Debunking Myth #2: The free market

There is no such thing as a free market. Get over it. It doesn't exist in the real world.

Think of it like this: The free market of Economists is like using a funnel in a laboratory to pour sand into cones on the top of a lab table ... free of wind and waves and freezing temperatures ... as everyone stands around and oohs and aahs over the Invisible Hand shaping the grains of sand into a perfect cone as they come out of the spout of the funnel.

Try doing it on an Oregon beach in March.

Examples of free market supply and demand curves deal with sales of programs at Super Bowls. The real world has to contend with mothers and fathers sharing porridge with their children.

Going from an local agrarian village culture to a global free market culture has killed a lot of children.

All this so entrepreneurs can predict the optimum amount of grain to deliver to village markets so that the demand allows a profit sufficient to attract farmers to grow the grain, shippers to transport the grain, and retailers to sell the grain, i.e. provide the optimum supply ... to replace the village economy in which the villagers did this for themselves.

Isn't anyone else scratching their head in puzzlement?

Seems like we could have tried to figure out how to do this without killing so many children.

But when someone can get others to pour their sand through a funnel, and charge them a fee ... well, it's easier to control the funnels than it is to control the sand ... and you show people that funnels work ... on still a day, on a quiet beach ... and make it against the law to pour sand without funnels ... "Stay in line there. Don't go wandering around the beach. Get your sand from Funnel A and take it to Funnel B and pour it in. Others will take it from there. Yes, yes, you'll all have an opportunity to get and pour sand if you just follow the rules. No, no, you can't go build sand castles with the Scandinavians. Damn it, now the Bolivians are going over there." .... god, how did we ever get to this point.

I can't help but wonder what's going to happen when the next storm hits the beach ...

It isn't that markets don't work. They do, within limitations. It is just that when those who control and manipulate the limitations for their own benefit and then try to say their are no such limitations that can be controlled or manipulated ... or that such an ideal exists and we need to come as close to the ideal as possible ... when limits—and the need for them—are inherent in the very structure of a money based economy ...

But if you are going to print programs for sale at the Super Bowl and want to maximize your profits ... well, Economists have some useful calculations for you to use. They just don't work very good for feeding a family in Nairobi.