'The Freer The Market, The Freer The People'

The problem is "free" encompasses economic, political, civil, etc.

If China maintains State Capitalism in the long run, then it may be possible to have much economic freedom but no political freedom and restricted civil freedom at the same time.

Assuming "state capitalism" isn't an oxymoron... a China with economic freedom but no political freedom is still freer than a China with neither economic nor political freedom.

There is no such thing as a public good. All services can be provided by the market, cheaper and more politely than the state.

The problem is "free" encompasses economic, political, civil, etc.

If China maintains State Capitalism in the long run, then it may be possible to have much economic freedom but no political freedom and restricted civil freedom at the same time.

Umm, interesting opinion...but no. Tell me, how would you expect the private sector to provide us with a judicial system, prisons, national defence, street lighting, roads, national power grid, etc.?

State capitalism really isn't capitalism at all, but amounts to corporatism.

...but even if Keep_it_Unreal's economic fallacies held water, I don't see how "causing harm to the consumer" makes the society any less free. How can someone deny that expanding freedom reduces it?

Sounds interesting, but debating the single example of the judicial system being a public good is besides the point I made.

Someone said [wrongly] that:


There are examples of public goods that are incontrovertible. Some goods are quite simply non-rival and non-excludable by nature. For example, street lighting is most certainly not rival in consumption, and once provided, is non-excludable. Same goes for clean air. Same goes for national defence.

Are there anarcho-capitalist solutions to those?

I'm more than happy to argue the theory of public goods with you, but before we get going can you explain

i) precisely what you mean by a public good

ii) why it is that the free market can't provide them (be careful: if, as I think you might, you define a public good as non-excludable and non-rival, bear in mind that it doesn't at all automatically follow that they are 'under provided' by the free market. After all, pressing the button on a pelican crossing would not be under supplied, even though those who don't press it free-ride of those who do).

And yeah, there are plenty of anarcho-capitalist solutions but I'd like to get our terms straight before we carry on.

I think you're getting into the same problem as the Marxists here. You're trying too hard to prove why something is theoretically impossible, while ignoring the fact that it's highly impractical and hasn't worked in modern times. For example, Somalia has had about as close as one can get to anarchy over the last decade and a half. Where is the miraculous economic growth there?

That problem isn't exclusive to non-rivalrous goods. Non rivalry doesn't really create a (new) problem

"The problem with non-rivalry is that charging a price prevents someone who could derive utility from an extra unit of the good from doing so, so welfare is lost. Either way, the price mechanism fails in bringing an efficient outcome."

Given that all goods (to the point of satiation) generate extra utility as consumption increases, imposing any price will result in a welfare loss for the consumer.