5 ms·
It's optimizing for something, but ultimately, markets can also be outcompeted by central planning in some sectors. I view the market more as playing the role
by kubb 4mo ago
It's optimizing for something, but ultimately, markets can also be outcompeted by central planning in some sectors.
I view the market more as playing the role of a modern God, something that "works in mysterious ways" and is "omnipresent, omnisapient, and benevolent". Not something we would dare to question, because it’s way too complicated for our little minds to understand. Instead we just need to believe in it.
- bluGill 4mo agoThat objection applies to the other options as well. Believe in... I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own. I don't like zoning codes because too often they are placing restrictions that restrict freedom for some value that isn't objective.
- Rygian 4mo ago> I don't like zoning codes because too often they are placing restrictions that restrict freedom for some value that isn't objective. That might be a literal case of Chesterton's fence.
- inigyou 4mo agoZoning codes have some uses, doesn't mean they're still net positive value. Maybe the current situation is so bad that letting a pig farm or a coal power plant be build right in the middle of a residential neighborhood is actually a better tradeoff than whatever we have now. In many European places there are only a few zones: farming/industry, mixed commercial/residential, and of course random other stuff like parks. And when you build you can only go a couple stories taller than the average in a certain radius unless you're explicitly approved to build a skyscraper. This height limit is also displayed on the zoning map but I believe it's regularly adjusted.
- em-bee 4mo agoi don't know if this is the case everywhere in europe but i understand that at least in germany instead of zoning the local government approves the purpose of each building individually. so instead of deciding this is a commercial zone, they decide how many shops and businesses they allow in that area, and what kind of businesses they are. and once a building has a specific business use, then it can't easily be changed. so in effect that is very fine grained zoning. this is as flexible as the people in the government who make the decisions.
- lapcat 4mo ago> That objection applies to the other options as well. True. > I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own. What about when it doesn't? Markets consolidate. They form monopolies and duopolies. The only counterbalance in this situation, the only entities more powerful than massive multinational corporations, are governments and regulators. I think the problem is the faith that any system will self-regulate, whether the system is economic or political, as if we can just write the founding rules of the system, and then the system will take care of itself and operate to the greatest benefit of the public. Markets can get captured by wealthy interests. Governments can get captured by wealthy interests. Corruption is perpetual. Those who seek benefit for themselves will interfere in the system, so those who seek to preserve the public benefit must also interfere in the system. Not the invisible hand but eternal vigilance is required. The question is not whether the government will interfere in the markets; the question is who will control that interference, the masses of voters or the much smaller "donor" class.
- bluGill 4mo agoEvery system can be captured by wealthy interests. Markets are not unique there. Once in a rare while someone not wealthy captures a system - but they inevitably use that capture to become wealthy so it doesn't really matter. Classical liberalism is the least likely for that to happen to, but it has happened there too over and over in history as well. I still support classical liberalism, which is not the same as supporting the market even though classical liberalism ends up being a market.
- forgetfreeman 4mo ago"I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own." Fair enough but not all option spreads are equal. For example having 35 flavors of snack chips in the grocery store is objectively less valuable than food being broadly affordable, or any of a number of other things that would be directly hostile to shareholder value. You don't like zoning codes because to date nobody has tried to build a trash incinerator next door to where you live, which ironically is evidence that zoning kinda works.
- bluGill 4mo agoWhy do I care about a trash incinerator? The truth is I don't. I care that my air is clean -that includes smell. I care that the trash gets there safely (when on the public roads the drivers need to be safe even when my kids are riding their bikes on the road). There are a few other issues. However the incinerator itself I'm not against.
- dh2022 4mo agoI don’t follow. Your first sentence says you do not care about trash incinerators, presumably next to your house. Your second sentence says you care about the smell. Trash incinerators are very smelly. You are contradicting yourself. I don’t get it.
- inigyou 4mo agoBut if someone invented a new type that didn't smell, it should be allowed. Regulate consequences, not causes. The power substation down the road is disguised as a brick house, because the rule was ultimately about maintaining the look of the area and not about forbidding power substations.
- dh2022 4mo agoMuch better explanation-thank you!
- red-iron-pine 4mo ago
- TheOtherHobbes 4mo agoMarkets create the illusion of choice between monopolies. I don't like monopolies because they restrict my freedom far more than zoning codes do. Ultimately markets are not a democratic choice. You can choose a Mac or a PC, or Amazon vs Netflix. You (often) can't choose to join a union, to get affordable healthcare that won't bankrupt you, or to have a national policy that prioritises the needs of renters over the profits of private equity.
- inigyou 4mo agoMarkets used to be hundreds or thousands of people who were roughly peers and they still work well in that situation. When I go to the riverside market on Saturday to buy fabric for a project, there are 10 different fabric stalls. On this one little river bank alone! Each one of them has a different selection and they all want me to buy their fabric. This is the only thing that people used to think of as a market, and it probably does work well. Since that time, however, the term has been twisted beyond comprehension.
- mym1990 4mo agoI feel like in this case, the “Amazon or Netflix” example is particularly bad because I feel like I’m actually drowning in streaming providers. You will also typically have the option to simply opt out, although this is getting less rare. I think my point is that there are typically still many options, but the best options are controlled by few players.
- TeMPOraL 4mo ago> I feel like in this case, the “Amazon or Netflix” example is particularly bad because I feel like I’m actually drowning in streaming providers. It's a fake choice, because they carry mutually exclusive catalogs, and entertainment choice is not particularly substitutable (e.g. if I want to watch "Star Wars" and it's not available on services I'm subscribed to, I'm not going to be satisfied with all the rich selection of things they carry that is still not "Star Wars"). Lots of that in the economy, that's where the most money seems to be made. Smartphones are my go-to example: plenty of nearly identical options to choose from, choice entirely set up by vendors, with little to no way of users to voice their feedback. A supply-driven market. You get to choose from what's made available, not what is possible.
- kubb 4mo agoDepends which objection you mean... But your choices are more limited than you might think. Ultimately what's available to you is decided by the economic machinery upstream.
- red-iron-pine 4mo agothe average American cannot afford a $500 surprise expense. what freedom, or choice, does that translate to? e.g. I either go without power or food, or I don't get a brutally painful tooth pulled
- ToucanLoucan 4mo ago> I like the market because it lets me make more choices of my own. Are you making your own choices? Do you sincerely believe that when one of the largest pillars of the American economy right now is staffed from top to bottom with PhD holders who use everything they know about psychology to make you think certain ways? To want shit you don't need? To make you play games you don't like? To make you consume art that makes you feel nothing? To make you hate people you don't know? To make you eat food that makes you feel shitty? Do you really make your own choices? To be clear this is not meant as an attack. I'm just saying there are trillions of dollars on the line in making people, at scale, make choices. Do you really believe you are an island, free from influence? Do you honestly think your wants, needs, desires are not socially informed?
- bluGill 4mo agoYou say that as if there is any alternative. Every other system as well has people who are good at psychology spreading propaganda.
- ToucanLoucan 4mo agoOh I'm not questioning that at all. I'm just saying if they aren't really your choices, why is making them valuable to you? Sure, you have 30 different choices of peanut butter to pick from, but you always pick the same one, because it's what your mom used when you were a kiddo, or because you don't like the oil separating ones, or because the chunky makes you feel like it's healthy even though it's loaded down with as much sugar as a Coke. What does choice even mean in that kind of environment?
- bluGill 4mo agoI have changed my peanut butter choice - when science started realizing trans fat was a problem I switched before the law changed to reflect science. I have also tried various of the 30 different options in other situations and found the one I personally like best. The value isn't just that I can make a choice, it is also that other people really do make different choices. You are forgetting about the time factor. I don't make a choice every time, but I'm not a 22 year old out on his own for the first time either (22 was about 30 years ago for me, and there are reasonable odds I have another 30 years to go). I don't have to make a choice every time to take advantages of choices.
- admjs 4mo agoWhat's an example where central planning outcompetes the market?
- TheOtherHobbes 4mo agoAny industry or economic activity where extractive financialisation takes priority over productive economic activity that delivers human value. Example: the UK's privatisation of water utilities. The UK's water now exist to turn government handouts into dividends while providing as little practical value as possible. This is not hyperbole. The industry literally dumps shit in the UK's rivers to save operating expenses, and has built zero new reservoirs since privatisation.
- kubb 4mo agoWartime production mobilization, public health (vaccine procurement, disease eradication), natural monopolies like power grids. Public transport, water and sewage systems, infrastructure like roads and bridges are more of a hybrid model with a strong planning component, and private contractors (who consume a lot of public funds and often misuse them).
- appplication 4mo agoThese are good examples and it’s even worth noting that the net impact of these can be a huge boost to the market. But it is a local and greedy optimizer. It doesn’t think “would having public transit improve the economy long term” it thinks “could I make enough on fares to justify the investment” (which is almost always no, at least relative to other investments). This is the nature of positive externalities. They are value that the market is unable to weigh in its decision making.
- mylifeandtimes 4mo agoYes, as you say the market is a local (both in space and time) and greedy optimizer. Long-term payoffs that increase the value of all participants in society, such as education, healthcare, infrastructure (roads including public transportation, water, electricity, ...), are demonstrably better served by government than by business.
- __MatrixMan__ 4mo agoThe way you say "outcompeted" makes it seem like you're evaluating efficiency in both cases, but isn't direction the more important criteria? It doesn't really matter if a car without a steering wheel can be faster than one without on account of being lighter. One is going where you want it to, and the other is crashing into things. The economy, as we're practicing it today, is a car without a steering wheel.
- mym1990 4mo agoSomewhat of a weird example…the one without a steering wheel could be autonomous, or the place you want to get to is in a completely straight line from where you start. Also in your example you have both cars without steering wheels.
- miyoji 4mo ago> the one without a steering wheel could be autonomous How silly, even autonomous vehicles have steering. They may be built without the wheel, but they have some kind of steering mechanism > or the place you want to get to is in a completely straight line from where you start I hope your wheels never lose alignment and that you're pointed exactly where you want to go at the start. It's not a weird example at all if you don't come up with crazy unrealistic situations that don't match actual cars or the metaphor.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]