That’s not what minarchism is. Minarchism simply means a desire for a small government. I do want the government to violate the rights of victimizers. For example, if someone doesn’t pay their debts, the government should violate their rights and facilitate seizure of their property. If someone goes on a shooting spree, I want the government to violate their right to be unharmed. But non-vicitimizing acts like growing certain kinds of plants, smelting pennies, or having a brown lawn (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3621205) shouldn’t be prosecuted as crimes.

>An unregulated free market will lead to a fair distribution of wealth and
>resources. (By fair, I mean commensurate with an individuals work, talent,
>innovativeness, etc.)

IMO that’s a tautology. From an economic point of view, “fair” and “commensurate with talent” is exactly that determined by looking at free market prices. For example, a major baseball player makes thousands of times more than a college professor. This is totally fair. The baseball player provides enjoyment to millions, while the college professor teaches maybe a hundred students.

Do you have some other way of determining “fair”??

@Peter, you are entitled to your opinions, even if they are at odds with the facts. I have neither the time nor patience to point out the flaws in your arguments. Just to show that I’m not full of shit, I will address just your last point. Suppose we have a monopoly, and a small company challenges it. Suppose the monopoly undercuts the small company and runs it out of business. Temporarily, this lowers prices. Now suppose it happens again, and again. After a few times, people start to catch on that if you try to compete with the monopoly, they’ll run you out of business. Eventually they just give up trying. Unless you have a graduate degree in economics, I suggest you ask yourself why you’re so sure you’ve got this figured out. I’ve been reading economics research papers on and off for years, and I don’t pretend to have it figured out. I’m just pointing out the assumptions that keep recurring in these papers.

And I’m saying “no they don’t”.

Whether or not electric cars seemed like a good idea to you is irrelevant.

Sure. But the fact that you think them a good idea is also irrelevant. Since you were holding up your opinion as the basis of your belief that there’s something wrong with the state of economics because electric cars aren’t produced, my opinion is at least equally good as a refutation.

Slavery seemed like a good idea to George Washington, and he was probably smarter than you are.

There’s no way to know, but the Wisdom of the Internet puts GW’s IQ at somewhere in the 118-125 range, so I guess not.

A free market is one in which buyers and sellers determine prices without coercrion. If the government buys and sells, but does not regulate, the market is simulteously “free” and affected by government.

But where does the government get the money and/or goods to buy and sell? Only through coercion (regulation), which affects the market. (E.g., every dollar the government takes off you in taxes is a dollar you don’t use in whatever way you would have spent it if the government hadn’t taken it; or, as you say, bailing out failing companies, etc.). The government can’t do anything, can’t even exist, without affecting the market. A “free market” can only exist in the absence of government. (The minarchist idea of a government that only protects rights wouldn’t negate a free market, but it’s impossibility – for an entity to be anything we would recognize as “government” it must necessarily infringe on rights, and therefore can’t be a protector of rights; a fully voluntary “government” isn’t a “government” at all)

The main reason the IP laws are “insane” is that they take something that should be tort law and make it criminal. Since it’s criminal, I’m assuming that an idealized free market would still have it.

But the point is that it isn’t criminal. At least if you draw a distinction between legislative law and what, for want of a better term, I’ll call “natural law”. (I think we can all agree that Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, to take the canonical example, was wrong. But since he was in a position to make the law (legislation), and did, in order to say it’s wrong you have to have some concept of “law” beyond merely whatever government legislators write in their books, or how courts interpret those scribblings. That’s all I mean here) That governments make something a crime that isn’t actually a crime, is itself a crime. So no, “an idealized free market” wouldn’t (couldn’t) still have it.

If you make the contrary assumption that a free market economy is altogether lawless, this example does not apply.

On the contrary, a true free market is not lawless. Regulation of the market is lawless!

However, my point about imperfect competition does apply, because the basic idea is that if there are no regulations to keep competitors from cooperating, they will

There’s nothing wrong with people cooperating, surely? (There is, however, a “law” against what you mean – not one made by governments (governments wish they could repeal it!), but one that arises naturally out the “physics” of human action – it’s the reason socialism can’t work: the inability to calculate without prices, or to have prices without a (somewhat) free market)

A rich, powerful cartel in, say the diamonds industry, can easily squash, buyout or undercut new entrants.

I’m not sure what you mean by “squash”, but how is buying out or undercutting potential competitors a bad thing for anyone? That means lowering prices, which is precisely the effect you want from the competitors anyway, right?

Your concerns about Monopolies are understandable- but the theory of a monopoly truly being possible without some type of government intervention has been thoroughly discussed and refuted. Dominick Armentano’s “Anti-trust: The case for repeal”, discusses in more detail the false worries of market monopolies and government using anti-trust legislation to make things WORSE for the consumer.

@Marc, yes, I agree that companies erect barriers to entry to protect their investments. My point is not that this is illogical, but that it alters prices. If a company can alter prices, the assumption of perfect competition is undermined. In a totally unregulated economy, nothing would stop telecoms from doing this, and the incentives are obvious, so it seems that perfect competition would be violated there too.

You may have a point about the IP legislation – it depends on how you define “free market.” I am assuming that a free market economy does not negate the presence of criminal law, i.e., the government still prosecutes murders, rapists, thieves, etc. The main reason the IP laws are “insane” is that they take something that should be tort law and make it criminal. Since it’s criminal, I’m assuming that an idealized free market would still have it. If you make the contrary assumption that a free market economy is altogether lawless, this example does not apply. However, my point about imperfect competition does apply, because the basic idea is that if there are no regulations to keep competitors from cooperating, they will, thus creating pseudo-monopolies that can basically set prices. I don’t agree that cartels require help from the government to stay afloat, especially in areas where the costs of entry are high. A rich, powerful cartel in, say the diamonds industry, can easily squash, buyout or undercut new entrants.

I will speak to freedom in another post.

I have never bought the assumptions of economic theories, they leave out WAY too many variables. (I have an engineering background, and the mathematics of economic theories rarely adds up)

What you seem to be saying is that free markets cannot work in our current economic system, which is NOT a free market, as S points out. Government intervention in the market has been going on for many decades. The monopolies, oligopolies and cartels you lament are NOT the result of a free market, but the result of companies with power and influence who have, over the years, influenced government into regulating them into a position of even greater power by erecting barriers to new competitors.
Freedom is something individuals should possess, not governments. With that freedom comes responsibilities, such as not polluting the property of others, not shooting at those whose beliefs are different than yours, etc.

Well you’re really complaining about the economic models of highly regulated markets, which is what we have right now. This economy is regulated to the extreme- the very existence of the Federal Reserve bank is proof of that.

The economic theories you are using also are Keynesian- which is not a free-market model in reality.