6 lies you have to believe about a free market

in #politics5 years ago (edited)
  1. Everyone is a rational actor:
    The first lie of the free market is that everyone in it is a rational actor, with good information and behaving in good faith. This would mean that every decision is based on the best interest of the party, so that only contracts made where both parties are benefited would exist. But in reality, you often are not rational, which is why cars lose money immediately after being driven off a lot by an owner, even if only for a few kilometers. Irrationally, evidence of ownership makes a thing less valuable than a pristine, never owned, and un-tested good.
    Additionally, no one can have perfect information, especially when information itself has become a commodity. If information itself is a good, you need to have something to trade for the information, based on limited information.
    This leads to 2:

  2. Everyone is on an equal footing:
    The second lie of the free market is that you only enter into contracts upon free will. To be able to avoid contracts that disadvantage you, you must have power equal to that of the person you are making the contract with. When it comes to the necessities of living, the non-wealthy are at an inherent power disadvantage in all contracts. They must make contracts to satisfy these needs before they can turn down contracts due to unfavorable conditions. For example:
    A) I must eat
    B) You have a crap job within walking range of my home
    C) Your crap job is all I can do to legally afford to eat because of restrictions on skills, training, locomotion, location, and schedule
    D) Therefore, I must take your crap job, make other contracts which sacrifice another need, or starve
    Because of being on the down side of the contracts one makes to meet their needs, other contracts are entered with a disadvantage because any failure in your foundational contracts cascades into failures in derivative contracts. For example:
    A) I must eat
    B) I can eat because I work
    C) I lose my job, so I do not work
    D) Therefore I cannot eat
    Oh, crap, I missed it:

  3. Contracts are independent and non-interfering with other contracts:
    If someone cannot eat, they cannot work; If someone cannot work, they cannot afford housing; etc... I don't think I don't need much more explanation for this one, but if I do, leave a message and I'll expand.

  4. Everyone has equal opportunity:
    Story Time!
    I grew up very poor. Like, homeless shelter poor. I grew up without an understanding of how college funding, enrollment, and acceptance worked. My friends and I built up criminal contacts and rep rather than going to school. I dropped out of 9th grade do continue doing so. But when we were arrested for stealing a car with a white friend. We ended up with felonies on our records, while he had a minor crime he could work off with one week of community service, picking up garbage on the side of a road. If not for having a Super English name, I'd have ended up in prison for the rest of my life just like my brothers and childhood friends who weren't so lucky. But as it is, my name when I use it is recognized as being white, and therefore has an inherent trustworthy-ness so that I don't get tossed out of resume piles without a glance. I don't have to prove my claims beyond simple recognition of the facts I state. And I don't even get asked about criminal history. Sometimes it comes up in a background check, but that's more than 10 years ago now, so even then I can usually just put "No" on a resume without any problems. When I walk in a work place, I'm perceived as non-threatening, at least until I've been there for a while and told my boss to fuck off a few times. These are white privileged and give me more capitalistic opportunity than people I grew up with.

  5. Capital and Labor are equivalent:
    This is becoming increasingly false. With machines, robotics, and AI advancements, labor is being replaceable for less capital. I can expand on this too if people want me to in the comments.

  6. Socialism/Communism is the only alternative to capitalism.
    As mentioned in #5, capital is replacing labor. This means that a goal of having the means of production in the hands of the workers will become less and less possible. The worker and the owner will eventually become the same singular entity anyway. The owner will be able to simply state the goal and capital will complete it. I think we will, through point of use manufacturing and communal design pools, autonomous zero cost resource harvesting, and AI run logistics, become a nonconemy, with goods distributed as needed, where needed, and reclaimed after use, no money involved, and the means of production in the hands of the user. Either that or we'll stop advancing and fall to the great filter.

Sort:  

Thank you. It's good to hear encouragement from a like mind.