MichaelMatulef on Nostr: Indeed, the arguments supposedly proving market failures are nothing short of ...

Indeed, the arguments supposedly proving market failures are nothing short of patently absurd. Stripped of their disguise of technical jargon all they prove is this: A market is not perfect, as it is characterized by the nonaggression principle imposed on conditions marked by scarcity, and so certain goods or services that could only be produced and provided if aggression were allowed will not be produced. True enough. But no market theorist would ever dare deny this. Yet, and this is decisive, this “imperfection” of the market can be defended, morally as well as economically, whereas the supposed “perfections” of markets propagated by the public goods theorists cannot. It is true enough, too, that a termination of the state’s current practice of providing public goods would imply some change in the existing social structure and the distribution of wealth. And such a reshuffling would certainly imply hardship for some people. As a matter of fact, this is precisely why there is widespread public resistance to a policy of privatizing state functions, even though in the long run overall social wealth would be enhanced by this very policy. Surely, however, this fact cannot be accepted as a valid argument demonstrating the failure of markets. If a man has been allowed to hit other people on the bead and is now not permitted to continue with this practice, he is certainly hurt. But one would hardly accept that as a valid excuse for upholding the old (hitting) rules. He is harmed, but harming him means substituting a social order in which every consumer has an equal right to determine what and how much of anything is produced, for a system in which some consumers have the right to determine in what respect other consumers are not allowed to buy voluntarily what they want with the means justly acquired by them and at their disposal. And certainly, such a substitution would be preferable from the point of view of all consumers as voluntary consumers.


- Hans-Hermann Hoppe