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Child labor. Slave trade. Sweatshops. 1000 different environmental catastrophes. You know, the reasons we have regulation. We had markets FIRST, then we got

• Turing_Machine 3y ago
  All of those things, including environmental catastrophes, existed for millennia before Adam Smith came along.
  • ajuc 3y ago
    So did markets.
• alchemist1e9 3y ago
  Absolutely government’s fundamental role in human society is regulating against harm. But somehow the narrative is markets are “bad”, they obviously aren’t as they seek out information and efficiency, which is a good thing. Markets are the one’s you should thank for telling you child labor, slaves, and sweatshops are a problem, and the environment issue, so you pressured your government to regulate those issues. Without free markets the alternative would be the government doing all those horrible things, which btw they certain used to. People are mixed up, the primary problem is government failure to regulate and be transparent. It’s very difficult for governments to admit they create the problems so academics and politicians find the boggy man of markets. Kennedy understands this topic well and while it’s unlikely he will win, I deeply hope he can somehow. We need more markets for more things with clear and clean regulations build based on empirical evidence and scientific and not created by lobbyists involved in regulatory capture.
  • ajuc 3y ago
    > But somehow the narrative is markets are “bad” The mainstream opinion is "markets are ok as long as they are well regulated". The only narrative that is trying to compete with that with any success is "markets are perfect without any regulation". Which provokes the rebuttal you refer to. I've yet to see anybody claiming seriously that "markets are inherently bad and can't be saved". Even in communism there were markets, as abysmal as that system was (and I lived in a communist country for 6 years). If our markets right now were regulated enough - we wouldn't have global warming problems. Clearly there's a lot of externalities that aren't priced-in. So - there's too much market and too little regulation.
    • alchemist1e9 3y ago
      We likely actually agree. The issue is politicians tend to push redistribution and direct action of the government over rules and regulations.
• supazek 3y ago
  Child labor has been a thing since well before any market ever existed. Slavery has always existed and was made obsolete not due to some new moral prerogative but because it couldn’t compete with new labor saving devices. Sweatshops are basically the same as slavery and mostly exist in places which have not fully accepted free markets or where the value placed on human life is shockingly low. They can only obtain workers because their economy is absolutely unbalanced - there is no reason to believe a market wouldn’t fix that eventually. Regarding environmental catastrophes, that seems to be a result of technological advancement more so than “markets”, but markets are the thing that is most probably going to bring the third world out of poverty and make them actually care about it. The only reason people like us are able to sit and argue on HN is because we aren’t worried about finding dinner for our 8 kids tonight. We live privileged lives. By demonizing the very thing that allowed us to move past these things you are basically attempting to pull up the ladder so no other unfortunate people can come up after you