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Free markets mean the only way to make money legally is to provide a product or service that other people want to buy. And people want to be healthy, educated,

Free markets mean the only way to make money legally is to provide a product or service that other people want to buy. And people want to be healthy, educated, engaged and safe. In other words, it takes advantage of the inherently selfish nature of people to make others better off. > obesity is at all time highs Obesity is a choice. I know people won't like me writing that. I know it is very hard to lose weight. It's still a choice, though. I don't see how making people less free would change that. > gen Z is the first generation to score less on standardized tests than the generation before them The government is the primary institution that provides education, not the free market. > civilians killed by law enforcement is at an all time high I don't see how that is a result of economic freedom. > Economic freedom at it's extreme will only lead to a weakening of the middle class The US was much more economically free in the 1800s than now, and the middle class became the dominant class, by far. > consolidation of wealth among those holding the most wealth. Wealthy people get that way in a free market by creating products and services that other people want. In other words, they do not "consolidate" wealth, they create it.

raptured-banal- 2mo ago
[flagged]
- wyre 2mo ago
  What's a bummer is that Walter is a smart and talented engineer, yet has a very stubborn and out of touch economic perspective that is at least half a century expired. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright
  - stackghost 2mo ago
    Just like Kyrie Irving is a talented basketball player but also a catastrophically-deluded flat-earther, it's just as possible for gifted software engineers to have flawed reasoning about the economy.
    - WalterBright 2mo ago
      > it's just as possible for gifted software engineers to have flawed reasoning about the economy. Are you sure your reasoning is flawless? Free markets correspond with prosperity, in case after case.
      - stackghost 2mo ago
        A truly free market is also free of regulation and embraces predatory actions by monopolists. Think being paid in company scrip instead of dollars. Think a single food supply monopoly with patented seeds you can be prosecuted for propagating, and harmful additives in food because it's cheaper. Think better education inaccessible for those nincompoops who weren't born into wealth. Serves them right for choosing to be born poor, amirite? Some amount of regulation is required if you want a just, healthy, society, with economic mobility. People say they want 100% free markets but they don't really comprehend what that looks like.
        WalterBright 2mo ago
        > company scrip Did you know that paychecks are private money? They aren't legal tender. RSU's are company scrip, too. Besides, nobody can make you take a job you don't want. > patented seeds Patents are a government invention, and I'm on record opposing them. > harmful additives Harming and/or defrauding customers is against the law and is actionable. > better education inaccessible Government run schools are pretty much bottom of the barrel.
        stackghost 2mo ago
        >Did you know that paychecks are private money? They aren't legal tender. I did know this, actually. Thankfully your banks are not free market profiteers. They're subject to stringent regulations to ensure a more orderly and efficient market, and thus they'll dependably convert cheques to dollars. Another point against free market absolutism. >Harming and/or defrauding customers is against the law and is actionable. That's why Big Tobacco was dismantled and are no longer advertising and selling harmful, addictive products to teens, right? Teenagers after all are well-known for their astute abilities to assess risk and make rational, informed decisions that are in their long-term best interests, right? More regulation is needed here, not less. >Government run schools are pretty much bottom of the barrel. In the USA, certainly. That's not an indictment of public education as a whole, though, only of American society's "Fuck you, I got mine" values. If Americans were less selfish they could have the most highly-educated citizens on the planet, with global-elite schooling available to every American schoolchild. In any case, free market absolutism is delusional for all but the billionaire class (for whom it's optimal) and I'm not interested in continuing this conversation further.
  - slopinthebag 2mo ago
    If he is a libertarian that perspective is more modern than socialism, technocracy, or pretty much any other political ideology. Modern libertarianism is from the mid 20th century. And if you share the view that societies gradually shift from materialist values (economic stability, physical safety, law and order, and maintaining traditional group norms) towards post-materialist values (individual autonomy, freedom of speech, gender equality, environmental protection, and self-expression) as societies develop, then freedom of exchange is something you would expect from a more advanced perspective, not one which is outdated. What is outdated is authoritarian, statist, and technocratic rule.
    - imtringued 2mo ago
      >What is outdated is authoritarian, statist, and technocratic rule. And yet the most popular model for freeing us from the horrors of capitalism is exactly that: Authoritarian, static and technocratic rule. Yes, that's what communism and Marxist socialism are. You could even say that Marxism is basically this idea: The capitalists are rushing to the top, trying to own the entire world, why don't we accelerate this foregone conclusion with a violent revolution to institute a government that owns everything? What was the original justification for this again? Oh, it's because capital that is scarce in relation to labor has power over labor, but there is no physical capital rule that says that the capital formation process has to stop right there. That's a monetary rule called the zero lower bound that actively prevents capital formation and guess who instated that rule? The very government that is supposed to save us by owning everything, including the workers. It's like having the arsonist in charge of putting out the fire.
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  I've never read Ayn Rand's books. More prosperity provides the surplus to afford being environmental. Unfree countries tend to be much more environmentally destructive, because the people are impoverished. > there is way more to life than making money I never wrote otherwise. You're making things up.
wyre 2mo ago
Body weight is controllable, but is not the same thing as obesity, but scientific evidence does not suggest obesity is voluntary, but I'm not trying to talk about obesity. I was just merely using it as a proxy for societal health, because I hope you can agree that obesity is not healthy. > The government is the primary institution that provides education I thought there was a large section of free market libertarians that want to get rid of public schooling? >I don't see how that is a result of economic freedom. Again, i was using it as a proxy for safety, not economic freedom. > The US was much more economically free in the 1800s than now The middle class became the dominant class post-WWII. wtf are you talking about? If I have one million people pay me $1000, I am creating value, but I not 'creating wealth' I would literally be consolidating the wealth of one million people into my bank account. Owning desirable assets could be considered 'creating wealth' due to the price of those assets going up, but owning assets is not creating products and services that other people want. I will go back to my original point, that economic freedom is not a panacea and does not solve for health, education, and safety, but rather creating things that people want to seperate them from their money. Health, education, and safety are all more effective when provided by the government.
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  > The middle class became the dominant class post-WWII. I've heard that before, and it's simply not true. Pre-revolutionary colonial America had a thriving middle class. Consider this. A couple of decades ago, a sunken Missisouppi river steamboat was found in the mud. It had foundered before the Civil War, I don't recall the date. And so it was dug out, and researchers went over its cargo. They were shocked to find out what the cargo was. It was everything needed for a general store. Pots, pans, jars, knives, forks, shoes, clothing, preserved meats and candies, tools, etc. Nothing in it was for rich people, it was all meant for the middle class. And it was packed to the gills with that cargo. If you like, look at paintings and photographs of towns in the 1800s. Do you see a couple mansions, and a bunch of shacks? Nope. You see middle class homes, general stores, all signs of a prosperous middle class. > all more effective when provided by the government Government providing that has a pretty sorry history. > due to the price of those assets going up The price of the asset is a function of its ability to create value. Do me a favor and point to an American history book that informed your point of view. But fair is fair, I submit: https://www.amazon.com/ALASTAIR-COOKES-AMERICA-Alastair-Cooke/dp/B00IJA9XXS/ https://www.amazon.com/ALASTAIR-COOKES-AMERICA-Alastair-Cook... Read it and tell me that the US consisted of overlords and serfs. Yes, I know about the slave South, which was an overlord/serf economy.
bryik 2mo ago
> The US was much more economically free in the 1800s than now Not much economic freedom for slaves or for Indians forced off their land (e.g. illegal seizure of the Black Hills by the US government [0], the Cherokee in Georgia, etc). Prior to 1900s-era state laws and the federal Securities acts, you could sell fraudulent investments backed by nothing but the blue skies of Kansas. I suppose that's an economic freedom that was lost, can't say I miss it. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seizure_of_the_Black_Hills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seizure_of_the_Black_Hills
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  Yes, we know a slave economy is not a free market. > you could sell fraudulent investments Fraud is against the law in a free market.
  - bryik 2mo ago
    Then I don't understand how you can say "The US was much more economically free in the 1800s than now".
    - WalterBright 2mo ago
      The growth in endless regulations, taxes, permits, etc., are a serious impediment. For example, being unable to rebuild after the Palisades fire.

raptured-banal- 2mo ago

[flagged]

wyre 2mo ago
What's a bummer is that Walter is a smart and talented engineer, yet has a very stubborn and out of touch economic perspective that is at least half a century expired. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright
- stackghost 2mo ago
  Just like Kyrie Irving is a talented basketball player but also a catastrophically-deluded flat-earther, it's just as possible for gifted software engineers to have flawed reasoning about the economy.
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    > it's just as possible for gifted software engineers to have flawed reasoning about the economy. Are you sure your reasoning is flawless? Free markets correspond with prosperity, in case after case.
    - stackghost 2mo ago
      A truly free market is also free of regulation and embraces predatory actions by monopolists. Think being paid in company scrip instead of dollars. Think a single food supply monopoly with patented seeds you can be prosecuted for propagating, and harmful additives in food because it's cheaper. Think better education inaccessible for those nincompoops who weren't born into wealth. Serves them right for choosing to be born poor, amirite? Some amount of regulation is required if you want a just, healthy, society, with economic mobility. People say they want 100% free markets but they don't really comprehend what that looks like.
      - WalterBright 2mo ago
        > company scrip Did you know that paychecks are private money? They aren't legal tender. RSU's are company scrip, too. Besides, nobody can make you take a job you don't want. > patented seeds Patents are a government invention, and I'm on record opposing them. > harmful additives Harming and/or defrauding customers is against the law and is actionable. > better education inaccessible Government run schools are pretty much bottom of the barrel.
        stackghost 2mo ago
        >Did you know that paychecks are private money? They aren't legal tender. I did know this, actually. Thankfully your banks are not free market profiteers. They're subject to stringent regulations to ensure a more orderly and efficient market, and thus they'll dependably convert cheques to dollars. Another point against free market absolutism. >Harming and/or defrauding customers is against the law and is actionable. That's why Big Tobacco was dismantled and are no longer advertising and selling harmful, addictive products to teens, right? Teenagers after all are well-known for their astute abilities to assess risk and make rational, informed decisions that are in their long-term best interests, right? More regulation is needed here, not less. >Government run schools are pretty much bottom of the barrel. In the USA, certainly. That's not an indictment of public education as a whole, though, only of American society's "Fuck you, I got mine" values. If Americans were less selfish they could have the most highly-educated citizens on the planet, with global-elite schooling available to every American schoolchild. In any case, free market absolutism is delusional for all but the billionaire class (for whom it's optimal) and I'm not interested in continuing this conversation further.
- slopinthebag 2mo ago
  If he is a libertarian that perspective is more modern than socialism, technocracy, or pretty much any other political ideology. Modern libertarianism is from the mid 20th century. And if you share the view that societies gradually shift from materialist values (economic stability, physical safety, law and order, and maintaining traditional group norms) towards post-materialist values (individual autonomy, freedom of speech, gender equality, environmental protection, and self-expression) as societies develop, then freedom of exchange is something you would expect from a more advanced perspective, not one which is outdated. What is outdated is authoritarian, statist, and technocratic rule.
  - imtringued 2mo ago
    >What is outdated is authoritarian, statist, and technocratic rule. And yet the most popular model for freeing us from the horrors of capitalism is exactly that: Authoritarian, static and technocratic rule. Yes, that's what communism and Marxist socialism are. You could even say that Marxism is basically this idea: The capitalists are rushing to the top, trying to own the entire world, why don't we accelerate this foregone conclusion with a violent revolution to institute a government that owns everything? What was the original justification for this again? Oh, it's because capital that is scarce in relation to labor has power over labor, but there is no physical capital rule that says that the capital formation process has to stop right there. That's a monetary rule called the zero lower bound that actively prevents capital formation and guess who instated that rule? The very government that is supposed to save us by owning everything, including the workers. It's like having the arsonist in charge of putting out the fire.
WalterBright 2mo ago
I've never read Ayn Rand's books. More prosperity provides the surplus to afford being environmental. Unfree countries tend to be much more environmentally destructive, because the people are impoverished. > there is way more to life than making money I never wrote otherwise. You're making things up.

wyre 2mo ago

Body weight is controllable, but is not the same thing as obesity, but scientific evidence does not suggest obesity is voluntary, but I'm not trying to talk about obesity. I was just merely using it as a proxy for societal health, because I hope you can agree that obesity is not healthy. > The government is the primary institution that provides education I thought there was a large section of free market libertarians that want to get rid of public schooling? >I don't see how that is a result of economic freedom. Again, i was using it as a proxy for safety, not economic freedom. > The US was much more economically free in the 1800s than now The middle class became the dominant class post-WWII. wtf are you talking about? If I have one million people pay me $1000, I am creating value, but I not 'creating wealth' I would literally be consolidating the wealth of one million people into my bank account. Owning desirable assets could be considered 'creating wealth' due to the price of those assets going up, but owning assets is not creating products and services that other people want. I will go back to my original point, that economic freedom is not a panacea and does not solve for health, education, and safety, but rather creating things that people want to seperate them from their money. Health, education, and safety are all more effective when provided by the government.

WalterBright 2mo ago
> The middle class became the dominant class post-WWII. I've heard that before, and it's simply not true. Pre-revolutionary colonial America had a thriving middle class. Consider this. A couple of decades ago, a sunken Missisouppi river steamboat was found in the mud. It had foundered before the Civil War, I don't recall the date. And so it was dug out, and researchers went over its cargo. They were shocked to find out what the cargo was. It was everything needed for a general store. Pots, pans, jars, knives, forks, shoes, clothing, preserved meats and candies, tools, etc. Nothing in it was for rich people, it was all meant for the middle class. And it was packed to the gills with that cargo. If you like, look at paintings and photographs of towns in the 1800s. Do you see a couple mansions, and a bunch of shacks? Nope. You see middle class homes, general stores, all signs of a prosperous middle class. > all more effective when provided by the government Government providing that has a pretty sorry history. > due to the price of those assets going up The price of the asset is a function of its ability to create value. Do me a favor and point to an American history book that informed your point of view. But fair is fair, I submit: https://www.amazon.com/ALASTAIR-COOKES-AMERICA-Alastair-Cooke/dp/B00IJA9XXS/ https://www.amazon.com/ALASTAIR-COOKES-AMERICA-Alastair-Cook... Read it and tell me that the US consisted of overlords and serfs. Yes, I know about the slave South, which was an overlord/serf economy.

bryik 2mo ago

> The US was much more economically free in the 1800s than now Not much economic freedom for slaves or for Indians forced off their land (e.g. illegal seizure of the Black Hills by the US government [0], the Cherokee in Georgia, etc). Prior to 1900s-era state laws and the federal Securities acts, you could sell fraudulent investments backed by nothing but the blue skies of Kansas. I suppose that's an economic freedom that was lost, can't say I miss it. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seizure_of_the_Black_Hills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seizure_of_the_Black_Hills

WalterBright 2mo ago
Yes, we know a slave economy is not a free market. > you could sell fraudulent investments Fraud is against the law in a free market.
- bryik 2mo ago
  Then I don't understand how you can say "The US was much more economically free in the 1800s than now".
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    The growth in endless regulations, taxes, permits, etc., are a serious impediment. For example, being unable to rebuild after the Palisades fire.