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Top comments that mention products on r/LibertarianDebates:

u/tocano · 2 pointsr/LibertarianDebates

> The free market is supposed to be...

I smell a strawman, but let's proceed anyway.

> Competition ensues, which leads to a range of prices for goods ensuring that all society can afford them.

Well, 2 sentences in and we're departing from free market analysis and toward normative views. Competition doesn't necessarily lead to "a range of prices" and certainly doesn't ensure "that all society can afford them". It does, generally, place a natural soft-cap on prices, but that says nothing about affordability. There is competition in boats and airplane manufacturers. Does that mean that "all society can afford" boats and planes? Of course not.

> Even if it seems some people are becoming much richer than the rest, this is good because it will eventually lead to them spending more and providing more jobs. In this way wealth ‘trickles down' to the rest of society.

Yep, straw man. This has nothing to do with free market economics.

> free market theory was developed for the small regional economies that existed under feudalism in the European late middle ages. Consequently, it is ill-matched to the current reality of globally integrated corporations and modern marketing techniques.

Old, therefore invalid? This is a form of chronological snobbery (a kind of genetic fallacy). It's the same kind of argument used by people who claim the US Constitution was never designed to handle modern machine guns or the internet, therefore "common sense" controls over guns or on speech are necessary.

> In the made-up world of perfect competition, it is the consumer who rules.

Actual free market theory doesn't assume perfect competition. That is a creation of various neoclassical economists as a theoretical market (with tons of nuance simplified away to reduce complexity) to reflect idealized efficiency. But free market advocates and theorists don't actually ascribe to the concept of perfect competition because it doesn't exist. It's simply an academic construct that has more often been used to justify intervention (a non-perfect market suffers from X or Y failing, thus requiring intervention) than to defend free markets.

> The pretence that we live in a free market system regulated by competition and ruled by the consumer is continued only because it benefits the world's elite.

I absolutely and completely agree with this statement. So why is he attacking free markets if he recognizes we don't actually live in one?

> It suggests that capitalism is “democratic” economically as well as politically. Just as we cast our vote in elections, by buying good “A” instead of good “B”, we are casting our vote in the economy. Since, as the theory goes, the consumer is king, each individual purchase we make contributes to society's collective decisions as to how scarce resources and labour are best utilised.

That's generally accurate.

> competition does the opposite of what the theory claims. ... Once they reach this position, they not only wield power within their sector, they also act together with other dominant monopolies to wield their joint power in all aspects of society.

He recognizes that we don't live in a free market, but then attributes the centralization due to cronyism - govt protection and insulation of established or politically connected firms - to the free market!? These things are not the result of competition, but the lack thereof.

> Through advertising, companies create markets for their products

Well, yes and no. They try to alert consumers of their products and to distinguish their offerings from others. In that sense, yes, they are trying to create markets. However, if this is suggesting - as I've heard some claim - that marketing and advertising somehow coerces helpless people into buying their products, regardless of whether they truly want to or not, then that's a bit of an exaggeration.

> The single aim of companies is to create demand in order to ensure ever-greater profit. The logic of capitalism is that companies must constantly reinvest profits or go under. Companies cannot stand still.

I will agree with this with one caveat. The goal is profit, yes. However, inflation is a large part of the driver for "ever-greater profit".

> Companies must constantly create new markets for new goods and services, whether it is the latest generation internet superhighway technology, or a new flavour of potato crisps.

Yes, and this is a GOOD thing. This is the driver of innovation and increased efficiency.

> Since environmental damage is not generally directly borne by companies, it does not impact on profit, at least in the short term. ... The winners will generally be those who care the least about the environment

This is part of a larger conversation about how the corporate protections from govt have insulated companies from their externalities at the expense of weakened private property protections. Most free market advocates push for private property protections that allow individual property owners (or as a group) to sue companies that expose their (the individual's) property to pollution.

> as the global environmental destruction continues apace, capitalism is spending more on bribing governments and running slick greenwash advertising campaigns, aimed at undermining protest. They plough ...

Again, they're not describing free markets anymore but just ranting about the current situation. And I don't completely disagree with their gripes with the current system.

> The need to constantly expand and get ahead is a key factor in making capitalism inherently unstable. Historically...

As I said before, inflation and central banks (very much not free markets) contribute largely to this "need to constantly expand". This article talks about the difference between the concept of consumerism (push to buy, buy, buy, and more and more and more profits) and capitalism (free markets). I haven't read it myself, but I've heard that this book speaks well to that idea.

> The single-minded drive for profit means companies inevitably must create unwanted need to stimulate ever-more demand, hence the massive advertising budgets they all have.

Wait, companies can use advertising and make people buy things that they do not want? So free will (in even the most loose sense) doesn't exist and people are easily and simply brainwashed and can be compelled to purchase even things they do not want?

> Capitalism does not produce for the poor, as they have no income and are therefore not a source of profit.

What nonsense is this? Why in the world does Wal-Mart, Goodwill, Aldis, etc exist if not specifically to provide for low-income individuals?

> of all the ridiculous claims of free market theory, perhaps the most obscene one is the boast that it is able to allocate resources equitably. While we have unwanted computers piling up in one part of the world, we have children dying of starvation in others.

Again, current system vs free markets. But even ignoring that, consider how difficult it is in the current system to import/export/trade goods between countries without inspections, regulations, quotas, tariffs, etc. That is certainly not the free market. Nor is the general circumstances in countries wallowing in poverty very free market. Usually these countries not only have repressive human rights, but almost non-existent private property rights, and in many places, the only free markets are black markets. So I'd challenge the author to find a country generally agreed to have a fairly free market and private property rights, but has more children dying of starvation than computers.

u/truthiness79 · 2 pointsr/LibertarianDebates

>You have seen the historic inflation rates from back when gold was currency, yes?

>Inflation went through an infinitely repeating series of boom/bust bubbles and the value of money changed wildly even over relatively short periods (ie: two or so years).

The Golden Constant: The English and American Experience 1560-2007

gold has never been the problem, but the governments who suspend payment in specie and allow banks to break contracts.

>More to the point, say China wants to manipulate the US currency for its own political gain. China has a lot of gold.

if individuals in China want to exchange their gold for American providers of goods and services, we will sell it to them. the idea that gold owners can manipulate the US or any nation for that matter is absurd. the purpose of money is to exchange it for real wealth, whatever any individual feels that may be. it is precisely because government-controlled money today is not backed by a commodity that it is manipulated on such a large scale.

governments can print paper money to infinity, but they cant print gold.

u/littlenag · 1 pointr/LibertarianDebates

A book you might find interesting, and that I think answers your question on a somewhat technical level, is The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. See the sections on group selection.