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Sabotaging a competitor is precisely how the free-market operates that's why we have regulations, because a free market isn't actually free or desirable.

watwut 12y ago
That depends on whether you define free market as anarchy or free of regulation or whether you define it in the original economical theory sense: a lot of competitors with essentially same product and everyone instantly know all available into (so everyone buys cheapest of the same). Monopoly is not free market in the original sense, even if it came out from unregulated competition.
- DannyBee 12y ago
  " a lot of competitors with essentially same product and everyone instantly know all available into (so everyone buys cheapest of the same)." But we already know these free markets are either not efficient or likely not efficient. Strong form efficiency is provably false. Weak form efficiency is only possibly true if P = NP (http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2284 http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2284).
bunderbunder 12y ago
Depends on what you mean by "free market". There's the free market that Adam Smith talked about, and there's the free market that Ayn Rand talked about.
mynewwork 12y ago
I'm so tired of people who don't know what "free market" means making up their own definition and then saying it's a bad thing. A "free market" is an economics term meaning a marketplace free from anti-competitive forces such as government subsidies, government price floors or ceilings, monopolies, cartels, oligopolies, non-compete agreements, etc. If Google and Apple make an agreement about smartphone pricing, then we might not have a free market for cell phones. The government could then use regulations against such anti-competitive agreements to end the price fixing and restore a free market. In that scenario it was private enterprise causing a non-free market and regulation that made it a free market. Regulations can help a free market (breaking up monopolies, preventing cartels and anti-competitive practices) or regulations can harm a free market (subsidizing production, preventing new entrants from entering the market). This notion of "free market vs regulations" is completely misunderstanding what a free market is and how the systems involved work.
- ossreality 12y ago
  This is a great post, but it goes both way. People rally against consumer-friendly regulation all the time under the banner of "Free-market!"
- memonkey 12y ago
  So in the end, what you're saying is that he's right? I took his comment as a broad generalization, not some flippant slogan via "free market is a fantasy economics concept pretty much exclusive to all who read Ayn Rand and vote Ron Paul". But you already knew that.
  - forgingahead 12y ago
    No, he did a great job of explaining that it's not one or the other, which is what the earlier comment quite blatantly made a claim of.
    - bduerst 12y ago
      No they didn't. They narrowly defined a word that has many definitions while demonstrating outrage at any other meaning. While they are technically correct in a textbook sense, their idea of a "True" free market has never existed in the context of this conversation, and it can be argued that price collusion between suppliers for a market is the natural result of free markets.
- Vik1ng 12y ago
  I disagree with your defintion in the google-Apple example and so does Wikipedia. It's pretty clear that if the government regulates it it's not a free market anymore. --- A free market is a market system in which the prices for goods and services are set freely by consent between sellers and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market ---
  - 12y ago
pdonis 12y ago
> Sabotaging a competitor is precisely how the free-market operates No, it isn't. A free market is a market in which all transactions are voluntary: nothing happens unless both parties agree to make it happen. So unless your competitor agrees to let you sabotage them, sabotaging a competitor is not a free market operation.

watwut 12y ago

That depends on whether you define free market as anarchy or free of regulation or whether you define it in the original economical theory sense: a lot of competitors with essentially same product and everyone instantly know all available into (so everyone buys cheapest of the same). Monopoly is not free market in the original sense, even if it came out from unregulated competition.

DannyBee 12y ago
" a lot of competitors with essentially same product and everyone instantly know all available into (so everyone buys cheapest of the same)." But we already know these free markets are either not efficient or likely not efficient. Strong form efficiency is provably false. Weak form efficiency is only possibly true if P = NP (http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2284 http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2284).

bunderbunder 12y ago

Depends on what you mean by "free market". There's the free market that Adam Smith talked about, and there's the free market that Ayn Rand talked about.

mynewwork 12y ago

I'm so tired of people who don't know what "free market" means making up their own definition and then saying it's a bad thing. A "free market" is an economics term meaning a marketplace free from anti-competitive forces such as government subsidies, government price floors or ceilings, monopolies, cartels, oligopolies, non-compete agreements, etc. If Google and Apple make an agreement about smartphone pricing, then we might not have a free market for cell phones. The government could then use regulations against such anti-competitive agreements to end the price fixing and restore a free market. In that scenario it was private enterprise causing a non-free market and regulation that made it a free market. Regulations can help a free market (breaking up monopolies, preventing cartels and anti-competitive practices) or regulations can harm a free market (subsidizing production, preventing new entrants from entering the market). This notion of "free market vs regulations" is completely misunderstanding what a free market is and how the systems involved work.

ossreality 12y ago
This is a great post, but it goes both way. People rally against consumer-friendly regulation all the time under the banner of "Free-market!"
memonkey 12y ago
So in the end, what you're saying is that he's right? I took his comment as a broad generalization, not some flippant slogan via "free market is a fantasy economics concept pretty much exclusive to all who read Ayn Rand and vote Ron Paul". But you already knew that.
- forgingahead 12y ago
  No, he did a great job of explaining that it's not one or the other, which is what the earlier comment quite blatantly made a claim of.
  - bduerst 12y ago
    No they didn't. They narrowly defined a word that has many definitions while demonstrating outrage at any other meaning. While they are technically correct in a textbook sense, their idea of a "True" free market has never existed in the context of this conversation, and it can be argued that price collusion between suppliers for a market is the natural result of free markets.
Vik1ng 12y ago
I disagree with your defintion in the google-Apple example and so does Wikipedia. It's pretty clear that if the government regulates it it's not a free market anymore. --- A free market is a market system in which the prices for goods and services are set freely by consent between sellers and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market ---
- 12y ago

pdonis 12y ago

> Sabotaging a competitor is precisely how the free-market operates No, it isn't. A free market is a market in which all transactions are voluntary: nothing happens unless both parties agree to make it happen. So unless your competitor agrees to let you sabotage them, sabotaging a competitor is not a free market operation.