6 ms·

Rant about "Free market" until you lose the competition. Then its all out, hypocritical, double-standard protectionism, even economic warfare.

remarkEon 4y ago
The "free market" is just a tool, nothing more. The second it starts to interfere with the livelihood or your country or the health and welbeing of its citizens, governments are well within their bounds to step in and interrupt this "free market". The wisdom and second order effects of those policies is a secondary discussion.
wnevets 4y ago
This is implying that China is providing a "Free Market". For example it is impossible for American companies to even open a chip plant in China without first going through a Chinese company.
- metacritic12 4y ago
  The original international theory of the free market is that they don't need to be recursive for it to work. It's OK if country X decides to subsidize sector A or B -- it's just free money for the world. The logic of this is the same as within countries. It's OK if Google uses search to subsidize it's smart phone operations. On the highest layer, it's still capitalism and should still work. We don't kick Google out of US markets just because it's internal departments don't use free markets to allocate goods. The international free market is still supposed to work even if a country doesn't have internal free markets. That the US is going back on the first shows that in the end, it was always about geopolitics. When free markets aligned with US geopolitics, it was nice to be able to say "oh we're being principled".
  - wnevets 4y ago
    > It's OK if country X decides to subsidize sector A or B -- it's just free money for the world. Tell that to the American steel industry.
    - paganel 4y ago
      It's actually a theory that I've first read in Jean-Baptiste Say's works. He was mentioning it in connection with the French government of the time (I think he wrote all that down during Napoleon's reign, even though it could have been during the Restoration, too lazy to check) subsidising the export of their "luxury" products, the Sèvres porcelain if I remember correctly. He was explaining that, in effect, the French government was putting money in the pockets of foreign clients/entities. As such, the same thing will happen (happens) when it comes to US steel industry, even though in this case one also has to take into consideration the opportunity costs of losing the knowhow of that industry for good if it is allowed to die in the face of foreign competition. One could say that today's US taxpayers, by in effect subsidising the US steel industry, are paying for future generations to have the opportunity to build tanks and munitions and other war-related stuff without having to worry about having enough steel stocks at hand.
  - adventured 4y ago
    > The international free market is still supposed to work even if a country doesn't have internal free markets. That is self-proving as false and does not follow automatically what-so-ever. You're talking about mediocre economic theories that don't even make sense in theory. > That the US is going back on the first The US has never been the free market in practice or ideology that you're proposing. Not at any point in its history. The US has very heavily utilized things like tariffs and restrictive trade agreements throughout its history, as have all large economies and without exception. The US has even utilized sanctions and blockades when it sees fit, going back 60+ years. If it was ever close to being a free market, that is well over a century in the past. I find it astounding that anybody could be confused about the US being a particularly free market economy today. It's not even close to that. All you need is to have a primitive grasp of the scope of its vast economic regulations, its huge welfare state, and taxation to understand that. The US is a bureaucracy-heavy mixed economy at best.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      This is the thing that always gets me. Anyone who ever complains about restrictions on the "free market" hasn't been paying attention. There is no free market. There never has been a free market. Sure, someone might be against a particular restriction or regulation for specific reasons, but "hurr durr free market" can never be a serious argument, as we do not have a free market, and never have. I think we should err on the side of "freer" markets, but market restrictions have their place, and are often an essential tool to achieve good outcomes.
    - metacritic12 4y ago
      > That is self-proving as false and does not follow automatically what-so-ever. To the extent that anyone believes free markets are good, the usual argument of their goodness does not at all rely on sub-levels to be free markets. Now you might be saying even "free markets are good" is suspect. Attacking that axiom is fine in my book. > The US has very heavily utilized things like tariffs and restrictive trade agreements throughout its history, I support this view. However, the early 90s "Washington Consensus" was that in international spheres to talk up how good free markets are. The US should drop that pretense entirely then.
  - codethief 4y ago
    > The international free market is still supposed to work even if a country doesn't have internal free markets. Is that really the case? You mention Google but there's a reason we have antitrust laws and try to keep monopolies under control.
    - metacritic12 4y ago
      Google does have a confound in that it's a monopoly. But if you take the example of a small startup, who uses profits in one department to subsidize R&D in another department, it's clear the startup doesn't have internal free markets. Or take a family, if the mother gives the nephew a lot of spending money, that's also not free markets. Yet families and startups in the US work well on the country level.
- humanwhosits 4y ago
  Try to open a social media company there.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  China has a specific "negative list" of sectors in which foreign investors are either barred or must enter into a joint venture. This list has been shrinking year by year. For example, Tesla 100% owns its operations in China, which wouldn't have been possible 5 years ago. Is chip fabrication on the negative list? I can't find any references to it being on the negative list. On the contrary, I've found references to foreign investment in semiconductors being explicitly encouraged by a few provincial governements.[0] 0. https://cms.law/en/chn/publication/china-releases-its-revised-negative-list-for-market-access-2020-and-catalogue-of-industries-for-encouraging-foreign-investment-2020#:~:text=(3)%20Semiconductor%20materials%20and%20industrial%20ceramics%20have%20been%20added%20for%20Hubei%20and%20Sichuan%20Provinces%20and%20Chongqing%20Municipality https://cms.law/en/chn/publication/china-releases-its-revise....
barkingcat 4y ago
Why would free market forces work when China itself is far far away from a free market? China has been in a state of economic warfare since the 1920's.
nerbert 4y ago
China isn't really competition though. Barely achieved 10nm.
CogitoCogito 4y ago
Well I guess the US could force all Chinese companies to work through local majority-owned US subsidiaries and then maybe entirely ban all Chinese media organizations as well as ban many of Chinese websites and internet corporations etc. Would that make you feel better? It would be some steps in the directions of ending hypocrisy and double-standards anyway.
lesuorac 4y ago
Have you heard about the Chicken Tax [1]? Like there's nothing new about this. Also the market was never free ... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
stale2002 4y ago
When a major country is threatening to invade our allied countries, such as the threats to the country of Taiwan, your concerns take a back see national security issues. Similarly shouldn't weapons to Russia either, and it would be silly to complained about the free market when they are literally killing people right now.
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  Why is this being downvoted? These are legitimate concerns.
godelski 4y ago
This feels like bait and I'm surprised it is at the top. Here's why it feels like bait: - Who is ranting about the free market. Republicans? Really just a select few and only in specific contexts. But they haven't ever voted in that interest so I'm not sure this is anything new. - It feels like it is implying China has the moral upper hand. The same country who takes US invented products and sells them 10x cheaper under a different brand, violating international intellectual property laws. Buy Spot for $75k or Weilan's Alpha Dog or Unitree's Go for $2.5k? - China complains about US taking their technology and talent while taking US technology and talent. Is this not hypocritical, double-standard protectionism, or even economic warfare? - The comment implies that one side is morally right and the other isn't. Instead it is quite possible that the two have been engaged in soft economic warfare for decades and that neither is morally "right" (who has the high ground is arguable, but they definitely both are in the mud). - This comment is boiling the situation down and decades of (complex) context into a singular point of time and singular action. It discourages looking at the events that led to this event and why the choices involved were made. This is bad faith. So I want to encourage discussion on the topic, but I don't understand how this comment is anything but bait. It is reactionary and promoting reactionary comments. I suggest others don't take the bait. If I'm wrong in my analysis I'm open to it. But I needed to explain why I don't think this comment is engaging in good faith nor promoting a healthy and fruitful discussion.
- soperj 4y ago
  > - It feels like it is implying China has the moral upper hand. The same country who takes US invented products and sells them 10x cheaper under a different brand, violating international intellectual property laws. Buy Spot for $75k or Weilan's Alpha Dog or Unitree's Go for $2.5k? This is right out of the USA playbook from the the late 1700s. << Under the Patent Act of 1793, the United States barred foreign inventors from receiving patents at the same time as granting patents to Americans who had pirated technology from other countries. “America thus became, by national policy and legislative act, the world’s premier legal sanctuary for industrial pirates. Any American could bring a foreign innovation to the United States and commercialize the idea, all with total legal immunity.” >> [0] [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_patent_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_paten...
spaced-out 4y ago
> Rant about "Free market" until you lose the competition. Then its all out, hypocritical, double-standard protectionism, even economic warfare. Not sure who you're talking about, the Biden administration has definitely not been "ranting about 'free market'".
kibwen 4y ago
Because "free markets" are not a goal, they are a tool. Markets should be exactly as free as they need to be in order to provide reasonable allocation of scarce goods with elastic demand, and no freer. Markets exist in service of society, not in service of themselves.

remarkEon 4y ago

The "free market" is just a tool, nothing more. The second it starts to interfere with the livelihood or your country or the health and welbeing of its citizens, governments are well within their bounds to step in and interrupt this "free market". The wisdom and second order effects of those policies is a secondary discussion.

wnevets 4y ago

This is implying that China is providing a "Free Market". For example it is impossible for American companies to even open a chip plant in China without first going through a Chinese company.

metacritic12 4y ago
The original international theory of the free market is that they don't need to be recursive for it to work. It's OK if country X decides to subsidize sector A or B -- it's just free money for the world. The logic of this is the same as within countries. It's OK if Google uses search to subsidize it's smart phone operations. On the highest layer, it's still capitalism and should still work. We don't kick Google out of US markets just because it's internal departments don't use free markets to allocate goods. The international free market is still supposed to work even if a country doesn't have internal free markets. That the US is going back on the first shows that in the end, it was always about geopolitics. When free markets aligned with US geopolitics, it was nice to be able to say "oh we're being principled".
- wnevets 4y ago
  > It's OK if country X decides to subsidize sector A or B -- it's just free money for the world. Tell that to the American steel industry.
  - paganel 4y ago
    It's actually a theory that I've first read in Jean-Baptiste Say's works. He was mentioning it in connection with the French government of the time (I think he wrote all that down during Napoleon's reign, even though it could have been during the Restoration, too lazy to check) subsidising the export of their "luxury" products, the Sèvres porcelain if I remember correctly. He was explaining that, in effect, the French government was putting money in the pockets of foreign clients/entities. As such, the same thing will happen (happens) when it comes to US steel industry, even though in this case one also has to take into consideration the opportunity costs of losing the knowhow of that industry for good if it is allowed to die in the face of foreign competition. One could say that today's US taxpayers, by in effect subsidising the US steel industry, are paying for future generations to have the opportunity to build tanks and munitions and other war-related stuff without having to worry about having enough steel stocks at hand.
- adventured 4y ago
  > The international free market is still supposed to work even if a country doesn't have internal free markets. That is self-proving as false and does not follow automatically what-so-ever. You're talking about mediocre economic theories that don't even make sense in theory. > That the US is going back on the first The US has never been the free market in practice or ideology that you're proposing. Not at any point in its history. The US has very heavily utilized things like tariffs and restrictive trade agreements throughout its history, as have all large economies and without exception. The US has even utilized sanctions and blockades when it sees fit, going back 60+ years. If it was ever close to being a free market, that is well over a century in the past. I find it astounding that anybody could be confused about the US being a particularly free market economy today. It's not even close to that. All you need is to have a primitive grasp of the scope of its vast economic regulations, its huge welfare state, and taxation to understand that. The US is a bureaucracy-heavy mixed economy at best.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    This is the thing that always gets me. Anyone who ever complains about restrictions on the "free market" hasn't been paying attention. There is no free market. There never has been a free market. Sure, someone might be against a particular restriction or regulation for specific reasons, but "hurr durr free market" can never be a serious argument, as we do not have a free market, and never have. I think we should err on the side of "freer" markets, but market restrictions have their place, and are often an essential tool to achieve good outcomes.
  - metacritic12 4y ago
    > That is self-proving as false and does not follow automatically what-so-ever. To the extent that anyone believes free markets are good, the usual argument of their goodness does not at all rely on sub-levels to be free markets. Now you might be saying even "free markets are good" is suspect. Attacking that axiom is fine in my book. > The US has very heavily utilized things like tariffs and restrictive trade agreements throughout its history, I support this view. However, the early 90s "Washington Consensus" was that in international spheres to talk up how good free markets are. The US should drop that pretense entirely then.
- codethief 4y ago
  > The international free market is still supposed to work even if a country doesn't have internal free markets. Is that really the case? You mention Google but there's a reason we have antitrust laws and try to keep monopolies under control.
  - metacritic12 4y ago
    Google does have a confound in that it's a monopoly. But if you take the example of a small startup, who uses profits in one department to subsidize R&D in another department, it's clear the startup doesn't have internal free markets. Or take a family, if the mother gives the nephew a lot of spending money, that's also not free markets. Yet families and startups in the US work well on the country level.
humanwhosits 4y ago
Try to open a social media company there.
DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
China has a specific "negative list" of sectors in which foreign investors are either barred or must enter into a joint venture. This list has been shrinking year by year. For example, Tesla 100% owns its operations in China, which wouldn't have been possible 5 years ago. Is chip fabrication on the negative list? I can't find any references to it being on the negative list. On the contrary, I've found references to foreign investment in semiconductors being explicitly encouraged by a few provincial governements.[0] 0. https://cms.law/en/chn/publication/china-releases-its-revised-negative-list-for-market-access-2020-and-catalogue-of-industries-for-encouraging-foreign-investment-2020#:~:text=(3)%20Semiconductor%20materials%20and%20industrial%20ceramics%20have%20been%20added%20for%20Hubei%20and%20Sichuan%20Provinces%20and%20Chongqing%20Municipality https://cms.law/en/chn/publication/china-releases-its-revise....

barkingcat 4y ago

Why would free market forces work when China itself is far far away from a free market? China has been in a state of economic warfare since the 1920's.

nerbert 4y ago

China isn't really competition though. Barely achieved 10nm.

CogitoCogito 4y ago

Well I guess the US could force all Chinese companies to work through local majority-owned US subsidiaries and then maybe entirely ban all Chinese media organizations as well as ban many of Chinese websites and internet corporations etc. Would that make you feel better? It would be some steps in the directions of ending hypocrisy and double-standards anyway.

lesuorac 4y ago

Have you heard about the Chicken Tax [1]? Like there's nothing new about this. Also the market was never free ... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

stale2002 4y ago

When a major country is threatening to invade our allied countries, such as the threats to the country of Taiwan, your concerns take a back see national security issues. Similarly shouldn't weapons to Russia either, and it would be silly to complained about the free market when they are literally killing people right now.

CogitoCogito 4y ago
Why is this being downvoted? These are legitimate concerns.

godelski 4y ago

This feels like bait and I'm surprised it is at the top. Here's why it feels like bait: - Who is ranting about the free market. Republicans? Really just a select few and only in specific contexts. But they haven't ever voted in that interest so I'm not sure this is anything new. - It feels like it is implying China has the moral upper hand. The same country who takes US invented products and sells them 10x cheaper under a different brand, violating international intellectual property laws. Buy Spot for $75k or Weilan's Alpha Dog or Unitree's Go for $2.5k? - China complains about US taking their technology and talent while taking US technology and talent. Is this not hypocritical, double-standard protectionism, or even economic warfare? - The comment implies that one side is morally right and the other isn't. Instead it is quite possible that the two have been engaged in soft economic warfare for decades and that neither is morally "right" (who has the high ground is arguable, but they definitely both are in the mud). - This comment is boiling the situation down and decades of (complex) context into a singular point of time and singular action. It discourages looking at the events that led to this event and why the choices involved were made. This is bad faith. So I want to encourage discussion on the topic, but I don't understand how this comment is anything but bait. It is reactionary and promoting reactionary comments. I suggest others don't take the bait. If I'm wrong in my analysis I'm open to it. But I needed to explain why I don't think this comment is engaging in good faith nor promoting a healthy and fruitful discussion.

soperj 4y ago
> - It feels like it is implying China has the moral upper hand. The same country who takes US invented products and sells them 10x cheaper under a different brand, violating international intellectual property laws. Buy Spot for $75k or Weilan's Alpha Dog or Unitree's Go for $2.5k? This is right out of the USA playbook from the the late 1700s. << Under the Patent Act of 1793, the United States barred foreign inventors from receiving patents at the same time as granting patents to Americans who had pirated technology from other countries. “America thus became, by national policy and legislative act, the world’s premier legal sanctuary for industrial pirates. Any American could bring a foreign innovation to the United States and commercialize the idea, all with total legal immunity.” >> [0] [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_patent_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_paten...

spaced-out 4y ago

> Rant about "Free market" until you lose the competition. Then its all out, hypocritical, double-standard protectionism, even economic warfare. Not sure who you're talking about, the Biden administration has definitely not been "ranting about 'free market'".

kibwen 4y ago

Because "free markets" are not a goal, they are a tool. Markets should be exactly as free as they need to be in order to provide reasonable allocation of scarce goods with elastic demand, and no freer. Markets exist in service of society, not in service of themselves.