Hacker News Reader

Comment by mipsi | Hacker News Reader

I think its common to call markets without legislation "black markets".

Black markets are markets that break existing legislation, not markets that are free from legislation.

Similarly, free markets are markets that have sufficient safeguards to keep the market free, not markets that are free from legislation. From the oracle[0]:

In a free market, the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government or other authority, and from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities

From this simple snippet, we can conclude three things:

- government and other authorities are only limited to not interfere with supply and demand; enforcing product standards does not make a market non-free

- good anti-monopoly legislation is an example of the government working towards the free market, not against it

- Anything involving copyright and patents is by definition not a free market

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

I’d agree with all of that, though I’m squeamish on the very last one. I think copyrights are too long and there are pretty big problems in the patent system, but IP protection does have similar benefits to enforcing product standards.

Essentially IP protection is encouraging creation and innovation by preventing someone who didn’t do the work from simply stealing it and profiting without paying the creator. This is certainly over-simplified, but one way of viewing IP protections is that it’s trying to balance multiple freedoms, and that a free market with no regulation at all is not actually free for everyone. Having no protections on product standards is a loss of freedom for consumers. Having no protections on intellectual property is a loss of freedom for creators (and, the thinking goes, would be a net drain on the economy).

Here are some hastily googled arguments in favor of viewing IP protection as part of a free market:

https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/intellectual-p...

https://cip2.gmu.edu/2013/11/14/copyright-is-still-essential...

That would imply the existence of legal "black markets".

> That would imply the existence of legal “black markets”.

Why’s that? I don’t follow. How does black markets being defined as illegal imply there are legal ones?

BTW, don’t take my word for it, just look it up.

“A black market, underground economy or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by some form of noncompliant behavior with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services whose production and distribution is prohibited by law, non-compliance with the rule constitutes a black market trade since the transaction itself is illegal.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_market

> Black markets are markets that break existing legislation, not markets that are free from legislation.

Your statement "black markets are not markets without legislation" logically implies such existence. I regard legislation as a governmental act and in my opinion you stretched its meaning to an informal agreement between market participants.

But, if you meant legislation as some kind of unwritten law, that breaks state laws, i would fully agree.

You misquoted me there. My “not” wasn’t defining the term it was doing the opposite, saying the definition is not what you claimed at the top. “Black market” is not a common term for markets without legislation, contrary to what you said. The term for markets without legislation, or for many people, with light or restricted legislation is “free market”, just like @aqme28 was talking about.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com