Re:Anthropic Capitalism and the New Gimmick Economy
by dnautics on Friday April 22, 2016 @05:23PM
(#11552648)
> the system rapidly compensates and settles on a price that implies a number of people value it at that price.
I think this is not true. The system tries to settle on a price that implies a sufficient number of people value it at more than that price. Yet, the system ejects players (business failure) which means that the price/market was not accurately gauged (either too high or too low). And this process of ejection is very slow. Price discovery is not an efficient process, and I think Hayek's information problem applies to free markets "only slightly less than" it applies to governments.
In short, markets are not efficient, nor is there really much good evidence that they should be, just a belief.
> value is also subjective
Yes, it is. And that is exactly the reason why even your weak statement "a number of people value it at least that price" - is far far weaker than the OP's statement that markets approximate some representation of social value.
I'm personally a staunch defender of free markets, but my defense is not based on effectiveness of markets in organizing society, rather that centralized clearance of value backed by a state entity is an unacceptable and discriminatory marginalization of dissenting value opinions backed by the rod of state enforcement.
I think this is not true. The system tries to settle on a price that implies a sufficient number of people value it at more than that price. Yet, the system ejects players (business failure) which means that the price/market was not accurately gauged (either too high or too low). And this process of ejection is very slow. Price discovery is not an efficient process, and I think Hayek's information problem applies to free markets "only slightly less than" it applies to governments.
In short, markets are not efficient, nor is there really much good evidence that they should be, just a belief.
> value is also subjective
Yes, it is. And that is exactly the reason why even your weak statement "a number of people value it at least that price" - is far far weaker than the OP's statement that markets approximate some representation of social value.
I'm personally a staunch defender of free markets, but my defense is not based on effectiveness of markets in organizing society, rather that centralized clearance of value backed by a state entity is an unacceptable and discriminatory marginalization of dissenting value opinions backed by the rod of state enforcement.