Income and wealth inequality is fair.

Originally posted by Artol
Perhaps, it seems less important to me than some of the other points we discussed. I think our main disagreement in reality is that ilikecomics thinks that free trade is always a good, and I believe that guided and limited trade can lead to better economic and social outcomes.

Free association, non violence, and free trade are always a good.

The term is intentionally muddled, it's advantageous to attach a good term to bad things.

Sidenote: I'm excited jaden and artol are interacting

Here's an article that handles me and artol's problem from my side

https://mises.org/wire/free-market-economics-and-crony-capitalism

One of the reasons Britain voted to leave the EU was because of bullshit tariffs and limited trade.

So free trade might be something worth considering.

Originally posted by Blakemore
One of the reasons Britain voted to leave the EU was because of bullshit tariffs and limited trade.

So free trade might be something worth considering.

The alternative is being told what to buy, not to mention what the state does to our currency.

I'd rather listen to the state than the EU.

Sometimes it's good when the state tells you what to buy, like when we phased out lead in our fuel for cars or asbestos in buildings.

Originally posted by Artol
Sometimes it's good when the state tells you what to buy, like when we phased out lead in our fuel for cars or asbestos in buildings.

Pretty sure lead got phased out because car technology improved, which would be due to innovation no ?

Surely you don't think people buy tesla's, for example, because the state told them to, right ?

Originally posted by ilikecomics
Pretty sure lead got phased out because car technology improved, which would be due to innovation no ?

Surely you don't think people buy tesla's, for example, because the state told them to, right ?

Lead was phased out because of scientists figuring out the detrimental effects and a long running social campaign to get the government to restrict the usage (against immense lobbying and investment from industry who advised to "just let the market take care of it"😉. Luckily in the end campaigners won and the EPA forced the industry to phase out lead in a decision in 1973. https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-requires-phase-out-lead-all-grades-gasoline.html

I'm not against innovation, but the state is a big factor in what cars are bought and sold, whether that is through subsidies or tariffs. Tesla has a cool product and is selling it well, but according to climate scientists the changes are happening too slow, and we need more non-market intervention to limit the fallout from climate change.

The problem is that the external costs of using carbon is not priced in at all, it is basically a societal subsidy to everyone that uses CO2 to produce. The same with the lead example, the polluters in the industry did not have to pay for the costs they created so they could make larger profits than the market would have provided if they weren't able to put the costs on other people.