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Why neoliberalism works

Now, you could tell me that you’re absolutely certain that a properly planned economy would also create a YouTube channel with 4,000,000 subscribers watching the entrails of 14 goats being cooked in some village out in the wilds over by the Sundarbans. Sure, you could tell me that. But you’ve not got a hope of making me believe it.

The reason markets work is exactly because they allow people to try all sorts of weird stuff unadulterated by what educated and sensible people think should happen. Well, OK, the real reason they work is because often enough the things that people want are the weird things that educated and sensible people working in offices can’t even think of, let alone think should happen.

13 thoughts on “Why neoliberalism works”

  1. That’s one my wife watches. But given that I was writing a column in a Bangladeshi newspaper, perhaps not quite the example I wanted…..

  2. Planning an economy is like telling a tinkerer he can only have at his workbench the tools he needs to build only what he has planned ahead of time to build.

    My grandfather once rigged his workshop to turn on the radio when he flipped the lightswitch. Instead of buying a power washer to clean his gutters, he welded some pipes together in his front yard and attached a hose and spray attachment afterward. If everything had to be approved by committee, he would’ve been limited to assembling a bunch of birdhouses from a kit.

  3. Does Bangladesh have cart boot sales I wonder.
    The UK equivalent of free trade Saturday mornings in fields is marvellous. Imv of course.

  4. And to control you need a plan….

    I think the chinese have learned from the past, and simply done away with the micromanagement typical for communist failures.
    Enough freedom for the yeast to propagate and prosper, but as soon as you’re starting to deal in whole loaves, you had better be part of the System, Or Else..

  5. They need a plan, but you don’t need a direction. That’s a crucial difference.

    The Chinese have done far, far more than remove some micro-management. They mostly allow people to make economic decisions in their own best interests.

    Sure, some of the biggest company directors have to play the political game, and play it hard. But the vast bulk of people would never come anywhere near that issue.

    The economy is far more than big companies. Even with them, it is the decision of the people to join, or not, those big companies (unlike Communism). It is the decision to train for and pursue a career you might like and be good at (unlike Communism). It is even the ability to stop working, if you want.

  6. Bloke in the Fourth Reich

    Probably the most poignant and eloquent defense of the free market I have ever read. Thankyou.

  7. Markets are hated by the planners because 1) all that tinkering and trial and error is considered wasteful when the planners already know what is needed, and 2) providing people with what they want and not what the planners think they should have is not considered a good result. That conflict will never die, though it would be nice if the planners could all be put on a barge and towed out to sea.

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