When I went to Econ class, the professor explained that we call it “Free Market Economics” because of four freedoms:
Freedom of entry and exit - participants (buyers, sellers, and prospective such) can enter or exit the market at their leisure, and the market will not change
Freedom of participation - every participant is in the market of their free will and can leave the market without repercussion
Freedom of substitution - every product on a particular market is essentially the same
Freedom of information - every participant has the same information about availability and prices at the same time
The reward is that free markets are efficient: they lead to the lowest prices and greatest exchange of goods. That is the reason we have them.
When the four freedoms are not mandated, the market fails in different ways, and that’s absolutely expected. When information is available to some before it is to others, we get price distortions - that’s where insider trading laws come from.
Health care, the prof explained, suffers from the fact there is no freedom of participation. You either buy care or you suffer the potentially deadly consequences. That’s why free markets and health care are fundamentally incompatible: they are expected to be.
When I went to Econ class, the professor explained that we call it “Free Market Economics” because of four freedoms:
The reward is that free markets are efficient: they lead to the lowest prices and greatest exchange of goods. That is the reason we have them.
When the four freedoms are not mandated, the market fails in different ways, and that’s absolutely expected. When information is available to some before it is to others, we get price distortions - that’s where insider trading laws come from.
Health care, the prof explained, suffers from the fact there is no freedom of participation. You either buy care or you suffer the potentially deadly consequences. That’s why free markets and health care are fundamentally incompatible: they are expected to be.
That “freedom” is a thought experiment that assumes equal resources. Poverty is coercive and undermines the argument. Typical econ.