Hello, I have a dispute with a person who claims:
“In order to achieve a perfect market, it would be necessary, first, to create an absolutely symmetrical information space; second, to exclude non-excludable and non-competitive goods from the economic system; third, to eliminate external effects; fourth, to completely remove differentiated products; fifth, to somehow maintain all the above-mentioned (in themselves fantastic) conditions; sixth, to prevent the intentional violation of the established order by others.”
A perfect market is a market in a vacuum, a simplified model for graphs and clear explanations of theories. Therefore, the transition to a “beautiful ancap” is impossible not because of “omnipresent etatism,” but simply because the conditions for its existence in the form you imagine are unattainable”
How should I prove that the market is real? Perhaps you can suggest some articles on this topic?
Igor
This is a classic “straw man” rhetorical device, where it is not the opponent’s actual thesis that is refuted, but one that is convenient to refute. A perfect market (or perfect competition) is a term from neoclassical economic theory, whereas ancap is based primarily on the Austrian school. Something similar to the perfect market model is described by Mises in Human Action, introducing such a theoretical construct as a uniformly functioning economy. In such an economy, all agents possess full information, and all other conditions described by your opponent are met. As a result, such an economy is absolutely predictable, and entrepreneurship is impossible within it. This theoretical construct is introduced for exactly one purpose: to demonstrate the difference between a real economy and a uniformly functioning one, and thereby show what the role of the entrepreneur consists of (which is precisely obtaining profit by utilizing the uncertainty of the future) and the role of the investor (which is to maintain a certain reserve of capital goods in the past for consumption in the future). Similarly, in physics, there is the concept of uniform rectilinear motion; in various schools of dance and martial arts, there are basic stances, basic steps, and so on. To say that an ideal market is a market of perfect competition is like claiming that an ideal dance is a couple moving in basic steps from a basic stance, while the whole essence of dance is precisely improvisation based on that very foundation.
In my view, this substitution is made far too often partly because of the poor choice of the term “perfect market” itself—it contains a manipulation that makes one think of this phenomenon as something desirable, for who doesn’t dream of perfection! Meanwhile, a perfect market is generally indistinguishable from a perfect planned economy, where everything is also calculated and predetermined. Likewise, we could speak of a perfect communism, where absolutely all material objects are in public ownership, and absolutely all actions are performed only with universal consent after comprehensive and full discussion. Indeed, such a theoretical model of perfect communism is used by theorists when they demonstrate the necessity of self-ownership.
