[ExI] Belief in Free Market Efficiency

[Thomas]

> On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 2:17 AM, Stathis Papaioannou  wrote:
>
>> The article cited is talking about something quite different: the  
>> idea
>> that if markets are left free from government interference that will
>> always be for the better. This has come to be accepted as  
>> indisputable
>> fact by neocons since the early 1980's, with Reagan and Thatcher its
>> most influential proponents. The result has been a 25 year debt
>> bubble, so that the US economy came to consist largely of retail and
>> financial services. The bubble has now well and truly burst and it
>> looks like there is no escaping years of relative poverty for both
>> debtor and creditor nations ahead.
>
> Agreed. My interest is in understanding the world as it actually
> exists and trying to make the best of what is available.
>
> The intellectual constructs of 'free market' enthusiasts seem mostly
> irrelevant as they can never exist where humans interact. One human
> will always have some advantage over another, so their interaction can
> never be truly 'free'. Just because you *can* buy Manhattan from the
> natives very cheaply (in a 'free market') doesn't make it right.
>
> BillK


The neocons were hypocrites who touted "free market" ideology to get  
votes and then
proceeded to interfere deeper into the economy that ever before in  
history.
The "world as it actually exists" includes many escape routes for  
those willing to think
outside the "relative poverty" box.

I think our founding fathers showed that humans can interact and  
trade on a free and equal basis.
Our present "mixed" economy could not exist without some free market  
elements to mix with the
fascism and socialism.  The equality in this context refers to  
impartial justice, not individual differences.
Advantaged people trade on an equal basis in a free market so that  
anyone with anything to offer gets
to benefit from what the advantaged ones trade!  As long as we don't  
mix political advantage with
economic advantage everyone benefits in this win-win game.

If you really want "to make the best of what is available" then I  
challenge you:
to think about what can exist where TRANShumans interact,
to perpetuate progress by seeking the removal of political constraints,
to transform yourself through critical and creative thinking,
to practice optimism in place of stagnant pessimism,
to apply technology to transcend the limits of our culture,
to support an open society preferring exchange over compulsion,
to direct your self (rather than long for regulation),
to think rationally (rather than cynically reject every new idea).

http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm

-- Thomas
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