[alasdair_]

>the entire economy is designed to do this

Unless you are a firm believer in the power of the Illuminati, we have as close to the opposite of a planned (and thus designed) economy as one can get in the present day.

Just because a behavior or other feature in a complex system is emergent doesn't mean the system was initially designed that way.

[api]

I really dislike how absurd conspiracy theories are used to discredit any discussion of networks of power and how those networks operate.

There is no vast monolithic conspiracy but there are certainly many smaller ones (lobbyists, front groups, back room deals, etc.) with incentives that align. Alignment of incentives can generate a result that looks a whole lot like the result of a big organized conspiracy.

If anything the less organized network of aligned interests is tougher to resist than an "Illuminati." It's more resilient and antifragile. Big vertically integrated power structures are slow and brittle.

[heurist]

Read this book and tell me America is a free market: https://www.amazon.com/Framers-Coup-Making-United-Constituti...

In short:

1. A big chunk of the issues leading to today's constitution were tax and debt relief measures being instituted by the states in response to populist movements.

2. The framers were mostly very wealthy and biased toward preservation of capital.

3. Many of the measures instituted in the constitution were designed to preserve wealthy Americans' property (slaves, for instance). Populist debt relief efforts made this an especially high priority.

4. The only way to get the states to ratify the constitution was to concede many populist goals (state legislators were largely very wealthy as well, and apparently stubbornly pessimistic about the constitution despite its immediate necessity).

The book goes into great detail on the reasoning and compromises made to create the constitution. I think you will find that politics rigidly define the operation of our markets.

I get where you're coming from but you have some insufficient assumptions about the context in which this particular complex system operates.

[toofy]

> we have as close to the opposite of a planned (and thus designed) economy as one can get in the present day.

I understand why this might seem like the most obvious answer, but your analysis seems to not take into account things like revolving door politics, regulatory capture, lobbyists priority access to lawmakers, citizens united, etc... etc... etc...

I don’t think most people would suggest that there is a small table surrounded by evil cackling billionaires conspiring to pull every single worldwide string, but rather there is a relatively small number of people who have enough money to buy themselves access to writing regulation and laws which favor their own interests which will often coincidentally align with the other billionaires who can afford this kind of access.

We can’t ignore the ways in which issues like this skew influence to a small number of powerful interests.

[grigjd3]

I'm not in line with jadedhacker, but its hard to ignore how often regulatory legislation is written by the industry being regulated.

[eli_gottlieb]

Then explain the extreme degree of market concentration seen in today's "free" economies.

[jadedhacker]

I am a firm believer in corporate consolidation, so yes, those smoke filled rooms do exist. However, you can consider this a systemic critique of capitalism which systemically concentrates wealth. The intention doesn't matter if the system is set up to create a particular result.