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Comment by philosopher1234 | Hacker News Reader

Lol, how is this not a free market? Apple subsidizes dozens of organizations internally to advance its strategic interests, what’s the difference?

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Corporate internal markets are well-known as non-free, and when a sufficiently large company is picking and choosing winners in a national economy that's also not a free market.

I think this concept is an exercise in fantasy. There’s simply no such thing as a free market. Why we single out subsidy as non free is arbitrary. What activities constitute legitimate free market behavior? There’s no actual logically sound distinction. The real distinction is “what we do is free market and what our opponents do is not”

> There’s simply no such thing as a free market. Why we single out subsidy as non free is arbitrary. What activities constitute legitimate free market behavior? There’s no actual logically sound distinction.

Sounds like a nirvana fallacy. Yes, nowhere has a perfectly free market, just as nowhere has a perfectly corruptionless justice system and railroad tracks are never perfectly parallel. But there are definitely markets that are less free than others and actions that distort markets further, and it's right to call those out.

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to spot the difference between Apple and the Chinese government.

I’m not hearing an argument, and I won’t be thinking one up for you. Seems like only a difference of degree to me.

I'm not here to debate whether free markets are good or bad, but governments have a privileged position versus private companies, and effectively operate above the law (again at least compared to private companies). Any government intervention takes us away from a free market, either a little bit or a lot, depending on the action. Apple is a private company. Anything it does is really part of the free market, at least in the original meaning of that as described by Adam Smith and co.

> governments have a privileged position versus private companies, and effectively operate above the law

A lot of private companies effectively operate above the law too! In theory the law can be enforced on them. In practice it often isn't.

We’re talking about China subsidizing goods that it sells in another country. This is bread and butter “free market” behavior. Literally every company in the world does this one way or another.

No, that is not the free market at work at all. I agree it happens however. We simply don't live in a 100% free market world.

I bet you can’t name a single company that doesn’t perform some critical function at a loss.

“subsidising” and “free market” are antonyms we learn in 3rd grade language arts class :)

How about “loss leader”? Ever use napkins at a diner? Buy Costco chicken? I think you are repeating things you were taught but they aren’t true

I guess I have heard it all, the Government is providing napkins at diners and buying up Costco chicken, missed that one in the budget

My friend, what is so special about the government? If a company uses its massive profits in one area to crus competition by selling at a loss in another area, this is the free market, and when a government does it it is something else? I think you have not thought this through

Private companies do things to maximize profits. They might lose money on some stuff to make more on other things, and there might be some gunk in the system but they are almost all laser focused on making bigger profits.

Governments have lots of other incentives (like job creation, elections, income distribution)

Why don't we abolish any business altogether and just have government run everything? There are countries where this is normal, perhaps not "free market" countries like maybe us? :)

OK, let me help a bit more.

A government has a monopoly on violence. A government has a monopoly on money printing and taxation. A government has a monopoly on the legislation. A government has far more human and financial resources than any other economic actor within its borders.

If a company goes out of business, people lose their jobs. If a government goes out of business, people lose their lives.

It is not a difference in degree, it is a difference in kind. There is a reason that economist distinguish between private firms and government.

Well, Apple and Chinese government are one and the same when it comes to spending billions to further their agenda, that’s why that wasn’t a good example.

Yes, they do favor their own companies and provide subsidies etc. that’s not the problem though, the problem is that they’re undercutting other companies by selling below cost thanks to those subsidies. Otherwise, we would have to call our farming subsidies the same.

I was originally trying to point out that it has always been important to keep your vital industries secure, it was very stupid of Intel and others to transfer so much technology abroad (to anyone) just to increase their margins, I think ASML did the best: You can purchase our machine, but that’s pretty much it.

The amount of what-about-ism in this thread is amazing. No, large companies with semi-monopolies using their power to influence government organizations is not part of a free market either. But OP never claimed that it was.

The whole point is that when in some market there is some nation trying to disturb the free market mechanism in its favor, other countries can't just be naïve and stand by doing nothing. They have to counter act and this is what happend in The Netherlands.

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