Hacker News Reader

Comment by startingup | Hacker News Reader

Government and market are both human institutions. Market is really a convenient shorthand for "distributed, decentralized, uncoordinated economic transactions between consenting parties with an interest in the outcome", while government is shorthand for "centralized decision making made by disinterested economic actors". Please note that "disinterested" is a value-neutral term - it implies that the decision makers don't personally & directly benefit from the outcome.

Once you have the definitions right, you can see the benefits and pitfalls for both approaches. If you believe in maximizing human freedom, it is very clear that leaving people free to transact as they wish is the best path for all but those rare edge cases.

View on HN

> government is shorthand for "centralized decision making made by disinterested economic actors". Please note that "disinterested" is a value-neutral term - it implies that the decision makers don't personally & directly benefit from the outcome.

Govt decision making is not done by disinterested actors. The interests may not be immediate or the benefits may be indirect, but they exist.

Agreed, the edge cases being the things that people absolute require: the essentials.

Why do you think that a govt decison maker is more likely to decide on the right mix of corn vs wheat (and where) than folks who directly benefit from making the right decision?

To ask this is missing the point; essentials are not about efficiency, they are about consistency. As I have said before, the article addresses this point. Did you read it?

"The problem is that, while this system is undeniably more efficient, it’s also much more fragile."

By what definition? And, by the way, why?

Because essentials always need to be available to people, even at the cost of efficiency. The article addresses why essentials are a special case.

"If the just-in-time system for producing cars runs into a hitch and the supply of cars shrinks for a while, people can easily adapt. When the same happens with food, people go hungry or even starve."

So "essentials" -- which, of course, are defined as things that are essential -- must be controlled by the horribly inefficient and incompetent government, instead of being provided by people with a vested interest in their provision. And this is true, because essentials "always need to be available". Yours is an argumentative wheel of Swiss cheese: completely circular, yet full of holes.

"If something goes bad with food, people could starve"

I was not aware of that fact. But in which way exactly does it call for government-controlled agriculture?

It doesn't call for government-controlled agriculture, and neither do I.

Regulation is far different than control.

Regulation is a form of control.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com