Markets are inevitable: create an arbitrarily oppressive prison and you will watch some “black” market emerge: markets grow like weeds: it’s just silly to argue that we should have markets or not.
But markets are not a-priori useful to the broader society just by being markets! A necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a market to be useful is that it substantially avoids lasting and structural market failures.
Market failures are almost as common and ubiquitous as markets! They vary in duration and consequence.
The ultimate market failure is to have costs which include a profit margin but little or no competition to get the benefits of a market.
Healthcare like other mandatory purchases (you can buy an ambulance ride and six figures of hospital while unconscious!) is especially prone to market failure.
The United States especially (though late neoliberal “capitalism” to some degree generally) and HN/SV/EA especially now go so far as to actively endorse induced market failure as the goal.
If you’re deeply in favor of capitalism as a principle (like I am) then this clique of underendowed aspiring monopolist fascists is your sworn enemy (like it’s mine).
But markets are not a-priori useful to the broader society just by being markets! A necessary (but not sufficient) condition for a market to be useful is that it substantially avoids lasting and structural market failures.
Market failures are almost as common and ubiquitous as markets! They vary in duration and consequence.
The ultimate market failure is to have costs which include a profit margin but little or no competition to get the benefits of a market.
Healthcare like other mandatory purchases (you can buy an ambulance ride and six figures of hospital while unconscious!) is especially prone to market failure.
The United States especially (though late neoliberal “capitalism” to some degree generally) and HN/SV/EA especially now go so far as to actively endorse induced market failure as the goal.
Fuck that. Fuck everyone who is on board with it.
This is your goblin brainchild @pg: renounce it.
https://youtu.be/3Fx5Q8xGU8k?si=0lnuIjUZNHYjYuxg