thomas_long13 Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/free-market-economics-critique_b_1155820.html
J. D. Stembal Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 Crony capitalism is not the free market, so adequate definitions are lacking in this attempt at an argument. The author resorts to ad hominem several times. No rebuttal is required. I am amused at how he considers Theodore Roosevelt a "different kind" of Republican (read: good Republican). 1
Songbirdo Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 Nobody likes losing market share to competition, of course. But it's like someone saying "I don't want to work out." Or "I only want to eat what tastes good." Or better yet, "I want to make a lot of money without having to work (hard?) for it!" Of course you do! But you need that exercise and the green stuffs to be healthy, and you should have to earn your living..Businesses need to be able to rise and eventually fall, but unfortunately that isn't happening as fluidly as it should. A company today has two options to keep in business: stay competitive (cut costs, advertise, improve product/service, etc) OR run to the government for subsidies or regulations to keep competitors out. The larger companies are more able to lobby the government, and so they stay in business long after they should be without forced taxpayer support. GM comes to mind...In a truly free market, staying competitive is the only thing that keeps you in business. It's why the small guy can undercut like mad the big guy who's stagnant and eventually win - he doesn't have the overhead the big company does. He has less to lose and a lot more to gain.This sums it up, though: "Anyone who tells you they believe in free markets is either lying, stupid, or hasn't thought the whole concept through properly" and then he immediately starts talking about how the government is protecting us.So my rebuttal? This is not a free market, so critiquing it like it were is an example of one is him admitting that he is the "haven't thought the whole concept through properly" type of people. There's a gun in the room that he is simply blind to. 1
AynRand Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 The author makes a series of economic fallacies, and misunderstands what basic free market capitalism is. I use and I think most libertarians use trade without violence as the definition of free market capitalism. My irony sensor went off whenever the author went off on how horrible monopolies are and the claimed we need government to save us. Well government's are a monopoly on the use of legitimized force.
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