Free markets will always remain the most fair system of resource allocation.
Any other system requires an uninvolved power, likely a govt, to decide.
Who gets to live in the 56 Leonard PH?
Any other system requires an uninvolved power, likely a govt, to decide.
Who gets to live in the 56 Leonard PH?
> No claim is made by anyone to the contrary
The comment I replied to stated "fair" resource distribution and I claim it is most definitely not about fairness
Edit: Line break
If you own something, how would it be fair for the government to have any direct say on what you should do with it?
It depends on the kind of property, as there might be very legitimate reasons for the government (representing the people in democratic nations) to have a direct say what you are allowed do with it. You might own a lake or a spring that's important for the population. You might own a factory where government dictates how clean the sewer runoff needs to be. Would that be unfair?
I stated below that it is all about balancing interests, as I view every kind of extremism (that includes free market maximalism) as at least counterproductive, if not outright harmful
Fairer for the supporters of a government that is. Even in a modern democracy a government is really just supported by a small majority ruling over a large minority. That does not mean that democracy has failed but it heavily implies the government power needs to be limited to a minimum in order for a free society to thrive. _That's why_ the lesson learned and applied by "neoliberalism" has always been meddling with economic forces is a sure road to serfdom (to quote the young F.A. Hayek which Thatcher's politics was always inspired by). It's never been about suppressing the poor. To the contrary. (Even Hayek argued in favor of small social security net.)
Can’t see the logic here. Government policies by definition affect everyone regardless of affiliation. Unless you’re implying corruption, which is orthogonal to this discussion.
A government is not a single-celled entity. Parlament, city and state legislatures, etc, are setup so that representation of all parts of society (even the non-supporters) can be achieved.
The error of so-called free market proponents, is that they want the government to set up an unconstrained optimization problem. The market will find some kind of optimum, but without intelligently designed constraints (i.e., regulations), there's no guarantee that optimal profitability should correspond to optimal human well-being.
Next up: Optimization Algorithm ELI5 for the rest
Based on what? Theoretical models are full of assumptions that doesn't hold in practice. Empirical evidence is limited too since free markets don't even exist in the real world. If anything, evidence show that they fail for a wide range of applications where there are inefficient and not fair.
> Any other system requires an uninvolved power, likely a govt, to decide.
Free markets also required a government. They need to be regulated and can't work in a vacuum.
A free market is industry-specific. For it to work, a company in one industry may not influence the market in a different industry, or that market won’t be free anymore.
To prevent this, government involvement is required to ensure fair start conditions for all companies within of the free market
Is automation an industry? Because an automation innovator might be built on the assumption that it can influence another industry.
Can a manufacturer of one thing decide that they have the internal capacity to manufacture something at a lower cost than the existing competitors and then not share that methodology with the existing competitors?
First, I think there's a lot of different angles from which you can challenge that claim. In a truly "free market", things like nepotism, bribery, and inherited wealth still exist (and by definition they'd exist in higher levels than in regulated markets). Does some random millionaire trust fund kid in a free market really create value? Is it fair that Bezos is a billionaire when low-paid workers are the ones actually creating value at Amazon? I would argue that without some restriction, free markets almost guarantee _unfair_ resource allocation. Like without antitrust regulation, for example, it would become a winner-take-all game where a single megacorporation could absorb all competitors and value labour however the hell they want.
That is all besides the point though. I would argue that the "most fair system of resource allocation" is not a desirable outcome at all. If a true meritocracy were possible, swaths of people would just starve to death.
Is it fair when a disabled person starves because they cannot earn money?
I think that there are ways to improve fairness beyond a total free market.
Though I agree that if you push it too hard, you remove incentives that are good.
It's a tough problem and I don't think the optimum is in the extremes.
You seem to have changed the topic to "value creation", which wasn't part of the previous poster's point.
The only question is: do you want to destroy one of the largest incentives for people to create value by removing their ability to pass wealth to their descendants?
And you can't do that with politics. The huge entrenched organization will always have way more political power than your new efficient startup, so without capitalism they will never get replaced. With capitalism it is still hard to replace then, but it is possible since you have the power of capital investors to rely on and not just politics, and that can give you enough leverage to grow your organization until it can compete with the huge old one.
So the lesson is that basing all decisions in society using politics is bad. But also basing all decisions in society based on capital is also bad. You need a mix since they are good for different things.
I really don't think that's true.
Also, free market ideology come from the idea that natural ressources are infinite (JB Say explained that clearly, JS Mill implied it). Later on, other free market economists corrected him (to make Say's law still relevant) and added that even if not infinite, ressources can be substitued easily once one is over-exploited.
2007-2008 put a question mark on the "easily", as the disruption from a conventional oil peak lasted until 2012 in Italy (and probably Greece, Spain and Portugal, the four EU countries that depend the most on oil to make their electricity). This year will put a bigger question mark on how well agricultural ressources substitution work.