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There are plenty of regulated free markets. Examples would be everything which uses mains power, phone lines or radiates rf. Or stuff you eat or medicine. Or o

by zxcmx 7y ago

There are plenty of regulated free markets. Examples would be everything which uses mains power, phone lines or radiates rf. Or stuff you eat or medicine. Or occupational products. Or... actually I think more things are regulated than aren't. I guess my point is that when regulations apply to everything around us, is that really the sticking point or is it the potential for regulatory capture and limited user choice?

ianleeclark 7y ago
> There are plenty of regulated free markets. I think we're talking about different definitions of a free market then. To me, a free market is a market which is self-regulating or free from external regulation. It would seem to me that you define a free market as having some, arbitrary amount of regulation. If the amount of regulation is "under," that arbitrary bar, then it would be free. I don't really think this definition works, as the bar for what's "free" is arbitrary and would vary person-to-person, nation-to-nation, so it becomes a meaningless term.
- zxcmx 7y ago
  I do have a prior, which is that I don't think any "free" markets exist in western nations due to broad consumer laws, plus applicable domain specific laws but interested in your perspective. There are severe limits on what any of us can buy and/or sell and how we talk about it. A good kick starter for discussion would be an example of a free market as you see it. If you are doing things with widespread societal impact generally society will have some things to say about that and their (perhaps slow and ham-fisted) means of expressing opinions about that is law and regulation. As a consequence of seeing all fields as essentially regulated, I have a pretty low bar for free markets which is mostly "multiple parties can meaningfully compete and politicians do not completely determine that. Also consumers have a genuine choice.". This excludes China but kind of includes the USA, in many fields. But health care is weird. As an example of my point of view, I think we can have laws that regulate carbon, material waste or other externalities and might be "onerous" but still have "free markets".

by zxcmx 7y ago

ianleeclark 7y ago

> There are plenty of regulated free markets. I think we're talking about different definitions of a free market then. To me, a free market is a market which is self-regulating or free from external regulation. It would seem to me that you define a free market as having some, arbitrary amount of regulation. If the amount of regulation is "under," that arbitrary bar, then it would be free. I don't really think this definition works, as the bar for what's "free" is arbitrary and would vary person-to-person, nation-to-nation, so it becomes a meaningless term.

zxcmx 7y ago
I do have a prior, which is that I don't think any "free" markets exist in western nations due to broad consumer laws, plus applicable domain specific laws but interested in your perspective. There are severe limits on what any of us can buy and/or sell and how we talk about it. A good kick starter for discussion would be an example of a free market as you see it. If you are doing things with widespread societal impact generally society will have some things to say about that and their (perhaps slow and ham-fisted) means of expressing opinions about that is law and regulation. As a consequence of seeing all fields as essentially regulated, I have a pretty low bar for free markets which is mostly "multiple parties can meaningfully compete and politicians do not completely determine that. Also consumers have a genuine choice.". This excludes China but kind of includes the USA, in many fields. But health care is weird. As an example of my point of view, I think we can have laws that regulate carbon, material waste or other externalities and might be "onerous" but still have "free markets".