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What’s free mean when talking about markets exactly? Free from what?

cameronbrown 7y ago
Regulatory capture I'd guess.
pitaj 7y ago
An ideal free market is one is which no coercion occurs, including state coercion like regulations and taxes, and private coercion like theft and fraud. Colloquially, a free market refers to one in which a minimal amount of government intervention occurs. The less state intervention, the more free the market.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  No, that just gives rise to corrupt capitalism. Like expecting law and order without police and courts. Without regulation and strong intervention against problematic companies cartels, profiteering, monopoly and all the other problems of unconstrained capitalism tend to result. Standards will fall, prices will rise, deals will be done on golf courses and in (formerly) smoke filled bars against the interests of the customers. The best markets are ones that have a clear market, and are kept free and ethical by strong and appropriate oversight (government). Needless to say there are many markets that are not appropriate uses of the market, and oversight does not work too well with a revolving door between commerce and regulator, smoothed by filthy lucre.
- tomp 7y ago
  There’s a number of problems that can occur in markets without any coertion - e.g. principal - agent problem, or asymmetric information - that make a market less efficient and thus worse for paricipants. The job of the government is to work to prevent those, even with coertion if necessary (e.g. fiduciary laws, food standards, ...). There’s a tradeoff between too few laws (reducing market participants’ confidence in the goods/services they buy) and too many laws (increasing barriers to entry and causing monopolies).
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I think it's bad to define a word for a situation in terms of what you think it takes to get there. Because that encodes your prejudices where it's not necessary. Whenever you define freedom as "what you get when you do X" you have set yourself up for Orwellian denial of reality. I think a good way to define freedom is "the condition of having a reasonably large number of good choices". The better and more diverse the choices, the more freedom.

Regulatory capture I'd guess.

An ideal free market is one is which no coercion occurs, including state coercion like regulations and taxes, and private coercion like theft and fraud. Colloquially, a free market refers to one in which a minimal amount of government intervention occurs. The less state intervention, the more free the market.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
No, that just gives rise to corrupt capitalism. Like expecting law and order without police and courts. Without regulation and strong intervention against problematic companies cartels, profiteering, monopoly and all the other problems of unconstrained capitalism tend to result. Standards will fall, prices will rise, deals will be done on golf courses and in (formerly) smoke filled bars against the interests of the customers. The best markets are ones that have a clear market, and are kept free and ethical by strong and appropriate oversight (government). Needless to say there are many markets that are not appropriate uses of the market, and oversight does not work too well with a revolving door between commerce and regulator, smoothed by filthy lucre.
tomp 7y ago
There’s a number of problems that can occur in markets without any coertion - e.g. principal - agent problem, or asymmetric information - that make a market less efficient and thus worse for paricipants. The job of the government is to work to prevent those, even with coertion if necessary (e.g. fiduciary laws, food standards, ...). There’s a tradeoff between too few laws (reducing market participants’ confidence in the goods/services they buy) and too many laws (increasing barriers to entry and causing monopolies).
perl4ever 7y ago
I think it's bad to define a word for a situation in terms of what you think it takes to get there. Because that encodes your prejudices where it's not necessary. Whenever you define freedom as "what you get when you do X" you have set yourself up for Orwellian denial of reality. I think a good way to define freedom is "the condition of having a reasonably large number of good choices". The better and more diverse the choices, the more freedom.