Rilla

In the Caplan lecture, he doesn't mean to judge lay people for not understanding economics, but for treating economics like they do understand it when they don't have any reason to. You don't have an opinion on how to perform heart surgery because you don't know anything about it (I'm assuming), but if heart surgery was economics and you were the average person, you would have an opinion on it. A very strong opinion. This isn't that solvable a problem because the populace is forced to have an opinion due to living in a voting democracy. One of Caplan's takeaways is that capitalist interests have softened the blow of this, and it is possible we could create more progress by allowing mechanisms of expertise take precedence in policy-making

A different point you've been making is what I think is making the perfect the enemy of the good. For example, if your pizza analogy is assumed to be exactly as you say it, what is the other solution? Regulation of tastes? Regulation of ingredients? I think it is safe to say that the only mechanism we've found that can raise the quality of pizza is capital markets. Even if there may come to be an overabundance of poor quality pizza, that doesn't mean that government could do a better job. You do a better job with your dollar and preferences. I do a better job with my dollar and preferences. The guys who seek our business do a better job with their dollar and preferences. The system isn't perfect in an ideal sense, but water doesn't perfectly flow downhill in an ideal sense either. Adding government to the mix of pizza will not solve any problems. Unless, of course, you can find problems it would solve. Acknowledging that problems exist in pizza doesn't mean the markets aren't working

Furthermore, the markets are working with pizza. It's one of the best examples that could be used to extoll the virtues of capitalism. The amount of people employed in the industry is enormous. It started small, with some wheat and tomatoes, and now it's the most popular food in the modern world, with the widest variety. You can get it super cheap at the store, have it delivered to your home, or have freshly made boutique styles at restaurants. The possibilities are incredible, and if anything is holding growth an innovation of the industry back, it's regulations that create too much red tape and business operation costs. Jon Stewart once had a New York style vs Chicago style segment. You can't get that without capitalism.

Markets aren't without their characteristics. If we want a Utopia where one company gets so powerful that it hinders progress for a while, and this can be well-regulated against so that market processes keep these companies from arising, we're not going to get it. Microsoft is a fantastic example of this. Back in the 90s, it looked like a juggernaut that would control computers and the internet and the government did something about it. But looking back, the regulations had zero effect on the companies that have now arisen and made Microsoft one of the underdogs. People tend to view size and power as nothing but a strength, so it makes little sense how something so big and powerful could fall to something weaker, but the details show that incumbency advantages also create dire weaknesses. A great example of this is how Walmart is unable to compete with Amazon's emergence in grocery delivery because doing so would harm Walmart too much since B&M retail is its bread and butter. The rise of Google and Amazon in a world with major incumbents in Microsoft and Walmart are a testament to the fact that markets work and that regulations don't


Something a little more abstract to think about: if what you pay for with your capital doesn't reflect your moral values the most, what does? I haven't found anything