Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

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I used to believe in "free markets" until the financial crisis of 2008 . Then it became clear that the people who shouted "free market" the loudest didn't like it when market forces hit themselves. And they changed the market rules to their benefit. It's a rigged game.

We should replace "free market" with " functioning market". It's pretty clear that a lot of markets are dysfunctional and benefit only a few.

There were no free markets before 2008 and none after, either. So what is your point? Had we real free markets, a one major thing would have happened--all those banks that broke the law and did so many hugely unethical things would all be gone right now and we could recover. Instead, they all got bailed out--with our money (see: gas prices during that time, as well as direct transfers via TARP, low interest rates, etc.).

If we had real free markets, we would have sound money, we would not have a huge federal government with multi-trillion dollar budgets, the change in your pocket would still be worth something, not that anyone even BOTHERS with change anymore. I can go on and on, but the point is we aren't free and THAT is the problem!!!!

None of us have ever experienced anything remotely free market in our entire lives in the macro sense. Hell, people are even afraid to simply haggle on the price of a new car and we're even fearful of cash money nowadays.

" So what is your point? "

My point is that the people who are shouting "free market" the loudest don't like it when they have to experience it themselves.

If we had real free markets, we would have sound money, we would not have a huge federal government with multi-trillion dollar budgets, the change in your pocket would still be worth something, not that anyone even BOTHERS with change anymore. I can go on and on, but the point is we aren't free and THAT is the problem!!!!

Free markets don't experience inflation? A free market-having nuclear global superpower with 300M people wouldn't have huge budgets?

> Free markets don't experience inflation?

A free market with free money (and not a govt controlled money like today), would experience a natural inflation or deflation. Most likely it would experience a natural deflation (considering it would have gold or silver as the basis of its currency).

"Free market" does not mean "unregulated market". Free markets are those in which there is healthy competition. Regulations that oil the gears of competition are pro-free-market.

But it may be worth switching language to something like your "functioning market" because at this point it will be hard to convince most people that this is what "free market" means.

Another step along the euphamism treadmill...

Or actually mean free market when we talk about "free markets". That is, we should make it very clear that the market rules shouldn't change to benefit specific corporations.

Yes. I had a similar realization as GP during the financial crisis. I realized how small a minority of people actually want free markets, themselves included.

That's all well and fine until one market segment (finance) can grind capital for unrelated industries into the ground by crunching credit. It's a classic ecosystem problem, some of the critters in the pond are going to rise above others in the chain, and that can cause ill effects everywhere if not properly controlled.

Given that one of the defining characteristics of humanity is that we've been cultivating ecosystems for millenia, it's not that much of a stretch to say we're going to cultivate our own invented ecosystems for the betterment of the system. It's actually a stretch to say -- we're just going to throw all these actors into a system of shared responsibility, and they'll just work it out.

In my view there is no free market. It's all man made rules. The only free market I can think of is total anarchy with no state enforcing any rules. The (probably physically) strongest wins.

What about all the market rules that were originally created to protect specific (groups of) corporations from competition?

I'd argue they should change in response to challenges by new entrants, unless actually necessary to deliver some actually valuable benefit to the public.

Stopping corporate-driven regulatory change now just locks in the position of whoever got their regulatory capture done early.

The fact that there were those too big to fail who got bailed out with people's money tells you that this freedom is fake. Free my ass. But you have to sell the dream to dumb masses.

The problem is that people like to skip over the gritty details about what makes a free market work well, and in so doing lose a lot of foresight into how to appropriately respond to some problems. Markets work better when information is freely available and easily understood, and when people act rationally. Humans aren't always all that rational, and information is routinely obfuscated and distorted. What's worse, sometimes we pass laws to make this worse instead of better because it's not well understood by some lawmakers.

I think most people believe in free markets for people who sell things for them, but prefer protection for their own goods and services. It is human nature. I would like to unpack our policy choices from an ideological wrapper like "free markets", which in theory everyone is in favor of and always relative. The label lets people get away with the lazy thinking that if business lobbies for X, it must be good for the economy, and if government wants to regulate Y it must be bad for the economy. Neither statement is always true. What we tend to believe is based on our prejudices rather than thinking about each choice on a case by case basis.

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