Do free markets result in better results?

[Jacob Cliff]

Not trying to spark debate, but statistics do show that free-market economies result in faster growth rates and less poverty. I want to reject this but it's plain true. Is this statistic skewed?

[Sinister Intents]

Not trying to spark debate, but statistics do show that free-market economies result in faster growth rates and less poverty. I want to reject this but it's plain true. Is this statistic skewed?

Free markets are actually idealistic concepts because you cannot have a truly free market. I'd have to say the statistics are skewed, but I'd like to see a link perhaps? IMO the market should be entirely abolished with the whole of the capitalist system and class structure.

[Creative Destruction]

Not trying to spark debate, but statistics do show that free-market economies result in faster growth rates and less poverty. I want to reject this but it's plain true. Is this statistic skewed?

This depends on what you mean by "free markets," since that's an incredibly loaded and politicized phrase. Capitalism, thus far in our history, has been the most efficient way to produce wealth, compared to, say, feudalism (since that's all we have it to compare to so far.) That doesn't mean it is "the best" by any means, which is why there is a struggle against it for something better.

One, you need to interrogate the idea of "growth" and ask what that is actually a measure for. Distribution of goods and services for human need? Human happiness and creative fulfillment? Why are these things by which "growth" is an important measure? I don't think it is.

Less poverty? Well, there certainly aren't as many peasants -- in the first world, anyway. But there is widespread and incredible poverty still. Why is poverty something we want to be put on a scale? Why not fight toward a society where there is no poverty?

[Chomskyan]

Not trying to spark debate, but statistics do show that free-market economies result in faster growth rates and less poverty. I want to reject this but it's plain true. Is this statistic skewed?

Less poverty (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/28/child-poverty-developed-world-unicef-report-global-recession)? According to who?

[Redistribute the Rep]

Even the WTO stats don support this

(A bit old but pretty striking):


http://www.gatt.org/trastat_e.html

[motion denied]

Probably this:

http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

[Illegalitarian]

Free-market capitalism is an oxymoron. The markets are certainly not "free" by any measurement, they're highly controlled by only a handful of international businesses and due capitalism being a monied mode of production, a very large portion of the goods produced now are not available to the majority of people on earth.

Also, what statistics, and what are they comparing "free market" systems to? There exists no other model for comparison, seems kind of silly to declare capitalism the winner in a race no one else is participating in.

[John Nada]

Not trying to spark debate, but statistics do show that free-market economies result in faster growth rates and less poverty. I want to reject this but it's plain true. Is this statistic skewed?It's faster and better compared to feudalism. However some of the fastest growth rates were due to state capitalism or at least heavily regulated capitalism.

The USSR went from a war-torn backwater to putting people in space. Up until the 60's some thought they were going to surpass the US economy. A similar thing happened in other state capitalist countries. Hell, IIRC Cuba is ranked higher in healthcare than the US.

In places like the US some of the fastest growth was when the government highly regulated capitalism. Govenment intervention isn't some new thing that taints "true capitalism". It's always been there, with most major industries getting government backing.

Anywhere that the so-called "free markets" aka neoliberalism have been unleashed, there's been a drop in the standard of living, lower life expectancy, more crime, worse healthcare and more poverty. Is there any examples of neoliberalism working?

[Invader Zim]

Not trying to spark debate, but statistics do show that free-market economies result in faster growth rates and less poverty. I want to reject this but it's plain true. Is this statistic skewed?

In fairness, they do create greater economic growth - but that obscures four key problems:

1. Contrary to your assertion, they result in substancial inequality and poverty. Wealth travels up but little trickles down.

2. They stifle innovation. This actually runs contrary to libertarian myth making. But it is a reality. The fact is that government is the major investor in science and technology, both in terms of theory and practise. This is because government have are actually less risk averse and are willing to pump money into research for the sake of research. They also have lots of money so the pots of money are bigger. This is why the largest funding bodies for research tend to be public funding bodies. It is also no coincidence that the major techology of our age - the computer - was developed by government agencies and government funded (or at least heavily subsidised) universities. Take Alan Turing, the 'father' of the computer, he worked for two major industries - British state funded higher education and state scientific agencies, in this instance Britain's version of the NSA during the Second World War.

3. If we take this to its logical extent, and also include the free-marketisation or privatisation of education, then you automatically made education the domain of the elite, which means you have a less skilled work force, which again stifles innovation but also stifles growth.

4. Free-market economies tend to be deeply unstable, so you have large booms but with them debilitating busts. Removing regulation removes safeguards that either prevent disasters or at least limit the disruption they create.

[Red Star Rising]

Free markets in the modern world cause massive rapid growth (for some). They also cause unethical and greedy practices, especially in the finance market, that leads to massive inflation and bloating capital that periodically causes huge financial crashes that are devastating for pretty much everyone else.

[DOOM]

Right-wing libertarians believe that the state or state involvement is responsible for the monopolization of the market (or the accumulation of capital) and that thus only a "free" market could provide a "fair" exchange of goods. However, we know better.
As Marx said in The Poverty of Philosophy, modern monopoly is engendered by competition itself. This means that the bourgeois actually need state involvement to protect their possession. Copyright and other property-protecting laws are the products of bourgeois commitment and not some sort of FED conspiracy. The uprising of the internet and the growing relevance of intellectual property proves this. The NAP is an idealist pipedream, there's no reason why anyone should feel obliged to follow it.
However, already the prerequisites for a free market are pipedreams. A perfect stream of information is unsustainable. There are so many factors coming together, that perfect information gathering is impossible. And even if this was possible, we are humans and not computers. We aren't able to process all the informations we need to make a "rational" decision in short time. This leads inherently to the failure of buyers and sellers and effectively to the accumulation of capital.

[Wht.Rex]

Depends on what free market you are talking about. There is no real "free market", especially not in capitalist countries. Most free, liberal market country in the world is Somalia and we see how good they are doing. On other hand, countries like Soviet Union also had free market. There were many private shops and farms in USSR, especially during Stalin's lead.

[G4b3n]

The thing is, business doesn't want a free market, they very much enjoy the nourishment they get from the nanny state. Also, the mentally is rather hypocritical and tends to be something along the lines of "free markets are great, for you, but not for me". Workers want guaranteed health car? No, thats not the free market solution, but please look away while we collect our corporate welfare.

So "free markets" in the sense that Libertarian conservatives dream about, are not material realities of capitalism, just idealistic notions that will never go beyond rhetoric.

[RedMaterialist]

Not trying to spark debate, but statistics do show that free-market economies result in faster growth rates and less poverty. I want to reject this but it's plain true. Is this statistic skewed?

Microsoft controls 85% of the world computer operating system market; six banks in the U.S. control about 2/3 of the banking market; Walmart and Target control 50% of the retail market in the U.S.; six oil companies control all of U.S. oil production.

A "free market" economy exists only in the imagination of main stream economists who get paid very well to propagandize for the world capitalist monopoly class. One of their biggest myths is that the monopoly corporation either cannot exist or is only a temporary aberration of classical economics.

[CollectivRed]

It seems that right-libertarians and "free market" advocates are mostly concerned with state involvement (which is necessary for capitalism to exist btw) when it does not act in direct favor of the capitalist class. They always viciously attack the notion of state intervention when it provides some form of welfare (i.e. minimum wage), but they do not really care when it provides corporate welfare such as tax breaks and bailouts. Their conception of a "free market" really implies that they want that more corporate control over everything, which ironically, is not libertarian at all but extremely authoritarian. Most right-libertarians are either very confused, idealist, utopian, and misguided, or they are trying to mask their pro-corporate neoliberalism with vague notions of "liberty" and "freedom" (for the exploiters, of course). Of course, there is no such thing as "free-market capitalism," as capitalism inevitably becomes increasingly monopolized and dependent on the state for its continuation.