[nostromo]

I truly do not understand the purpose of a free market for food. The demand for food is almost completely inelastic, as it is driven by the biological need for sustenance. This makes central planning remarkably easy compared to typical consumer goods.

A nationalized food industry that provides food at cost seems like it would be a tremendous boon to our society. It's time we give Washington full control of our nation's food market.

[PhasmaFelis]

Just for starters, there are many different kinds of food, and the barriers to entry are relatively low. Everyone needs some food, but there's plenty of room for competition when there's filet mignon vs. hamburger vs. beans and multiple providers for each. That's a textbook condition where the free market can serve everyone well.

With a lot of medicines, in the current regulatory environment, there is one product from one manufacturer, and you must pay what they want or suffer.

When you resort to sarcastic mockery, people are going to look a lot harder for holes in your argument. If you must do that, you should start by making sure your argument is solid, or at least not transparently flawed.

[harshreality]

Your sarcasm aside, there isn't a free market for food. There's tons of intervention.

There's intervention on the supply side, with direct financial subsidies for particular products. There are indirect subsidies like those Snake River dams, which allow farmers in Idaho to cheaply float their crops down to the coast, and which are helping to destroy the salmon population. There are government advice programs like the USDA old "food pyramid" which is pretty much wrong, but shifted demand for foods for decades.

And, of course, there's intervention on the demand side, with food stamps. Essentially, socialized food but only for people who nominally can't afford it.

[asdff]

Sounds like the government is already shouldering most of the cost, might as well go full monte.

[opportune]

The production of food is extremely decentralized whereas pharmaceuticals are quite centralized.

Many countries have nationalized industries similar to pharmaceuticals, such as petroleum production, and it has been successful.

[pixl97]

Heh, you really dont understand the US at all and the effects of the commerce clause lawsuits. It is a multibillion dollar industry of government handouts.

[cat199]

any specific food has a at least one if not many near perfect substitutes, whereas any specific drug likely does not.

validity of OP's conclusions aside, this is not apples to apples from an economic perspective.

see also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute_good

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_supply

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand

etc.

[conanbatt]

Man the people that answered your comment didn't really get it.

[PhasmaFelis]

Maybe you could explain it to us, then, since neither you nor Nostromo have offered anything but snark so far.

[conanbatt]

Sure. The argument the OP made on healthcare is equally applicable to food, and yet food doesn't have the same issues and the proposed solution would be obviously terrible.

[PhasmaFelis]

That's just restating what Nostromo already said. Can you address the several arguments that were made as to why it's not equally applicable?

It's fundamentally obvious that the current market for food is working fine, and the current market for many crucial medicines isn't. InvisibleCities may have missed the mark as to why, but "nuh uh, they're the same" is not a convincing counterargument.