Free market is a tautology. It is not Fairy Godmother. Free market doesn't magically make good stuff succeed and bad stuff fail.
Unless you believe in the Lizard People, free market is responsible* for every economic system on Earth, including those with central planning, exorbitant taxation and draconian regulations.
TL;DR: Saying "free market will decide" is saying "whatever will be will be"--NOT interesting.
*If only by failing to prevent.
Unless you believe in the Lizard People, free market is responsible* for every economic system on Earth, including those with central planning, exorbitant taxation and draconian regulations.
TL;DR: Saying "free market will decide" is saying "whatever will be will be"--NOT interesting.
*If only by failing to prevent.
I can't speak to what everyone means when they say "free market", but I think this term is mostly used in this forum to mean "free" in the libertarian sense. That is, my freedom ends where it starts to impinge on your freedom, and vice versa. This means that a "free market" is explicitly NOT one in which you are free to restrict my economic freedom, nor I yours.
From context, I gather that your definition of "free market" is simply 'the exercise of free will', and thus much broader than the meaning intended by the people you are responding to.
From wikip:
Quote
...A free market contrasts with a controlled market or regulated market, in which government intervenes in supply and demand through non-market methods such as laws creating barriers to market entry or directly setting prices (etc., etc.)
What freedoms are you talking about, in particular? For instance, your notion that my freedoms should stop where yours begin seems overbroad. Can I take from you what I believe to be rightfully mine?
A free market is a market where prices of goods and services are free to find their own level (equilibrium) via forces of supply and demand and without intervention from central planning/government in the form of price fixing, bailouts of failing too big to fail parties,interfering with the suppy and demand chain, creating barriers to entry via various mechanisms, over regulation, etc yes it does encourage, no demand, more personal responsibility from individual and companies alike, which in my view is a good thing... if a company has taken the piss, they should pay the price... and if there is criminal liability pay that price which yes would be via a central planning system, but it is different from a free trade trade system, ie break no laws and trade freely, break laws and expect to have your hands clipped together...... stealing and fraud are still stealing and fraud,
However if an individual was foolhardy enough, or unlucky enough to have not done their due dilligence, or to have all of their eggs in one basket, and they get burned, then they will have learned a lesson, and have to pick themselves up and move on... harsh as it sounds, within a generation peoples behaviour would change and adapt and people would be better off... and technology at the moment is offering up a chance to eliminate some of the "trust" issues and so therefore if there are no trust issues, and there is no intervention needed, then a free competition based, market would be able to operate.