No I don’t. That’s why I never said anything of the sort. Perhaps you should take off your knee-jerking device before reading what I write.
If you deign to read for comprehension before getting snarky with me, you might note that I said that this was a place where government has a role because externalities can present real market failures - precisely for the reasons you mentioned. I also said that in theory government intervention to correct for externalities is NOT contrary to libertarian principle, because no one has a right to impose costs on a third party as part of a market transaction.
Again, never said it. In fact, I went to pains to show areas in which the market can fail. You are apparently incapable of seeing any kind of nuance in an argument.
But to your specific point, the thing about free markets is that I don’t have to trust in the honesty and charity of the people I do business with. I’d much rather rely on their self-interest, and in a system that causes them to work to provide what I want because it’s in their best interest to do so. That doesn’t mean there are no crooks or despicable people - but then, government has its share of crooks and despicable people as well.
As usual, you’ve got the issue backwards. Libertarians like capitalism precisely because there are bad actors in the world. We like the freedom to avoid them, and we like a system that punishes bad actors as part of its intrinsic nature. On the other hand, a government system of unlimited power absolutely requires good people to run it. But bad actors thrive in government. And the monopoly power on force means I can’t get away from them.
Any government system that depends on having the ‘right’ people in power to prevent it from being abused - will be abused. In the capitalist world, people who produce shoddy goods generally vanish as people choose not to do business with them. And the market has evolved many mechanisms to help identify those people and to reward the people who have a history of providing good honest value.
Show me ONE. Just one. That’s all I ask. Nobody thinks the market capitalization of a company represents the total value it has provided to society. Now, annual revenue, maybe. Because that represents the sum total of goods and services that people voluntarily purchased.
But any serious libertarian would want to see how much of that revenue was earned because of lobbying efforts, financial jiggery-pokery, etc. The world is not that simple.
I think the general statement you were looking for is that libertarians believe that people generally get rich in a capitalist country because they are providing value for a lot of people. When two people make a voluntary transaction in a well-functioning market, they only do so when both sides perceive a benefit. That’s how wealth is created. I figure out how to make a product for $10 that you place $20 worth of value in. So I sell it to you for $15, and I make $5 and you make $5. And the economy is $10 richer as a result. If I can ramp up my manufacturing and sell a million of the things, I’ve made myself $5 million. But I did so because I made a million people $5 richer. Everyone wins.
I grant that this is not always the case. Market failures, information asymmetry, yada yada. But it represents the bulk of free economic transactions. No one is getting screwed. People are helping each other get richer. Some people are just better at it or figure out ways to have a longer reach.
Braess’s paradox is an outcome of complexity and general network theory. As a result, it can apply to any network - such as a government bureaucracy. In any event, for the specific example of traffic congestion, this is actually an argument for free markets.
The Nash equilibrium assumes that no one in the network has an incentive to further optimize their routing. But in a market system one of the participants in the network is the owner of the roads, who has an absolute incentive to maximize utilization. The most obvious mechanism for this in a private system would be congestion pricing. That injects an incentive for drivers to balance their optimal route with the optimal cost of taking it, and breaks the Nash equilibrium.
This type of routing problem arises when the roads are free to use (in the sense that a specific use or route does not increase costs to the user). That describes the public road model.
And for you to think that a specific example like this describes ‘much’ of the value in the market just shows how biased you are in seeing what you want to see. Just look around you right now. Look at all the goods sitting in front of you, starting with the computer you’re typing on. The vast majority of them were represented fairly and you purchased them presumably because they made your life better. No one held a gun to your head. Even the things you would have a hard time judging the quality of, such as your home computer or your car, represent very high quality and high value. How can you explain that if you honestly believe the market is dominated by failures or dishonesty?
Where did I imply that “the market is dominated by failures or dishonesty”?