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> The best anyone can hope for is a free market, with everything properly priced. But for decades, the American market has not been free. It’s used purposefully

> The best anyone can hope for is a free market, with everything properly priced. But for decades, the American market has not been free. It’s used purposefully added friction to exploit a time asymmetry between the business and you. And due to things like call centers, this has been very profitable for the businesses. Cable companies and insurance rely on the fact that your time is more valuable than theirs. They can hire people in India at scale to waste your time. That is the market being free, George.

dpark 7mo ago
People often confuse “free” with “fair”.
- altairprime 7mo ago
  People often confuse “free” with “unregulated”, too.
  - readthenotes1 7mo ago
    My understanding of the definition of a "free" market is it would have almost no external regulation. However, a "unregulated free market" is nearly impossible--somw player will eventually drive out competition to maximize profits and some will not be troubled at harming or killing their customers in the name of immediate profit (tobacco, sugared drinks, talc powder, and round-up come to mind immediately but the list is very long). Is market with enough regulations to ensure competitiveness and transaction transparency (including long-term consequences) truly "free"?
    - GTP 7mo ago
      Indeed, the market shouldn't be, and is not, entirely free. We should strive for the right balance between freedom and regulation.
    - acdha 7mo ago
      It comes down to what’s “free”: most people want that to mean freedom of choice for buyers but sellers want that to mean freedom from restrictions. Trying to balance the two depends critically on regulation because it’s too easy for larger players to reduce the choices for everyone else.
      - altairprime 7mo ago
        One popular desire is common, but not universal, in both groups: the freedom to lie, cheat, swindle those party to a transaction without consequence. It may help to consider that ‘the consequences of one’s actions’, such as lying or cheating in the above case, are viewed by many as a violation of their personal freedom from persecution (e.g. “it’s not my fault you didn’t stop me from conning you”); that extends to their participation in trade as well. I assume that the pools of either corporate entities and/or their leadership cogs have a much higher percentage of adherence to said belief than the general pool of either buyers and/or sellers excluding such, as the corporate implementation of liability shielding exists specifically to sate this need.
  - adi_kurian 7mo ago
    No they don't. That is the very definition.
    - bigbadfeline 7mo ago
      >> People often confuse “free” with “unregulated”, too. >No they don't. That is the very definition. Using that definition amounts to classifying all real markets as non-free. Unregulated markets cannot exists in reality or in a sound theory, only in wishy-washy fairy tales.
      - adi_kurian 7mo ago
        I'm not recommending we build a frictionless plane, I'm just saying it doesn't have friction. This is the most politely I've ever been called a libertarian.
    - altairprime 7mo ago
      Sure they do. People often confuse the definition of a platonic ideal with the realities of implementation, and few are versed enough to both comprehend the literal dictionary definitions of “free” having a fork that one can choose to take to “unregulated” and to recognize that the phrase “free market” is imprecise. One either means “a market free of regulations”, or “a market free of adversarial interference by buyers or sellers”, or “a market free of reputational restrictions”, etc. That you’re correct in identifying a dictionary binding from the definition to the interpretation you give precedence when the imprecise form “free market” is used, does not negate the correctness of others preferring their own interpretations for equally valid reasons. Thus my point: confusion occurs, because “free” is inherently a contextual claim whose eventual outcome-branch (in your case, unregulated) is more often than not subject to individual bias and belief rather than singular societal meanings. Not to mention, that definitions shift over time. Or that claiming the definition to mean “unregulated” to the exclusion of all other meanings is a form of propaganda-slash-evangelism (and so, duly noted in cad you were unaware, as it can be received quite poorly). Or that “fair” is similarly misinterpretable for the same reasons: I prefer fair markets because I can eat cotton candy and listen to people screaming on the rides as I consider each booth’s offerings - and my interpretation of that statement is, in at least two communities I used to work in, the most contextually appropriate take on it! (AI, of course, can’t keep up with that usage, which is honestly a plus in favor of it, but for the ESL folks trying to figure out what I mean, fair → faire / carnival / festival.)
schubidubiduba 7mo ago
No. The market being free would mean that a private person can also hire Indians to call companies.
- lisper 7mo ago
  What is stopping them?
- bdangubic 7mo ago
  what's stopping them from doing so?
  - antonymoose 7mo ago
    I don’t want to give private data up to and including my social security number for verification to start.
- triceratops 7mo ago
  No law against doing that. You could use Fiverr for it right now.
nine_k 7mo ago
The market actually is not very free, because large companies increasingly use their weight to pull off things that smaller companies or individual customers cannot afford: lobby to obtain preferences, tax exemptions, exclusive deals, other favors that violate or at least skirt the law. But running a call center overseas is not one of these things.
- justonceokay 7mo ago
  I cannot understand how any of the things you describe are not free. The government kowtowing to corporations is as free as it gets. No one said that just because the market is free that you personally wouldn’t end up holding the shit end of the stick
  - Rury 7mo ago
    Free markets don't exist, or they only do for a very brief period of time. It's the same fundamental force behind why social hierarchies naturally form, and communism doesn't work in practice. When governments kowtow to corporations, it's the corporations who are then acting as the government. For example, in states like Texas, Alabama, and Wisconsin, laws prohibit automakers from selling vehicles directly to consumers. But these laws only exist because dealer associations wanted and lobbied for them to protect their business. Which is to show that freedom itself isn't a matter of who is kowtowing to whom, but merely whether or not kowtowing is happening whatsoever. If it is, then someone's freedom is being restrained, and said market environment could be argued to not be "free". In fact, this is what Tesla has argued multiple times in court in such states in that these laws are anticompetitive, and violate due process and the commerce clause.
  - Terr_ 7mo ago
    Hold up, there are two very different kinds of "free" that pop up, from mutually incompatible ends of a spectrum. In the first, it's a "free" market because everything moves smoothly and efficiently in ways that make economic mathematicians happy. There's perfect information, all transactions and prices and actor-identities are are known, and it's generally assumed there are no monopolies or monopsonies. In the second, individual actors are "free" to construct secret deals with special secret prices, non-disclosure agreements, act anonymously through proxies, etc. At least in US politics, the equivocation is common: Someone appeals to the benefits of the first, while promoting the contradictory mechanics of the second.
psadauskas 7mo ago
A "free market" is one in which all the participants of the market have perfect information and act completely rationally. This is, of course, an academic ideal, similar to solving a physics problem that tells you to ignore friction. What we have is a "capitalist market", where those with more power (capital) within the market leverage it to exploit the other participants. Capitalists use their money to extract as much money as possible from a segment of the market, usually destroying it in the process. But for a beautiful moment in time they created a lot of value for shareholders!
9rx 7mo ago
Neither the cable nor the insurance business operate in free markets.

dpark 7mo ago

People often confuse “free” with “fair”.

altairprime 7mo ago
People often confuse “free” with “unregulated”, too.
- readthenotes1 7mo ago
  My understanding of the definition of a "free" market is it would have almost no external regulation. However, a "unregulated free market" is nearly impossible--somw player will eventually drive out competition to maximize profits and some will not be troubled at harming or killing their customers in the name of immediate profit (tobacco, sugared drinks, talc powder, and round-up come to mind immediately but the list is very long). Is market with enough regulations to ensure competitiveness and transaction transparency (including long-term consequences) truly "free"?
  - GTP 7mo ago
    Indeed, the market shouldn't be, and is not, entirely free. We should strive for the right balance between freedom and regulation.
  - acdha 7mo ago
    It comes down to what’s “free”: most people want that to mean freedom of choice for buyers but sellers want that to mean freedom from restrictions. Trying to balance the two depends critically on regulation because it’s too easy for larger players to reduce the choices for everyone else.
    - altairprime 7mo ago
      One popular desire is common, but not universal, in both groups: the freedom to lie, cheat, swindle those party to a transaction without consequence. It may help to consider that ‘the consequences of one’s actions’, such as lying or cheating in the above case, are viewed by many as a violation of their personal freedom from persecution (e.g. “it’s not my fault you didn’t stop me from conning you”); that extends to their participation in trade as well. I assume that the pools of either corporate entities and/or their leadership cogs have a much higher percentage of adherence to said belief than the general pool of either buyers and/or sellers excluding such, as the corporate implementation of liability shielding exists specifically to sate this need.
- adi_kurian 7mo ago
  No they don't. That is the very definition.
  - bigbadfeline 7mo ago
    >> People often confuse “free” with “unregulated”, too. >No they don't. That is the very definition. Using that definition amounts to classifying all real markets as non-free. Unregulated markets cannot exists in reality or in a sound theory, only in wishy-washy fairy tales.
    - adi_kurian 7mo ago
      I'm not recommending we build a frictionless plane, I'm just saying it doesn't have friction. This is the most politely I've ever been called a libertarian.
  - altairprime 7mo ago
    Sure they do. People often confuse the definition of a platonic ideal with the realities of implementation, and few are versed enough to both comprehend the literal dictionary definitions of “free” having a fork that one can choose to take to “unregulated” and to recognize that the phrase “free market” is imprecise. One either means “a market free of regulations”, or “a market free of adversarial interference by buyers or sellers”, or “a market free of reputational restrictions”, etc. That you’re correct in identifying a dictionary binding from the definition to the interpretation you give precedence when the imprecise form “free market” is used, does not negate the correctness of others preferring their own interpretations for equally valid reasons. Thus my point: confusion occurs, because “free” is inherently a contextual claim whose eventual outcome-branch (in your case, unregulated) is more often than not subject to individual bias and belief rather than singular societal meanings. Not to mention, that definitions shift over time. Or that claiming the definition to mean “unregulated” to the exclusion of all other meanings is a form of propaganda-slash-evangelism (and so, duly noted in cad you were unaware, as it can be received quite poorly). Or that “fair” is similarly misinterpretable for the same reasons: I prefer fair markets because I can eat cotton candy and listen to people screaming on the rides as I consider each booth’s offerings - and my interpretation of that statement is, in at least two communities I used to work in, the most contextually appropriate take on it! (AI, of course, can’t keep up with that usage, which is honestly a plus in favor of it, but for the ESL folks trying to figure out what I mean, fair → faire / carnival / festival.)

schubidubiduba 7mo ago

No. The market being free would mean that a private person can also hire Indians to call companies.

lisper 7mo ago
What is stopping them?
bdangubic 7mo ago
what's stopping them from doing so?
- antonymoose 7mo ago
  I don’t want to give private data up to and including my social security number for verification to start.
triceratops 7mo ago
No law against doing that. You could use Fiverr for it right now.

nine_k 7mo ago

The market actually is not very free, because large companies increasingly use their weight to pull off things that smaller companies or individual customers cannot afford: lobby to obtain preferences, tax exemptions, exclusive deals, other favors that violate or at least skirt the law. But running a call center overseas is not one of these things.

justonceokay 7mo ago
I cannot understand how any of the things you describe are not free. The government kowtowing to corporations is as free as it gets. No one said that just because the market is free that you personally wouldn’t end up holding the shit end of the stick
- Rury 7mo ago
  Free markets don't exist, or they only do for a very brief period of time. It's the same fundamental force behind why social hierarchies naturally form, and communism doesn't work in practice. When governments kowtow to corporations, it's the corporations who are then acting as the government. For example, in states like Texas, Alabama, and Wisconsin, laws prohibit automakers from selling vehicles directly to consumers. But these laws only exist because dealer associations wanted and lobbied for them to protect their business. Which is to show that freedom itself isn't a matter of who is kowtowing to whom, but merely whether or not kowtowing is happening whatsoever. If it is, then someone's freedom is being restrained, and said market environment could be argued to not be "free". In fact, this is what Tesla has argued multiple times in court in such states in that these laws are anticompetitive, and violate due process and the commerce clause.
- Terr_ 7mo ago
  Hold up, there are two very different kinds of "free" that pop up, from mutually incompatible ends of a spectrum. In the first, it's a "free" market because everything moves smoothly and efficiently in ways that make economic mathematicians happy. There's perfect information, all transactions and prices and actor-identities are are known, and it's generally assumed there are no monopolies or monopsonies. In the second, individual actors are "free" to construct secret deals with special secret prices, non-disclosure agreements, act anonymously through proxies, etc. At least in US politics, the equivocation is common: Someone appeals to the benefits of the first, while promoting the contradictory mechanics of the second.

psadauskas 7mo ago

A "free market" is one in which all the participants of the market have perfect information and act completely rationally. This is, of course, an academic ideal, similar to solving a physics problem that tells you to ignore friction. What we have is a "capitalist market", where those with more power (capital) within the market leverage it to exploit the other participants. Capitalists use their money to extract as much money as possible from a segment of the market, usually destroying it in the process. But for a beautiful moment in time they created a lot of value for shareholders!

9rx 7mo ago

Neither the cable nor the insurance business operate in free markets.