Any really knowledgeable former free market people here?

[SoIcyGang]

I'm curious if you could detail some free market arguments and why you once agreed, but now disagree with those arguments.

Feel free to tell me about any kind of argument. I know there is a spectrum of free market beliefs.

Basically my problem is, that most anti free market people, always make straw man arguments. But I am always aiming to challenge my beliefs. It's just hard, when people make straw man arguments.

So I have been searching for a smart and knowledgeable person to kind of make an argument themselves, go back and forth a bit, and tell me ultimately why they now disagree with such ideas.

To have my mind changed I just need to encounter a very honest person.

Thank you =D

[WindAtMyBack]

I'm a partial free market type, and have not changed my views substantially for a long time.

I've lived in a barter economy before. In a fairly isolated rural setting, that's about as free market as you can realistically get. It works pretty well locally. People live like that by choice. I think most people would not like it, so it wouldn't be for them.

In a more realistic large economy, I believe in free markets within broad boundaries. To even say you have a free market is in itself a type of boundary. But I'm a hard core capitalist. Capitalism requires competition, so without competition you can't have capitalism. So you must create broad boundaries such as anti-trust laws to ensure that the system doesn't runaway and go in a completely different direction (which is what it's been doing for the last 30 years or so). As long as things stay within the broad boundaries, it's free to operate on it's own.

Last, I'm definitely not a globalist. I don't think a type of economy exists that will function well at a global level.

The ideal economy would be like the first I mentioned. A pure free market economy. But like many idealistic economies it only works at a small scale. That means it won't work for the vast majority of the population who live in cities are are dependent on complex trade. I think the world is way too overpopulated to function in a pure free market economy. The complexity is staggering.

[NaultD]

I'm for a mixed economy. Then the debate becomes what industries are better free and other industries socialized. I should say i do get free healthcare being Alaskan native from private corporations and I've also get insurance from my job. While free healthcare can be a bit of a pain, dealing with insurance companies wanted me to die before paying up.

My hyperbolic example being how shitty it would be to haggle firefighters to save grandma like your buying a new car. Same can be said with every emergency services like lifeguard, coast guards, police, yet we pay out the ass for ambulances.

With medical care we can't shop around and find competition with a head injury. At the same time doctors are too busy courting insurance companys to help people. Then you have the state who can't let people drop dead in the streets tossed in the nearest ditch. That's a healthcare hazard and epidemic in of itself. The state will always be left holding the bag of expenses of healthcare. Why be as inefficient as possible?

Government jobs don't pay well but tend to have better benefits like healthcare insurance. So our government spends 2/3 of all medical costs as it is now going through free market healthcare and is still the most expensive healthcare in the world and least satisfy.

[jshm2]

Sure, but you've not made much of an argument yourself.

First, there is no such thing as a total free market. Just as there is no total democracy. It's why there are models and levels of free markets and democracies.

Regardless, for any market model it must fit into certain laws and legislation - which can vary from country to country and even state to state. Hence the difficulty for there ever to be a total free market. No two countries will have the same laws and legislation.

Organisations like the WTO, EU and others do normalise a lot of this to make a free market, but not without many drawbacks.

Hence it's not a free market but organisations or rules in one that most "anti-free market" people are arguing about.

[Avicenna]

Well, I'm not anti-free market, but I am anti-free trade (there actually is no such thing as free trade) because "free trade" gets abused to the detriment of workers and the environment.

[Shamalien]

It’s tough. Most people go the other way. Nobody really is free market as an adult and then goes against that…

[Guy13]

Wealth of Nations: read it

[SoIcyGang]

But I'm looking for arguments against free market ideas.

I suppose I know that there is a degree to which Adam Smith does advocate for government intervention. Is this what you're talking about in order for me to challenge my free market beliefs?

[Guy13]

All those Nations have died but if you search the poorest Nations at UN, they are anti free market economies.
Even China runs a dictatorship on top of Capitalistic styled economic model.

[In_Trance]

Whatever works