What is 'cultural Marxism'?

[Seth]

All leftists fail (actually refuse) to distinguish between justifiable regulations which control and punish bad or harmful behavior on the part of businesses and individuals and unjustified socialist regulations that are intended to centrally-plan and control the markets and economy by selecting economic winners and losers as a part of a sociopolitical, not an economic agenda. Socialists issue regulations to try to make free market competition more "fair" or "egalitarian" rather than just regulations intended to prevent and control actual fraud or harm.

Economic regulations, such as government support for labor unions, are not intended to prevent harm, they are intended to meddle in the economy and skew the operations of the free market to benefit one group or individual over another group or individual economically. And that's where they go wrong; they try to inject social policy into the markets when all that does is destroy the markets, and thereby the economy, which makes all the social policy, particularly the entitlement policies, impossible to fund.

Do you think there are any cases where society-wide strategic planning on economic issues is a good idea?

That's what the free market is, society wide strategic planning on economic issues. Markets for anything emerge and are controlled by the billions of individual decisions (call them "votes" if you like, because that's what they are...) people make about what they want and need every day.

What I suspect you mean is central strategic economic planning by some small group of people who purport to know better than the market what people want or need and presume to dictate to the markets what may or may not be produced and sold based on their notions of what's necessary or good for people.

And no, I do not think there are any such cases because it's impossible, and tyrannical for one person or group to tell others what's necessary or good for them.

But it's important to distinguish between government central planning of the economy and government regulation of activities within that economy that may be harmful. Government can never accurately assess how many tractors must be built this year or how many acres of onions must be planted to meet the desires and needs of society, but government can, and indeed one of its primary legitimate functions is to make sure that the marketers of tractors do not defraud consumers and that the onions are safe to eat. Beyond regulating to prevent and punish the initiation of force or fraud however, the government has no place in trying to pick economic winners and losers in the free markets. It cannot do so wisely, ever, because the prejudices and biases of those who try to do so always emerge in their attempts to manipulate the markets.

A free market is 'wisdom of crowds', which is good for some things, but not always the best option.

That depends entirely on what you mean by the "best option" and who gets to decide what the "best option" for any particular individual or group is. Usually, when someone says "that's not the best option" they are speaking for themselves, based on some bias of their own, generally one that favors their interests over the interests of others, which makes their determination less than useful to those who might have come to a different conclusion.

Generally speaking, there is no "best option," there is almost always a wide range of options available and it's up to the individual to choose what's best for them in any given situation. Markets respond to the question of "what is the best option" quite well.

At best, government can legitimately say "that is not an option because it's fraudulent or harmful."

[GrahamH]

Do you think there are any cases where society-wide strategic planning on economic issues is a good idea?

That's what the free market is, society wide strategic planning on economic issues. Markets for anything emerge and are controlled by the billions of individual decisions (call them "votes" if you like, because that's what they are...) people make about what they want and need every day.

Show me a consumer that bases their purchasing decisions on long-term strategic interests of the country/world. Free market is great are short-term resource balancing. How does the long-term strategy get in there?

What I suspect you mean is central strategic economic planning by some small group of people who purport to know better than the market what people want or need and presume to dictate to the markets what may or may not be produced and sold based on their notions of what's necessary or good for people.

It could be any consortium of experts on any strategic issue. E.g. A national strategy on renewable energy, security of essential supplies (food, energy, transport infrastructure etc)

If a mass of consumers is not doing any in-depth analysis for long-term planning then the market cannot operate with long-term strategy.

And no, I do not think there are any such cases because it's impossible, and tyrannical for one person or group to tell others what's necessary or good for them.

Does that include doctors, lawyers and experts in general? Are you against expert guidance on principle, or only where it might affect what people buy?

A free market is 'wisdom of crowds', which is good for some things, but not always the best option.

That depends entirely on what you mean by the "best option" and who gets to decide what the "best option" for any particular individual or group is. Usually, when someone says "that's not the best option" they are speaking for themselves, based on some bias of their own, generally one that favors their interests over the interests of others, which makes their determination less than useful to those who might have come to a different conclusion.

History decides.

Generally speaking, there is no "best option," there is almost always a wide range of options available and it's up to the individual to choose what's best for them in any given situation. Markets respond to the question of "what is the best option" quite well.

What examples can you cite of the market taking the country/world in good direction? I'd like a big example of long-term national/global economic significance. I'm sure there are many, but considering one or two might be instructive. When has a free market acted as if steering an efficient course to beneficial goal?

[Seth]

Do you think there are any cases where society-wide strategic planning on economic issues is a good idea?

That's what the free market is, society wide strategic planning on economic issues. Markets for anything emerge and are controlled by the billions of individual decisions (call them "votes" if you like, because that's what they are...) people make about what they want and need every day.

Show me a consumer that bases their purchasing decisions on long-term strategic interests of the country/world. Free market is great are short-term resource balancing. How does the long-term strategy get in there?

Supply and demand and the desire of suppliers to fulfill the demand. And what are the "long-term strategic interests of the country/world" anyway, and who is determining that, and why? Let's take oil as an example. Ecozealots have been predicting "peak oil" for decades now, but every time they cry wolf, some oil company discovers yet another massive pool of oil somewhere on the narrow fringes of the 70 percent of the planet that hasn't been explored for oil. The long-term strategic interests involved are a continuing supply of oil, and the market demands push suppliers into exploring for, and finding, new oil reserves.

When (if) the reserves finally do play out, consumers will demand something else in substitution, and the markets will respond with something else.

What I suspect you mean is central strategic economic planning by some small group of people who purport to know better than the market what people want or need and presume to dictate to the markets what may or may not be produced and sold based on their notions of what's necessary or good for people.

It could be any consortium of experts on any strategic issue. E.g. A national strategy on renewable energy, security of essential supplies (food, energy, transport infrastructure etc)

If a mass of consumers is not doing any in-depth analysis for long-term planning then the market cannot operate with long-term strategy.

Information on resource availability is part of the market forces that control supply and demand. Nothing wrong with information at all, so long as it's just information and does not morph into market-skewing regulations. Experts advise the markets, and the producers take that into account when making their own individual strategic long-term plans for marketing their products. Exxon doesn't want to go out of business because the oil runs out or becomes too expensive for consumers to buy, so it spends the bulk of its money on research, development and exploration, so it will survive and prosper in the long term. So does every other successful company.

The problem arises when market regulators decide that they want to go beyond regulating force and fraud and delve into social policymaking by market regulation. It's things like Obama demanding that auto manufacturers DOUBLE the mileage standards for cars, without the least bit of concern as to whether that is physically possible to do, what the costs to the economy will be, and whether such vehicles, if they are physically possible, will adequately serve consumer demand that cause the problem. Obama demanded the CAFE standards mileage increase not because automakers are defrauding customers, but because they are NOT defrauding customers, but rather are serving the needs and desires of customers. Obama demanded the changes in order to set his desire social policy of reducing oil consumption, which is directly connected to his deeper socialist agenda of deconstructing the US economy and rebuilding it as a cog in the global one-world-government economy that he's been working towards all his Progressive/socialist life.

But consumers don't want more fuel-efficient cars, they want cars that are comfortable, safe and powerful, which explains why the last time the CAFE standards went up, and plastic econo-boxes emerged from Detroit, consumers abandoned them and ran to SUV's and pickup trucks. Consumers don't like SMART cars and cheap, unsafe plastic econo-boxes, they like large, well-engineered, safe vehicles that can carry a family and it's goods in comfort, style and speed.

So, to achieve his social policy objectives, Obama is "nudging" the markets through regulations aimed at selecting economic winners and losers in the markets, which is an illegitimate action by government that is extremely harmful to the economy.

Take the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is now enforcing federal standards for baby cribs. This regulation is predicted to cost the American economy as much as 600 MILLION dollars. All because 34 children died in the last ten years in defective cribs. That's something like 14 million per child. And this ignores the fact that the vast majority (nearly 90 percent) of crib-related deaths and injuries had nothing whatever to do with crib design or construction, as the CPSC admits in the Federal Register, they are related to falls from cribs and improper placement of objects in the crib with the child by the parents, none of which will be fixed by this regulation.

Is this regulation intended to protect children? Only superfically. It's real intent is to expand the scope and authority of the CPSC so that it can "nudge" consumers into the "proper" consumer avenues, as dictated by Cass Sunstein and the Obama administration.

And no, I do not think there are any such cases because it's impossible, and tyrannical for one person or group to tell others what's necessary or good for them.

Does that include doctors, lawyers and experts in general? Are you against expert guidance on principle, or only where it might affect what people buy?

Guidance or information. Information is one thing, regulatory "guidance" is something else entirely. I will listen to the expert advice of my doctor or lawyer, but then I will make the decision as to what I do, not them, and not the government. For example, Obama is trying to "guide" me into purchasing health insurance by passing regulations mandating that I do so, because he thinks I don't know what's best for me. Fuck Obama, I'm not buying. They will have to send a federal SWAT team with machine guns to kill me before I'll submit to such tyranny. Is that an unwise decision for me? Perhaps, but the point is that it's MY decision to make, not anyone else's. Give me all the information you like, but unless I'm about to initiate force or fraud upon another person, mind your own fucking business when it comes to what I decide to do with that information.

A free market is 'wisdom of crowds', which is good for some things, but not always the best option.

That depends entirely on what you mean by the "best option" and who gets to decide what the "best option" for any particular individual or group is. Usually, when someone says "that's not the best option" they are speaking for themselves, based on some bias of their own, generally one that favors their interests over the interests of others, which makes their determination less than useful to those who might have come to a different conclusion.

History decides.

False. History is not an animate creature that makes decisions. History merely reflects the billions of individual decisions of sentient creatures.

Generally speaking, there is no "best option," there is almost always a wide range of options available and it's up to the individual to choose what's best for them in any given situation. Markets respond to the question of "what is the best option" quite well.

What examples can you cite of the market taking the country/world in good direction?

What do you mean by "good direction" precisely?

I'd like a big example of long-term national/global economic significance. I'm sure there are many, but considering one or two might be instructive. When has a free market acted as if steering an efficient course to beneficial goal?

Pharmaceuticals. Electronics. Transportation. Communications. Medicine. Aviation. Food production. Distribution. Leisure. Housing. Manufacturing... I could go on, and on.

The free market is directly responsible for every advancement in human knowledge and technology that exists today.

[GrahamH]

When (if) the reserves finally do play out, consumers will demand something else in substitution, and the markets will respond with something else.

This a form of 'evolutionary algorithm', which works by propagating what works and culling what doesn't. The advantage is that we don't need anyone to actually know what they are doing, or where they are headed. When it breaks try to fix it before too many people die.
Even the most strategic of human design has large elements of this, so we should not expect any individual, group or entire world population do much better. Futurology is reliably wrong.

I concede that it might be the best option we have, although it is tempting to think that more efficient routes might be found somehow, as is the case with the best of short-term human design.

What I suspect you mean is central strategic economic planning by some small group of people who purport to know better than the market what people want or need and presume to dictate to the markets what may or may not be produced and sold based on their notions of what's necessary or good for people.

It could be any consortium of experts on any strategic issue. E.g. A national strategy on renewable energy, security of essential supplies (food, energy, transport infrastructure etc)

If a mass of consumers is not doing any in-depth analysis for long-term planning then the market cannot operate with long-term strategy.

Information on resource availability is part of the market forces that control supply and demand. Nothing wrong with information at all, so long as it's just information and does not morph into market-skewing regulations. Experts advise the markets, and the producers take that into account when making their own individual strategic long-term plans for marketing their products. Exxon doesn't want to go out of business because the oil runs out or becomes too expensive for consumers to buy, so it spends the bulk of its money on research, development and exploration, so it will survive and prosper in the long term. So does every other successful company.

Marketing ideas is acceptable? OK. Do you exclude marketing of ideas with tax-payers funds?
Presumably you are in favour of government regulating to minimise deception if there is compelling evidence against a marketeer's claims (something like: 'smoking is good for your lungs')

I guess you don't like 'fuel efficiency is good for the country' if it comes from the government, but would it be OK if it came from a corporation or a lobby group?

like Obama demanding that auto manufacturers DOUBLE the mileage standards for cars, without the least bit of concern as to whether that is physically possible to do, what the costs to the economy will be, and whether such vehicles, if they are physically possible, will adequately serve consumer demand that cause the problem.

It's obviously phyisically possible double average car mileage, since cars exist now that do more than double average mpg.
What the costs or benefits to the economy will be will depend on how markets respond, who designs and makes the cars, who operates the infrastructure. It's a disruptive idea, and they can turn out well or badly.

Obama demanded the CAFE standards mileage increase not because automakers are defrauding customers, but because they are NOT defrauding customers, but rather are serving the needs and desires of customers. Obama demanded the changes in order to set his desire social policy of reducing oil consumption, which is directly connected to his deeper socialist agenda of deconstructing the US economy and rebuilding it as a cog in the global one-world-government economy that he's been working towards all his Progressive/socialist life.

It would also be a move to reduce the increasing US dependency on foreign oil

But consumers don't want more fuel-efficient cars, they want cars that are comfortable, safe and powerful, which explains why the last time the CAFE standards went up, and plastic econo-boxes emerged from Detroit, consumers abandoned them and ran to SUV's and pickup trucks. Consumers don't like SMART cars and cheap, unsafe plastic econo-boxes, they like large, well-engineered, safe vehicles that can carry a family and it's goods in comfort, style and speed.[/quote]
Shure, consumers will consume vastly more than they need, given the opportunity. If energy is free who would turn the lights off?

So, to achieve his social policy objectives, Obama is "nudging" the markets through regulations aimed at selecting economic winners and losers in the markets, which is an illegitimate action by government that is extremely harmful to the economy.

Take the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is now enforcing federal standards for baby cribs. This regulation is predicted to cost the American economy as much as 600 MILLION dollars. All because 34 children died in the last ten years in defective cribs. That's something like 14 million per child. And this ignores the fact that the vast majority (nearly 90 percent) of crib-related deaths and injuries had nothing whatever to do with crib design or construction, as the CPSC admits in the Federal Register, they are related to falls from cribs and improper placement of objects in the crib with the child by the parents, none of which will be fixed by this regulation.

I'd agree that some safety legislation might go too far. Do you think manufatureres should be required to put a label on their products - "safety standard compliant" or "Not safety standard compliant", and let the market do it's thing?

Is this regulation intended to protect children? Only superfically. It's real intent is to expand the scope and authority of the CPSC so that it can "nudge" consumers into the "proper" consumer avenues, as dictated by Cass Sunstein and the Obama administration.

Paranoia.

Guidance or information. Information is one thing, regulatory "guidance" is something else entirely. I will listen to the expert advice of my doctor or lawyer, but then I will make the decision as to what I do, not them, and not the government. For example, Obama is trying to "guide" me into purchasing health insurance by passing regulations mandating that I do so, because he thinks I don't know what's best for me. Fuck Obama, I'm not buying. They will have to send a federal SWAT team with machine guns to kill me before I'll submit to such tyranny. Is that an unwise decision for me? Perhaps, but the point is that it's MY decision to make, not anyone else's. Give me all the information you like, but unless I'm about to initiate force or fraud upon another person, mind your own fucking business when it comes to what I decide to do with that information.

I benefit from the NHS here in the UK, which is well worth the considerable amount I contribute to it. Insurance companies are my least favourite businesses.

History decides.

False. History is not an animate creature that makes decisions. History merely reflects the billions of individual decisions of sentient creatures.

Pedantic. people decide in hindsight. You know what the phrase means.

What examples can you cite of the market taking the country/world in good direction?

What do you mean by "good direction" precisely?

A good question. Anything that keeps billions of people going over a cliff, as it were, if a global war starts, or if infrastructure fails on a massive scale. I'm ni favour on minimising the number of people who face desperate lives and gruesome deaths.

I'd like a big example of long-term national/global economic significance. I'm sure there are many, but considering one or two might be instructive. When has a free market acted as if steering an efficient course to beneficial goal?

Pharmaceuticals. Electronics. Transportation. Communications. Medicine. Aviation. Food production. Distribution. Leisure. Housing. Manufacturing... I could go on, and on.

The free market is directly responsible for every advancement in human knowledge and technology that exists today.

Pharmaceutical is an interesting case, as a heavily regulated market. Would it work as a truly free market?

Transportation is contentious, since the infrastructure is often publicly financed. Communications are often regulated to prevent monopolies. Aviation is highly regulated. Food production is area of great concern, with mono-culture vulnerability to disease and alleged unfair practices of some agri-corps. Was the green revolution a result of a free market? Will the free market ensure long-term sustainable food production?
The market fucked up on housing. Property bubbles, communities are often fractured here due to unaffordable local housing. The market works to get houses built, but house prices have little to do with costs of building those houses. That may not be such a good thing.
Distribution and leisure, yes although there are lots of concerns about the long-term health effects of popular entertainments. History will decide.
Manufacturing gives us more stuff, more cheaply, which is great if that's your only criteria.

It seems that regulated markets work best.
Deregulated financial markets are disastrous, as are centrally planned economies.

[Seth]

When (if) the reserves finally do play out, consumers will demand something else in substitution, and the markets will respond with something else.

This a form of 'evolutionary algorithm', which works by propagating what works and culling what doesn't. The advantage is that we don't need anyone to actually know what they are doing, or where they are headed. When it breaks try to fix it before too many people die.
Even the most strategic of human design has large elements of this, so we should not expect any individual, group or entire world population do much better. Futurology is reliably wrong.

I concede that it might be the best option we have, although it is tempting to think that more efficient routes might be found somehow, as is the case with the best of short-term human design.

Indeed.

What I suspect you mean is central strategic economic planning by some small group of people who purport to know better than the market what people want or need and presume to dictate to the markets what may or may not be produced and sold based on their notions of what's necessary or good for people.

It could be any consortium of experts on any strategic issue. E.g. A national strategy on renewable energy, security of essential supplies (food, energy, transport infrastructure etc)

If a mass of consumers is not doing any in-depth analysis for long-term planning then the market cannot operate with long-term strategy.

Information on resource availability is part of the market forces that control supply and demand. Nothing wrong with information at all, so long as it's just information and does not morph into market-skewing regulations. Experts advise the markets, and the producers take that into account when making their own individual strategic long-term plans for marketing their products. Exxon doesn't want to go out of business because the oil runs out or becomes too expensive for consumers to buy, so it spends the bulk of its money on research, development and exploration, so it will survive and prosper in the long term. So does every other successful company.

Marketing ideas is acceptable? OK. Do you exclude marketing of ideas with tax-payers funds?

Yes, and yes. Government "marketing" of ideas is always done with an inherently political agenda in mind, and should not be allowed. Government's province is in regulating to prevent force or fraud, not in trying to conform public opinion to government preferences, which are always corrupted by political ideology, no matter how much anyone tries not to let it happen. Government should shut up and serve the people.

Presumably you are in favour of government regulating to minimise deception if there is compelling evidence against a marketeer's claims (something like: 'smoking is good for your lungs')

Yes, if a claim is fraudulent, the government is empowered to punish the malefactor. But the government is not empowered to make counter-claims of its own, for that will always be corrupted by political agendas.

I guess you don't like 'fuel efficiency is good for the country' if it comes from the government, but would it be OK if it came from a corporation or a lobby group?

Of course. The difference between the government sending that message and the market sending that message is the difference between information and compulsion because such government messages, even if they are just "advisory" and not backed by force of law or regulation (which they almost always are) are inherently coercive and subject to political corruption.

like Obama demanding that auto manufacturers DOUBLE the mileage standards for cars, without the least bit of concern as to whether that is physically possible to do, what the costs to the economy will be, and whether such vehicles, if they are physically possible, will adequately serve consumer demand that cause the problem.

It's obviously phyisically possible double average car mileage, since cars exist now that do more than double average mpg.

But sacrifice safety, comfort and range in the process. That's fine if it's a consumer choice, but it's not if it's the result of government regulation, coercion and "nudging" of the markets towards the preferred political objective.

What the costs or benefits to the economy will be will depend on how markets respond, who designs and makes the cars, who operates the infrastructure. It's a disruptive idea, and they can turn out well or badly.

Not really. When government regulates such economic issues, it skews the market badly through regulatory coercion, which adds costs and reduces competition in the marketplace. If there were no federal CAFE standards, auto manufacturers would respond to market forces and would create fuel-efficient cars all on their own, if that's what the market demanded. Savvy auto makers would try to convince consumers of the benefits of more fuel-efficient vehicles, and consumers would respond by either buying or not buying.

Government mandates are "nudges" intended to achieve a political social agenda by artificially limiting the choices available to consumers. In this case, for example, by creating standards that make it illegal to build and market large, powerful vehicles that consumers might prefer...like my pickup truck, which I need to serve more than just basic transportation needs. When Ford builds an all-electric Ford F-450 pickup truck capable of hauling 25,000 pounds with a range of 500 miles between recharges, and which can be recharged in five minutes (which is about how long it takes me to fill the gas tank) then believe me, I'll gladly buy one. But larding up my existing diesel truck with equipment to make it more "fuel efficient" while reducing its towing and cargo capacity and range is not what I'm interested in.

Obama demanded the CAFE standards mileage increase not because automakers are defrauding customers, but because they are NOT defrauding customers, but rather are serving the needs and desires of customers. Obama demanded the changes in order to set his desire social policy of reducing oil consumption, which is directly connected to his deeper socialist agenda of deconstructing the US economy and rebuilding it as a cog in the global one-world-government economy that he's been working towards all his Progressive/socialist life.

It would also be a move to reduce the increasing US dependency on foreign oil

If that was his interest, he would be deregulating the domestic oil and gas industry, not regulating it into extinction. Obama is an arrogant fuck who, like all Progressives, thinks he's smarter than everybody else and therefore should be given the power to rule everyone else.

But consumers don't want more fuel-efficient cars, they want cars that are comfortable, safe and powerful, which explains why the last time the CAFE standards went up, and plastic econo-boxes emerged from Detroit, consumers abandoned them and ran to SUV's and pickup trucks. Consumers don't like SMART cars and cheap, unsafe plastic econo-boxes, they like large, well-engineered, safe vehicles that can carry a family and it's goods in comfort, style and speed.

Shure, consumers will consume vastly more than they need, given the opportunity. If energy is free who would turn the lights off?

Correct. If I want the lights on, and I can afford the electricity rates, why should I not keep the lights on? It's my money and my life. That YOU think it's wasteful is not my concern, now is it?

So, to achieve his social policy objectives, Obama is "nudging" the markets through regulations aimed at selecting economic winners and losers in the markets, which is an illegitimate action by government that is extremely harmful to the economy.

Take the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is now enforcing federal standards for baby cribs. This regulation is predicted to cost the American economy as much as 600 MILLION dollars. All because 34 children died in the last ten years in defective cribs. That's something like 14 million per child. And this ignores the fact that the vast majority (nearly 90 percent) of crib-related deaths and injuries had nothing whatever to do with crib design or construction, as the CPSC admits in the Federal Register, they are related to falls from cribs and improper placement of objects in the crib with the child by the parents, none of which will be fixed by this regulation.

I'd agree that some safety legislation might go too far. Do you think manufatureres should be required to put a label on their products - "safety standard compliant" or "Not safety standard compliant", and let the market do it's thing?

I think the tort-law system deals adequately with defective or improperly designed products. The problem with "safety standards" is that they are subject to corruption and manipulation for social engineering purposes rather than legitimate safety reasons. Government regulation of cribs, in this case, should not be the setting of standards, it should be a simple statement of the penalties assessed by the government for producing cribs that kill children as the result of negligent design or construction: corporate death.

Market a dangerously defective product knowing that it's dangerously defective and the punishment (beyond the civil damages to those injured) should be dissolution of the company and distribution of its assets to those who have been harmed.

The courts are well-equipped to deal with such situations and make judgments of guilt and assess penalties.

Government merely enforces the penalty.

Is this regulation intended to protect children? Only superfically. It's real intent is to expand the scope and authority of the CPSC so that it can "nudge" consumers into the "proper" consumer avenues, as dictated by Cass Sunstein and the Obama administration.

Paranoia.

Cass Sunstein's published agenda, actually. Go read his book "Nudge" for the details.

Guidance or information. Information is one thing, regulatory "guidance" is something else entirely. I will listen to the expert advice of my doctor or lawyer, but then I will make the decision as to what I do, not them, and not the government. For example, Obama is trying to "guide" me into purchasing health insurance by passing regulations mandating that I do so, because he thinks I don't know what's best for me. Fuck Obama, I'm not buying. They will have to send a federal SWAT team with machine guns to kill me before I'll submit to such tyranny. Is that an unwise decision for me? Perhaps, but the point is that it's MY decision to make, not anyone else's. Give me all the information you like, but unless I'm about to initiate force or fraud upon another person, mind your own fucking business when it comes to what I decide to do with that information.

I benefit from the NHS here in the UK, which is well worth the considerable amount I contribute to it. Insurance companies are my least favourite businesses.

Right, you benefit from using other people's money to provide you with "free" (suboptimal) medical care. That's known as "theft" in some circles.

History decides.

False. History is not an animate creature that makes decisions. History merely reflects the billions of individual decisions of sentient creatures.

Pedantic. people decide in hindsight. You know what the phrase means.

So? People should decide things after examining the results of experimentation, don't you think? Was it not you who said "futurology is reliably wrong?"

What examples can you cite of the market taking the country/world in good direction?

What do you mean by "good direction" precisely?

A good question. Anything that keeps billions of people going over a cliff, as it were, if a global war starts, or if infrastructure fails on a massive scale. I'm ni favour on minimising the number of people who face desperate lives and gruesome deaths.

Realizing that socialism is responsible for the bulk of desperate lives and gruesome deaths in the last century, when has government manipulation of the free market to achieve social engineering goals ever kept "billions of people from going over a cliff?"

Using a doomsday scenario as justification for economic meddling is fallacious.

I'd like a big example of long-term national/global economic significance. I'm sure there are many, but considering one or two might be instructive. When has a free market acted as if steering an efficient course to beneficial goal?

Pharmaceuticals. Electronics. Transportation. Communications. Medicine. Aviation. Food production. Distribution. Leisure. Housing. Manufacturing... I could go on, and on.

The free market is directly responsible for every advancement in human knowledge and technology that exists today.

Pharmaceutical is an interesting case, as a heavily regulated market. Would it work as a truly free market?

Sure it would. However, recognize that there are two kinds of regulation: health and safety regulations intended to prevent pharma from perpetrating force or fraud, and redistributionism regulation intended to achieve social engineering goals, like regulations controlling the market price of medications to make it "fair" for poor people.

Transportation is contentious, since the infrastructure is often publicly financed.

Which doesn't mean that the free market is not directly responsible for advances in transportation. If it weren't, we'd still be driving horses and buggies, or taking shank's mares. Need I say "Henry Ford" as an illustration?

Communications are often regulated to prevent monopolies.

And that's a bad thing for consumers. It was deregulation of communications (the break-up of the government-authorized monopoly called the Bell System) that caused the Internet to flourish. Monopolies can ONLY exist where the free market is constrained BY GOVERNMENT from competing. What most people call "monopolies" are nothing of the sort, and are actually nothing more than dominant market share caused by savvy marketing and production.

Aviation is highly regulated.

Indeed, but it's a remnant of the Progressive notion that the free market can't handle aviation's needs. Perhaps in the past, when navigation aids were nonexistent, government regulation was necessary to control traffic flow, just as stop signs and signal lights are needed on highways, but today the technology is adequate to the task of eliminating FAA air traffic control entirely, leaving routing and scheduling up to the airlines and users.

Food production is area of great concern, with mono-culture vulnerability to disease and alleged unfair practices of some agri-corps.

And the response to big agra and monoculture has been a vast resurgence in local organic farming, which competes with big agra very nicely.

Was the green revolution a result of a free market? Will the free market ensure long-term sustainable food production?

Certainly it was. And yes, it will.

The market fucked up on housing. Property bubbles, communities are often fractured here due to unaffordable local housing.

No, the government fucked up the housing market by meddling with home financing, which resulted in people who had no business buying houses getting in over their heads and then defaulting.

Housing markets respond to demand just like every other market does, when government leaves it alone.

The market works to get houses built, but house prices have little to do with costs of building those houses. That may not be such a good thing.

And what's the result today of high housing prices? Defaults, foreclosures and repossessions, leaving huge numbers of (unneeded) houses vacant and decaying, while people who defaulted go back to being what they should have always been: renters.

Distribution and leisure, yes although there are lots of concerns about the long-term health effects of popular entertainments. History will decide.

As it should. Trying to predict the future, as you say, is vacuous nonsense. More sinisterly, it leads to oppression and loss of individual freedom, as the predictors try to control the behavior of free people. And most of the time the predictors are simply wrong. One of the reasons that I gave up being a radical, tree-hugging environmentalist is because I got tired of the decades of lies told by the environmental extremists and their fearmongering cohorts. I finally regained my sanity and my balance when I realized that none of the dire predictions they made, beginning in the 60's ever came true.

Manufacturing gives us more stuff, more cheaply, which is great if that's your only criteria.

What other criteria is there but supply and demand?

It seems that regulated markets work best.
Deregulated financial markets are disastrous, as are centrally planned economies.

Depends on what you mean by "regulated." When you speak of regulation to prevent and punish the initiation of force and fraud by the markets, I heartily agree. But when you speak of regulations that provide for market manipulation to achieve social engineering goals and redistribute wealth, I heartily disagree.

Unfortunately, most leftists are unwilling and unable to separate the two types of regulation and they regularly and mendaciously conflate the former and the latter in an attempt to fallaciously argue for the latter by using examples of the former as justification.