Dat inequality

[CoccoBill]

For example, due to government policies, universities compete for government grants. This makes government involvement in basic research look much higher than it otherwise would be if universities had a more market efficient approach that involved competing for private funds for everything they need. I suspect the amount of basic research that would be performed is much higher in a totally free market than in one of government involvement

I wouldn't call that monopolistic. It's just one supply source for universities, one they could replace with private funding if they please. It's just such a good deal for the universities that they compete for the grants. Why would there be more basic research (=research that mostly cannot directly be applied for profit) in a free market? In my opinion, the situation would be exactly the same as it is now, minus the possibility of public funding.

Microsoft OS was considered a monopoly...

That's not at all what happened. MS or any MS OS hasn't been a monopoly (the only supplier for a commodity), and they weren't sued for being one. They just abused their commanding market position:

- in 1990's they adopted a licensing scheme where PC manufacturers were required to pay for an MS-DOS license even when the system shipped with an alternative operating system, used predatory tactics to price its competitors out of the market and erected technical barriers to make it appear that competing products did not work on its operating system. They were sued in 1994 and settled in 1995.
- they bundled IE to the OS to kill off Netscape. In 2001 they were sued again and found to have breached the earlier settlement and abused their monopoly position.
- they've also been sued for similar things in 2002, 2003, and 2007.

So in a nutshell, they had been repeatedly abusing their market position, and 20 years later when they finally have started to lose market share, that's due to a shift from PC systems to tablets and smartphones. Due to litigation, they've been forced to pry out IE from the OS core, pay hundreds of millions and stop their questionable practices. The market didn't solve it in any way, the courtrooms did a somewhat better job, however the Bush jr administration decided to drop all charges based on 9/11 (makes sense right?).

As for the topic of slavery, the worst thing that has happened in US history is the Civil War, and it's not really even close. We call Lincoln a hero for "freeing the slaves", and we don't call him a monster for sending a nation of men to their gruesome deaths. We don't talk about how slavery was already losing ground for market reasons, or how letting the markets handle the problem would very likely have solved it with far less suffering than what was caused by the Civil War. We don't talk about how the only thing the government ever does that's "good" is keeping its constituencies from living in warzones, which is ultimately the one thing a society needs in order for market forces to arise and start solving problems.

Slave trade was made illegal in 1808, but in 1861 when the civil war broke out, there were more slaves in the US than there ever had been. Lincoln offered to buy the freedom of the slaves from the south, but he both could not have been able to (buying all the 1.5M slaves would have cost $3bn, more than the worth of all the banks, railroads, factories etc combined), even if the southern states would have agreed to it which they didn't, since they were a profitable business. So much for the market solving the issue.

I don't know about Korea, but I do know that Scandinavia has a far more market-oriented education system than the US. Even then, the results aren't that great.

I live in Finland, and there's absolutely nothing free market about the education system. There are practically no private schools and education is basically free for everyone, even foreigners. The result is, that Finland has consistently scored at the top of the PISA rankings. Why? I'd personally say it's mainly due to the quality of teachers. They aren't paid well but they're enthusiastic and dedicated, being a teacher is respected. Whereas in some societies "those who can't do teach", in Finland some of the best choose teaching instead of working in the private sector.

This probably sounds ideological and pompous, but I don't know what else to say. We live in a world where chicken sandwiches cost a dollar, iphones exist, and people can get heart transplants. Where is government in creating these things? Find where government is in anything, and you'll find there is very little innovation in that thing and costs are enormous. Find where there is little government, and you'll find amazing things that we take for granted

I absolutely do not think that government(s) should provide any of that in the first place. Only infrastructure, safety, healthcare, regulate individuals and companies so they don't act like a douche and maybe some other things.