*** The official market and government thread ***

[CoccoBill]

Government workers are indeed just like normal people. I've argued that several times. But the jobs are not. Their incentives are fundamentally different than market incentives. There is irony in your argument here since the claim that government jobs are no different than market jobs contradicts the pro-state argument. If the jobs are indeed no different, then there is no value for the state over the market. But clearly you are arguing that there is, which means that you would need to claim that government jobs have a fundamentally superior incentive structure. That is an argument many have for the state, but it's not a new one. It makes the same mistake that is made in all those examples of bad authoritarian governments, that the moral incentive of bureaucracies is superior to the capital incentive of enterprise.

If a company's business strategy is to provide (e.g.) healthcare affordable to everyone, even those with no income, there would be no difference. The point is the market cannot guarantee the existence of such companies everywhere all of the time.

[wufwugy]

If a company's business strategy is to provide (e.g.) healthcare affordable to everyone, even those with no income, there would be no difference. The point is the market cannot guarantee the existence of such companies everywhere all of the time.

Neither can government. Markets have proven to be far more effective at achieving egalitarian outcomes.

BTW, we are blessed that no/few companies give healthcare away for free. That would send incentives batty, and the rules of supply and demand would punish us all. Hell, we're already heavily punished by the distorted incentives from the government redistributive policies. It is bad, bad news for a society when entities receive more than their capital dictates they "should". Economics does not function the way we would like it to, but we can't change it.

Clothing donations to Africa have had a profoundly bad effect on Africa by destroying its textiles industry. We moralize that charity is a good, but all it does is change incentives in a way that reduces capital production. Economics does not care about our morals. The only way we can get the moral outcomes we want is by realizing this and adhering to economic rules best we can. Economics tells us that if we apply prices to all things, we can continue this rapid ascent of living standards.

One day when scarcity doesn't exist we can finally tell economics to fuck off. Until then, we can't.