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For a market to be free it must be well regulated. If a market is controlled inordinately by a few, it ceases to be free.

pphysch 5y ago
Then it's not a truly free market, because central planning (regulation) is sometimes overpowering the price mechanism.
- ddingus 5y ago
  The idea of a robust, enduring free market itself needs to be questioned. Complete economic freedom leads to monopolies, who then act to preserve and benefit from their position. They do this because they know everyone else both wants that position and would do the same thing to maintain it. All this happens because growth is seen as necessary. Always necessary. Markets with rules can check those behaviors, but come with other complications, a big one being bought and paid for rule making by bigger players doing what? Maintaining position and growth. In the end, why do we even allow markets? To benefit people. Factored down, rules aimed at insuring markets actually do serve the people means the people have to have a say in the rules created with authority granted by the people for the purpose of improving things for the people.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    > In the end, why do we even allow markets? Because it's the best we got, historically. Decentralized price mechanism outperforms wetware planning at allocating resources efficiently. Now software has changed that and central planning is much more capable. Truly pure free market economies are virtually impossible, because as soon as the first firm is formed, it becomes a mixed economy. That is, economic transactions done within the firm are not done according to the global price mechanism, but to other rules and conventions. And the only way to prevent firms from being formed would be some extreme regulation i.e. central planning...
    - ddingus 5y ago
      And does it not follow the idea of free markets is questionable? I have long thought it is. Historically, we got all of this out of the need to benefit from our collective labor and resources, developed tech... The only reason there are markets at all is for our mutual benefit. And it follows from there to evaluate market rules to insure that actually happens.

pphysch 5y ago

Then it's not a truly free market, because central planning (regulation) is sometimes overpowering the price mechanism.

ddingus 5y ago
The idea of a robust, enduring free market itself needs to be questioned. Complete economic freedom leads to monopolies, who then act to preserve and benefit from their position. They do this because they know everyone else both wants that position and would do the same thing to maintain it. All this happens because growth is seen as necessary. Always necessary. Markets with rules can check those behaviors, but come with other complications, a big one being bought and paid for rule making by bigger players doing what? Maintaining position and growth. In the end, why do we even allow markets? To benefit people. Factored down, rules aimed at insuring markets actually do serve the people means the people have to have a say in the rules created with authority granted by the people for the purpose of improving things for the people.
- pphysch 5y ago
  > In the end, why do we even allow markets? Because it's the best we got, historically. Decentralized price mechanism outperforms wetware planning at allocating resources efficiently. Now software has changed that and central planning is much more capable. Truly pure free market economies are virtually impossible, because as soon as the first firm is formed, it becomes a mixed economy. That is, economic transactions done within the firm are not done according to the global price mechanism, but to other rules and conventions. And the only way to prevent firms from being formed would be some extreme regulation i.e. central planning...
  - ddingus 5y ago
    And does it not follow the idea of free markets is questionable? I have long thought it is. Historically, we got all of this out of the need to benefit from our collective labor and resources, developed tech... The only reason there are markets at all is for our mutual benefit. And it follows from there to evaluate market rules to insure that actually happens.