People tend to think about monopolies in terms of single companies, but they're more commonly a systemic thing.
Housing: Most voters are homeowners, with the shared incentive to increase the price of housing in their town through restrictive policies. This ignores the interesting conversation about whether NIMBY actually increases property values, but most people believe they do. They don't even have to be explicit about it, nor get 100% cooperation, but the emergent property is clear and shockingly consistent across US
Education: Prestige de-facto limits the number of 'desirable' schools in the marketplace, and the high-prestige schools haven't grown nearly as much as overall enrollment.
There's no single top hat wearing, cigar chomping fat cat. Or even a smoke filled back room. But a variety of cultural and regulatory norms keep the dynamics entrenched. Which isn't to say that they can't be changed! But it won't be just the subtle nudge of Adam Smith's invisible hand.
Those are all industries that are heavily regulated and/or subsidized by the government. I’m not saying the free market is the perfect answer to everything, but none of those are a free market.
That's a No True Scotsman, by that definition there simply isn't free market at all in the world. Every product and service has regulations on how/what can be sold...
That’s not the point. If this post is trying to argue that high prices are all just caused by greedy capitalists, then pointing out the three most heavily government-manipulated markets does not exactly support the hypothesis.
And no. There is not, in fact, a truly "free market" in the world, in the sense that people frequently talk about in terms of "the free market will solve XYZ". Because it's an idealized abstraction used to talk about the theory and philosophy of market economics.
I don't claim to be deeply conversant with the theory, but I do know that a truly free market requires:
1. Commoditization: The products or services need to be effectively interchangeable, aside from features and price on which different vendors can compete
2. Perfect information: The buyers and sellers all need to be perfectly informed about all aspects of the products or services (including things like, "was this made with slave labour?")
3. Unconstrained ability to choose: The buyers must have no constraints on their choice beyond those actively under competition—they can't, for instance, be lying on a gurney with their appendix rupturing while deciding which hospital to give their "business" to. They also can't be so hungry that they must buy food now or risk starvation, or under such tight financial constraints that they must choose the very cheapest option or risk destitution.
If a given market does not exhibit even one of these characteristics, it cannot be considered a "free market" of the type we should expect to arrive at the ideal distribution of resources.
Housing: Most voters are homeowners, with the shared incentive to increase the price of housing in their town through restrictive policies. This ignores the interesting conversation about whether NIMBY actually increases property values, but most people believe they do. They don't even have to be explicit about it, nor get 100% cooperation, but the emergent property is clear and shockingly consistent across US
Healthcare: There are many systems at play here, as an example: The AMA restricts the number of doctors who can enter the profession: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4561/does-the-a...
Education: Prestige de-facto limits the number of 'desirable' schools in the marketplace, and the high-prestige schools haven't grown nearly as much as overall enrollment.
There's no single top hat wearing, cigar chomping fat cat. Or even a smoke filled back room. But a variety of cultural and regulatory norms keep the dynamics entrenched. Which isn't to say that they can't be changed! But it won't be just the subtle nudge of Adam Smith's invisible hand.
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