is the free market the only system that works in practice?

>>3109521

No, in practice the free market is chaos. What we call the "free market" in Western nations is just highly regulated capitalism. And sure, maybe that works. But without all those regulations, it's a disaster.

>>3109527
is regulated capitalism with a welfare system the only system that works in practice?

>>3109521

In a completely "free" market very few people would have access to emergency services or legal processes. This sort of environment is discussed in SPQR in the context of the Roman empire. The typical Roman was basically on their own if anything went wrong in their life. Somebody stole from you? It's up to you and whatever friends to find the guy and get your stuff back if possible. Your house is on fire? It's up to you and your neighbors to put it out however you can. Have a dispute you want to settle in courts? Pfft.....good luck. Chances are that unless you have enough wealth and connections to give you increased priority, the courts will simply be too busy to deal with whatever your issue is. Maybe call your governor for help? Nope, he's either completely apathetic or he's busy helping the 1000 or so people who are in line in front of you. Check back in a few months to see if there is a spot available.

>>3109539
Depends on how regulated the capitalism and welfare is. It's all about balance anon.

>>3109521
It's the only one we've found to work. Individual production, trade based on value to one another, and industrial expansion for those who succeed. Capitalism is the only economic model that thus far has been proven to work.

>>3109527
Even with the regulations it can still fail. It's just that when it does people have been culturally trained not to blame the precious free market.

See: healthcare in the United States. It's clearly suffering from bad market failure and there is immense evidence pointing to this, but no one dares say it out loud.

>>3109993
>healthcare in the United States is free market

If you like your doctor, you can keep him! Government forced mandatory healthcare and companies to provide against the uninsurable! Jesus wept.

>>3109993
The health care market is one of the most heavily regulated parts of the US economy. Now the "free market" is more an abstraction than anything but US health care is hardly a failure of the free market.

>>3109993

The failures in the market for healthcare come from incentives imposed by the government.

For example, tax breaks on employer provided health insurance makes an individual market noncompetitive for most of the population. For those who have employer insurance, the employer gets in the way of direct consumer choice of insurers, meaning that competition maximises employers interests and not the interests of individual employees. Employers only want to stop employees from walking, whereas consumers of healthcare really want the best quality service. So incentives are such that insurers don't need to compete as hard of quality of service.

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>>3110030
Yes, the US healthcare system is both regulated and marketized. It's a mixed like nearly every other civilized nation. As I the post I replied to noted, nearly everywhere has mixed economies.

But the US healthcare system is the most marketized of all the first world countries. Coincidentally, it's the most expensive by far and has very poor coverage. Yet people always reflexively blame the phantom of "regulation". This despite the fact you can compare more regulated, less free market healthcare systems in the first world and see they do better. Still the free market portion of the healthcare system must be blameless... somehow.

People are trained from birth to be more culturally protective of the free market than they are Jesus or Mohammed. So no wonder it seems to be the only thing that works, we willfully refuses to ever attribute flaws to its perfect body.

>>3110110
The utter FUCK are you talking about? Ever since I've been born healthcare reform has been a political issue. It's anything but free market, and the current politics is that it's now is in a death spiral with Obamacare (and the Repubs railing against it for 8 years yet not having an actual fucking plan).

It's one of the most regulated portions of the U.S. economy, and calling it "free market," is stupid as fuckall.

>>3109521
Dunno, we should try it sometime.

>>3110136
Good thing he didn't claim it was free market, only the most marketized one in a first world country.

The USSR survived for about 75 years. While we can all agree that it was a bad, poorly run place in a lot of ways, it's quite clear that they did produce results. Their space program, their military research, their scientific research, their economic output/growth rates, and their political power were nothing to laugh at, and edged out the Americans more often than not.

Even if it had countless flaws, and eventually failed, it would be wrong to say that "free market is the only system that works in practice."

>>3109521
The free market has given us 2/3 of the worlds nations in poverty and an acceptance that not everyone can be developed and most must be poor for the west to be rich.

I wouldn't call that working.

I'm sure you would though.

>>3110035
>>3110030
>>3110012
At no point in its history has healthcare in the US not been garbage.

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>>3109521
Feudalism worked

Nah, palace economies seem to have been working pretty well too.