Do you believe in the free market?

rcoobc

Not as crap as eferyone thinks
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Stick "believe in the free market" (with quotations) in that lovely redcafe google search and you'll get the CE crowd talking about "believing in the free market." Obviously.

Without going into the idiocy of the statement (I believe in cancer, even if I don't like it), does anyone other than 1st year economy students or conservative muppets who dont understand the term, actually "believe in the free market?" Alteratively, does anyone actually believe we live in one?

I can think of a myriad of reasons, situations and occurrences, both real world and not, where a having a free market economy is stupid.



And here is an example to get the debate going.

Jaz said:
Actually I can justify it.

I believe in the free market.

Old Trafford is sold out for every PL game at the price. This means that demand is high enough for even higher prices.
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Everything should be properly regulated. The only debate should be about the regulations.

As far as the example goes, pricing is, rightly, dictated by the company offering the product or service. However, companies do also take into consideration consumer satisfaction and its not in United interest to piss off match goers.
 
Silva said:
Everything should be properly regulated. The only debate should be about the regulations.

As far as the example goes, pricing is, rightly, dictated by the company offering the product or service. However, companies do also take into consideration consumer satisfaction and its not in United interest to piss off match goers.
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And whether it should be statutory regulation or not.
 
I did for years (had an interest in economics from a stupidly young age).

Then I grew up.
 
Of course nobody supports an absolutely free market, with the exception of some crackpot anarchists. When most people use the term, they are referring to it as a political concept, in that they believe in minimal government intervention. I think everyone knows some of what the 'minimal' part of that means when the term free market is used, e.g. some taxation, some employee protection legislation etc - virtually nobody who uses the term does so to exclude these. The lack of clarity lies within further definition of 'minimal intervention'. What Milton Friedman described as minimal government intervention in what he understood by the term free market differs to Cameron and Obama's understanding.

I don't think it's a useless term, as long as it's either in a proper context or followed by a description/definition. If not, it's pretty much just used to state that you are not a supporter of socialism or heavy social democracy, so I guess it's useful in that sense too.
 
I don't mind healthy regulation, as much as it has to be, but am against state ownership of anything that isn't a natural monopoly.
 
Being a free market fundamentalist, of the type which now dominates politics across much of the West (and indeed the wider world) requires an understanding of human nature which suggests that the person in question has, in fact, met very few actual humans. It's been derided as 'autistic economics' for a reason.

Of course, for an awful lot of people it's not about what they actually believe so much as what suits their agenda.

edit: It must always, always be noted that for governments the appearance of a free market is more important than reality, beautifully illustrated by this government's absurd policy with regard to housing.
 
The problem is when people use it to support their argument, which is the only time the term gets bandied about the caf. "I believe in a free market." This is why I support this idea.

It's madness. So I'm going to throw around some negatives.

Do I believe that football should be a free-market? No.

Do I believe that a free market without regulation is a good thing? No.

Do I believe that allowing a company that would otherwise go bust to do so is always a good thing. No.

Do I believe that some companies should be allowed to make a loss continuously. Yes. (With an asterix and then probably a long explanation).

Do we live in a free market? No. Despite the fact that Real Madrid can spend £80 million on Ronaldo, BSkyB can spend 3 Billion on the football, the Glazers can charge each 70,000 fans £1000 pounds a year... Oil is regulated, BSkyB couldnt buy United, banks arent allowed to collapse, Alcohol has a minimum price (does it?) cigarettes are behind the counter and porn is on the top shelf...

and Jaffa Cakes are biscuits for tax purposes.
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Chabon said:
Being a free market fundamentalist, of the type which now dominates politics across much of the West (and indeed the wider world) requires an understanding of human nature which suggests that the person in question has, in fact, met very few actual humans. It's been derided as 'autistic economics' for a reason.

Of course, for an awful lot of people it's not about what they actually believe so much as what suits their agenda.

edit: It must always, always be noted that for governments the appearance of a free market is more important than reality, beautifully illustrated by this government's absurd policy with regard to housing.
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:lol: That made me laugh. Nail on the head.
 
I do not believe in the free market when it comes to vital national industries, health services, education, police, and partially transportation. The Norwegian government has a controlling share in Statoil (petroleum), Telenor (telecommunication), Norsk Hydro (mineral), DNB (bank) and Statkraft (hydroelectric). This has helped keep both inflation and unemployment low for many years.

You can bang on all you want about "the oil fund", but the bigger issue is how it has been managed. It is very easy to squander away natural resources: just look at many Arab nations, the Dutch, partially the British, etc.

Unfortunately it looks likely that we'll have a change in governments in the election later this year, which will likely accelerate the privatization of transportation, health services, schools and kindergartens.
 
But that's all thanks to Ap, not SV (which, if I remember correctly, is your party).
 
I'm suggesting SV would nationalize way too much (and also piss away all of our wealth).

Alternatively I'm just pulling your leg a little bit.

Or both.
 
No. Adam Smith was wrong. If there would have been an uncontrolled market from the state, big companies would have done even worse than what they are doing at the moment.
 
Free market economics assumes “perfect competition,” in other words, no single firm or person is powerful enough to influence prices. Monopolies, oligopolies and cartels, all show us that perfect competition is a myth.
 
Adam Smith was right about a lot of things. Were he alive today I doubt he'd argue for laissez-faire.
 
Saliph said:
I'm suggesting SV would nationalize way too much (and also piss away all of our wealth).

Alternatively I'm just pulling your leg a little bit.

Or both.
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SF might have, SV won't. They're one of the most economically prudent parties around these days, as amusing as that probably sounds to you. I'm not sure I would like to see SV in a complete majority alone, but that pretty much goes for any party as far as I'm concerned.
 
The Labour party are in power in Norway yeah
 
niMic said:
SF might have, SV won't. They're one of the most economically prudent parties around these days, as amusing as that probably sounds to you. I'm not sure I would like to see SV in a complete majority alone, but that pretty much goes for any party as far as I'm concerned.
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I don't wanna start a beef with one of my few allies on this forum. Let's just agree that politicians are patronizing assholes.
 
Saliph said:
Adam Smith was right about a lot of things. Were he alive today I doubt he'd argue for laissez-faire.
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I'm confident that Smith, as a moral philosopher, would find the current state of economics deplorable, the political parties which claim to espouse his name ridiculous, and the think tank which uses his name abhorrent. He's merely one of a great many serious political, economic and philosophical thinkers who have had their work, their ideas and their name co-opted and twisted by the vulgar charlatans which pass for the political class.
 
Ramshock said:
2008 USA, theres your answer
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..and we will take many years to recover from that.

glass steagall must be restored at the least for a start and proper regulation for essential products.

in the US once we get a progressive Supreme Court, we will reverse all the laws that that brought us to ruin and hold the super big companies accountable.
 
Chabon said:
Being a free market fundamentalist, of the type which now dominates politics across much of the West (and indeed the wider world) requires an understanding of human nature which suggests that the person in question has, in fact, met very few actual humans.
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Well put, I couldn't agree more.
 
Chabon said:
I'm confident that Smith, as a moral philosopher, would find the current state of economics deplorable, the political parties which claim to espouse his name ridiculous, and the think tank which uses his name abhorrent. He's merely one of a great many serious political, economic and philosophical thinkers who have had their work, their ideas and their name co-opted and twisted by the vulgar charlatans which pass for the political class.
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Yep, that's pretty much my impression of the man too (though admittedly I haven't actually read any of his works, "Wealth of Nations" and "Moral Sentiments" are still on my reading list).
 
I've read Wealth of Nations. I disagreed with a lot of what he said, but to compare him to todays crowd isn't fair
 
The question of believing or not believing in the free market is a bit of a false choice. Its perfectly acceptable to strike an appropriate balance between open, pro-business markets and the need to protect skilled workers. How that is done is up to each individual country, but as a matter of practice, there's nothing to say it can't be done effectively with the right checks and balances to ensure both sides can thrive.
 
Chabon said:
I'm confident that Smith, as a moral philosopher, would find the current state of economics deplorable, the political parties which claim to espouse his name ridiculous, and the think tank which uses his name abhorrent. He's merely one of a great many serious political, economic and philosophical thinkers who have had their work, their ideas and their name co-opted and twisted by the vulgar charlatans which pass for the political class.
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Of course he would, because the current state of economics is about as much a free market as my mum is the queen of England. Very few politicians actually believe that a free market is good, they just pay lip service and then proceed to regulate and ban whatever their constituents and lobbyists want them to ban.

That being said, I do believe in the free market, but then I'm verging on being one of those 'crackpot anarchists' rednev mentioned.
 
Studied economics and worked in the field. Great in theory not in practice.

Free Market is just soundbites for big business to reduce taxation, regulation, control.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
The only true free markets in society are black markets.
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Racist.


Price should be dictated by what can sustain you, rather than what the market can sustain.

Regulation to me is as fundamentally flawed as a free market in the sense that neither exists in the form required to be of any use.

Economics is a control method not unlike religion.

Both full of shit so I'm going to the i'm drnk thread.
 
DFreshKing said:
Racist.
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:lol:



Price should be dictated by what can sustain you, rather than what the market can sustain.

Regulation to me is as fundamentally flawed as a free market in the sense that neither exists in the form required to be of any use.

Economics is a control method not unlike religion.

Both full of shit so I'm going to the i'm drnk thread.
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Current regulations are heavily weight towards special interests and big business, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't look to fix it, regulation can work and if enforced properly can make society better.
 
Commadus said:
Studied economics and worked in the field. Great in theory not in practice.

Free Market is just soundbites for big business to reduce taxation, regulation, control.
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If something is 'great in theory', from a scientific perspective, that suggests it accurately relates to reality. So if a certain theory does not work 'in practice' then theory is quite clearly not great.

That being said, free markets in my opinion are great theory and great in practice.
 
I was just reading about how shit the UK trains are these days. They said that private enterprise would make them fantastic. When I used to commute to work on BR they almost always ran on time...they weren't clean or anything but the tickets weren't exorbitant and you could get around for a good price.

Government runs some industries quite well and should regulate others to differing degrees. Naked, unrestrained capitalism is fecking awful.
 
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