Dat inequality

[CoccoBill]

Government funds crowd out private funds, and there would probably be more donations without government involvement because it would allow incentives to work. Instead of universities focusing on competing for a fixed pie that is distributed based on general rules, they would focus on competing for a much bigger pie. The concept is similar to how so many heavily traveled roads are in shoddy condition because the government is in charge of their maintenance. Their incentive for upkeep is not as much as if the owners were private, and the fact that government is responsible for upkeep, it discourages private entities from not passing the buck.

I don't follow your logic here. Governments dish out so much grant money that the unis don't have to compete for the much larger funds available from the private sector? Public funding just means that they don't _have to_ compete, and even if they lose, the private funding still remains a viable option, right?

The market worked perfectly with Microsoft. In fact, it's likely that government intervention delayed MS's fall by cushioning the negatives the consumers experienced by Microsoft's power. There are few quicker ways to destroy a company than by giving it too much market share. Then the burden they feel from consumers for poor performance skyrockets and the incentive to compete against them for potential producers also skyrockets. The only time we see perpetual monopolies is when government creates them through laws. The only example I can think of in the private field is DeBeers, but that's a monopoly precisely because what consumers value about its product is the rarity and ultra-gouged prices.

Again, it's not about achieving a monopoly or a commanding market position, nothing wrong with that. It's just abusing that position that's unwanted, simply because at that point the market is ill-equipped to deal with the situation, since that company already controls the market and can bar entry from others, by undercutting prices, hostile takeovers etc. That's exactly why laws regulating that kind of behavior were put into effect, since that was seen to be the only option. The court cases were delayed unnecessarily, there's nothing inherent about them that requires them to take years or decades. Developing technology trends and new usage models took care of Microsoft (in a sense, they still rule the PC/office segment), not the market (MS's competitors or customers).

Another example of making the perfect the enemy of the good. When we discuss "good" things government does, we completely wash over the enormous cost they came at. We just assume the cost was neutral. How many people had to die in the Civil War for people to say that it created more suffering than the problem it was trying to solve? Somehow I feel like that number is infinite because it always seems to go unconsidered. All we do is think "before slavery vs after slavery", not "before a million casualties vs after a million casualties".

You used slavery as an example where the market was taking care of a problem, and I think it's quite obvious that that wasn't the case. Neither governments nor free markets are perfect, neither of them alone can be even good (IMHO), but they're both needed to create something workable.

If it wasn't true that markets solve these sorts of problems, we would today see the accounting work for bringing slavery back, and we would also see things like Putin invading and holding Ukraine and not stopping unless an army stood in his way instead of what he did, which was stop because the markets were fucking him

Slavery disappeared worldwide due to legislation, not because it suddenly became less profitable. Putin already seized Crimea, just a little more subtly than by direct military invasion. He knows Russia can't risk an all out war with Ukraine (~20th largest military power in the world) with a possible involvement of the west. The stock market crashing surely also had a big effect on his popularity numbers, that's for sure.

Compared to the US, state-run systems that negotiate prices are more market-oriented, as odd as that may be.

What do you mean by [schools] negotiating prices?

Regardless, the difference between the two are better summed up through other means than markets. In a way, it's a night and day comparison, because Finland incorporates vocational education sensibly. The US does not and this is about as stupid as using horse-drawn plows for agriculture.

Yes, so we do have examples where the government runs education just fine. In fact in most of the world's top educational countries the system is mostly public, with also the private sector receiving major financing from the state.

Why are these things different? Why do markets work for entertainment or nourishment but not for safety or transportation?

Markets work great for anything highly innovation- or creativity-driven, things that I'd label other than basic necessities. I believe in equal opportunity, and I think a government is needed to provide that for everybody. Equal outcome no. Transportation isn't a necessity so I wouldn't include it, and nourishment is so abundant and available in the western world that I wouldn't label that as such either. In a 3rd world country, probably.