"Aye, free! Free as a tethered ass!" —W.S. Gilbert
"All the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and . . . the State should be abolished." —Benjamin Tucker
"You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." —James Madison
"Fat chance." —Sheldon Richman
Friday, April 05, 2013
TGIF: The Myth of Market Failure
When I say that market failure is a myth, I don’t mean to deny that ... regrettable situations can occur. I only mean to deny that they are peculiar to the market.
I know this goes in a bit different direction then the article but actually failure is one of the great features of free markets. Failure is what weeds out unwanted behavior.
My plan to beat out Starbucks Coffee by creating a nationwide chain of shops selling onion flavored sour milkshakes is most likely going to fail and should fail, without failure I might keep on wasting my time/money and ruining my few customers stomachs
One of the big problems with government is that they often subsidize failure which hurts both wealth creation and customer satisfaction. Government failure is often because it forced failure on others, free market failure is because of your own failures and the quicker you read the signs and change the better you will be. We all fail at things and realizing that failure is not all bad is important to move on to something better.
So three cheers for failure, its part of what makes free markets great.
I know this goes in a bit different direction then the article but actually failure is one of the great features of free markets. Failure is what weeds out unwanted behavior.
ReplyDeleteMy plan to beat out Starbucks Coffee by creating a nationwide chain of shops selling onion flavored sour milkshakes is most likely going to fail and should fail, without failure I might keep on wasting my time/money and ruining my few customers stomachs
One of the big problems with government is that they often subsidize failure which hurts both wealth creation and customer satisfaction. Government failure is often because it forced failure on others, free market failure is because of your own failures and the quicker you read the signs and change the better you will be. We all fail at things and realizing that failure is not all bad is important to move on to something better.
So three cheers for failure, its part of what makes free markets great.