7 ms·

What's always disappointing to me is how for many the first instinct is "lazy young people" while often times the exact same people espouse "the free market". I

What's always disappointing to me is how for many the first instinct is "lazy young people" while often times the exact same people espouse "the free market". It seems to me that often times the same people really only care about low taxes for themselves and making away with regulations that annoy them, rather than truly embracing the mechanism and tradeoffs that come with a free market and for sure don't understand the circumstances needed to make the market effective to work towards a given goal.

DarylZero 5y ago
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  I naively thought the whole point of the market was to effectively route resources to where they are most in demand and allow innovation from the ground up where it's needed without central planning
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    This is the difference between analysis of markets as a concept and “believing in the free market” as an ideology. The latter uses markets as a stand in for morality. When bad outcomes occur, it definitionally cannot be due to the market, but some other bad actors.
  - hotpotamus 5y ago
    I don't think markets have a point; they just are. The systems and regulations we create around markets are what give them meaning.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    It is. Free markets do not preclude social safety nets, or things like universal basic income.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      It's all a question of degree. A market with fewer taxes and less redistribution is freer.
      - AlexandrB 5y ago
        This is only true if you're looking at the capital market. If you consider the labor market, I would argue it's freer if employees have more freedom to change jobs (i.e. there is some redistribution and social safety net). Edit: Also, a market with redistribution is more democratic. More actors have money to provide market input (demand or investment) when resources are not highly concentrated.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        Free market doesn't mean that actors can do whatever they want. It means that the market has the power to allocate resources. In the labor market, the labor market allocated that employee to a job, and allocated a penalty to changing jobs, that the government in then changing. Also, even in the labor market, the scenario you're describing is punishing the labor buyer but rewarding the labor provider, so it's not just the capital market that's less free, it's the labor market too. More actors being able to provide input is restricting the markets. The market allocated who gets to provide input in itself. All I'm saying is, don't fetishize the market being free.
        dlp211 5y ago
        Free markets are not about just the power to allocate, but also transparent knowledge in a decision. The labor purchaser almost always has an advantage over the labor provider in their transaction and don't actually represent a free market. Even in the tech industry this is true. People were shocked the other day when they found out that their income data was being reported and sold by the big credit companies in America. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, they all share their employees income data with one another through 3rd parties. They have so much more knowledge than you or I and it represents a huge advantage for them when hiring.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Markets in general are quite good at routing resources and innovation. A perfectly free market, or at least free enough that you're arguing we should remove regulators and social safety nets, is worse at all of those things, and only really great at controlling people, which as the point of those you were replying to. Also, markets can't allow innovations from the ground up by themselves, the require a government to implement a fragile and inefficient intellectual property system, but that's just nitpicking.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      Sure, but it has to be understood what resource is being allocated: the labor of the dispossessed. If you don't have dispossessed masses obligated to labor, there's nothing to allocate. Of course people don't have to face literal starvation to be under control, but the system fundamentally requires that the level of deprivation always be enough to meet the requirement of keeping labor under control.
    - pydry 5y ago
      "A perfectly free market" is essentially a deliberately vague pseudoreligious concept. No true free market would [ insert as appropriate ].
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        It's not really that vague. The less resource allocation is affected by non-market forces, the freer the market. Of course, a perfectly free market is not actually possible. My point is moreso that there are extremely good reasons to limit the autonomy of markets.
        pydry 5y ago
        What constitutes nonmarket forces is mostly a matter of opinion. Unions? Monopoly power? Government enforcing contracts? Government competing in the market? Natural disasters? Normal weather? Taxation? No taxation? Strong property rights? No property rights? A "perfectly free market" is a meaningless phrase dressed up to sound like "frictionless in a vacuum". It exists for the purposes of cynical lobbying.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    I think that is the idea, but it doesn't work in practice because, well people. Really useful electronics are harder to get or have been hard to get, but yet if I wanted to buy my daughter a twerking llama toy, I'd have no issue with acquiring one of those. A little more meaningful example, we grow pistachios (a water intensive crop), in a place with limited access to water (desert areas of California) and have been doing that for years and years. Seems like if the market just naturally achieved efficiency, you'd grow water intensive crops in places that were not constrained on the resource.
    - carapace 5y ago
      > Seems like if the market just naturally achieved efficiency, you'd grow water intensive crops in places that were not constrained on the resource. In this case the market is up against (arguably irrational) water rights and such, the market is far from free. > The planning and management of water in California is subject to a vast number of laws, regulations, management plans, and historic water rights. The state agency responsible for water planning is the California Department of Water Resources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Planning_and_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Planning_a...
      - rnk 5y ago
        What is already happening is private equity is buying up farms in the west to get their water, and cities are doing it too.
    - ajmurmann 5y ago
      The electronics part might more showcase what we actually value as a society. In the case of things that need chips it also demonstrates how we are unable to plan. Car makers cancelled their chip orders when the pandemic hit. They have lots of skin in the game and know their own industry better than any politician would. Why would politicians get planning chip production better than they did? The water example is pretty bad, given that we don't charge the actual price of water to subsidize businesses. If we'd charge the real price (and ideally tax negative externalities) much farming would likely leave California.
  - carapace 5y ago
    That happens, but it's orthogonal to the point you're replying to. In other words, Efficient markets and social safety nets are not intrinsically antagonistic or incompatible, we can have both. - - - - To me, the unspoken and often unconscious nature of the "stick" of vagrancy and homelessness is revealed clearly when people ask, "But who will pick up the garbage?" when you're talking about things like a "post-scarcity" or "abundance-based" society. The clear implication is that without the hell of homelessness there are needful jobs that we couldn't otherwise force people to do.
    - ajmurmann 5y ago
      100% agreed. My ideal is a largely free market (also free from control by large corps) with high, flat tax and high UBI. I think those things go really well together.
      - rnk 5y ago
        The flat tax is a huge imposition, punishment, etc for lower wage workers. If you are say a well paid engineer, a flat tax will benefit you. A billionaire benefits even more. Graduated tax rates with no deductions are a better solution.
thrill 5y ago
Not as disappointing as those who denigrate free markets when there isn't one.

DarylZero 5y ago

ajmurmann 5y ago
I naively thought the whole point of the market was to effectively route resources to where they are most in demand and allow innovation from the ground up where it's needed without central planning
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  This is the difference between analysis of markets as a concept and “believing in the free market” as an ideology. The latter uses markets as a stand in for morality. When bad outcomes occur, it definitionally cannot be due to the market, but some other bad actors.
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  I don't think markets have a point; they just are. The systems and regulations we create around markets are what give them meaning.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  It is. Free markets do not preclude social safety nets, or things like universal basic income.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    It's all a question of degree. A market with fewer taxes and less redistribution is freer.
    - AlexandrB 5y ago
      This is only true if you're looking at the capital market. If you consider the labor market, I would argue it's freer if employees have more freedom to change jobs (i.e. there is some redistribution and social safety net). Edit: Also, a market with redistribution is more democratic. More actors have money to provide market input (demand or investment) when resources are not highly concentrated.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        Free market doesn't mean that actors can do whatever they want. It means that the market has the power to allocate resources. In the labor market, the labor market allocated that employee to a job, and allocated a penalty to changing jobs, that the government in then changing. Also, even in the labor market, the scenario you're describing is punishing the labor buyer but rewarding the labor provider, so it's not just the capital market that's less free, it's the labor market too. More actors being able to provide input is restricting the markets. The market allocated who gets to provide input in itself. All I'm saying is, don't fetishize the market being free.
        dlp211 5y ago
        Free markets are not about just the power to allocate, but also transparent knowledge in a decision. The labor purchaser almost always has an advantage over the labor provider in their transaction and don't actually represent a free market. Even in the tech industry this is true. People were shocked the other day when they found out that their income data was being reported and sold by the big credit companies in America. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, they all share their employees income data with one another through 3rd parties. They have so much more knowledge than you or I and it represents a huge advantage for them when hiring.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Markets in general are quite good at routing resources and innovation. A perfectly free market, or at least free enough that you're arguing we should remove regulators and social safety nets, is worse at all of those things, and only really great at controlling people, which as the point of those you were replying to. Also, markets can't allow innovations from the ground up by themselves, the require a government to implement a fragile and inefficient intellectual property system, but that's just nitpicking.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Sure, but it has to be understood what resource is being allocated: the labor of the dispossessed. If you don't have dispossessed masses obligated to labor, there's nothing to allocate. Of course people don't have to face literal starvation to be under control, but the system fundamentally requires that the level of deprivation always be enough to meet the requirement of keeping labor under control.
  - pydry 5y ago
    "A perfectly free market" is essentially a deliberately vague pseudoreligious concept. No true free market would [ insert as appropriate ].
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      It's not really that vague. The less resource allocation is affected by non-market forces, the freer the market. Of course, a perfectly free market is not actually possible. My point is moreso that there are extremely good reasons to limit the autonomy of markets.
      - pydry 5y ago
        What constitutes nonmarket forces is mostly a matter of opinion. Unions? Monopoly power? Government enforcing contracts? Government competing in the market? Natural disasters? Normal weather? Taxation? No taxation? Strong property rights? No property rights? A "perfectly free market" is a meaningless phrase dressed up to sound like "frictionless in a vacuum". It exists for the purposes of cynical lobbying.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  I think that is the idea, but it doesn't work in practice because, well people. Really useful electronics are harder to get or have been hard to get, but yet if I wanted to buy my daughter a twerking llama toy, I'd have no issue with acquiring one of those. A little more meaningful example, we grow pistachios (a water intensive crop), in a place with limited access to water (desert areas of California) and have been doing that for years and years. Seems like if the market just naturally achieved efficiency, you'd grow water intensive crops in places that were not constrained on the resource.
  - carapace 5y ago
    > Seems like if the market just naturally achieved efficiency, you'd grow water intensive crops in places that were not constrained on the resource. In this case the market is up against (arguably irrational) water rights and such, the market is far from free. > The planning and management of water in California is subject to a vast number of laws, regulations, management plans, and historic water rights. The state agency responsible for water planning is the California Department of Water Resources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Planning_and_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Planning_a...
    - rnk 5y ago
      What is already happening is private equity is buying up farms in the west to get their water, and cities are doing it too.
  - ajmurmann 5y ago
    The electronics part might more showcase what we actually value as a society. In the case of things that need chips it also demonstrates how we are unable to plan. Car makers cancelled their chip orders when the pandemic hit. They have lots of skin in the game and know their own industry better than any politician would. Why would politicians get planning chip production better than they did? The water example is pretty bad, given that we don't charge the actual price of water to subsidize businesses. If we'd charge the real price (and ideally tax negative externalities) much farming would likely leave California.
- carapace 5y ago
  That happens, but it's orthogonal to the point you're replying to. In other words, Efficient markets and social safety nets are not intrinsically antagonistic or incompatible, we can have both. - - - - To me, the unspoken and often unconscious nature of the "stick" of vagrancy and homelessness is revealed clearly when people ask, "But who will pick up the garbage?" when you're talking about things like a "post-scarcity" or "abundance-based" society. The clear implication is that without the hell of homelessness there are needful jobs that we couldn't otherwise force people to do.
  - ajmurmann 5y ago
    100% agreed. My ideal is a largely free market (also free from control by large corps) with high, flat tax and high UBI. I think those things go really well together.
    - rnk 5y ago
      The flat tax is a huge imposition, punishment, etc for lower wage workers. If you are say a well paid engineer, a flat tax will benefit you. A billionaire benefits even more. Graduated tax rates with no deductions are a better solution.

thrill 5y ago

Not as disappointing as those who denigrate free markets when there isn't one.