Is Free Market Good for Public? |
Is Free Market Good for Public? |
I have to say that this is a ridiculous idea considering unfairness in our society.
It is a proven fact that most rich people are rich for the simple reason that they were born into a rich family, while most poor people will remain poor throughout their lives simply because they were born into a poor family. Imagine the world where education, healthcare, public safety, criminal justice, national security and immigration are all up for sale(although it’s already happening in some countries...). This makes our level of inequality worse than ever because the more money can buy, the more affluence matters.
What we need to do is not to discuss about the extreme logic between libertarianism and conservatism, but to decide what money should and should NOT be able to buy.
Seems to me that free market believer doesn't realize that there IS a regulation that they value because they take its legitimacy for granted. For example, there are many things that we are not allowed to trade. Human slaves, human organs, electoral votes, government job and legal decisions, university places or uncertified medicines although they were legal before.
On top of drawing the boundary of the market, government needs to design the rule to prevent corporations from behaving unethically. History tells us that corporation behave unethically without interference of the government. Actually, we have been fighting for that. Thanks to our ancestors, in a labor market, it is not allowed to have a child labor, and a minimum wage is protected by the government.
People who believe in free market merely oversimplify things to make it easy to understand for them. What we truly need is a market with well-designed rules.
Who do you think should have the power to decide that?? And why should someone not be able to buy something with money? This sounds like a great way to produce more black markets, and the spending of tax dollars to police it. Not ideal.
If you want to truly hear the other side, you can expose your opinion as well as separate the issue at hand, being more inviting.
Also the question itself lacks specificity. Is saying "No" meaning that you need to have a centralized market a.k.a. communism? Because if you are asking "Is communism the best for the public" you will get a very different answers.
Be that as it may, I will still try to answer some points you raise here:
> It is a proven fact that most rich people are rich for the simple reason that they were born into a rich family, while most poor people will remain poor throughout their lives simply because they were born into a poor family
This is a given, but its not necessarily bad. In communism, everyone is born poor! We all agree that we want the best for our own children, and thats precisely what happens when you give your kid a house, a college education, etc. That some are better taken care than others is not a drain on society in anyway, its actually great.
> Imagine the world where education, healthcare, public safety, criminal justice, national security and immigration are all up for sale(although it’s already happening in some countries...). This makes our level of inequality worse than ever because the more money can buy, the more affluence matters.
All the things you say are always better for people with money than for people without. Literally every single one. But that doesn't mean it makes inequality worse, it can actually be making it less. A rich man that needs a security guard incurs an expense that goes to someone that wouldn't have that job otherwise. Or pays for a doctor that will devise a treatment that will be useful for other patients as well, etc.
Regarding the insistent of inequality, i'd give you this thought exercise: do you prefer everyone had 2 apples, or everyone had 3 apples and one person had 1 million apples?
> What we need to do is not to discuss about the extreme logic between libertarianism and conservatism, but to decide what money should and should NOT be able to buy.
That's your opinion. I personally do not trust governments with my money, so i don't like them deciding what to do or not to do with my own labor. At least, libertarianism is not forcing you to do anything.
> Seems to me that free market believer doesn't realize that there IS a regulation that they value because they take its legitimacy for granted. For example, there are many things that we are not allowed to trade. Human slaves, human organs, electoral votes, government job and legal decisions, university places or uncertified medicines although they were legal before.
Oh boy. Free markets is about the liberty of exchange between a buyer and a seller, not the absence of law. Libertarianism is be very well against slavery. Human organs is kind of interesting, and votes also (i personally think votes should be able to be bought/sold, and can only imagine we think ill of that because of things from the past). But overall, the free markets is precisely about the rule of law and the absence of violence and coercion.
> On top of drawing the boundary of the market, government needs to design the rule to prevent corporations from behaving unethically. History tells us that corporation behave unethically without interference of the government. Actually, we have been fighting for that. Thanks to our ancestors, in a labor market, it is not allowed to have a child labor, and a minimum wage is protected by the government.
I once read about the case of street car companies complaining against segregation law, because it was just not good business. Jim crow's laws were designed by government, against the interests of corporations!
As I mentioned in the before post, libertarianism and free market ideologues generally agree on the need of laws.
Labor laws is a can of worms for a discussion at this level, it can take a long time to discuss: its been argued many times that minimum wage harms the poorest, and i can assure you there are definite externalities to unions and syndicates.
I didn't get the sense he wanted to hear the other side at all, just express his point of view.
By posting in a public forum of course it implies there will be responses but what I got from how you opened your response is an attempt to gain the moral high ground by chastising the above poster before making any points of your own.
And then you go with: In communism, everyone is born poor!
Out of curiosity: Is an average kid born in Cuba poor compared to an average kid in US or Europe? I understand that living without internet access to us, is like living without oxygen, but I've heard that the happiness index in Cuba is pretty compared to US/EU. Their healthcare system for example, seems to be orders of magnitudes better than the US or the NHS (UK).
ps. I'm taking Cuba and not former USSR countries on purpose. I believe that Cuba had a more successful version of communism.
Communism does not entail centralised markets, or even markets at all. The lower stages might have one or the other or both. There are also things like market Socialism and mutualism, which both fit into the Communist idea.
>In communism, everyone is born poor!
Saying this is missing a much bigger point, the point that in Communism wealth is irrelevant; the fact that you're saying this shows that you're thinking of Communism within the capitalist model, precisely the one which creates the "rich" and "poor" dichotomy. You must free yourself from this thinking if you are to talk about material conditions under Communism.
>A rich man that needs a security guard incurs an expense that goes to someone that wouldn't have that job otherwise.
So then people need to live off the whims and desires of rich people? If rich people stop liking something, then you're supposed to accept that and starve? I would quicker violate the NAP.
>do you prefer everyone had 2 apples, or everyone had 3 apples and one person had 1 million apples?
This is a false analogy, those million apples have to come from somewhere, and the fact is that they are products of labour. If that one person did indeed grow and cultivate those apples, then that's his personal property to do as he wishes with it. But really, those people who have 3 apples worked for them, and through structural threat of starvation or otherwise, had to hand them over to the feudal lord^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H rich man.
>I personally do not trust governments with my money, so i don't like them deciding what to do or not to do with my own labor.
Why should a worker trust the capitalist with his means of sustenance, literally everything he has? You don't trust the government with money (I don't either), and I don't trust the capitalist with my wage.
>At least, libertarianism is not forcing you to do anything.
Currently due to the free market, many people are forced by extreme pressures, in other parts worse than others, to do things. They must sell their labour power to a capitalist in order to live. Whether it's one capitalist or another is irrelevant, they have to do it. The apt example here is sweatshop workers. That's force, and you've given me no reason to believe it would disappear under propertarianism.
>Libertarianism is be very well against slavery.
As Engels wrote, "The only difference as compared with the old, outspoken slavery is this, that the worker of today seems to be free because he is not sold once for all, but piecemeal by the day, the week, the year, and because no one owner sells him to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this way instead, being the slave of no particular person, but of the whole property-holding class."
>i personally think votes should be able to be bought/sold, and can only imagine we think ill of that because of things from the past
We'll think ill of a time when it wasn't just rich people who had their way, deciding how the others live? I don't think I'll think ill of that at all.
>But overall, the free markets is precisely about the rule of law and the absence of violence and coercion.
Absence of coercion? What about being coerced to sell your labour-power for wage, at threat of starvation?
>there are definite externalities to unions and syndicates.
What are these externalities? What's wrong with workers banding together and engaging in collective bargaining for their rights? I'm not arguing for a minimum wage, by the way, I'm arguing for the abolition of wages.
So, in my view, your question the following: is there a time when two or more parties wish to voluntarily exchange goods or services, but given the circumstances of the exchange, government has a duty to forcibly intervene, thereby preventing the exchange?
Many are tempted to point to fraud, pollution, or other unjust conduct as evidence that the free market does not work. However, each of the examples that one could give would involve an exchange where one or more parties did not voluntarily engage in that exchange, and therefore, the injured party would have a right to seek damages from the offending party. In a free market, I am no more justified in destroying your garden or selling you snake oil as a cure for cancer than I am in any other market system.
Therefore, I maintain that there exists no exchange that warrants government intervention given that all parties involved engage in the exchange voluntarily. We should conclude that the free market is good for the public and that it is the only market system that equally and evenly respects the rights and autonomy of all members of society. To that point, I conjecture that it is immoral to forcibly intervene in such an exchange since doing so would obstruct the autonomy of two or more moral agents, which I believe to be supported by Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative.
A lot of people, especially in the U.S., seem to have trouble understanding that a regulated free market is in fact not an oxymoron. Others have trouble with the notion that a regulated market is not the same as a command economy.
An unregulated market suffers from externalities; power and information imbalances; prisoner's dilemmas; tragedies of the commons; and other failures that are detrimental to the public.
These failures are more common in, and cause more problems in some sectors than others. For instance, a free market doesn't do a great job of distributing health care, and externalities distort an unregulated market for energy; but market forces seem to do a pretty decent job when it comes to production and distribution of clothing.
Moreover, a free market can over time result in socioeconomic inequality that in the long run erodes its own consumer base.
So yes, for most (but not all) goods, a free market is better for the public than a command economy. But a free market requires regulation and taxation in order to remain robust and continue to be beneficial to the entirety of the population it serves rather than just those at the top.
How can you say that policies regarding a huge complex system like the economy are "good" or "bad". Some situations are favored some are harmed. Even comparisons between policies are suspect.
There is no way to rationally sum up the net effect. Those who try are expressing a political preference couched in terms of pseudo-economics.
A thoughtfully administrated mixed economy offers some hope of dealing with these issues. There are no magic bullets.
Not saying I'd advocate that scenario.
For all the comparisons of Cuba and other capitalist countries i will make one argument that encompasses all the other: "See how people vote with their feet". How many people move TO cuba and how many people move out OF cuba.
That should be enough to measure the relative expectation and standard of living of Cuba and the US.
Well, thats why i wrote a question asking the OP to clarify what "No" means in this context.
> Saying this is missing a much bigger point, the point that in Communism wealth is irrelevant; the fact that you're saying this shows that you're thinking of Communism within the capitalist model, precisely the one which creates the "rich" and "poor" dichotomy. You must free yourself from this thinking if you are to talk about material conditions under Communism.
There is always a rich and poor, even within communist countries. Do you think the Fidels, Kim Jong Ill's, Chavez(if applicable) are poor? That they do not live in luxury? That they do not purchase goods from capitalist countries? If there is one thing common to all communist countries is trade restrictions and contraband, that ends up not being applied to the ruling class.
When we get to a Star-trek level of productivity, maybe central planning will be great, but for our lifetimes we are going to have differences in the value of labor of people, which makes it impossible eliminate the "rich and poor" dichotomy, even if you solved wealth accumulation perfectly.
> This is a false analogy, those million apples have to come from somewhere, and the fact is that they are products of labour. If that one person did indeed grow and cultivate those apples, then that's his personal property to do as he wishes with it. But really, those people who have 3 apples worked for them, and through structural threat of starvation or otherwise, had to hand them over to the feudal lord^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H rich man.
You are avoiding the thought experiment, saying its impossible to get that result without foul play. The original question is simple and clear, and the way you stand on one side or the other , i suspect, shows a fundamental difference in ideology or basic moral foundations.
In a behavioral economics study, it was shown that given the choise of having a 10% increase in salary, and everyone else getting 20% increase is disfavored to having a 10% decrease, and everyone el se having a 20% decrease. People are very willing to sacrifice something as long as it benefits them in their economical standing.
I personally prefer having 3 apples and 1 guy having 1 million apples. But i understand there are social consequences to that setup thats inherently unstable.
> Why should a worker trust the capitalist with his means of sustenance, literally everything he has? You don't trust the government with money (I don't either), and I don't trust the capitalist with my wage
First, the worker can choose from a wide range of capitalists, but he can rarely choose the government. But also, the capitalist and the worker have closer intersts than the worker and the government in a free market. The State's main goal might be welfare, but the governments main goal is power. The governmet will always choose to screw over any group if it benefits itself. At least, the capitalist only wants a larger share of your income, which you can fight by letting other capitalists compete. Who can compete with the government?
There is no question that a worker is in a weaker position than a capitalist, but he is also in a weaker position vs a government.
> The only difference as compared with the old, outspoken slavery is this, that the worker of today seems to be free because he is not sold once for all, but piecemeal by the day, the week, the year, and because no one owner sells him to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this way instead, being the slave of no particular person, but of the whole property-holding class.
Surely ,communist countries show a higher level of freedom of its citizens, economically, socially, etc. more often than not in this regard, the cure is worse than the disease.
> Absence of coercion? What about being coerced to sell your labour-power for wage, at threat of starvation?
Who is applying that force of coercion? Your parents that gave you life?
This is a terrible argument, because it tries to pin the responsibility of feeding people to the people that have the means to do it. You are not responsible for feeding starving kids, though im very sure you can afford to feed many yourself. If you felt responsible for it, you would go to great lengths of personal sacrifice to minimize that tragedy.You dont, but you make an arguemnt implying that some people are responsible for it.
> What are these externalities? What's wrong with workers banding together and engaging in collective bargaining for their rights? I'm not arguing for a minimum wage, by the way, I'm arguing for the abolition of wages.
I think the possibility of unions forming is great, because it does work like something that checks the power of the employer. But unions also are monopolies. They monopolize labor, the way we always scorn capitalisms from attempting to be a monopoly. Monopolized labor works against the interests of the public, which includes workers and more importantly, consumers.
Im from argentina, where unions have a special constitutional level protection. In the past 25 years, every single year we've had strikes of public teachers, there has never been consensus with the government, even though public school teachers make top 30% income. Most industries that are strongly unionized show basically no growth in a long time, and the one that shows growth (auto-industry) requires extreme trade restrictions. Argentina can only buy cars from Brasil, which also have tariffs. So trade restrictions, meager growth, service interruptions, etc. Whether they are worth the value to the public is a long time debate in economics, but it definitely has externalities.