Right. Like I said. A rhetorical question.
By the same token, and as MaikU said, particular manifestations of fairness are also not written into the fabric of the cosmos.
With that said, how do you know whether “unfairness can be tackled and overcome”? Are you implicitly claiming that an objective standard of (un)fairness necessarily exists? If so, I’d ask you to please support that claim.
Nice attempt at evading the questions. It won’t work though. So why are you afraid of answering the questions? And what are your answers to them (if you have any)?
Where and when did such a freedom exist in the first place? Please enlighten me.
How do you define “power”, exactly?
You are getting the returns. You’re getting a place to stay. How is that not a return? Obviously you prefer being able to stay in the house/apartment/etc. than you prefer keeping the money it costs you to stay there - otherwise, you wouldn’t pay the rent. It’s as simple as that.
That begs the question - what exactly is their contribution? And guess what? There is no objective answer to that question!
This is the problem when looking at economic activity in terms of equity. If value is subjective (which it is), how can different economic goods or services ever be proven to have the same value?
How do you expect us to convince you if you’re not open to being convinced in the first place?
Otherwise, what do you mean by “endogenous”? Do you mean “from within the market”, or “from within human nature”? But regardless, Austrian-School economists completely reject the concept of economic equilibrium as anything more than a theoretical construct - what Mises called “the imaginary construct of the evenly-rotating economy”. In other words, there is no equilibrium to be had to begin with! Believing otherwise would be seen by Austrian-School economists as committing a methodological error.
Somehow, I don’t think that’s what John James meant by “measure”. Let’s say Smith can make 8 widgets per hour. One potential employer, Jones, “measures” Smith’s output as being worth $8 per hour. Another potential employer, Wilson, “measures” it as being worth $10 per hour. Which potential employer is “measuring” correctly?
I’d love to see the equations you’ve derived. They must be quite detailed and rigorous!
Translation: “No, I’m not saying an objective measurement can be made. But I am saying that an objective measurement can be made.” In other words, your first two sentences above necessarily contradict each other. To say that there are certain upper limits to how much wealth an individual can create is to implicitly claim that 1) wealth can be measured objectively, and 2) wealth produced by individuals is objectively limited. Now please provide your rigorous logical or mathematical reasoning that proves how this must be the case.
Leftists love to use tit-for-tat when painted into a logical corner.
Anyways, perhaps you’d like to actually explain what does make you think that you’re in any position to make such a determination (to say nothing of having the right to do so)?
Perhaps you’d like to actually explain how he allegedly “doesn’t get it”?
Please support every clause which I have appended with the tag “[bare assertion]” above.
I’ll note for the record that this appears to be an argument from ignorance.
Okay, what is it you call “wealth redistribution”? When I hear that term I think that the state takes wealth from one person and gives it to another person. If there’s some “unfair” process in the market that makes “the rich richer and the poor poorer” that is not necessarily wealth redistribution. Your baseline seems to be sameness, if anything happens that takes us away from sameness of money (regardless of all other factors), then it is ‘wealth redistribution’. But that’s not how it works. The market gives money to those who produce value for society. Why? Well, so people are incentivized to be productive and society grows richer. That’s the only reason we get richer.
Ok, person A takes a computer course, person B does not. In effect, person A invested his leisure time, person B consumed it. Therefore person A is valuable to society and earns a lot of money, person B does not. Now person A has money and spends it on a boat and booze… no, wait, he defers his consumption and buys a rental property instead. (Or he has a good credit rating and can get a mortgage, it amounts to the same.) He makes this property available to person B, who has to pay for the privilege of having a roof over his head. Is it unfair that B has to pay for the privilege of using A’s property? Is B paying off A’s mortgage because he pays A more than the value of that house? Is A “the idle rich” who receive money by virtue of having money? No, because A is delaying his consumption to provide it for someone else, he should receive compensation for that. And that’s what the market does. If access to this capital is provided for free, then A would have no incentive to buy a rental property instead of a boat. Society would use it 's resources for boats for the rich instead of houses for the poor. Is that what you want? And what’s the alternative? If the state expropriates A’s income or property to build houses for B, then A is not incentivized to be productive and society will be poorer. Everyone, including B, would be worse off in the long term. Person A receives interest for owning his property because he defers his own consumption and makes it available to B, who has a roof over his head. And that’s what raises standards of living.
Now, person B did not take a computer course. He is not as valuable to society and does therefore not have access to any capital. Normally he would not have a roof over his head. Is it unfair that he pays for the privilege of using A’s capital? Is he “paying off A’s mortgage”? No, he pays for using resources that someone else would have had the right to consume. It is true that his status as “the poor guy” imposes a cost onto him. Yes. But wait a minute, is this not the very negative feedback you have been asking for? It sucks to be poor… so better be rich. It provides an incentive for B to take a computer course and afford a house of his won. Thus you answered your own question: What is the negative feedback that makes sure that the market outcome is sameness? It’s the personal incentives that are provided by the sucky conditions of inequality. You just have to take personal choices into account.
People actually belive that we have a free market, politicians actually belive that trade regulations = free market, or that regulations are required for a market to be free. So I`m actually asking the OP if he/she actually believes we have a free market/libertarian society, because he/she wrote : "Where are the negative feedbacks that supposedly make the market fair? Is this not just a self-reinforcing mechanism that makes a mockery of the meritocratic ideals espoused by libertarians? "