4 ms·

> Interesting, from what I can tell the mainstream seems crazy far left and in favour of all kinds of interventions to 'smooth rough edges' and worse. I'd like

> Interesting, from what I can tell the mainstream seems crazy far left and in favour of all kinds of interventions to 'smooth rough edges' and worse. I'd like to see some examples. > In the US the Republicans are against free trade This isn't anti pro-market. This is anti market-as-totalizing-factor-in-life. These things aren't contradictory. > and the Democrats have their usually anti market stance. They gave us NAFTA. They passed a--i shit you not--market-mediated healthcare bill. As you speak, there is literally a power struggle happening wherein lobbyists are being stacked in Biden's future cabinet to ensure favorable market positions for their represented patrons. I think there's a lot of confusion on your part. I think you're mis-using "market," to refer to some "free-market," that could never exist. I might be wrong, but there's no other way that I could understand how you can refer to Democrats, as a whole, as "anti-market." Sure, AOC gets a lot of press, but you're missing the forest for the trees when this forms your world-view of what that party is and does.

eru 6y ago
You are right that we are probably using different terminology. What I would have in mind is policy more guided by econ 101, or alternatively, whatever Estonian, Singapore and Hong Kong are doing. The latter only by-and-large and with big exceptions obviously, since they are complicated real world places. So called 'free trade agreements' are an interesting example: econ 101 tells us that free trade agreements are pretty silly. Adam Smith and Ricardo already showed that you should abolish your own trade barriers unilaterally regardless of what the other guy is doing, no need for any agreements. (But that's a digression. I agree that free trade agreements are largely seen as pro-market by the general public.) In any case, NAFTA stems from the bygone era of the Washington Consensus. It mostly predates the time I am talking about. Yes, there's a tiny bit of market in the American healthcare system. But it's a very small sliver. Have a look at https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost... and https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/17/highlights-from-the-comments-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/17/highlights-from-the-co... for a more in-depth and even-handed discussion than I could give you. Especially the 'certificate of need' is interesting. (Basically, existing hospitals in an area can veto any new hospital.) Yes, if you by "market" you mean "corporate welfare" and "crony capitalism", than what your comment makes total sense. A perfect free market might never have existed, but good enough approximations do; and it's useful to move more areas in that direction.
- ianleeclark 6y ago
  > What I would have in mind is policy more guided by econ 101 I have a degree in Economics. The first they thing teach you in Econ 201 is to ignore everything that happened in Econ 101: it's useful to learn to read graphs, but everything is largely useless otherwise. Also, why are you prescribing that we ought to follow Econ 101 then 2 sentences later telling us to instead ignore Econ 101 in favor of this other thing. This is contradictory advice. > A perfect free market might never have existed, but good enough approximations do Good enough is arbitrary. Go check out Anarcho-Capitalists, they want a very different good-enough. Furthermore, we're finding another contradiction: your pursuit of a free-market, yet you're offering up countries with varying levels of market and capital control. Estonia, for example, has highly market-distorting healthcare/insurance industries through a monopsony. This is, again, contradictory, as a monopsony is a market-distorting force--especially when constructed through government mandate. Or is this where that ideology safety-valve kicks in: > The latter only by-and-large and with big exceptions obviously, since they are complicated real world places. It's full of contradiction and arbitrary distinctions.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    If you are interested in a moderately realistic economy simulation game then checkout prosperous universe. https://prosperousuniverse.com/blog/2020/11/03/learn-economic-theory-by-playing-prosperous-universe/ https://prosperousuniverse.com/blog/2020/11/03/learn-economi... I think it's incredibly interesting because it helps people actually experience economic theory first hand by letting everyone run their own virtual business. It's obviously highly simplified but if you have spent your entire life on the consumer/worker side then you will never get to experience even a tiny bit of the complexity of running a real business and how economic theory works out in practice. When you aren't actually running your own business you often get hung up on high profile edge cases like monopolies where it's in your face that the economy is not in your favor but you never ever stop and think for a second about the parts of the economy that do actually work out just fine. Things like water futures are a net positive compared to the previous situation. Instead everyone in this comment section assumes the worst and thinks about how this system is going to get broken and abused because that is what they experience all the time in far more complicated situations like health care. Free markets aren't ideal in every situation. That's true but there are also situations in which they are excellent. The closer you get to a prefect market the more effective the free market. Health care is the ultimate counter example to a perfect market and managing it as a free market will not yield efficient results.

eru 6y ago

You are right that we are probably using different terminology. What I would have in mind is policy more guided by econ 101, or alternatively, whatever Estonian, Singapore and Hong Kong are doing. The latter only by-and-large and with big exceptions obviously, since they are complicated real world places. So called 'free trade agreements' are an interesting example: econ 101 tells us that free trade agreements are pretty silly. Adam Smith and Ricardo already showed that you should abolish your own trade barriers unilaterally regardless of what the other guy is doing, no need for any agreements. (But that's a digression. I agree that free trade agreements are largely seen as pro-market by the general public.) In any case, NAFTA stems from the bygone era of the Washington Consensus. It mostly predates the time I am talking about. Yes, there's a tiny bit of market in the American healthcare system. But it's a very small sliver. Have a look at https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost... and https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/17/highlights-from-the-comments-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/17/highlights-from-the-co... for a more in-depth and even-handed discussion than I could give you. Especially the 'certificate of need' is interesting. (Basically, existing hospitals in an area can veto any new hospital.) Yes, if you by "market" you mean "corporate welfare" and "crony capitalism", than what your comment makes total sense. A perfect free market might never have existed, but good enough approximations do; and it's useful to move more areas in that direction.

ianleeclark 6y ago
> What I would have in mind is policy more guided by econ 101 I have a degree in Economics. The first they thing teach you in Econ 201 is to ignore everything that happened in Econ 101: it's useful to learn to read graphs, but everything is largely useless otherwise. Also, why are you prescribing that we ought to follow Econ 101 then 2 sentences later telling us to instead ignore Econ 101 in favor of this other thing. This is contradictory advice. > A perfect free market might never have existed, but good enough approximations do Good enough is arbitrary. Go check out Anarcho-Capitalists, they want a very different good-enough. Furthermore, we're finding another contradiction: your pursuit of a free-market, yet you're offering up countries with varying levels of market and capital control. Estonia, for example, has highly market-distorting healthcare/insurance industries through a monopsony. This is, again, contradictory, as a monopsony is a market-distorting force--especially when constructed through government mandate. Or is this where that ideology safety-valve kicks in: > The latter only by-and-large and with big exceptions obviously, since they are complicated real world places. It's full of contradiction and arbitrary distinctions.
- imtringued 6y ago
  If you are interested in a moderately realistic economy simulation game then checkout prosperous universe. https://prosperousuniverse.com/blog/2020/11/03/learn-economic-theory-by-playing-prosperous-universe/ https://prosperousuniverse.com/blog/2020/11/03/learn-economi... I think it's incredibly interesting because it helps people actually experience economic theory first hand by letting everyone run their own virtual business. It's obviously highly simplified but if you have spent your entire life on the consumer/worker side then you will never get to experience even a tiny bit of the complexity of running a real business and how economic theory works out in practice. When you aren't actually running your own business you often get hung up on high profile edge cases like monopolies where it's in your face that the economy is not in your favor but you never ever stop and think for a second about the parts of the economy that do actually work out just fine. Things like water futures are a net positive compared to the previous situation. Instead everyone in this comment section assumes the worst and thinks about how this system is going to get broken and abused because that is what they experience all the time in far more complicated situations like health care. Free markets aren't ideal in every situation. That's true but there are also situations in which they are excellent. The closer you get to a prefect market the more effective the free market. Health care is the ultimate counter example to a perfect market and managing it as a free market will not yield efficient results.