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> There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy. There are no documented instances of a truly free market. The parent

• AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > There are no documented instances of a truly free market. But why is that interesting? If you enter into a contract to sell your car to someone and then instead of paying you they steal your car and kill you, that's crime, not a free market. Killing people by dumping mercury into the river is still just crime. Killing people by burning dirty coal is something that should be crime, even if it officially isn't. But this is different than banning things where each involved party is consenting, or imposing unfunded mandates or bureaucratic filing requirements. The less of those things there are, the freer the market is, and those places tend to do better than the places captured by central planners. Moreover, the main point is completely valid. If Palm's product isn't as good as an iPhone then you don't have to buy it and then they go away. If the DMV sucks, what are you going to do?
  • mbesto 2y ago
    > those places tend to do better than the places captured by central planners. There is no deterministic evidence for this and you cannot unilaterally say that. The problem here is that the market/service requires context. The main point made was that you can take any market and it will eventually self correct - this is simply untrue and we have countless examples of this.
• WalterBright 2y ago
  > There are no documented instances of a truly free market. There's no such thing as pure water, either. Nor is there any person who has not had impure thoughts. Nor can you ever cut a board to an exact length. Nor has anything created by man (or nature) been perfect. The historical reality is the more free a free market is, the better it performs. A free market does not have to be a "truly free market" in order to deliver the goods.
  • Arainach 2y ago
    >The historical reality is the more free a free market is, the better it performs. Citation VERY MUCH needed. A free market leads to monopoly and abuse. It does not lead to competition, it does not lead to better long-term results, it leads to corruption, market capture, and oppression.
    • WalterBright 2y ago
      The United States, postwar Japan, postwar Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan, S Korea, China, and so on. How do you explain the scores of millions of people that came to the US, and still come, if the US free market is a hellhole of monopoly, abuse, corruption, and oppression?
      • Arainach 2y ago
        The united states during its periods of greatest growth as well as the other environments you called out had strong regulatory environments to keep "the market" in check
        • WalterBright 2y ago
          I suspect you may be thinking that a free market is anarchy (no government). It isn't.
  • Swenrekcah 2y ago
    It would be interesting to note how you define a free market in this context and what makes it “more free”. Because a market can not be free unless there are rules and they are enforced. Without rules and government intervention when necessary, what you get is the law of the jungle, which is precisely the thing the last 12000 years of human history has been about escaping.
    • WalterBright 2y ago
      A free market is not anarchy. It requires a government to protect rights, enforce contracts, and deal with externalities.