The next time someone decides to tell me that the reason things are the way they are is because of "The Free Market" I'm going to politely ask them if anyone paid them for this opinion.

And if the answer is "no" then I'm going to say "then why are you giving it to me for free, or is that precisely what it's worth: nothing".

@craigmaloney The market-based aanswer is, in part, that defining the ideological landscape, and driving pubic opinion, values, thinking, etc. (shifting the Overton Window) has strong positive advantage. As does any proselytizing.

There are other mechanisms at play, but if you're looking for the self-interested (or, far more likely: useful idiot) one, this is it.

Information goods are weird, market-wise.

#economics
#freemarket
#ideology
#economictheology
#greshamslaw

@dredmorbius Reason I bring this up is because this is the standard answer we get whenever we mention that JoDee is grossly underpaid as an adjunct faculty member. Usually it's tossed over like some intellectual grenade designed to diffuse the conversation and "take out" the opposition.

And frankly it's tiresome and this is my way to lob that grenade back at the lobber.

@craigmaloney Understood. It's a pretty weak counter though. There are far better attacks on free market arguments that actually do land punches.

Externalities, risk, underprivisioning of (most) public goods, overprovisioning of negative social goods, power concentration, corruption, etc.,etc.