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Comment by Buttons840 | Hacker News Reader

I want a political cartoon that shows "The Free Market Ideal" with a bustling market full of wooden stands with fruit and produce, handmade goods, handmade signs, lots of people making choices and talking with the merchants one-on-one, haggling over prices, etc.

The next cartoon pane shows "The Free Market Reality", and it's a bunch of tired looking people standing in line for one of two automated computer terminals.

The truths portrayed would be: Those selling in the market have automated processes, there is no talking with the merchant, no haggling over prices, and there are not dozens of carts to choose from, in many markets there's 2 or maybe 3, or sometimes only 1.

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The 'free market' always collapses to a monopoly (or colluding duopoly) in every field. It can take decades but it always gets there in the end.

After all, what could be more efficient for shareholders than having no competition?

That would be a great cartoon.

For what it’s worth, I don’t like a lot of government meddling. Not because the free market is so great but because the meddling works out poorly and is subject to worse kinds of corruption and power games.

There's a balance.

Political discourse too often talks about "capitalism", "socialism", or "communism", and half the people using those words don't know the difference, only that capitalism is the good American one. I'd like it if we instead focused on more understandable clichés, like "consumer choice is good", "market competition is good", etc. When considering a new regulation it's hard to discuss whether it's socialist or not; it's easier to discuss whether it will increase consumer choice, or make entering and competing in markets easier for new companies.

We get one group talking about capitalism and what they like about it is consumer choice and free market competition between several companies. The next group likes capitalism because of wealth concentration and their ability to warp society with their money. Both groups talk and agree capitalism is great, without realizing they have very different things in mind.

“…it's easier to discuss whether it will increase consumer choice, or make entering and competing in markets easier for new companies.“

But then you also need to discuss the government power structures you need to put in place to create and implement that regulation. And when you look out ten, twenty years how that power structure will be twisted and abused.

Government always offers the same deal: grant government more power and they will solve problem X. But over time the people wielding that power change from people interested in problem X into people interested in the power. And the power is never contained to problem X.

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