In the past few months I've been trying to find strong arguments against free-market beliefs. Here's what I have so far:
1) Saying that some businesses ought to disappear due to the invisible hand of the market, is just like saying that things ought to stay down due to the invisible hand of gravity. The market is a powerful force, but that doesn't mean its outcome is always what we want.
2) It's a feature of the free market that firms go out of business all the time. But from a market point of view, people are like small firms that sell labor. We don't want a system where people can "go out of business" and be unable to survive, because that's inhumane.
It looks like (1) proves that we need some restrictions on competition, and (2) proves that we need some redistribution. We may quibble about how much, but taking a Strong Principled Stance against these things seems wrong.
> But from a market point of view, people are like small firms that sell labor. We don't want a system where people can "go out of business" and be unable to survive, because that's inhumane.
You're conflating issues here. Something (or someone) that's not adding any value to an economy has no place (and no reason to participate) in it.
That being said, letting people starve is obviously inhumane. However, the answer to this isn't opening up bullshit positions in the economy, by introducing artificial inefficiencies, in order to accomodate those otherwise "useless" people. Regulations (ideally) are there to keep the markets efficient (in the long term) by maintaining "fairness". Not to ensure that individual humans don't starve.
Keeping people, that are unable to support themselves, alive and well is a welfare issue, and is not otherwise adressed by markets (directly).
Hmm. I guess many free market proponents also conflate these issues, when they claim that free markets and wealth redistribution are opposed to each other.
That said, I have sympathy for the idea that markets and welfare can work well together. I've long suspected that "the welfare state is a libertarian's wet dream", e.g. a system of universal basic income would allow more people to become entrepreneurs because the risk would be lower. Not sure how Ayn Rand missed that point.
1) Saying that some businesses ought to disappear due to the invisible hand of the market, is just like saying that things ought to stay down due to the invisible hand of gravity. The market is a powerful force, but that doesn't mean its outcome is always what we want.
2) It's a feature of the free market that firms go out of business all the time. But from a market point of view, people are like small firms that sell labor. We don't want a system where people can "go out of business" and be unable to survive, because that's inhumane.
It looks like (1) proves that we need some restrictions on competition, and (2) proves that we need some redistribution. We may quibble about how much, but taking a Strong Principled Stance against these things seems wrong.