# Free Market...No... Wait a minute... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2009, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541 "2009-09-18T03:20:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/61 "2009-09-23T00:27:10Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Everybody I went to school with, EVERYBODY, rose or sank to the level of their skills and drive. Of course they did. Their success, after all, _shows_ they had the skill and drive. (And conversely, their failure shows they lacked one or the other or both.) Right? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/62 "2009-09-23T00:49:18Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Of course they did. Their success, after all, _shows_ they had the skill and drive. (And conversely, their failure shows they lacked one or the other or both.) Right? Yes. Legacy money wasn’t enough to sustain them and poverty wasn’t enough to keep them down. I think people see wealthy kids coming out of wealthy families and think it was money that created the person. Money certainly isn’t a deterent but it’s the home structure that influences success. You can lead a horse to Harvard, but you can’t make it think. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/63 "2009-09-23T01:28:36Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > **smiling bandit** , the argument I’m simply making is capitalism isn’t the end all and be all of economic systems. Several posts ago I said it was usually the lesser of evils. What I’m arguing against are people who insist on it for everything, even when something else works better. First off, capitalism isn’t an economic system. It’s the practice of investing free cash into productive, profit-making enterprises, but it does not create or organize the economy: it is what happens as free-market economics develops. Free-market is an economic system, and it _is_ the end-all be-all of economic system. Nothing else ever seen by man has been shown to be worth a rotten potato, period, end of story. What is usually called “socialism” is not an economic system, either. It is a government system to extract value from wealth creators and redistribute it elsewhere. It has precisely jack-all to do with community firefighting. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/64 "2009-09-23T02:08:00Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Yes. I dunno. Does someone else want to explain to **Magiver** what just happened? ---
**Author:** ![Snag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Snag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snag)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/65 "2009-09-23T05:03:18Z")
There is no free market in the first place. Eliminate all subsidies, period. Eliminate all tax breaks, all tax shelters, eliminate every tax loophole. Period. Eliminate every no-bid contract. Remove all zoning other than strictly residential and strictly industrial. Eliminate every artificial advantage or influence created by government. Let government’s only role be to run strict regulations on all banks, businesses, stock markets etc., and give them strong resources to enforce them. Make it illegal for anything more than a cup of coffee or a soft drink to pass from any lobbyist to any politician with heavy penalties for both if so. Make the playing field as level as humanly possible with no favorites, rich or poor. If you do something illegal in business a lawyer will be appointed to you, no exceptions. No more money as additional ‘free speech’, everyone gets the same amount of speech. THAT would be something closer to a free market. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/66 "2009-09-23T16:57:17Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Ah so you feel they get screwed, or us? No middle ground? With us or against us? Are you against UHC, low income food assistance, etc.? Cause programs like that sure look like middle ground to me. > > Don’t you think a person doing a vital job for our society should expect to be able to provide for themselves and their family? Maybe I think his job is so vital that costs should be kept as low as possible so as many people as possible can enjoy the fruits of his labor? Really these are all emotional appeals that have no basis in logic or reason. Why “should” someone be entitled to anything? How “vital” is any individual laborers job? According to the free market, if his job is so undesirable in terms of salary or crapiness, it would encourage people to aspire to other better jobs. If the job is so vital, the salary would increase if it became difficult to find people to do that job. People are not locked into jobs. They have the ability to compete for other jobs that pay more or are more suited to their interests. And there is the issue of how do we compensate the social worthiness of a job? Clearly one would think that it is better for the economy to have the best and brightest become engineers, inventors and entrepreneurs instead of investment bankers, lawyers and management consultants. But who should decide which industries are “socially desirable” and which ones aren’t? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/67 "2009-09-23T17:37:55Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > And if the best bribe they can get for their work that puts food on your table leaves them struggling to put food on their own, then that’s okay, right? I’m actually pretty certain that neither starvation nor malnutrition is all that common in the US. I’m also not sure where the free market in any way precludes universal health care, like you seem to think it does. Europe actually has a free market. Like I said, I’m really not seeing how you’re intending to argue that the free market is bad when it was what has thankfully brought us to a point where universal health care is a viable option. ---
**Author:** ![Aelita\_Daystar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Aelita\_Daystar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aelita_Daystar)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/68 "2009-09-25T18:39:46Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I’m actually pretty certain that neither starvation nor malnutrition is all that common in the US. I’m also not sure where the free market in any way precludes universal health care, like you seem to think it does. Europe actually has a free market. Like I said, I’m really not seeing how you’re intending to argue that the free market is bad when it was what has thankfully brought us to a point where universal health care is a viable option. Yeah, I don’t think starvation and malnutrition is at all common in the US. The only places I’ve ever heard of it happening was really remote areas in Appalachia. It seems to me that the problem for the poor in the US is they are unable to spend the money to eat foods that aren’t terrible for you and they get fat and unhealthy. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/69 "2009-09-25T21:00:16Z")
> [@](#): > > So…is some people’s “hard work” more valuable than others? Yes. I would have thought that was obvious. If I work as hard as I can as an engineer or a doctor, then my work is much more valuable than someone flipping burgers. > [@](#): > > Who decides this? The market. That is to say, everyone who is looking to buy what you can supply. The market is the way that each of us “votes” on how much everyone else’s labor is worth. I want to buy X. I look around to see who is selling X, and at what price. If the price is too high, I don’t buy, I keep looking. If it is acceptable, I buy. If it is too low, I buy it and resell it at a profit. > [@](#): > > Okay, okay. Add up all of the variables: family, education, native talent, skill-sets, desire, drive and strengths… > > And then PROVE to me that one person’s ‘work’ is **thousands of times** more valuable than someone else’s. I don’t have to prove it. It proves (or disproves) itself, in the long run. If somebody thinks their work is worth whatever they think it is, go and find someone willing to pay that amount. If you can find someone who will pay, then you have proven it. If not, you haven’t. > [@](#): > > You’d think that followers of Christ would be “on board” with loving justice and eqaulity. After all, Christ was the first to say, “There is no male nor female, no Greek nor Jew, no slave nor master… but all are EQUAL in Christ Jesus.” Actually, that was St. Paul, not Jesus. Jesus is the one with some [rather harsh things to say about those who are bad investors.](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2025:14-25:30&version=NASB) 😃 Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/70 "2009-09-26T00:17:47Z")
Hey, you mystical altruistic rotters! If black people really are the equal of white people, how come _their_ ancestors didn’t sail out of the Gulf of Guinea, anchor just off Europe, and enslave _ours?_ Answer me that, willya? Circumstances do matter. Not as often as people who won’t take personal responsibility for _anything_ would have you believe, but more often than Job’s or Ayn Rand’s friends let on. Sometimes. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Before I answer this, let me first note [this graph](http://www.aahz.com/random/Life_Expect_Long.gif). Personal sacrifice as the greatest moral good is an idea that had thousands of years (way before Jesus) to try and actually improve the lot of humanity. Arguing that the free market is bad because it doesn’t guarantee health care (or whatever) is silly given that health care only became something anyone would care about due to the advances of medicine that are thanks to the free market, and our ability to create such a surplus of wealth as to feasibly care about other people–which is again thanks to the free market. No one needs to be bribed to want the secret of long life. Science gave us our increased life expectancy, not the free market–science applied to medicine and agriculture. And the founders of the sciences did it because they were curious–not to make money–and paid the bills by casting horoscopes. Capitalism is easily better than communism, and no way will I stop pointing and laughing at the Chinese _People’s Democracy_ when their Ginni index is higher than ours, but better isn’t the same as perfect. If anyone thinks they can improve matters, go for it. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/71 "2009-09-26T00:29:01Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > Why do I get the urge to read that OP while playing the bongos? While you play the bongos, “Have you ever looked at a pin factory, I mean, REALLY looked at a pin factory?” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/72 "2009-09-26T16:35:09Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > No one needs to be bribed to want the secret of long life. Science gave us our increased life expectancy, not the free market–science applied to medicine and agriculture. And the founders of the sciences did it because they were curious–not to make money–and paid the bills by casting horoscopes. I think you’ll find that in socialist nations, science all-but stops except where the government rounds up scientists and forces them to work at gun-point. The problem is that while people (read nerds) are curious, they generally don’t want to work with others, they don’t want to depend on others, and they don’t want to have to read through arcane manuscripts that others have written. Regardless of how smart a scientist may be, as an individual floating in a vacuum, he’s largely useless. You need to make him be willing to use equipment made by others, read up on the work that others are doing, not just get something to work once but consistently and reliably, and you need to get that product mass produced. There were nerds and geeks throughout history, and yet technology was largely stagnant from the time of the Egyptians until the 1500s, and even then not really until the 1800s. Occasionally you’d get some really fancy clockwork (which would soon disappear). The ability to forge weapons with higher grade metals generally improved. We invented the arch and concrete. And…that was about it. You don’t just need smart and curious people. You need a mechanism to get them to bond together into groups, and to turn their ideas into products. The free market accomplishes that, and that’s why the world finally changed once that system came into place. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541/73 "2009-09-26T18:55:50Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > No one needs to be bribed to want the secret of long life. Science gave us our increased life expectancy, not the free market–science applied to medicine and agriculture. And the founders of the sciences did it because they were curious–not to make money–and paid the bills by casting horoscopes. Science only exists because the free market encourages thousands of people to take jobs as scientists or to work jobs that support the scientists’ research. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-market-no-wait-a-minute/510541.md?page=3)