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This assumes the invisible hand is fully rational and capable of the optimal decision making - at the very least at an aggregate scale. It is possible for some

This assumes the invisible hand is fully rational and capable of the optimal decision making - at the very least at an aggregate scale. It is possible for something to be good for business, but for the free market to not choose it. The free market, after all, is simply a collection of human participants, none of whom are perfectly informed nor perfectly rational. There seems to be a weird belief in some circles that the free market tends to arrive naturally upon a globally optimal solution.

pdonis 13y ago
There seems to be a weird belief in some circles that the free market tends to arrive naturally upon a globally optimal solution. There is a much more widespread weird belief that governments can do so, even though the track record of governments is worse than the track record of free markets.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  Much more widespread? Last I checked nobody is advocating for Soviet-style central planning. In fact by far the most popular notion in the western world is a mostly-free market with some regulation. Which seems to jive with the notion that neither a monolithically planned, nor entirely laissez-faire system, are likely to produce optimal results.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    the most popular notion in the western world is a mostly-free market with some regulation No, the most popular notion in the western world is a nominal "free market" with massive regulation. For example, here are the rules that a "free market" business in the US has to abide by: https://www.federalregister.gov/ https://www.federalregister.gov/ Note that this is a daily journal: in other words, the "current issue" is just the rules that got issued today. Not to mention that we have central control of the financial system (the Fed and other countries' central banks), education (in the US there is at least some control still at the local level, other developed countries control everything at the state or national level), and trade--here, for example, is the current list of US tariffs: http://hts.usitc.gov/ http://hts.usitc.gov/
    - djur 13y ago
      And the rules that got issued today include several announcements by the Coast Guard about changes to drawbridge schedules, species being delisted from the Endangered Species Act, and announced decisions by the FAA on the airworthiness of various products. Business is moderately regulated in the US, especially compared to other industrialized societies. The mere existence of a large number of rules doesn't mean that the regulation is onerous.
      - pdonis 13y ago
        The mere existence of a large number of rules doesn't mean that the regulation is onerous. So if you're a small business, it's not "onerous" to have to look through myriads of rules to make sure you aren't violating one? To the extent that these regulations are not "onerous", it's because they're ignored, not because they actually work.

pdonis 13y ago

There seems to be a weird belief in some circles that the free market tends to arrive naturally upon a globally optimal solution. There is a much more widespread weird belief that governments can do so, even though the track record of governments is worse than the track record of free markets.

potatolicious 13y ago
Much more widespread? Last I checked nobody is advocating for Soviet-style central planning. In fact by far the most popular notion in the western world is a mostly-free market with some regulation. Which seems to jive with the notion that neither a monolithically planned, nor entirely laissez-faire system, are likely to produce optimal results.
- pdonis 13y ago
  the most popular notion in the western world is a mostly-free market with some regulation No, the most popular notion in the western world is a nominal "free market" with massive regulation. For example, here are the rules that a "free market" business in the US has to abide by: https://www.federalregister.gov/ https://www.federalregister.gov/ Note that this is a daily journal: in other words, the "current issue" is just the rules that got issued today. Not to mention that we have central control of the financial system (the Fed and other countries' central banks), education (in the US there is at least some control still at the local level, other developed countries control everything at the state or national level), and trade--here, for example, is the current list of US tariffs: http://hts.usitc.gov/ http://hts.usitc.gov/
  - djur 13y ago
    And the rules that got issued today include several announcements by the Coast Guard about changes to drawbridge schedules, species being delisted from the Endangered Species Act, and announced decisions by the FAA on the airworthiness of various products. Business is moderately regulated in the US, especially compared to other industrialized societies. The mere existence of a large number of rules doesn't mean that the regulation is onerous.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      The mere existence of a large number of rules doesn't mean that the regulation is onerous. So if you're a small business, it's not "onerous" to have to look through myriads of rules to make sure you aren't violating one? To the extent that these regulations are not "onerous", it's because they're ignored, not because they actually work.