Communal ownership is not free market, hence the tragedy of the commons is not a failure of the free market.
> ability of a large participant to drop prices to eliminate competition then raise prices,
Has never happened successfully.
> inability of market forces to handle extreme tail risk like major natural disasters.
The free market does very well at rushing supplies into disaster areas. At least until the government put a stop to that with anti-gouging laws. So now, disaster victims have to wait around until the government gets its act together, which takes a lot longer.
Ah yes so in this free-market utopia shall we purchase bottled air from Nestle for our breathing needs?
Shall all aerospace companies pay a toll to the estate of Yuri Gagarin whenever they launch a rocket? He was the first in space so must have the most logical claim to the ownership rights. His estate could then help us avoid Kessler syndrome.
As for space, the orbits are full of dangerous space junk. A classic tragedy of the commons.
I'd be much more concerned with issues like groundwater contamination, seeping gasses, and toxic waste dumping.
Are all not allowed in a free market. A free market does not condone damaging other people or their property.
BTW, US military bases are on some of the most polluted ground because they polluted it.
Can factories actually exist without 'damaging' the air or water runoff to other people's property?
Socialism fails because it relies on altruistic behavior, which is in short supply in humans.
So when accusations of price gouging arise (say in the aftermath of a disaster), you're saying that it's the government interfering while the people in the disaster area area are eager to pay top dollar for suddenly-rare commodities like water or hand sanitizer? If I see regular-seeming people complaining about prices, should I assume they're covert government agents?
Do the higher prices mean some people won't get any water? Yes! But if you artificially suppress prices, there will also be some people who don't get water, because other people will hoard it.
> But if you artificially suppress prices, there will also be some people who don't get water, because other people will hoard it.
Rationing the volume available for purchase by individual customers is the obvious solution, and seems to have worked out just fine in practice during things like the great toilet paper panic of 2020.
I'm asking Walter how he explains the fact of people complaining about high prices in such a context, given his claim that it's government spoiling the price theory party. Why are the opinions of people who are priced out discounted?
If hoarding fetches higher prices, that creates tremendous incentive to increase the supply (and/or find alternatives).
If hoarding is illegal, and gouging is illegal, the result is shortages. Every time, since there is zero incentive to produce more.
Rationing has other problems. It is based on the idea that everyone has the exact same need for the product. Of course, this is absurd. The result is misallocation, as some get more than they need, others get less. If reselling is made illegal (as it usually is in rationing setups), then the person with extra just throws it away, and the person who doesn't get enough has to do without.
How is that better?
Again, I'm still wondering why you cite government as the opponents of free market pricing, when the objections often originate with people who are mad about the idea of paying $75 for a bottle of hand sanitizer: https://www.today.com/news/brothers-who-hoarded-17-700-bottl...
> government as the opponents of free market pricing, when the objections often originate with people who are mad
The government does what the people demand. The people demand the government outlaw gouging, the government outlaws it.
In the long run, high profits during a shortage also mean that suppliers in general will be incentivized to keep a larger stockpile of goods that have a good shelf-life since they know they will be able to make good money the next time there is a shortage (more than the storage costs). (Or the potential for high profits will incentivize spending money to be more flexible in production in case demand increases for a short time.)
If you are going to literally make it illegal to try this, then you better have a government be willing to spend its tax dollars on creating a stockpile - when the pandemic started we saw that all the talk of the national stockpile the federal government supposedly had was greatly exaggerated.
Some Americans*, and far fewer than those that have some of the lowest standards of living in the world. And the US has greater wealth disparity than many other countries with living standards many would argue are at least equal.
Altruism isnt necessary, education is. Education teaches people that the best way to prevent the most harmful acts in society is to make sure peoples needs are met, which capitalism and the free market routinely fails at. This is why US has worse crime than other developed nations even accounting for population, you fail to meet your citizens needs within the system so they do it themselves outside of it.
Communists tried so hard to educate us into the "New Man". For the betterment of all mankind, of course.
Of course, ignoring human nature tuned the whole "experiment" into a huge, predictable failure.
Americans have the highest standard of living in the world. That's why the poor from everywhere are trying to get into the US. Do you watch the news about all those migrants pouring over the border?
Every single point you make completely lacks consistency, truth, and reality. You just regurgitate shit you don't understand.
Mr Bright said:
"Americans have the highest standard of living in the world. That's why the poor from everywhere are trying to get into the US. Do you watch the news about all those migrants pouring over the border"
and you said:
"it just makes Walter's well thought, rational arguments even stronger. reply"
His reply is neither well thought[out], rational or strong whatsoever. His reiteration of Americans having the highest global standard of living does NOTHING to address any of the issues I raised with this statement in my previous comment, he literally just repeat his assertion.
Which is also untrue, SOME Americans have the highest living standards, many many many times more do NOT.
You will see neither my comment never mentions crime whatsoever. Mr Bright inserts the topic of crime, drug addiction, criminal enforcement and theft as though criminals and addicts are the only Americans who live in poverty and the only metric for establishing living standards is crime. This is clearly illogical and irrational.
Many of the people suffering at the hands of US capitalism simply got cancer, were in a car accident, were born with disability, got hurt at work, too old to work but no retirement fund, etc.
Frankly, I dont care about "helping my position" or if the language I use upsets you! Anyone with the faintest whiff of logical integrity can clearly see that Walther Not-So Bright is espousing bullshit that he believes, not that has any rational basis.
You're right next to him at the bottom of the intellectual barrel.
Thank you! I feel quite honored to be considered next to Walter Bright.
Likely because you know you're wrong and dumb.
> Has never happened successfully.
I thought ISPs were notorious for temporarily dropping prices whenever a competitor tries to build out? Or at least I keep hearing anecdotes from people who think they've watched it happen.
But this assumes that there are good choices, and that there are bad choices. Reality, unfortunately, is often not so kind, and instead leaves us to choose only between bad choices and horrible ones. And so emphasizing the flaws of one choice, says very little about the desirability of an alternative.
In some ways I think game theory is most appropriate for chaotic systems. The goal is not to pick the system that works the best, under some ideal set of criteria, but the one that works the least-worst under the most hostile set of criteria.
Allowing market participants to discharge toxins into the local water supply is not in society's interests but is quite possible in a purely free-market system.
There's now a good amount of evidence that a hybrid system: mostly free-market, with some regulation, and some kind of social safety net is the least-bad choice.
A pure free market system would not allow people to pollute other peoples' property.
Edit: moreover how is "the free market" going to defend the property rights of others in these cases? I assume via civil litigation. But what if my victims can't afford prolonged litigation or I decide that the potential cost of a settlement is less than the cost of disposing of pollutants properly?
You're polluting other peoples' property.
> how is "the free market" going to defend the property rights of others in these cases?
That's the proper role of government.
> But what if my victims can't afford prolonged litigation or I decide that the potential cost of a settlement is less than the cost of disposing of pollutants properly?
Such issues are true of any economic system I can think of.
That has to do with diffusion of responsibility for communal property. What does that have to do with markets.
> ability of a large participant to drop prices to eliminate competition then raise prices
I think the market has ways to adapt to such behavior. Regulatory capture in a non-free market seems like a much more likely, and more persistent, risk.
> inability of market forces to handle extreme tail risk like major natural disasters.
I just don't think that's supported by the evidence.
You can start any business you like. People do it all the time.
There is a massive list of things one cannot start a business doing in the US. Why would you say such nonsense?