[CryptoPunk]

Economics makes no axiomatic assumptions favoring market-based economies. The conclusion that free markets work better is empirically supported.

It also counter the interests of powerful special interest groups, which has placed economists outside of the political consensus on numerous issues.

We're not living in some free market paradise. Our economy is highly controlled from the top down, with major government interventions limiting contracting and private property rights. Just to give one especially stark example, if you offer stock in your small business to the public, without going through an arduous registration process and getting approval from the securities regulator, you will be fined and potentially imprisoned.

[snackbugs]

>The conclusion that free markets work better is empirically supported

Better for whom?

[CryptoPunk]

For everyone. Efficient markets raise per capita productivity, which raises quality of life for the vast majority of the population.

The most problematic parts of the economy, like housing, are that way due to govermment intervention. In the case of housing, zoning restrictions create artificial scarcity in the most productive economic regions, leading to rising rent, which limits economic opportunity and contributes to greater income inequality.

[snackbugs]

>For everyone. Efficient markets raise per capita productivity, which raises quality of life for the vast majority of the population.

The majority of the US can't financially bear an emergency $1000 expense without going into debt, joblessness, or homelessness.

Productivity isn't connected positively individual quality of life, otherwise this wouldn't be the case.

A free market depends on an entire class of people maintained in poverty. That is not efficient except for a minor plurality.

As I said in your parent comment, the base assumptions that markets efficiently distribute resources is a lie.

[CryptoPunk]

Well the US has a generous social safety net, which discourages private savings. Healthcare is also vastly over-priced due to govermment intervention.

The number of hospital administrators increased 3,200% between 1975 and 2010, compared to a 150% increase in physicians, and this increasing inefficiency is due to an increasing number of regulations:

https://www.athenahealth.com/insight/expert-forum-rise-and-r...

>>Productivity isn't connected positively individual quality of life, otherwise this wouldn't be the case.

Quality of life is vastly better in high-productivity countries than low-productivity ones. Only someone who has been totally sheltered from the extreme poverty characteristic of many countries of the world could even make a comment as detached from reality as yours.

>>A free market depends on an entire class of people maintained in poverty. That is not efficient except for a minor plurality.

That's demonstrably false. The global poverty rate has been decreasing at the fastest in history over the last 30 years, concurrent with the spread of marker institutions. The rate of extreme poverty has halved in the last 20 years.

[snackbugs]

Whatever you have to tell yourself to keep believing what you do.

[CryptoPunk]

I'm open to seeing what evidence you have that I'm wrong. If you think you can understand economics without challenging and re-challenging your own beliefs, and contending with and considering opposing viewpoints, you're greatly under-estimating its complexity.