[freshhawk]

Parts of the "free market" idea are falsifiable.

They assume rational actors (people making decisions based on their own self interest). That's been falsified (when applied to humans).

Most variations of the efficient market hypothesis have been disproved as well, for the same reasons:

Humans have cognitive biases and other types of irrational behaviour.

But anyone linking to mises.org is probably a follower of the church of the free market. And they generally strongly disagree with the idea that humans have cognitive biases (because their faith requires it not to be true).

I'm glad someone else laughed at the pro-homeopathy / conspiracy theory around the history of snake oil salesmen content on there.

[duncan_bayne]

> They assume rational actors (people making decisions based

> on their own self interest).

That's untrue of some schools of economics that advocate free markets, e.g. Austrian.

> But anyone linking to mises.org is probably a follower of

> the church of the free market. And they generally

> strongly disagree with the idea that humans have

> cognitive biases (because their faith requires it not to

> be true).

That's an ... interesting ... claim. Care to justify it?

[freshhawk]

> That's untrue of some schools of economics that advocate free markets, e.g. Austrian.

I took the term "free market 'idea'" to be specifically talking about those for which it's true. That seemed to be the point, and the site linked to was Austrian. Both articles make the assumptions in question about the ability to self-regulate that assumes rational actors. So yes, my statement was not true of all schools, but it seemed like those types of Austrians were not in the scope of the discussion.

> That's an ... interesting ... claim. Care to justify it?

Subjective opinion. I read economics news and neuroscience news because it's interesting. Comment threads, especially here, frequently have two types of subjects that start the vocal libertarians arguing and proclaiming: government regulation and the phrase "humans are irrational".