German guy
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2010
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- 5,187
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- Location
- Berlin, Germany
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- Political Leaning
- Moderate
I think the common beliefs that markets naturally create monopolies and giant firms, is misplaced.
That is where a lot of people seem to have problems with freer market ideology.
Probably you are right, but my skepticism towards too unregulated markets is another problem: While the libertarian ideal of a really free market may sound nice on the paper, I don't think it is realistic. No matter how small government, there will always be some attempt of circumventing free market principles by both corrupt officials and corrupt private actors (yes, they often work against free market principles too, because they are more interested in rent seeking). It's simply not realistic to expect this to vanish entirely.
And my second point is that while genuinely free markets may not create monopolies and/or multinational companies by default, the market still creates a situation where there is extreme inequality. That's because some people simply have less to sell on the market (skills, workforce, etc) than they need to make for a living (think of ill, handicapped, elderly, very unintelligent people and so on). And markets create a situation where it's not really your effort and hard work that pays off, but you get rewarded for your possessions you have already: When you have few money, it's very difficult to make a little more, but when you have a lot already, it's very easy to make more -- in some cases, you can just let your money work for you, without investing much effort yourself. Maybe it's indeed the system with the smallest possible amount of coercion, but when your belly is empty, you can't fill it with that freedom. Freedom is not everything, satisfying basic needs is at least just as important.
The free market may be efficient, but in my personal opinion, this does not satisfy what I believe is an inherent human instinct: An instinct for fairness. It also flies in the face of the normative conviction that human beings all have an equal value, regardless of skills and traits -- on the market, their value is reduced to what they can sell, or on how many possessions they have. That's too Darwinist for my taste.
And because an inherent sense of fairness is indeed a probably even genetic trait in humans (many studies found that the common human instinctively tolerates only limited inequality), it's unrealistic to expect that there can ever be a true consensus for extirely free, unleashed markets without any limits. Those who are disadvantaged materially by such a free market will always turn to alternative ideologies.
That's why I am not quite as fond of free markets as libertarians, and why I believe limited redistribution, and the possibility for democratic participation and positive freedom are necessary. Also, I believe some libertarians often underestimate the problem that private actors too are often not really interested in respecting the free market, when it comes to expanding their profits. But I agree with libertarians insofar that they emphasize the efficiency of markets, and are warning of regulating it too much: Many left-leaning people seem to lack the awareness that markets are indeed very efficient, and go way too far when it comes to curbing markets, or redistribution. That's why I think it's good libertarians exist, and make their voices heard in the debate, because the debate often is dominated by voices who don't seem to really appreciate the strengthes of free markets, that indeed exist.
When we examine firms, we come to find that a lot/most of their "giantness" is stemmed from government favor and not from the natural growth of the firm itself.
Yes, that is often the case. But you also see private actors violating free market principles, by exploiting externalities and information assymmetry, by cancelling out true competition by conspirative agreements, and so on. Libertarians I met often don't seem to take this into account enough, IMHO.
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