If I was forced to admit that sometimes markets were bad, then I'd have to re-evaluate our entire economic system - what if healthcare markets, gun markets, even employment markets were up for debate? Under what criteria would one even evaluate those? Moreover, how could we even tell if they were genuinely bad or good, or if the particular cultural context and social indoctrination predisposed me to think they were good through social conditioning?

Why, for example, would a market for health care be good, but a market for child-imprisonment be bad? If a market for child-imprisonment were susceptible to bad actors, perverse incentives, and bad outcomes, then it stands to reason the same could be said of all markets. That's a rather large implication, I'm sure we agree on.

If humane child imprisonment is valued by the market participants, then that's what the market will provide. If a market doesn't signal that it's important, then it's definitionally not important. That's what price signalling is all about.

Kelseyfrog is trolling and enjoys using straw-man arguments to poke fun at other ideologies. I've debated with them before. Have you ever seen an ancap with pronouns in their profile lol? It's sarcasm.

I like debating. You don't have to believe everything you debate. I use debate to test out theories and ideas all the time. It's a great way to learn what works and what doesn't.

There's a conversation in Harper's this month along these lines:

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/02/is-liberalism-worth-savi...

The conversation flits around a bit too quickly for my taste, but some interesting points are made.