Free Market Straw Man

A "straw man" argument is when you misrepresent your opponent's argument and then tear it to pieces, thus pretending that you have refuted the opponent's actual position. This is extremely common, especially in political discussions, and people often don't seem to notice it when it happens.

Tam sent me a link to an article on Slate that has the most egregious straw man I have seen recently. The author, who is an economist at the Wharton School of Business, makes this particular claim:

"After all, free-market economists have told us for decades that we should rely
on market decisions, not the government, to meet our needs, because it's the
market that satisfies everyone's every desire."

He then goes on to demonstrate that the free market does not satisfy everyone's desire, hence free market economists are wrong about the benefits the market provides, and thus the free market ecomists claims that the market is superior to the government in providing value to people are also wrong. (He has written an entire book based on this idea.)

But of course, it is not the case that free market economists claim that the market "satisfies everyone's every desire." Indeed, I seriously, seriously doubt that the author could cite a single free market economist, or free market supporter in general (no matter how otherwise batshit crazy he may seem in wanting to privatize the roads, etc.) who has said or would say that. The fact that we live in a universe of scarcity basically guarantees that everyone's every desire will not be satisfied and free market economists are well aware of this fact. After all, I do not believe that every free market economist in this country drives a Ferrari, owns a vacation home in Jackson Hole, and is fucking Jennifer Lopez. (I, for one, am eagerly awaiting a new kind of ice cream that tastes like Amy's Mexican vanilla with Reese's peanut butter cups smashed in but has the precise nutritional profile of raw spinach.)

In the free market versus government debate, it is not necessary for the free market side to demonstrate that market failures do not and cannot exist. It is merely required to show that free markets do better than the actual alternatives. (Note: the Star Trek scenario, in which scarcity supposedly no longer exists and in which we get everything we desire from a replicator, is not an actual alternative.)

As for the special sneakers that Nike is making to fit the unusually shaped and sized feet of American Indians - if they want to make these shoes, provide them to people through tribal schools, and reap the rewards that are possible with social responsibility marketing, more power to them. (I do not expect that Nike thinks this is going to be a directly profitable product.) But, 1) this is a particularly lame example of a market failure to be hanging an entire article on; 2) special shoes for American Indians have existed before now (they are called "moccasins" - I suggest the author of the article google this word for more information on this obscure product), and 3) it's kind of, well, disgusting to see someone using American Indians to make a point regarding the relative effectiveness and benevolence of the US government given American history and the continuing screwovers handed to the tribes by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.