Oh, puhleeze! What property rights are and how they can be transferred are constrained by government coercion. Some would say they are defined by government. People are no more free to do whatever they want in a market than football players are free to do whatever they want on the football field. This is what the whole field of law and economics is about.
Of course, within "the rules of the game" there is considerable freedom, a great area of voluntariness, but in general people are not free to decide what those rules are, any more than football players can decide what the rules of football are.
The distinction between being constrained by good, stable rules and being constrained by the whims of a person or group is important, and we need a term for it. If ‘free/unfree’ will not serve, what is the best alternative?
In a free society a citizen can choose not to play the game. Totalitarianism is manifest by government imposing an ever greater set of requirements on the people.
The freedom to "opt-out" is foundational. The American Revolution was fought primarily on this single principle - the Colonists wanted to opt out of being ruled by Great Britain. The Colonies won and THEN they set out to figure out the rules to govern themselves as a union of states.
The hook Big Government interests use today is the argument that without bureaucrats and laws and regulations society will fail. This is a great deception for the simple reason that if all Federal rules were obliterated, there would still be in place state and local laws and regulations.
Re: "Of course, any desired outcome can, in principle, be pursued either with voluntary action (the market, broadly conceived) or with coercive action (government). [...] The logic of the market’s operation differs categorically from the logic of government’s operation. These differences are rooted in, but extend beyond, the fact that only in markets is all action voluntary." -- Don Boudreaux
I am persuaded by Arnold Kling's dictum, "Markets fail, use markets." I acknowledge a large kernel of truth in Don Boudreaux's contrast between government coercion and voluntary action in markets.
However, there is a complication: the firm (and, more broadly, the private org). In practice, there is much "command and control" and/or "tyranny of the majority" (or tyranny of the minority!) within private orgs.
True, orgs might have "internal labor markets." But exit options often are elusive. And voice options are skewed. Indeed, people often feel stuck in lousy jobs, or with bad bosses; and fear the employer/firm more than government.
Orgs fail, use orgs.
PS: Re: consumer markets. Michael Munger highlights that crucial exchanges sometimes are less than voluntary, insofar as a participant doesn't have any decent alternative to the exchange. But he also argues that less-than-voluntary exchange can be better than no exchange. See the brief outline of his view, "What Does Voluntary Actually Mean?":
Neither trust nor skepticism is neccessarily more important. Both certainly have their importance but I would argue for a society to function efficiently and effectively, we must mostly depend on trust while not minimizing or dismissing the usefulness of skepticism. We aren't and can't be experts on everything, making trust critical in most situations.
"... only in markets is all action voluntary."
Oh, puhleeze! What property rights are and how they can be transferred are constrained by government coercion. Some would say they are defined by government. People are no more free to do whatever they want in a market than football players are free to do whatever they want on the football field. This is what the whole field of law and economics is about.
Of course, within "the rules of the game" there is considerable freedom, a great area of voluntariness, but in general people are not free to decide what those rules are, any more than football players can decide what the rules of football are.
The distinction between being constrained by good, stable rules and being constrained by the whims of a person or group is important, and we need a term for it. If ‘free/unfree’ will not serve, what is the best alternative?
In a free society a citizen can choose not to play the game. Totalitarianism is manifest by government imposing an ever greater set of requirements on the people.
The freedom to "opt-out" is foundational. The American Revolution was fought primarily on this single principle - the Colonists wanted to opt out of being ruled by Great Britain. The Colonies won and THEN they set out to figure out the rules to govern themselves as a union of states.
The hook Big Government interests use today is the argument that without bureaucrats and laws and regulations society will fail. This is a great deception for the simple reason that if all Federal rules were obliterated, there would still be in place state and local laws and regulations.
Re: "Of course, any desired outcome can, in principle, be pursued either with voluntary action (the market, broadly conceived) or with coercive action (government). [...] The logic of the market’s operation differs categorically from the logic of government’s operation. These differences are rooted in, but extend beyond, the fact that only in markets is all action voluntary." -- Don Boudreaux
I am persuaded by Arnold Kling's dictum, "Markets fail, use markets." I acknowledge a large kernel of truth in Don Boudreaux's contrast between government coercion and voluntary action in markets.
However, there is a complication: the firm (and, more broadly, the private org). In practice, there is much "command and control" and/or "tyranny of the majority" (or tyranny of the minority!) within private orgs.
True, orgs might have "internal labor markets." But exit options often are elusive. And voice options are skewed. Indeed, people often feel stuck in lousy jobs, or with bad bosses; and fear the employer/firm more than government.
Orgs fail, use orgs.
PS: Re: consumer markets. Michael Munger highlights that crucial exchanges sometimes are less than voluntary, insofar as a participant doesn't have any decent alternative to the exchange. But he also argues that less-than-voluntary exchange can be better than no exchange. See the brief outline of his view, "What Does Voluntary Actually Mean?":
https://www.aier.org/article/what-does-voluntary-actually-mean/
Isn’t Nesse misusing the term ‘competition’? Pathogens and hosts have conflicting interests, but there is no prize that they are both trying to win.
Neither trust nor skepticism is neccessarily more important. Both certainly have their importance but I would argue for a society to function efficiently and effectively, we must mostly depend on trust while not minimizing or dismissing the usefulness of skepticism. We aren't and can't be experts on everything, making trust critical in most situations.