5 ms·
> Everything the free market does is voluntary by definition. Every "intervention" is by definition not. In some ideal world, where both parties of an exchange
by andersonvom 5y ago
> Everything the free market does is voluntary by definition. Every "intervention" is by definition not.
In some ideal world, where both parties of an exchange hold equal bargaining power, the "free" market might be "voluntary".
This is certainly not the current state of affairs, though. Being able to "choose" between a crappy option and a horrible option is anything but voluntary: "you can choose to work for me for little to no money... or you can choose to starve to death. it's your 'free' choice."
The very premise of what would make a free market efficient in the real world simply doesn't exist, but we keep trying to convince ourselves that it does because we don't know or aren't used to anything different.
- thegrimmest 5y agoBeing able to choose between horrible options is exactly the definition of freedom. Believe it or not many people would choose free destitution over pampered slavery. It is exactly the ability to make this choice, at the most extreme level, that should be respected. To take an maximal example: you should be able to sell your kidneys to fuel your heroin habit, for no other reason than because no one can claim more ownership over them than you. To protect people, against their will, from the consequences of their own misfortune or inadequacy is fundamentally paternalistic. The goal isn't efficiency, but the primacy of agency and consent.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhat is wrong with paternalism?
- thegrimmest 5y agoThe authoritarian and condescending nature of it.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhy is paternalism within the family not authoritarian or condescending?
- thegrimmest 5y agoIt absolutely is! In the context of raising a child, it may be appropriate. When interacting with an equal it is not.
- Apocryphon 5y agoWhat determines equality?
- thegrimmest 5y agoIt is a moral axiom: > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...
- Apocryphon 5y agoAnd how are children, as men, not also created equal, yet still subject to paternalism?
- thegrimmest 5y agoI think children are excluded from the definition of "men".
- Apocryphon 5y agoSurely not by the above moral axiom.
- thegrimmest 5y agoSurely by it. I would struggle to find a precedent where children are considered equal to adults, and not subject to their authority. In fact my whole point is we shouldn't treat adults the same way we do children.
- andersonvom 5y agoIf the two horrible options were free from context, sure. But that's hardly (if ever) the case. It is very convenient to start from a place where A has power over B, then say "B is free to choose whatever crappy options A offers, because... freedom".
- thegrimmest 5y agoWe have to start from some place don't we? Even if we perfectly redistributed wealth tomorrow, we'd see billionaires in a generation or two.
- andersonvom 5y agoThis only goes to show that the current system is inherently broken, but this is a completely different conversation.