Is the US as it operates today a free market (how free?) or a weighted control economy where the larger players have a greater weight of control of media and the political landscape via owned outlets and subsidised senators?
Do small players in the US economy have equal access to the market, or are they overshadowed by near oligarchies?
the "control" of a "weighted control economy" is usually enforced through government (including those politicians you reference). so when we bring in more government then it's less free market. how close we are getting to a free market depends on who is in power and calling for reduced government intervention/regulations for businesses.
as far as control of media, traditional media is becoming increasingly irrelevant and when free speech is allowed on social media the economy becomes more free.
and small players seem to disrupt all the time. openai being the most obvious recent example. twitch being another notable example before that.
i usually don't respond to distracting personal questions, but your use of bicameral confused me a little. did you mean to say binary?
How would your "ideal" market then look like? I'm not getting what it "means" for small players to have equal access to the market than large players, of course greater resources will lend itself to greater reach.
indeed but sometimes abstractions are useful. i would argue that in this case the binary is useful because of the PP's use of the word "totalitarian" (as in "totalitarian neofeudalist").
i am arguing that the word was misapplied to the essay since the essay was promoting free markets and it's central planning that offers opportunity for totalitarian control.
If one could have a "free market" in the sense that there were no state to begin with (which one can't) then you wind up with anarcho capitalism, in which a single entity wins because returns to capital accelerate. This single entity can then do whatever it likes.
In reality, you start with a state and then have increasing regulatory capture by large private entities who turn the state into a system that exists purely to enforce their property rights. As they do so they eliminate public purpose.
Whether you have planned totalitarianism or anarcho capitalist totalitarianism the result is the same. If you have 100% returns to either labour or capital, or you try to eliminate either public or private purpose, then you must have totalitarianism.
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto imagines that you can have no state AND no regulatory capture, it's garbage. There are only 2 things in the economy: labour and capital. You have public purpose and private purpose. You balance those things, you have social democracy and innovation. You let it slip to any extreme and you're gonna have a bad time.
> anarcho capitalism, in which a single entity wins because returns to capital accelerate. This single entity can then do whatever it likes.
You could have a natural monopoly form in anarcho-capitalism but unless they also grabbed a monopoly on the use of force and barred competition (basically became the state) then if they did abuse their monopoly position they would inevitably have competition arise even if it was required to route around whatever their monopoly was.
defrost|1 year ago
Do small players in the US economy have equal access to the market, or are they overshadowed by near oligarchies?
Are you always so bicameral?
bkirkby|1 year ago
as far as control of media, traditional media is becoming increasingly irrelevant and when free speech is allowed on social media the economy becomes more free.
and small players seem to disrupt all the time. openai being the most obvious recent example. twitch being another notable example before that.
i usually don't respond to distracting personal questions, but your use of bicameral confused me a little. did you mean to say binary?
corimaith|1 year ago
TaylorAlexander|1 year ago
Believe it or not, humanity's economic markets cannot be fully described by two simple categories.
bkirkby|1 year ago
i am arguing that the word was misapplied to the essay since the essay was promoting free markets and it's central planning that offers opportunity for totalitarian control.
dools|1 year ago
In reality, you start with a state and then have increasing regulatory capture by large private entities who turn the state into a system that exists purely to enforce their property rights. As they do so they eliminate public purpose.
Whether you have planned totalitarianism or anarcho capitalist totalitarianism the result is the same. If you have 100% returns to either labour or capital, or you try to eliminate either public or private purpose, then you must have totalitarianism.
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto imagines that you can have no state AND no regulatory capture, it's garbage. There are only 2 things in the economy: labour and capital. You have public purpose and private purpose. You balance those things, you have social democracy and innovation. You let it slip to any extreme and you're gonna have a bad time.
nyokodo|1 year ago
You could have a natural monopoly form in anarcho-capitalism but unless they also grabbed a monopoly on the use of force and barred competition (basically became the state) then if they did abuse their monopoly position they would inevitably have competition arise even if it was required to route around whatever their monopoly was.