Free Market Or State Control.
The very nature of capitalism and the free market requires state control.
To begin with, it is a false choice question. There is no general conflict between the free market and government management of socially common services. The proper question is what level of socially common services and market regulations are necessary to maximize our standard of living and over all freedoms.
The free market does not exist without some federal management in the most basics of contract enforcement and the enforcement of property rights. The very nature of capitalism requires state control.
1. Milton Friedman asked, Who makes the decisions? Well, in some cases, the government:
a. The only entity capable of serving and protecting individual liberty, as in defense.
b. The administration of justice.
c. The maintenance and oversight of federal infrastructure: roads, waterways, parks, etc.
yea, that administration of justice covers a lot. It includes property rights and contract enforcement, the backbone of the free market. As such, government is in the business of managing the free market.
Why do you think it is the federal business to maintain infrastructure. By your theory, infrastructure would be the business of the free market. That is who uses it, businesses.
Unless you considering that it is a social program for businesses and individuals, investment into the social common. Well, if we are to have the government in the business of investing in the future, in the social common, the investment in education is just as much a part of it as anything else.
2. But
government in education? Healthcare? Automobile production? And dubious and absurd programs designed to bring about equality? Shouldnt these decisions be left to the individual, or to the free market, in which forces compete to serve the individual, who will be the arbiter of their success?
Well, now that we have clarified that the federal governments business is actually to manage the economy, and that education is part of that, it makes sense that because healthcare is a social common, that is part of their business too.
3. But what about the abuses of the free market?
a. Some will be corrected by the law, and if there is no current law, the citizenry will demand such.
b. Some abuse run afoul of custom
.these will be corrected by censure, withdrawal of custom, or may be criminalized.
c. Alas, some must be endured, as they would be under any system of government, business or administration.
And how correct you are, the citizenry will demand it, like healthcare and education. Like management of the financial system.
And, lacking an understanding of the fundamentals of economics, you miss d) Business, in competition, will often decline to the least common denominator. The tragedy of the commons is an example. Fishing is a specific example where competition will fish the population to extinction. There is also e), that the free market guarantees that not all potential demand will be filled, even if costs are not prohibitive. The reality of micro economics often necessitates that products will be priced above the level of fulling supply the population. This includes food, shelter, and medical care. This is especially true with markets that have economies of scale and barriers to entry. In these markets, monopolies and oligopolies form, intentionally creating a shortage of supply that maximizes revenues.
The reason we have a history of Supreme Court anti-trust cases is because the market fails on monopolies.
4. Now, here is the determining criterion as to which is better: which is better able to correct itself? This is the difference between, as Thomas Sowell would say, the free market (constrained) and the Liberal (unconstrained) view of the world. Either side may be wrong about plans, or about programs. But which system is better able to discard the failed and experiment to find the new.
a. The constrained view is that no human beings, nor any conglomeration of same, are omnipotent, nor omniscient, nor omnibenevolent. We are even incapable of knowing the true nature of the problems we face. This may be called the Tragic View. The values of one generation are seen later as absurd: slavery, phenology, lobotomy, women as property, etc.
This is just meaningless, abstract, diatribe.
5. The answer is the free market. It is not perfect; it is simply better than state control. It is the one that has to respond quickly and effectively to dissatisfaction and to demand.
a. In the free market, if a product or service does not please, it is discontinued. Compare that to government persistence and expansion of programs that proven to have failed decades ago: farm subsidies, aid to Africa, busing, etc.
Your premise failed on that fact that the free market does not exist without the government to manage it.
6. In the free market, every man, woman and child is scheming to find a better way to make a product or service that will make a fortune!
As long as a free market, managed by the government, exists.
7. Hayek points out that there are no solutions, merely tradeoffs. Come up with a way to provide healthcare insurance to all the uninsured
but at the cost of dismantling the healthcare system to the remaining millions? Rationing, shortages, abuse, delay and injustice.
And Hayek is wrong, in that while there are trade off commonly, there are usually optimal solutions and sometimes even
Nor is there any dismantling of the health care system. You have never read the act that was passed and have no direct knowledge of its programs or implementation.
It is rather interesting, addressing the issues at the most specific details of the free market system. It is a lesson in micro economics.
8. All civilizations need and get government. And many of these began as welfare states, dedicated, supposedly, to distributing the abundant good things to all. The results can be seen in the failures of communist states, socialist states, with the resultant costs, rationing, dissolution. We get to choose between liberty- the freedom from the state to pursue happiness- and some imaginary equality which would require a state capable and empowered to function in all facets of life, which means totalitarianism, dictatorship. .
More meaningless diatribe. All healthy and successful economies are mixed economies. The very nature of a military force is a socialist program.
Most, if not all, began as a Monarchy, only then later implementing a couple of different philosophical structures that then were modified. Last I heard, China is still a socialist government and has been kicking our collective asses. So the generality fails on that account. It also fails on the fact that the US economic system is a mixed economic system. It is a conglomeration of both capitalism and socialism.
9. The individual must demand the reduction of state, and state powers to the point necessary to carry out legitimate purposes. We have the instructions, called the Constitution. .
Absolutely not. It depends.
This is what happens when one starts with a overgeneralize philosophical position, then goes about collecting stuff that fits. It is called confermation bias. Economics is not about a philosophical position. Economics is grounded in observaton of what works and doesnt work, under varying conditions. A philosophical position is based on ones brain chemistry and early childhood experiences. It fail to be updated by continuing to adjust with new information. Rather, to goes about with blinders, looking only at that which support is. Its not better then Marxism, just some other overly abstract philosophy that has no basis in reality.
