@renatojj I agree with you! Coerced into transactions they dont want is indeed the only definition important. I just dont agree free market policies are about making transactions as voluntary as possible. Free market policies only do that in some cases, namely where you have optimal competition. In most markets that is not the case. That is what I mean with right.

I live in Europe. Spain currently has an official unemployment of 25%, 50% for those under 25. Do you think in that situation the unemployed have a choice? You will and do get coercion. People dont want to work for wages that are so low they cannot afford their homes and barely have enough to eat. But the other option is starvation, so they have to. I know the free market people argue that that is still a choice. It is not. If it where up to companies, they would pay even less. Thats why you need for instance minimum wages. If companies would be allowed to go below that minimum all kinds of nastyness would happen. Not for the companies, but for the country, which is bad also for the companies in the end.

Free markets rules are set to minimize government intervention. In some cases that also leads to maximum choices, which you call economic freedom. The issue here is that if all the choices are bad, you are still better off with more rules as lots of bad choices is another form of coercion. The entire idea is to maximize economic freedom while making sure there are good choices. I am not advocating government take full control, which would be the other side of the spectrum. I am advocating a middle road. Use free markets when you can, regulate when you need to.

My car doesnt go above 140, his not below

@renatojj I argue that most markets do not have the right environment to allow free market policies. I do not argue that free markets policies do not work as I believe in some cases they can work. If you allow free market policies in a market that doesnt have the right basis, you will get exploitation.

Yes, I did consider if workplace mobility is inherently sluggish. And it is. There are numerous reasons. Consider that finding a new job is always more effort then staying where you are. There is always a threshold to changing jobs. Regulations can make that threshold higher (bureaucracy), just as deregulation can make that threshold higher. You see, if there are clear rules about minimum wages, pensions, health insurance etc, you dont need to negotiate those, which saves time and effort and lowers the threshold to change jobs, ie makes mobility higher. In any case there is never no threshold which means that you always need at least some basic rules.

Unions are not involved with government any more than businesses are. They are a party representing a group of people on the negotiation table just like businesses. And just like businesses it is government who has setup the basic legal rules they have to play in. If you look at history you will see that both corporations and unions started without any government involvement. They are both groups of workers cooperating, be it for different reasons. Later government regulated both.

Free markets are about one option on how to manage markets. Free markets are not about economic freedom and certainly not about freedom of expression. You can have free markets that oppress in the economic sense and fully regulated markets that give economic freedom. Consider that the free market concept is also not devoid of all rules. It just cherry picks the rules it likes and calls other rules "anti-freedom".

PS The economics theory of Karl Marx is about the only theory of macro-economics still standing. We may all not like the communist ideas that came from it, but his thoughts on capitalism so far have turned out to be spot on.

Defending free market policies today is a little daft. It is quite clear that leaving equality or mutual interest to the free market doesnt work in the majority of cases. To put it simply, in theory it all sounds great, but in reality most systems are not true free markets. For instance, there usually is little to no competition keeping the wages at "almost the same level as the value of the production". This is due to sluggishness of workplace mobility. People dont want to change jobs and do so rarely. There are plenty of reasons for that such as economic downturn (less jobs), lack of knowledge or courage to change, geographical limitations and in general the hassle of finding a new job which in all cases is a major hurdle. Also, companies set wages at similar levels as other companies, preferably below them, not above. They can do this exactly due to the sluggishness of mobility. This means that wage increases grow much slower than production value, and will over time stay more and more behind.

Last but not least, wages and worker rights are usually fought over not by government but by unions, which are specifically not government-based. Naming the weakness of politics doesnt change that having no protection is also not good.

As always it is best to walk the middle road here. Free market economics has its moments to be sure but it needs to be tempered by intelligent social rules. If you take a look at the "best" countries in the world to live in, various studies show that for instance the Nordics are extremely loved, and they all have free market economies tempered by social policies.

Its not nearly as much in kilograms.

That is what every city looks like at 9:00 Sunday morning when we are all asleep

Upvote upvote upvote! Love the man.

Some 20 years ago a group of slaughter houses came to my university to ask us to build similar machines. Before these machines, humans did this kind of work. Next to humans costing more, a bigger problem was that people who wield chainsaws at work to cut through meat tended to stop seeing the difference between their wife and the pig and would take the chainsaw home to work off hours too. Statistics said that 1 in 10 would eventually do that, a huge increase vs the rest of us.

They couldnt find students for it though. No one had the stomach.

All of Europe also has low birtrates.

Low birthrate is not the main issue as the total population is still growing due to people getting older. If you try to solve the 4-2-1 problem by having more kids, the total population will keep growing at a much stronger rate as we are still getting older and older. Which means you need more kids again, more people again and the issue just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

The issue is the amount of people in total is exploding. The solution should be sought in finding a balance. Not more kids, but the right amount of kids vs the amount we are growing older. That means getting less kids then we have today, even in Western countries. On top of that we need to look at the world, not just at isolated regions. Economic prosperity can help those regions find more sustainable birth rates as well. So us helping them economically will help us in the end not overpopulating this planet.

Brilliant. Now to show this to all my childbearing friends....

Drunk? Id like whatever he had please.

Now only 25 pounds in a shop near you!

I got the same one, linked to this site:
http://bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/adServer.bs?cn=bisi&pli=4596242&pi=0&p=&pos=1638

second day in a row that these popups appear, very annoying! They take over the screen AND since tis video they play sound at top volume until you are able to scroll all the way down to the add and click on pause.

Terrible!

Dag, can you help?

Jep, I remember English baguettes being that hard too.