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The term you're looking for is social market economy or rhine capitalism [1] The core idea is that we see the market as a means to an end, not some end in itse

The term you're looking for is social market economy or rhine capitalism [1] The core idea is that we see the market as a means to an end, not some end in itself. When the market is incompatible with societal good, the market needs to change, not society. A market by itself only optimizes for maximum profits for shareholders, at the expense of everything else. Often, you want your economy to optimize for different things, so you direct the market to support your goals. It's the root cause why inequality is so much worse in the US, why you have a much bigger housing crisis, why health care in the US is such a mess, why there's homeless people everywhere etc etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy

sneak 5y ago
> It's the root cause why inequality is so much worse in the US, why you have a much bigger housing crisis, why health care in the US is such a mess, why there's homeless people everywhere etc etc. I don't think a single part of this claim a) logically follows from the previous paragraphs, or b) is actually true. For just one example: the housing crisis is a lack of supply, which is the result of the exact same kind of status-quo-maintaining, market-forces-secondary-to-regulatory-aims (NIMBYism by property owners and their representatives) thing you describe as being the European norm. To say that these philosophical differences are the root cause of failures in very complex systems is of course the popular and prevailing European narrative about the USA. (There is another, equally popular and equally false (but self-congratulatory) one in Europe about gun violence in the USA.) I just don't see much evidence to substantiate it.
- malermeister 5y ago
  Counterexample to your housing crisis claim: Vienna, Austria. 44% of the housing stock is in public ownership, two thirds of the population live in public housing. Rent is affordable and housing stock is of high quality. Market forces would not have solved this, as there is very little profit to be made with low-cost housing - so the lack of housing was fixed by state intervention and Vienna has the highest quality of life in the world [1] as a result. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/vienna-best-city-live-quality-life-ranking-mercer-australia-europe-a8820396.html https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/vienna-...
  - sneak 5y ago
    > as there is very little profit to be made with low-cost housing I’m fairly certain that this is not correct.
    - malermeister 5y ago
      How do you explain the lack of low-cost housing in most US cities then?
      - sneak 5y ago
        Prohibitions on adding supply, mostly driven and incentivized and rewarded by existing landowners who directly profit from constrained supply and high prices.
panick21_ 5y ago
> The core idea is that we see the market as a means to an end, not some end in itself. The market was never an end to itself. Literally go back and read anywhere from Smith, Hume to Hayek. That is just a straw-men argument. > When the market is incompatible with societal good, the market needs to change, not society. And who and how is it determined, what the social good is? Are bureaucrats loosely connected to politicians loosely connected to voters a better an more reliable form of social preference allocation then the price mechanism under the same law? Not by any existing evidence in social science. But the core of your argument is basically the government whenever it feels like it can just intervene in the market directly and put its finger on the scale. Not by fundamentally changing the rules, just be direct intervention whenever they don't like something. Often that is a foreign competitor and some vague hard to prove claims about market power. And often it is the citizens of that country that end up having higher prices or higher taxes. French book market being a good example. Many times it has been shown historically that the monopolies far, far, far more often are government created then market created. And laws to establish 'fair competition' are usually strongly sponsored by the very competitors who get crushed in the market, often for good fundamental reasons. The first Anti-Trust law in the US was by local butchers to prevent centralized butchers with refrigerated rail-cars. Would it really be 'fair competition' to give money to local butchers to prevent them from this 'unfair competition'. No, its how you get a stagnate economy depended on subsidies. Very often its just governments doing what they want for the political clients that they have. French publishers, German news organization. A perfect example is Germany where German Newspaper have fought tooth and nails for years against 'Google News' and basically want to monetize every link to their sites. This is all done in the name of 'fair competition' while introducing laws that are really the opposite and hurt user freedom in the process. > It's the root cause why inequality is so much worse in the US, why you have a much bigger housing crisis, why health care in the US is such a mess, why there's homeless people everywhere etc etc. If you think housing and health care are examples of 'free market fundamentalism' then you are very badly informed.

sneak 5y ago

> It's the root cause why inequality is so much worse in the US, why you have a much bigger housing crisis, why health care in the US is such a mess, why there's homeless people everywhere etc etc. I don't think a single part of this claim a) logically follows from the previous paragraphs, or b) is actually true. For just one example: the housing crisis is a lack of supply, which is the result of the exact same kind of status-quo-maintaining, market-forces-secondary-to-regulatory-aims (NIMBYism by property owners and their representatives) thing you describe as being the European norm. To say that these philosophical differences are the root cause of failures in very complex systems is of course the popular and prevailing European narrative about the USA. (There is another, equally popular and equally false (but self-congratulatory) one in Europe about gun violence in the USA.) I just don't see much evidence to substantiate it.

malermeister 5y ago
Counterexample to your housing crisis claim: Vienna, Austria. 44% of the housing stock is in public ownership, two thirds of the population live in public housing. Rent is affordable and housing stock is of high quality. Market forces would not have solved this, as there is very little profit to be made with low-cost housing - so the lack of housing was fixed by state intervention and Vienna has the highest quality of life in the world [1] as a result. [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/vienna-best-city-live-quality-life-ranking-mercer-australia-europe-a8820396.html https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/vienna-...
- sneak 5y ago
  > as there is very little profit to be made with low-cost housing I’m fairly certain that this is not correct.
  - malermeister 5y ago
    How do you explain the lack of low-cost housing in most US cities then?
    - sneak 5y ago
      Prohibitions on adding supply, mostly driven and incentivized and rewarded by existing landowners who directly profit from constrained supply and high prices.

panick21_ 5y ago

> The core idea is that we see the market as a means to an end, not some end in itself. The market was never an end to itself. Literally go back and read anywhere from Smith, Hume to Hayek. That is just a straw-men argument. > When the market is incompatible with societal good, the market needs to change, not society. And who and how is it determined, what the social good is? Are bureaucrats loosely connected to politicians loosely connected to voters a better an more reliable form of social preference allocation then the price mechanism under the same law? Not by any existing evidence in social science. But the core of your argument is basically the government whenever it feels like it can just intervene in the market directly and put its finger on the scale. Not by fundamentally changing the rules, just be direct intervention whenever they don't like something. Often that is a foreign competitor and some vague hard to prove claims about market power. And often it is the citizens of that country that end up having higher prices or higher taxes. French book market being a good example. Many times it has been shown historically that the monopolies far, far, far more often are government created then market created. And laws to establish 'fair competition' are usually strongly sponsored by the very competitors who get crushed in the market, often for good fundamental reasons. The first Anti-Trust law in the US was by local butchers to prevent centralized butchers with refrigerated rail-cars. Would it really be 'fair competition' to give money to local butchers to prevent them from this 'unfair competition'. No, its how you get a stagnate economy depended on subsidies. Very often its just governments doing what they want for the political clients that they have. French publishers, German news organization. A perfect example is Germany where German Newspaper have fought tooth and nails for years against 'Google News' and basically want to monetize every link to their sites. This is all done in the name of 'fair competition' while introducing laws that are really the opposite and hurt user freedom in the process. > It's the root cause why inequality is so much worse in the US, why you have a much bigger housing crisis, why health care in the US is such a mess, why there's homeless people everywhere etc etc. If you think housing and health care are examples of 'free market fundamentalism' then you are very badly informed.