| A free market is good for the public. An entirely unregulated market is not. A lot of people, especially in the U.S., seem to have trouble understanding that a regulated free market is in fact not an oxymoron. Others have trouble with the notion that a regulated market is not the same as a command economy. An unregulated market suffers from externalities; power and information imbalances; prisoner's dilemmas; tragedies of the commons; and other failures that are detrimental to the public. These failures are more common in, and cause more problems in some sectors than others. For instance, a free market doesn't do a great job of distributing health care, and externalities distort an unregulated market for energy; but market forces seem to do a pretty decent job when it comes to production and distribution of clothing. Moreover, a free market can over time result in socioeconomic inequality that in the long run erodes its own consumer base. So yes, for most (but not all) goods, a free market is better for the public than a command economy. But a free market requires regulation and taxation in order to remain robust and continue to be beneficial to the entirety of the population it serves rather than just those at the top. |