henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:05 pm
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:02 pm
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 1:09 am
That's not what I meant by "free market". It's a fallacy of equivocation. You're mixing terminology. A free market is an unfettered market, and unregulated, not a market where people don't have to pay their way.
Sorry you got caught up in the rhetoric. I was emphasizing the fact, "unfettered," does not mean, "without cost or consequence," which most discussion of economics ignore.
It's what I mean by an unregulated market. If you want to participate in any market, you must either have a product or service to sell, or a product or service (or a monetary representative of same) to exchange for (buy) other's products or services. Markets, "favor," those who produce the best product at the best price, that is, they favor virtue. Markets are only for producers, not, "simple Simons."
a market is people transactin'; a free market is people transactin' without regulation
it's that simple
I know what you mean, Henry. The original question was, "Do free markets tend to entice people to moral behavior or do they tend to entice people to immoral behavior?" I've only been pointing out what the nature of a market is.
If what you mean by, "transactin'" is trading, value for value, OK, but a, "transaction," includes any kind of interchange from information to business without regard to its nature. A man holding up a bank and a teacher's union negotiating higher wages are both transactions.
If people are trading, to the extent they are trading, the market in which they are trading is free, else they wouldn't be able to make those trades. That's why I don't bother calling a market a "free," market. To whatever extent people are prevented from trading as they would choose there is no market. It is certainly true that regulation kills a free market, but it is important to point out only a government can coercively regulate a market.
All markets are regulated, if by nothing else, then by those who provide the market structure. Banks, stores, businesses, and customers all determine how a market will be run. If a store owner refuses to carry certain products or charge a certain price, that is a regulation. The difference is, when it is not government regulation no one is forced to use any market they do not choose to, and may use any market that is available to them. I think it is important to make it clear a market, free or not, does not mean just anyone can buy or sell just anything (which those who despise free markets often imply). Someone must produce the products that are available in a market and someone must be willing and able to buy the products before there can be a market.
Cut to the chase, markets favor and encourage virtues and resist and discourage bums and vices. All
government regulation of markets discourages virtue and encourages bums and vices.