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I respectfully disagree in that perhaps some vocabulary would need altering to use words they were more familiar with, but free markets and free enterprise, alo

I respectfully disagree in that perhaps some vocabulary would need altering to use words they were more familiar with, but free markets and free enterprise, along with property rights and low taxation was exactly their founding perspective. Regarding “most economists” it would depend on how broad you allow the claim of being an economist is a valid one. We have literal socialist and marxists claiming to be economists. That’s as absurd as creationists claiming to be evolutionarily biologists. Those are perspectives that are empirically proven to be rubbish yet due to human instinctual biases persist for long periods of time. Eventually collectivism, socialism, and marxism should be banished to the gutters of history, the only question is how much more pain and suffering will it take before human civilization decides to include proper social and economic science as part of core education curriculum, like evolution is taught in most places today.

slibhb 3y ago
You're ranting about marxists...but the question is whether markets can fail. Milei says no. But there are plenty of examples of markets failing so, if we take that idea seriously, it reduces to something like "free markets have never been tried". What does that remind you of?
- alchemist1e9 3y ago
  Please provide the examples of market failures and I suspect on closer examination you will discover State failure, not market failures.
  - notahacker 3y ago
    The speed with which you moved from dissenters-from-economic-orthodoxy-are-creationists to rejecting the possibility of imperfect information, transaction costs or natural monopolies for not confirming to the dogma that the market is always right is truly impressive...
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      I don't see how that's a market failure.
    - alchemist1e9 3y ago
      Monopolies are legitimately debatable topic for government intervention. However what is the reason governments should be involved in imperfect information or transaction costs? Please provide specific market failures. Additionally creationists is the perfect analogy for collectivists, socialist and marxists, their ideas require magic fairy dust to have any chance of working.
      - notahacker 3y ago
        Government isn't involved in imperfect information or transaction costs: responsibility for those failures of the market delivering suboptimal results lie entirely with the market participants. Obvious examples include the highly profitable sale of products that avoid the R&D overhead and additional manufacturing expense to actually do what they claim to do, and the inability of various disparate individuals each receiving small negative side effects to their health to coordinate to stop a local polluter even if a tort system for restitution (a government intervention!) actually exists. Creationism is also the perfect analogy for people who either are ignorant of or deny basically anything past the first page of an economics textbook in favour of the dogma that if markets fail to deliver optimal results it must be the fault of state intervention. Much like Marxism, the economics of Mises needs a lot of fairy dust
        alchemist1e9 3y ago
        It’s always so confusing when anti-markets debaters bring up pollution and product safety, because it’s like the only thing libertarians actually agree with them on. We absolutely believe the primary role of the government is to protect shared rights like the environment and health of products sold. What libertarian capitalist don’t want is redistribution and confiscation.
        3y ago
  - trealira 3y ago
    Everything depends on infrastructure that releases a lot of carbon into the atmosphere: oil, cars, beef farming, etc. This is despite the fact that climate change is exacerbated by releasing carbon. No individual or company wants to be at a disadvantage by not using these things, so no one stops. It's a tragedy of the commons situation. It's only through government regulation and investment into cleaner energy that allowed the alternatives to become viable in the market.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > You're ranting There's no need for this. Marxism seems to be a re-growing school of thought, taking various angles in modern society and culture. No ranting has happened, and your mischaracterisation of things is revealing.
  - alchemist1e9 3y ago
    I’d like to mention an interesting phenomenon on HN as you might notice it as well. When I make a pro-libertarian comment I’ll initially get many upvotes, I know this because I refresh HN periodically and so I notice my points go up. Then many hours or even days later I’ll be downvoted heavily and even go negative. I’m not sure what to make of it tbh. Wanted to mention it because now your comment is faded which I think means negative feedback. How this is relevant in general is that I find it disappointing that the tech community in general somehow has a very poor education in economic history and in particular seems to not be aware of the tragic consequences of collectivist and socialist policies. Which is clearly an indicator of problem within the education system.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      That's interesting. It's only at -1 at time of writing this comment. But yes, I think there is a set of people - who you can spot by their vocabulary - who think that sawing off the root of the branch that causes us to even be able to develop the advances that we have.

slibhb 3y ago

You're ranting about marxists...but the question is whether markets can fail. Milei says no. But there are plenty of examples of markets failing so, if we take that idea seriously, it reduces to something like "free markets have never been tried". What does that remind you of?

alchemist1e9 3y ago
Please provide the examples of market failures and I suspect on closer examination you will discover State failure, not market failures.
- notahacker 3y ago
  The speed with which you moved from dissenters-from-economic-orthodoxy-are-creationists to rejecting the possibility of imperfect information, transaction costs or natural monopolies for not confirming to the dogma that the market is always right is truly impressive...
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    I don't see how that's a market failure.
  - alchemist1e9 3y ago
    Monopolies are legitimately debatable topic for government intervention. However what is the reason governments should be involved in imperfect information or transaction costs? Please provide specific market failures. Additionally creationists is the perfect analogy for collectivists, socialist and marxists, their ideas require magic fairy dust to have any chance of working.
    - notahacker 3y ago
      Government isn't involved in imperfect information or transaction costs: responsibility for those failures of the market delivering suboptimal results lie entirely with the market participants. Obvious examples include the highly profitable sale of products that avoid the R&D overhead and additional manufacturing expense to actually do what they claim to do, and the inability of various disparate individuals each receiving small negative side effects to their health to coordinate to stop a local polluter even if a tort system for restitution (a government intervention!) actually exists. Creationism is also the perfect analogy for people who either are ignorant of or deny basically anything past the first page of an economics textbook in favour of the dogma that if markets fail to deliver optimal results it must be the fault of state intervention. Much like Marxism, the economics of Mises needs a lot of fairy dust
      - alchemist1e9 3y ago
        It’s always so confusing when anti-markets debaters bring up pollution and product safety, because it’s like the only thing libertarians actually agree with them on. We absolutely believe the primary role of the government is to protect shared rights like the environment and health of products sold. What libertarian capitalist don’t want is redistribution and confiscation.
        3y ago
- trealira 3y ago
  Everything depends on infrastructure that releases a lot of carbon into the atmosphere: oil, cars, beef farming, etc. This is despite the fact that climate change is exacerbated by releasing carbon. No individual or company wants to be at a disadvantage by not using these things, so no one stops. It's a tragedy of the commons situation. It's only through government regulation and investment into cleaner energy that allowed the alternatives to become viable in the market.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> You're ranting There's no need for this. Marxism seems to be a re-growing school of thought, taking various angles in modern society and culture. No ranting has happened, and your mischaracterisation of things is revealing.
- alchemist1e9 3y ago
  I’d like to mention an interesting phenomenon on HN as you might notice it as well. When I make a pro-libertarian comment I’ll initially get many upvotes, I know this because I refresh HN periodically and so I notice my points go up. Then many hours or even days later I’ll be downvoted heavily and even go negative. I’m not sure what to make of it tbh. Wanted to mention it because now your comment is faded which I think means negative feedback. How this is relevant in general is that I find it disappointing that the tech community in general somehow has a very poor education in economic history and in particular seems to not be aware of the tragic consequences of collectivist and socialist policies. Which is clearly an indicator of problem within the education system.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    That's interesting. It's only at -1 at time of writing this comment. But yes, I think there is a set of people - who you can spot by their vocabulary - who think that sawing off the root of the branch that causes us to even be able to develop the advances that we have.