Market Structures are Important
Markets have "Features." Economics is a basic reality we live in.
Aram/John Aram: " (")In the eyes of many, these features of market structure are important ...
"…[and] they offer the best chances for wealth creation [which] is considered a prerequisite to improving the human condition.(")"
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Markets offered the best chance for wealth creation.
Adam smith titled his major economics work: "...inquiry into The Wealth of Nationsssz...." So, that is about wealth creation too.
This, too, underscores how important wealth is. "Wealth." So, what does it mean? Well, it usually means in economics anything useful, or, in any case, just tradeable — one may eventually get something useful. It is tied to anything that is more or less useful or practical. So we have to include money in that. Money, therefore, is a way to hold wealth even though money itself (is it even a thing? ~ or more number-like?) is nothing. You can’t eat it; But okay, you can buy something with it so we include money, along with furniture, preserved herrings, and catfish (not to mention castles of tapestries) ---- "Wealth."
So how do you make the nation faster, sharper, trendier? You might try and let markets stand in the place of human flourishing (or, "the greatest good"). But only for a limited period of time. The time is UP! … it could work like that but for a limited time. So, yeah. Those markets are really something. They may sometimes work merely based on the self-interest of human beings. Yes, so this is what Adam Smith pointed out in grand style. It is legitimate. A great insight.
Many persons agree that the features of the market structure are important. This is what Aram says, he was quoted above. The ones who agree are broadly scattered within society. Capitalism is reflected in the whole of the population. These aren’t just college professors. This point of view is correct: If they are saying that markets need to have certain features, they are right. Those features are necessary. There exist definite structures, customs, procedures, or laws which are the structural components proper to a viable or functional market, not to a dysfunctional one. If people don’t do things the right way, it is not going to work. Economics will not work. We cannot see everything as an abstraction or a universal. It is not just one black hole. Or it is not an abstraction. There are precise rules or laws of how it happens. But, for example, “rational self-interest” not a specific, local condition. It is a big abstraction for philosophic debates. The better method of understanding market structure is that there are laws of a localized sort. If we use this idea of laws, it is important to understand the sense of what we mean. Laws of successful, viable capitalism are specific things that must be there. This in turn guarantees that economics, or economic activities are good for the society. The essential features we are discussing here consist of a multiplicity of laws, rules, practices, etc. suitable to “local” conditions, which is to say particulars and not universals. Therefore, we do not need economists to spout economic universals, or the broad sweeping generalizations—those of the “Worldly Philosophers,” if that makes any sense. The economists.
But the prevailing (or orthodox) theory (in Economics) has it that there are no specific laws. No, they have to make broad, sweeping theories. They hold that whatever they say about economics is universal, it applies across the board. In this vien, they of course are going to need to negate history. Fukuyama seems to me a bit more honest, at least, if he says we need to do away with history. If such thinking (in terms of universals) is a good theory, if believing in universals is good, then ultimately you would want to theorize an "end of history." Fukuyama, however, claims that he meant something else when he said “End of History.” Well, I don’t know. I guess everyone heard something else, again.
And with that we have taken care of Francis Fukuyama. Making a universal of the topic is stupid. Economics is really stupid, in fact. I will not accuse them of deliberate malice. I would assume that these persons believe themselves when they say things. And to repeat: What they say is that their statements about economics, whether it be in terms of statistics, economic activities, or some other economic phenomena of note (some part of real economics in the world) are universal statements about the human condition! (hey. people buy things. wow. cool.)
What is the right approach to economics? Whether they are right or wrong in approach matter. This really matters. Do they really understand what they say they understand? What do these persons actually understand? They understand the universe! Well, my goodness. Isn’t that lovely! This is the same hubris that exists on, for example, the Federalist Society, which I think I basically understand. It is some sort of nefarious, evil organization or something. And it has members who are federal judges! (Yeah, I know! Google It! I'm a-scared to!)
Capitalism is depicted (by various free market theorists) as a natural thing. It is a universal creation. It did not come out of earth or blow in with the West wind, but rather this is the creation of humans. In other words, it arose all by itself, because, look ---- humans do this stuff. What do they do? Trade? Manufacture? Then take this kind of reasoning to the next step. If everything is natural, they reason, we must leave nature alone. It must be better to let this natural way of being alone to eternally "take care of itself" and us by working itself out. With global climate change looming down on us, only an idiot would believe this. This will work according to magic, and automatically. This universal market is actually seen by some of persons -who are complete geniuses -as functioning accord to magic: the "magic" of its own inherent nature, which is neither good nor bad but just the result of these natural human activities, or the universals, and therefore the worst thing you can do it intervene in markets which just saps all of the energy or dynamism from this exciting natural human mode of being which just flourishes naturally if you leave it alone. These are grown men and supposedly scientists—using the word: "magic." (The magic of the market: pretty standard jargon.) What they care about here is that it is a completely natural, automatic thing. And they need to specify that. Incredibly, the world went along with this. It is gibberish.
University "Economics" (economics the subject field) is thus the greatest scam of its time. These guys are devious~
~And, finally, they represent the first failure, the initial detour from rationality that prefigures all the things we see today. The failure of the science of Economics prefigures by a century all that is going on now. A false doctrine that was undetected and unopposed. Now we are facing all of the horrors of decline a decline of Western Civilization. This is declining, or failing, in front of us—we are seeing it happen before our very eyes. Long before "fake news" — we had fake economics.
But I am not a conspiracy theorist and I will not go so far as to say they are doing it on purpose or by intent. Some of them must be pretty weird people, I am sure they are, but I won’t say they did it on purpose or I will say that certainly they did not all do it on purpose. We should have compassion towards them, for these were deluded individuals and actually what they were trying to do was to create those theories that would appear to give us a conservative, or private, capitalism. But that is not going to exist. It is something that will never be. These kind of economists will destroy the world first. Making up stuff that is not true. Well, that has no merit whatsoever.
Okay, so do I really mean all economists are bad? Are any of them, like the absolutely best of then, better? Aren’t there good guys? Well, I suppose some of them tried (my absolute favorite is Jos. A. Schumpeter, and after him I do not like any of them really, although of course some are better than others. You could just as well make a list of "The good ones"), but once you wander into the valley of the dead you do take on corpse-like qualities and characteristics. You have, Like RUBBER SKIN.
Put differently (and I have experience: I took two graduate level ECON courses), no one could get through a course of graduate Economics study and emerge with an intact idea of economics. You will have gotten thrown way off course. It’s no use. Going to graduate school will not help you. You will never have a good grip on the matter. This is economics as a topic of discourse. You go through those courses; the only outcome is you will come out deranged. (However, once again, this is just my opinion and if you just last month received a Ph.D., hey, that’s awesome; good for you.)
So, anyhow, what we have learned here is that markets have features. They are localized and specific (no, I do not have the list). Then we can then talk about humans as creators of economics, how they every did that and what kind of regulations to insert at the correct time. Economics could be viable. It our creation, as humans. It does not work by itself. Humanity is in the stage of capitalism, and how well this turns out is up to us. The problems don’t solve themselves automatically because of “free markets.” We shall have to see how we manage the capitalist system in the future. Will we as a human race be able to develop it? Can we make it go further, ie in order to develop ourselves further? Or will owners of business get bogged down in “this is my private property”?
I am not hopeful, but I want to get the principles written down—at least you will have something to read, while in the bunker.
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Notes: Aram (John) is a university professor (Case Western Reserve) whom I discovered online.