[RNCTech]

You are one of the few people I have ever seen articulate the problem online. Free marketeers are always conflating a free market with an efficient market. We are aiming for efficient not necessarily free. The two only overlap as you described--basically when all participants have no power and good information. Those circumstances are rarely present.

Another analogy I like to give blind conservatives has to do with referees in their favorite sport. Yes, you don't love referees, but when they are doing a good job and seem to be calling it squarely, you know the overall game is better for have their involvement.

It helps but orthodoxy is hard to break.

[ranie93]

Some additional resources:

Efficient Market Hypothesis[0]: "The efficient-market hypothesis was developed by Eugene Fama who argued that stocks always trade at their fair value, making it impossible for investors to either purchase undervalued stocks or sell stocks for inflated prices. As such, it should be impossible to outperform the overall market through expert stock selection or market timing, and that the only way an investor can possibly obtain higher returns is by chance or by purchasing riskier investments."

Investment theory of party competition [1]: "[...] if voters cannot bear the cost of becoming informed about public affairs they have little hope of successfully supervising government."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investment_theory_of_party_com...

[wpietri]

Not sure why you're getting downvoted; I agree. One can't have all the freedoms, as they conflict. E.g., my freedom to burn things for fun may clash with other people's freedom to own a house. Free markets are very free on certain dimensions, while very constrained on others.

As an example, I used to work for financial traders. The exchanges were in key ways extremely free markets; anybody with the dough could buy the commodities they wanted quickly, cheaply, and easily. But the exchanges self-regulated very strongly. It was very clear to everybody at the company that making an exchange mad was Very Bad; rules had to be followed. And even getting allowed to trade on the exchange was a difficult and complicated process.