RE: Would free markets solve all our problems?

[dantheman]

I think your question is phrased wrong. The free market simply means "voluntary trade" and an "unfree market" means forbidden trade or forced trade. A criminal impedes the free market just as much as government does. In fact government is nothing more than organized crime that the free market has not yet found a way to stop.

The question you are looking for is whether or not some people must take it upon themselves to harm innocent people for the benefit of others. Does the end justify the means? Is it ok to kill one person so another might live? Is it ok to kill one person so that 20 might live? Does anyone have the right to choose who lives and who dies? Does a group have the right to act in ways a member of the group is not?

The Free market doesn't solve all of our problems, it just the logical result of adopting a consistent moral framework.

There are so many assumptions in your post that must first be challenged:

1. does the nuclear power plant operate carry insurance, participate in a mutual aid society, or do business with others? Are others able and willing to shun the operator and those who do business with him?
2. the free market is nothing more than establishing property rights and trading it. This example assumes water can be collectively owned and that thegovernment sold the rights. The free market wouldn't ever allow the ambiguity to exist.
3. people obviously care about their own well being, buying the cheap stuff conserves resources to be put to use in a more productive manner. This argument is a case for "charity" over "growth", ultimately more people benefit from growing economy made possible by high productivity. Over paying because of "conscience" is just malinvestment and ultimately shrinks the pie and makes everyone poorer.
4. people are only entitled to the value they can produce, no one is entitled to enslave a teacher. Someone born to a poor family is able to learn everything they need to succeed for free. Learning is done by the student, not pushed from the teacher. All you need is time and motivation.
5. companies compete against each other for labor, anyone who actually runs a company knows that employees are subject to supply and demand just like jobs are. This is just another way of stating #3.
6. this is just another way of stating 5 and 3. In this case what is being sold is surplus meet rather than surplus labor.

In effect most of your arguments boil down to a personal disagreement with the free market established prices. In some cases the distortion in prices is being caused by the governments and going to a free market would help, in other cases adding government to 'fix' the problem would create many other problems which you have failed to account for. It all amounts to price fixing which causes shortages and gluts in the market. This in turn results in economic inefficiency and makes everyone poorer.

Comments

[pharesim]

I read through a lot of Wikipedia articles tonight, and basically found what I was searching for:

Rothbard says,

It is not enough to call simply for defense of "the rights of private property"; there must be an adequate theory of justice in property rights, else any property that some State once decreed to be "private" must now be defended by libertarians, no matter how unjust the procedure or how mischievous its consequences.[26]

Rothbard says in "Justice and Property Right" that "any identifiable owner (the original victim of theft or his heir) must be accorded his property." In the case of slavery, Rothbard says that in many cases "the old plantations and the heirs and descendants of the former slaves can be identified, and the reparations can become highly specific indeed." He believes slaves rightfully own any land they were forced to work on under the "homestead principle".

He also justifies violence in taking it from the current owners.

So: free markets yes, but not based on what we have right now. And that's something we can definitely agree on. The details of how long someone can claim ownership after abandoning the property, how to handle collective work and where it starts and ends, and what those that can't and/or don't want to work should be getting to be able to live without being driven into crime are minor issues compared to "how do we get out of the shit we're in". And none of us has a solution. Violence has proven to not be an option since the theories were crafted.
I also feel like a lot of self-claimed anarcho-capitalists/libertarians don't know a lot about the theories they claim to support, and mainly want to be left alone by everyone while trying to reach the top of the food chain.

[pharesim]

Thanks for that. Well thought out arguments, and in the first few moments I felt like I would agree partially. Just wanted to address some of your assumptions, and nearly ended up with a godwin. I must have understood some things really wrong.

1. Okay, that's what I expected. They either take care of it themselves (what they don't), or may get punished after the shit is in the drain. Not very different from today, but a functional government following its duties to the people would care.
2. Water was one out of so many examples. All the unsustainable copper, coal and whatever else mining, the rainforests which are still disappearing, would it be prevented because the land doesn't belong to anyone, or to individuals? What's the legitimation to own rainforests as an individual if so? Planting a flag, building a fence? How do we fix the fact that nearly all big (land-)owners got their property through theft? Wasn't all of America stolen from the indigenous population, or did they forget to raise their flag?
3. Each growth comes to an end. Respecting the living circumstances of other living creatures may be seen as charity, treating nature and resources sustainable is the only way to keep our society at least near the current state for the next generations. To deny that, you have to ignore a lot of scientific research in all fields, while concentrating a certain economic model.
4. I'd call that economical-darwinistic. You ignore that the base for all education is laid at a very low age. We both may have been lucky, and our parents gave us the tools to educate ourselves. Most people didn't get those and learn a lot better with instructions. Others don't even have parents. Or can't hear or see.
5. There's a lot more demand than supply for jobs. And the future won't change that. Efficiency of production is going to increase, and less and less workforce will be required.
6. Yeah. Companies compete. Billion dollar companies with efficiency over everything, against small local farmers who know the names of their lifestock. There's no other job for them, no way to get out of their place and start another life. Well, there's the darwinism again...

This makes me sad.

[pharesim]

I just had to think about this glorious piece, and the sadness is gone :D