Oddbean new post about login | logout Ok, but that includes knowledge of history and what is or is not harmful. Shouldn't we be avoiding what is harmful even if the market says it's the most efficient way of doing something? That's the trouble I have with pure free market systems. They ignore history too much.
Can you give me an example of something that is harmful and efficient?
Oh, let's just go with the top stories in the news. Guns. Shooting in Georgia by a 14 year old, shootings along I-5 in Seattle, Shootings every day somewhere in the country. Free market solution is ... what, let anyone buy anything?
So everyone is punished for a bad actor? This is harmful, yet inefficient. It doesn’t create wealth. A right is a covenant that makes you responsible to everyone. Each of us has a right to life. To maintain mine I must maintain yours. Therefore, yes, buy a gun in the service of life. Ethical people, people without mental instability, don’t do things like this. What is the root cause? I don’t know, but my guess is the food and drug industry have become corrupted by greed. Name one drug that actually cures something and does not cause a secondary harm. Even antibiotics do damage to you. Name a processed food that is actually nourishing. What inspires the greed? Money, that by its nature, loses value. Companies must, through intended and unintended fraud, seek to beat the constant devaluation of the measuring stick that is money. Then there are the collectivists. If you haven’t read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, I highly recommend you do.
Yes, we should and do avoid what is harmful, and yes people are hurt in a free market system, but it only because some actors are not ethical(greed’s influence causes people to take short cuts for greater gain than they deserve), or the injured has made a decision that is inefficient(i.e. ignoring or mis-estimating due diligence). The free market is always heading in the direction of efficiency. Every creature on the planet wants the most gain for the least amount of effort, and that is regulated by risk taking depending on the situation.