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Free market is a great idea, but it’s fragile in that it requires good faith in order to be fair and it’s not immune to tragedies of the commons. Hoarding or p

Free market is a great idea, but it’s fragile in that it requires good faith in order to be fair and it’s not immune to tragedies of the commons. Hoarding or panic buying is an example of bad-faith behavior. Panic buying hurts buyers without means to hoard. With groceries, it might mean their children going hungry after a rich guy empties out local store (not everywhere a store manager can flat out refuse to sell). With microchips, where bad-faith behavior may also be amplified by information asymmetry (coordinated action by large number of players), it may mean stagnation in the industry and wide-reaching implications for everything that has grown to rely on microchips (which, incidentally, includes the above-mentioned grocery stores, their supplies and so on). With groceries it is a bit easier to understand the impact of your actions, because the aforementioned local rich will see hungry children’s parents day to day. With microchips and global market, the negative impact is far removed (and in many cases can be considered beneficial, if country boss designates some group of humans as “the enemy”), and one is incentivised to keep looking for ways to exploit market mechanics technically legally but in bad faith. Hoarding of microchips makes me worry about the global market. It may seem like a good idea to include bad guys into it, since participating in it may make them more interested in getting along with everybody, but if we have one psychopathic, chronically insecure participant insisting on playing a zero-sum game it’s feasible that they ruin the whole initiative and “outplay” the rest who assume the best in others.

barry-cotter 5y ago
> Hoarding or panic buying is an example of bad-faith behavior. Panic buying hurts buyers without means to hoard. Yeah, if you’re not very profitable you won’t be able to afford it. You’re not the best use of the good in question, i.e. the one that makes the most money. Cornering a market in anything is incredibly hard. Doing it motivates others to find substitutes or secure supply. That’s capitalism. If you don’t want to play find a different game.
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  The main point of the parent is that free market is not fair. If developing a substitute takes ages, the market will remain awful for that long. Perhaps that's a game you want to play, but some pefer not to.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    IDK if "fair" is the right word here. Perhaps the word should be "completely flexible".
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    I think free market can and should be fair in an ideal world where no one is trying to game the system. While we should strive to achieve that world, in meantime we need regulations that stop such actors. It looks like in this case relevant regulations are missing or not working as intended.
- strogonoff 5y ago
  Capitalism (the way I understand it, free market and all) does not imply participating in bad faith. The fact that in the West there are bad-faith players that take advantage of the system does not mean it is normal. See the grocery example. It works for everybody, suppliers, sellers and consumers, as long as no one abuses the system. However, if one does want to go that route, it’s achievable; in a small market a single participant can ruin things for everyone, and in a larger one multiple participants can do the same by acting in accord. It looks like capitalism is sometimes taken to mean an extreme zero-sum form of free market where everybody is out to win at the expense of others. Proponents of centralized dispensation by an all-powerful government often bring this up, but is that the mainstream meaning of the term? For the record, I don’t think the requirement of market participants to act in good faith is a bug. I believe the existence of malicious actors is not fundamentally inevitable, and mutual trust is empowering.
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    Who is participating in bad faith? If you want long term security of supply pay for it. Suppliers love long term contracts and orders. Buyers usually don’t go for them because it’s cheaper on average not to. No one signed a contract. The market price moved. That’s capitalism. If you want to prevent it happening again you can pay for it, by having a long term contract, stockpiling or multiple suppliers. Many, many markets work fine without enduring personal relations. If you want security of supply of commodity parts buy a stockpile.
    - strogonoff 5y ago
      > Who is participating in bad faith? Hoarders. (In this instance, as per upstream comments, possibly coordinated, possibly by CCP.) There’re fairly illustrative examples in my comment that you are ignoring. You should address them if you object to that idea. > If you want long term security of supply pay for it. A single player cannot outbid a state and/or many players acting maliciously in accord.
      - zozbot234 5y ago

barry-cotter 5y ago

> Hoarding or panic buying is an example of bad-faith behavior. Panic buying hurts buyers without means to hoard. Yeah, if you’re not very profitable you won’t be able to afford it. You’re not the best use of the good in question, i.e. the one that makes the most money. Cornering a market in anything is incredibly hard. Doing it motivates others to find substitutes or secure supply. That’s capitalism. If you don’t want to play find a different game.

rhn_mk1 5y ago
The main point of the parent is that free market is not fair. If developing a substitute takes ages, the market will remain awful for that long. Perhaps that's a game you want to play, but some pefer not to.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  IDK if "fair" is the right word here. Perhaps the word should be "completely flexible".
- strogonoff 5y ago
  I think free market can and should be fair in an ideal world where no one is trying to game the system. While we should strive to achieve that world, in meantime we need regulations that stop such actors. It looks like in this case relevant regulations are missing or not working as intended.
strogonoff 5y ago
Capitalism (the way I understand it, free market and all) does not imply participating in bad faith. The fact that in the West there are bad-faith players that take advantage of the system does not mean it is normal. See the grocery example. It works for everybody, suppliers, sellers and consumers, as long as no one abuses the system. However, if one does want to go that route, it’s achievable; in a small market a single participant can ruin things for everyone, and in a larger one multiple participants can do the same by acting in accord. It looks like capitalism is sometimes taken to mean an extreme zero-sum form of free market where everybody is out to win at the expense of others. Proponents of centralized dispensation by an all-powerful government often bring this up, but is that the mainstream meaning of the term? For the record, I don’t think the requirement of market participants to act in good faith is a bug. I believe the existence of malicious actors is not fundamentally inevitable, and mutual trust is empowering.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  Who is participating in bad faith? If you want long term security of supply pay for it. Suppliers love long term contracts and orders. Buyers usually don’t go for them because it’s cheaper on average not to. No one signed a contract. The market price moved. That’s capitalism. If you want to prevent it happening again you can pay for it, by having a long term contract, stockpiling or multiple suppliers. Many, many markets work fine without enduring personal relations. If you want security of supply of commodity parts buy a stockpile.
  - strogonoff 5y ago
    > Who is participating in bad faith? Hoarders. (In this instance, as per upstream comments, possibly coordinated, possibly by CCP.) There’re fairly illustrative examples in my comment that you are ignoring. You should address them if you object to that idea. > If you want long term security of supply pay for it. A single player cannot outbid a state and/or many players acting maliciously in accord.
    - zozbot234 5y ago