Sublime

“self-regulating system for society’s orderly provisioning.” Smith referred to this self-regulating system as an “invisible hand” that directs the millions of exchanges between buyers and sellers of goods and labor toward their most efficient and productive use for society.

Similarly at equilibrium there’s no incentive for any agents to diverge from their present behavior—that’s the definition of an equilibrium. Therefore, exploitive behavior can’t happen. A subtle, muted, unconscious bias precludes ideas of exploitation or collapse.

The market is like evolution; it is an extraordinarily powerful force that derives its strength from rewarding the swift, the strong, and the smart.

History reveals that political policies that favor “the market” have always meant even more people in offices to administer things, but it also reveals that they also mean an increase of the range and density of social relations that are ultimately regulated by the threat of violence.

The logic behind the trade-off view is that competition and markets ensure the economy is more or less operating at full capacity and resources are efficiently deployed.

sink

Garrett Hardin in “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, December 13, 1968.

In a completely free market, unsupervised by kings and priests, avaricious capitalists can establish monopolies or collude against their workforces. If there is a single corporation controlling all shoe factories in a country, or if all factory owners conspire to reduce wages simultaneously, then the labourers are no longer able to protect themselv