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> But it's also potentially a failure at a national long-term level as it has reduced our manufacturing capacity. That isn't a market failure. It's just a reco

> But it's also potentially a failure at a national long-term level as it has reduced our manufacturing capacity. That isn't a market failure. It's just a recognition that the economy is global, not national. The market doesn't optimize for the benefit of one nation against others. As for "short-term bias", the market just reflects the biases of the people making the decisions—the same as any other system. If people are inclined to stockpile medical supplies or materiel for self-defense, the market will support that too. The market's only real "failure" is that it's too democratic for the liking of certain individuals who feel they have a better idea of how a society should be organized than the poor, ignorant, gullible masses that actually comprise that society.

whimsicalism 6y ago
> The market's only real "failure" is that it's too democratic for the liking of certain individuals It's interesting to see this sort of rhetoric re-emerge after it took a long break after the '08 recession. Of course, the idea that the market is "too democratic" is absurd. At least, I haven't seen a democratic system where 1% of the population gets 40% of the vote. As long as "willingness to pay" is the market proxy for the utility a consumer gets from a good, the market is not "democratic".
- nybble41 6y ago
  > At least, I haven't seen a democratic system where 1% of the population gets 40% of the vote. In a pure voluntaryist market system everyone gets 100% of the vote (i.e. veto power) when it comes to how they use their own labor and resources. If one has acquired more wealth then one has more options available and more decisions to make, but still doesn't get any direct say in how other people use their property, no matter how rich or poor they may be. This is far more egalitarian and in keeping with the ideals espoused by most democracies than the idea that every person's freedoms and property are subject to a glorified opinion poll.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > everyone gets 100% of the vote (i.e. veto power) when it comes to how they use their own labor and resources Yeah, so uh... not democracy. I'm not going to relitigate the entirety of Anarchy, State & Utopia in the HN comments section, but suffice to say that these ideals are far from objectively "egalitarian" and the idea that other's negative, non-inferential side-constraints must be sometimes violated in the context of social cooperation is actually foundational to republican (as in the political philosophy) thought.
    - nybble41 6y ago
      It's not direct democracy, but those systems are rare. Everything else is quibbling over details. What most people mean when they say "democracy" has little to do with voting and everything to do with the protection of rights for minorities… which is much closer to voluntaryism than direct democracy.
bumby 6y ago
>It's just a recognition that the economy is global, not national. True, and good point. >just reflects the biases of the people making the decisions...The market's only real "failure" is that it's too democratic This is a failure if you can agree that people are less than optimal at making decisions, i.e. that humans have biases that work against their own rational self-interest at times. Meaning the market can exacerbate faulty decision heuristics. Behavioral economics is full of examples of this that classical economics simply labels as "anomalies". I tend to think the socialization aspect is an admonition that markets don't always work best when humans are at their most emotional/least rational. Most people excluding the most ardent anarcho-capitalists recognize there are times when a completely free market doesn't serve the best interest of society (e.g., healthcare, monopolies). Sometimes I think people get it inverted and think society serves the market and not the other way around.
- nybble41 6y ago
  > there are times when a completely free market doesn't serve the best interest of society In my opinion the best interests of society are best served by letting people make their own decisions regarding themselves and their own property, and not by aggression or deliberate attempts at social engineering. I tend to be pro-market on average but really it's not the market I'm interested in so much as liberty. I also take a very expansive view of what the market entails; not just materialistic concerns but the full spectrum of human preferences. Does it always lead to a perfect outcome? Of course not. No system comprised of fallible and incompletely-informed human beings could possibly do that. It's just better than all the alternatives. All the human failings which prevent markets from achieving optimal results are also problems for the various political schemes that aim to regulate them, magnified by the introduction of force as a "legitimate" means of achieving the desired end state. (It's ironic, for example, that people turn to governments to save them from monopolies—mostly government-created monopolies—when the government itself is the biggest monopoly of them all.) In the end the real goal isn't to make people "happy"—we could do that much more easily with drugs. Rather, it's to ensure that people can live their lives the way that they choose, so that they can seek happiness, or purpose, or whatever else means the most to them. The fact that people make choices that (in someone else's opinion) probably won't make them happier is not sufficient justification for taking away their freedom to choose for themselves. I happen to think the moral, principled position also happens in this case to be the one that leads to the best outcomes for the most people from a purely materialistic point of view, but this is merely a happy coincidence; it would still be the right thing to do even if it resulted in abject poverty.

whimsicalism 6y ago

> The market's only real "failure" is that it's too democratic for the liking of certain individuals It's interesting to see this sort of rhetoric re-emerge after it took a long break after the '08 recession. Of course, the idea that the market is "too democratic" is absurd. At least, I haven't seen a democratic system where 1% of the population gets 40% of the vote. As long as "willingness to pay" is the market proxy for the utility a consumer gets from a good, the market is not "democratic".

nybble41 6y ago
> At least, I haven't seen a democratic system where 1% of the population gets 40% of the vote. In a pure voluntaryist market system everyone gets 100% of the vote (i.e. veto power) when it comes to how they use their own labor and resources. If one has acquired more wealth then one has more options available and more decisions to make, but still doesn't get any direct say in how other people use their property, no matter how rich or poor they may be. This is far more egalitarian and in keeping with the ideals espoused by most democracies than the idea that every person's freedoms and property are subject to a glorified opinion poll.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > everyone gets 100% of the vote (i.e. veto power) when it comes to how they use their own labor and resources Yeah, so uh... not democracy. I'm not going to relitigate the entirety of Anarchy, State & Utopia in the HN comments section, but suffice to say that these ideals are far from objectively "egalitarian" and the idea that other's negative, non-inferential side-constraints must be sometimes violated in the context of social cooperation is actually foundational to republican (as in the political philosophy) thought.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    It's not direct democracy, but those systems are rare. Everything else is quibbling over details. What most people mean when they say "democracy" has little to do with voting and everything to do with the protection of rights for minorities… which is much closer to voluntaryism than direct democracy.

bumby 6y ago

>It's just a recognition that the economy is global, not national. True, and good point. >just reflects the biases of the people making the decisions...The market's only real "failure" is that it's too democratic This is a failure if you can agree that people are less than optimal at making decisions, i.e. that humans have biases that work against their own rational self-interest at times. Meaning the market can exacerbate faulty decision heuristics. Behavioral economics is full of examples of this that classical economics simply labels as "anomalies". I tend to think the socialization aspect is an admonition that markets don't always work best when humans are at their most emotional/least rational. Most people excluding the most ardent anarcho-capitalists recognize there are times when a completely free market doesn't serve the best interest of society (e.g., healthcare, monopolies). Sometimes I think people get it inverted and think society serves the market and not the other way around.

nybble41 6y ago
> there are times when a completely free market doesn't serve the best interest of society In my opinion the best interests of society are best served by letting people make their own decisions regarding themselves and their own property, and not by aggression or deliberate attempts at social engineering. I tend to be pro-market on average but really it's not the market I'm interested in so much as liberty. I also take a very expansive view of what the market entails; not just materialistic concerns but the full spectrum of human preferences. Does it always lead to a perfect outcome? Of course not. No system comprised of fallible and incompletely-informed human beings could possibly do that. It's just better than all the alternatives. All the human failings which prevent markets from achieving optimal results are also problems for the various political schemes that aim to regulate them, magnified by the introduction of force as a "legitimate" means of achieving the desired end state. (It's ironic, for example, that people turn to governments to save them from monopolies—mostly government-created monopolies—when the government itself is the biggest monopoly of them all.) In the end the real goal isn't to make people "happy"—we could do that much more easily with drugs. Rather, it's to ensure that people can live their lives the way that they choose, so that they can seek happiness, or purpose, or whatever else means the most to them. The fact that people make choices that (in someone else's opinion) probably won't make them happier is not sufficient justification for taking away their freedom to choose for themselves. I happen to think the moral, principled position also happens in this case to be the one that leads to the best outcomes for the most people from a purely materialistic point of view, but this is merely a happy coincidence; it would still be the right thing to do even if it resulted in abject poverty.