[Consultant32452]

I would like to recommend "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell. It provides an excellent understanding of economics in language that is accessible to everyone and uses historical examples to demonstrate all of the concepts. I think if you understood markets and pricing better, you would have a different opinion. Your grocery store example would not turn out the way you're describing.

[stainforth]

Thomas Sowell is a right wing ideologue.

[Consultant32452]

Verify any of the historical accounts you think are inaccurate.

You might also enjoy wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_efficiency#Mainstream...

The "mainstream views" section suggests that market economies are believed to be closer to efficient than other known alternatives. The mainstream only recommends macroeconomic type interventions to counteract the economic cycle. Macroeconomic interventions are monetary policy, not price fixing, confiscation, etc.

Or how about the wikipedia on price gouging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging#Opposition_to_la...

In a survey of economists, only 8% supported legislation against price gouging. 51% were against. The economists opposing the proposal argued that such legislation would lead to a misallocation of resources and lead to lower supply and greater scarcity of the resources, or argued that the proposal in question was vague.

Or how about the wikipedia on economic planning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_economy#Advantages_of_...

The advantages show the Soviet Union industrializing... while starving to death because the central planners did not have infinite knowledge, which the central planning idea requires.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_economy#Disadvantages_... This section of the same wikipedia article shows that markets are more efficient at allocating resources.

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It doesn't matter where you go, everywhere you will see markets are better at allocating resources. Politicians implement bad policy because voters demand action. Trump can use the Defense Production Act to command masks be confiscated and sent to a hospital, and he will act like he's a savior, and economically ignorant people will believe it because action looks better than inaction. But he's not doing that because all the economists have said that's the best way to get masks where they need to be. In the end, he's killing people with these kinds of actions, not saving them.

[ardy42]

> In a survey of economists, only 8% supported legislation against price gouging. 51% were against. The economists opposing the proposal argued that such legislation would lead to a misallocation of resources and lead to lower supply and greater scarcity of the resources, or argued that the proposal in question was vague.

I wouldn't put too much stock in that survey. It was about a specific Connecticut law, it only included 40 economists, many chose not to answer, and many of the others took issue with some vagueness in the wording. Furthermore, I wouldn't blindly follow "economists" on any policy matter. Sure, their ideas have some merit, but their discipline has its biases, too.

> The advantages show the Soviet Union industrializing... while starving to death because the central planners did not have infinite knowledge, which the central planning idea requires.

Oh, please. Anti-price gauging legislation is not central planning. It's pretty weak to trot out the Soviet Union to refute anything but the purest capitalism.

> It doesn't matter where you go, everywhere you will see markets are better at allocating resources.

The first army to learn to allocate supplies to the front lines on free market principles will be unstoppable! /s

[Consultant32452]

I DDG searched "do economists support anti price gouging laws". Here's the top results. Every one of them disagrees with you.

https://www.marketplace.org/2017/09/01/why-economists-dont-t... "Economists don't think price gouging is a problem"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2016/09/23/price... "Price gouging laws are good politics but bad economics"

https://hbr.org/2013/07/the-problem-with-price-gouging-laws "The problem with price gouging laws"

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-economics-of-price-gouging-114... supports price gouging

Can you provide ANY literature suggesting mainstream economists, on average, support price fixing, confiscation, or purchase limits as a means to allocate resources effectively in a crisis?

>The first army to learn to allocate supplies to the front lines on free market principles will be unstoppable! /s

The military primarily gets work done by allowing private contractors to bid on projects. In order to get troops near the front lines, most military personnel take commercial airline flights to get there because it's more efficient. Military operations are wildly inefficient, but they still use markets wherever possible because it gets things done as efficiently as possible.

[ardy42]

> I DDG searched "do economists support anti price gouging laws". Here's the top results. Every one of them disagrees with you.

If you think that, you must not have even read the links you gave me. The first one takes a turn halfway through with "but, as with so much of economics, there is disagreement," and has an economist outline a lot of the problems with price gouging that the other economists are missing.

> Can you provide ANY literature suggesting mainstream economists, on average, support price fixing, confiscation, or purchase limits as a means to allocate resources effectively in a crisis?

Frankly, I don't really care if "mainstream economists, on average" support anti-price gouging legislation or not. Like I alluded to before, they have their biases. For instance, they spend their careers focused on certain problems and not others. That doesn't mean those other problems are unimportant and can be ignored. Good policy will ignore economists in some cases, when factors economists de-prioritize need to be prioritized.

Your qualification of "mainstream" is also kinda interesting. I don't consider economics to be any kind of settled science. It's almost certain that there are serious problems caused by following "mainstream economics" due to its flaws, omissions, and biases. Its ideas should be given due weight, but they're not the gospel truth. That's especially clear on the question of price gouging, because even in the survey you cited there were economists that strongly supported efforts to curb it.

>>> It doesn't matter where you go, everywhere you will see markets are better at allocating resources.

>> The first army to learn to allocate supplies to the front lines on free market principles will be unstoppable! /s

> The military primarily gets work done by allowing private contractors to bid on projects.

That's clearly not what I was talking about. If, as you say, "markets are better at allocating resources" everywhere, don't you think a front line army unit should get supplies allocated to it based on market principles (e.g. the unit bids against other units in a market to get more ammunition)?