Can any Ayn Rand conservative point to a country where a purely freemarket exists? Is it Hong Kong!?

Originally posted by Southern Guardian
So to you, the only thing a free market society requires freedom of people to sell things anywhere on public property, with no limitations, and with no taxation? As I also understand, many of those countries don't have the financial will nor capacity to regulate those street sellers.

First off the OP was citing the Heritage index which is about ~economic~ freedom - and then a bunch of people are responding with issues of social mobility and other freedoms. Mixing bags makes an already complex issue more obtuse than it needs to be.

In the Heritage context ALL the countries above the US have plenty of resources to regulate should they choose. Furthermore it's not just the street vendors - it's about every vendor, any business, they have lesser licensing, zoning, taxation, etc. Most important in all those cases is that they provide for more business ~agility~ to get new operations or massive shifts in operations going quickly. It takes much longer in the US to get all the right pencil-pushers engaged and greased to do ~anything~.

So even if you reduced taxes in the US more the agility issue would remain - that's something nobody in DC (or most any State) wants to address.

Originally posted by campanionator
But for SOME reason they focus on markets dominated by the elites... The same elites who are
crying FOR the free market...

The thing is taking back the actual definitions and meanings to those they belong to - the Citizens. This applied to Capitalism as much as it does to Socialism. Just the definition and practice of the terms has been so thoroughly hijacked nobody is really talking about what they think they're talking about anymore.

Originally posted by campanionator
Especially that the "producers" stop trying if they are not rewarded... If that were the case
there would be no such thing as fine art or music, because those people would have no
motivation to try in the first place.

First and foremost people are compelled by passion, not money.

Have you actually read Rand's body of work? I have all sorts of trouble with it but you've pretty much summed up everything in terms of monetary compensation. That wasn't the extent of the system by any means. And, in part, it also depended on the idea that the "safety net" would be created by those who wanted to do it voluntarily. It's only that we've already conquered the core needs of society in the West that you can even make that supposition. If we hand't, there would be far fewer people with the "passion" to do any of that - they'd be far more concerned with the basic necessities.

Originally posted by campanionator
Unfortunately these concepts did not foresee the near necessity of certain basics that have
perpetual demand. Gas, Water, Electricity and Healthcare... The choices we are given are
simply the distributor of the product, while the nature and demand of the product is universal.

The universal nature of a demand has nothing to do with the total use of such a resource or the tradeoffs one can make not to use a resource. You're applying the idea that ALL use of those resources is fixed at essentially the maximal levels and thus competition does not apply. The distributor can make a huge difference if there wasn't so much cabal-like regulation.

That goes back to your other point - it's simply that the terms capitalism and free market have been hijacked and now most people have no idea what they're even talking about. This is the pervasive nature of the Statism that has taken it all over - regardless of the relative "freedom" of it. It's still just varying degrees of central planning. And that SUCKS.

Originally posted by Southern Guardian
Is there any country that we can point to that carries out the concepts of the freemarket effectively? Better yet, is there a well developed country that does not possess public healthcare or education? I just can't seem to find one, we can't seem to come up with real successful examples.

The US still carries out the concepts to effect - just not as effectively as we used to. Almost everybody on that original Heritage list above the US and a few slots below do too. You're letting the GOP blowhards confuse you by mixing up ~everything~ into free ~markets~.. the creation of State or National healthcare or education systems does not, by default, have to be "not freedom" oriented. And that's the fallacy in this whole mess.

The Government, State or Federal (although Constitutionally speaking it ~should~ be State only), can compete in the marketplace too as long as it doesn't unduly use its resources to tip the playing field. Which, today, it does in every area it even "allows" competition.

Running out of chars.. -Mags

Originally posted by milominderbinder
Agreed. Every economic textbook in the world will tell you that "free markets" ONLY function at optimal efficiency when firms are in "perfect competition" or "near-perfect" competition and have no significant material advantages over another firm.

Thus Adam Smith's, dirty little secret is that the only way "capitalism" can work is if things like wealth, land, and intellectual property is all held communally in order to promote as fierce of competition between firms as possible.

...but that's actually hardline Communism isn't it? So much for that idea, huh?

I hate it when I read those butchered accounts of Adam Smith's writings (and it's not a condemnation of you, it's indeed taught without context that way entirely too often).

No significant advantage was not in terms of abolishing property or resource pool - it was in terms of mobility restrictions of such resources. Basically undue regulations or cronyism throwing weight toward one source or another.

Just because people have insisted on practicing things in the context that best serves themselves doesn't mean we should throw it all out. Like many things if you return to the original sources and contexts, associated writings from the period, it's a lot more sound that what's spewed back at us today.

In terms of alternative systems - I don't agree with the necessity in pragmatic terms but I entirely agree that the issues are so beyond "repair" that they have to be torn down first before they can come back. So your suggestion might be a good tactical move to return to strategic trends toward freer markets in the end. Almost the only way to get "fresh eyes" on the old well modelled ideas. So at least there I have some common ground with you. ;-)

-Mags

reply to post by jeanne75018


It is impossible to 'install' a free market. If you install any government then it will be a dictatorship just by default.

Things must develop...evolve...work out in a more natural manner.

Look at nature...without man's influence, it is perfect and it is free. It was not installed. It evolves.