@h4890 @djsumdog @amerika @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist

I was thinking yesterday about how "the market" also succumbs to a "tragedy of the commons". The classic prototype is a public field shared by a bunch of cattle ranchers who have incentive to put as many cattle of their own on the field as possible to maximise profit, lest their competitors do so instead. Ultimately the field can no longer sustain the herds and the whole system collapses.

But this is functionally identical to corporations which try to maximise profit by screwing everyone over for the smallest margin. The end result is the externalisation and destruction of the planet at the expense of everyone but the executive class and shareholders. Ultimately it's unsustainable, the market collapses, and everyone loses.

So in effect, the argument for the current form of market capitalism suffers the exact same problem that capitalists like to point the finger at socialism/communism for. I'm not sure what the solution is, but just lobbing another libertarian market utopia at it doesn't strike me as a viable option. At least not unless it can address that demonstrable reality.