[Certhas]

This is so blindingly obvious just by looking at what is happening...

It's like the believe that markets are inherently efficient and we just need to get rid of all the government interference that distorts the free market.

There is no evidence for it, the theoretical argument is so flimsy it falls apart under the slightest scrutiny, the various ways in which markets are inefficient are several entire subfield of economics. Yet the idea persists...

The notion that you just need a proper free market of ideas and then the best ideas will automatically win, and we just need to get rid of everything that interferes with this free market of ideas is cut from the same cloth...

Maybe it has the same attraction as "blame the immigrants". It gives you an immediate automatic scapegoat for everything you see in society that you don't like.

[bit-anarchist]

The belief isn't unjustified though. One of the defining elements of a government is aggression. Spending resources to force someone (specially with violence) to something is more wasteful than if they were to do it by themselves. Furthermore, most, if not all, cited inefficiencies are linked somewhere to distortions created by government action.

That being said, I do agree that there's a dangerous apathy about how the free markets work. The free market, being the product of voluntary action, is anything but automatic.

But I don't see how that is a scapegoating mechanism for "anything you don't like". Anymore than apathy is, at least. I see human rights (specially the right to live and private ownership) being used as scapegoats much more often.