[nickles]

> Free market advocates always find the next culprit why the market can't deliver.

I advocate for the free market because it's been the most reliable way of elevating humans from subsistence levels of consumption and improving their quality of life. It's been the driving force in elevating billions of people from poverty over recent decades. I'd wager that most people, free market advocates or otherwise, would consider that a good thing.

To be clear, there are cases where markets fail. In those cases, government intervention can actually produce more efficient outcomes. Consider the case of basic research. Private enterprises would have be foolish to pay for glowing worms and shrimp treadmills; there's just no clear payoff. But this seemingly silly research is critical to progress. For example, the research on glowing worms (GFP added to C. Elegans) ended up winning the Nobel Prize and is crucial for observing biological processes in living organisms.

> new construction is coming in at 4x than 10 years ago... I don't see how the market is really solving anything here.

It sounds like high prices incentivized builders to increase construction by 400% over 10 years? That seems like the price mechanism is driving an increase in housing supply, exactly as one would want when there's a shortage of housing.

[ponow]

As someone who once did basic research, I don't buy the government-funded basic research argument anymore. If we had negligible taxes, the hyper-rich would fund some basic research, and there would be some private research as well. It would not go away completely. People can cooperate without government. Why would anyone fund a church tithe voluntarily, since the market wouldn't predict such a thing? Yet people freely pay.

More importantly, try arguing that it is morally correct that a hard-working laborer ought to fund a Webb telescope by non-optional taxes, when he sees no direct value in it. Why even 1 penny? Because his betters in a grant agency know better what to do with the fruits of his labor than he does?

It was disgusting to witness Biden take a victory lap for the Webb telescope. It wasn't his money nor engineering and scientific effort, that's for certain.

Please, no utilitarian defenses of funding basic research by taxes. We need a moral defense. I don't see it at all. You can only defend it if you think people are too stupid to know their own interests.

[nickles]

> More importantly, try arguing that it is morally correct that a hard-working laborer ought to fund a Webb telescope by non-optional taxes, when he sees no direct value in it. Why even 1 penny? Because his betters in a grant agency know better what to do with the fruits of his labor than he does?

There is an optimal level of spending on basic research for society, and it's not 0. Was it a bad idea to launch unproven satellites into space in the 1970s? Your laborer didn't see the immediate benefit, but now that worker has GPS, which almost certainly improved the worker's life. In fact, the technologies enabled by GPS were unimaginable at the onset of the project. Should the project have been scrapped entirely?

It's impossible to say whether research will produce valuable results a priori. But it's not true that your laborer doesn't see benefit. The price we pay to live in organized society is taxation. Should that same laborer argue that he shouldn't pay taxes for highways built 400 miles away? Is it possible that this laborer may not know what's best 100% of the time?

[ponow]

It's obvious that in the absence of state funding there would be non-state funding. It won't be the same and it won't be zero. Why does the committee's judgement take precedent?

Also, some poorer people would pay to fund research in the absence of gov't funding. They actually already do, for disease research.

You can use utilitarian arguments to force people to do things that they otherwise would refuse. Isn't that a kissing cousin to indentured servitude?

Also, do you knot think I understand the riskiness of research? As if I haven't endured a few decades of poverty as a result?

[nickles]

> It's obvious that in the absence of state funding there would be non-state funding. It won't be the same and it won't be zero.

From an economic perspective, it's likely the level of funding would be less than the optimal level of funding. If the goal is to maximize public welfare, government funding is necessary.

> Why does the committee's judgement take precedent?

Ultimately someone needs to make decisions on resource allocation. Is a committee necessarily the best way? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not qualified to tell NIH how to operate.

> You can use utilitarian arguments to force people to do things that they otherwise would refuse

Agreed entirely, it's a very difficult issue to grapple with.

[runnerup]

I'm a HUGE believer in reducing barriers to competition. I agree that high prices should lead to entrepreneurial increase of supply. However, I think it's massively, massively important to realize the successes of some planned economies. I'm not trying to use empty rhetoric in the following paragraph, I'm trying to identify the "free market"-iness of many of the most impactful "ways of elevating humans" in the past 500 years:

The "free market" did not establish the US interstate highway system and power grid, or lift 1.4 billion people in China out of poverty in a single generation. The free market did not establish railroads in the US (monopolistic robber-baron markets are not free markets). Free markets did not elevate Europeans from 1500-1950 (colonial slavery). Free markets did not sustain American agriculture for one hundred years after slavery was abolished (prison labor).

--------

The real point of this is: Maybe it's okay if we have a China-style or 1930-1950's USA-style planned economy to spark a domestic renaissance via:

- Massive housing initiative, starting with the base (bringing more people into trades, greatly expanding domestic material supply, and a fierce fight against NIMBY-ism). This will have to first cause a glut of material and labor, while keeping the excess labor happy (paid) and future material supply expanding (subsidies). Free market isn't great at pushing through local optimums...but cheaper supply should lead to increased utilization eventually!

- All new housing should be luxury. High efficiency, high comfort -- these will be what everyone is living in 20 years from now. It doesn't cost that much more to build but it makes a massive difference in QoL. Personally I dream of mid-rises and high-rises where people can practice tuba/piano/drums without bothering the surrounding units, or lift weights, or run a small woodshop. Have access to spaces where larger projects can be undertaken: DIY car repair, for example. This should greatly improve entrepreneurialism.

- Pharmaceutical / healthcare reform

- Intellectual property reform (exponentially growing annual fees for patents, etc)

- Import/export/sales tax reform (regulatory compliance is incredibly hard and expensive, sales tax is super regressive and anti-entrepreneurial because it encourages vertical integration to avoid "sales" being taxed, VAT would be much more friendly to a true free market for niche value-adds to gain foothold).

- Massive education reform (pay teachers enough ($120k+) to have a surplus of expert labor migrate in from engineering / management / trades / science careers.

- Migrate manufacturing out of China and into disparate continents (South America, Africa, greater Asia). Domestic manufacturing would obviously be amazing but I think USA is too economically fragile to handle the increased costs of safety and environmental controls which the US people would rightly demand.

People are worried that if the housing market experiences a glut that people who saved all their money into their home as an investment will lose their retirement. However, I believe that as additional high-density units are built, the land those homeowners can sell will increase greatly in value -- because the house can be torn down and a mid-rise or skyscraper can be placed there instead, turning it from an unaffordable single-family "value" to a very affordable 10-50 family "value". That land would be worth way more if a midrise or highrise could be built on it.

[treeman79]

The free market did not create the highway system, but the enormous wealth created by the free market payed for it.

[runnerup]

The free market of WW2 paid for the interstate highway system? Every heavy industry was commandeered by the US government and strict salary controls were implemented by the government. Households had strict quotas for what they were allowed to purchase.

Or before that? When the civilian conservation corps employed huge amounts of Americans to build Mount Rushmore and the Hoover Dam?

The decades immediately leading up to the construction of the interstate highway USA was one of the least free our market has ever been.

[kaesar14]

That was a free market where the US was the last industrial power producing goods to be consumed by a completely destroyed world. If those are the circumstances you can provide as evidence the free market works as intended you may need something else

[dzonga]

even in a "free" speech country like the USA. you would've been arrested for WrongThink / ThoughtCrime for putting out thoughts like this if this was 70 years ago.

[hpkuarg]

> the Nobel Prize

Another product of the free market, if you will ;-)

[noelherrick]

Industrialization, constitutional democracy, science, regulation, and unions have raised standards of living for the majority of people. You forget history if you don't remember things like the Battle of Blair Mountain (first aerial bombardment on US soil) or the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, not to mention the incredible death and misery inflicted by that first capitalistic country Britain. The free market does not feel very free to the vast majority of people who have to deal with incredibly oppressive companies and plutocrats, and when laws and police are geared to oppressing the poor and the jobless.

Do not take me to advocate for centralized planning, but we do have to have democratic governmental intervention to prevent the free market from chewing us all up and spitting us out.

[ponow]

> The free market does not feel very free to the vast majority of people who have to deal with incredibly oppressive companies

Yeah, people complain on their iphones, with their increased lifespans, and surfeit of food, so that even the poor are fat. Cry me a river.

[wyre]

Dude, have some compassion.