04-24-2012, 01:59 PM
Wow - some very interesting points, OutsiderFan, though I have to admit that I've never seen that conspiracy theory about the World Bank!?!? How exactly does the World Bank make those farmers take those Trojan Horse loans that they apparently don't want or need? ;)
I doubt that any of us believes that markets are "the answer to everything". I guess my view is somewhat related to the point that Churchill made about democracy (a.k.a., the worst form of government... except for all others!). If governments and blog-posters were better than the clearly-flawed "markets" at allocating resources "fairly" (just try defining that for any sizable population!), we could certainly do away with such things. I believe that our country's relative "success" (all things considered) over the past couple of hundred years suggests that relatively "free markets" do tend to do a better job of that than central-planners, but reasonable people can certainly agree to disagree on that point. Of course, even those characterizations over-generalize, as no modern society as functioned with either complete "freedom" or a complete absence of market forces (even if they may take political forms, or exist in "black markets"). It's really a question of how much of each represents an "ideal" (but likely still flawed) balance of the two... to each his own preference!
I doubt that any of us believes that markets are "the answer to everything". I guess my view is somewhat related to the point that Churchill made about democracy (a.k.a., the worst form of government... except for all others!). If governments and blog-posters were better than the clearly-flawed "markets" at allocating resources "fairly" (just try defining that for any sizable population!), we could certainly do away with such things. I believe that our country's relative "success" (all things considered) over the past couple of hundred years suggests that relatively "free markets" do tend to do a better job of that than central-planners, but reasonable people can certainly agree to disagree on that point. Of course, even those characterizations over-generalize, as no modern society as functioned with either complete "freedom" or a complete absence of market forces (even if they may take political forms, or exist in "black markets"). It's really a question of how much of each represents an "ideal" (but likely still flawed) balance of the two... to each his own preference!
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. - John Stuart Mill