After all, one should believe the simplest working explanation, but certainly no simpler. The complete confidence in completely unfettered markets is apparently overly simplistic. Likewise, some forms of business incentives are counter productive.

ksdale 7y ago

Thank you for responding! I'm not super familiar with Strong Towns, but I really appreciate the work that's gone into it and I'm definitely going to read more. As for the hidden costs, it reminds me of assessments in HOAs and condo associations. Once infrastructure starts to age, it can become unbelievably expensive to perform even basic maintenance, as you mention. In instances where the people who live in a place are responsible for way more of the costs themselves, the picture starts to look a lot less rosy! I guess my issue with the free market vs not free market framing is that, while I agree completely with you that the system in not a functioning free market at all, the title of the series implies that we need to move away from a free market? But then, as you say, the system is already not that. I don't have much of an opinion one way or another, besides believing that this sort of financial analysis is very important. Thank you for taking the time to respond!

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

Tell Chuck I'm a big big fan of his writings!

gcbw2 7y ago

> This isn’t super easy to see because it’s hidden in a bunch of cultural stuff we just take for granted. This is why sociologist mostly clump all the ism (capitalism, socialism, etc) into religion. They work within the same framework. If someone said "give all the poor people money to improve the life of a rich person who owns thousands of hotels" you would trhow that person out of the window. Now dress it in the complex Myths, which the article tries to unwrap, and everyone buys!