
Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession - howard941
https://theweek.com/articles/871131/think-young-people-are-hostile-capitalism-now-just-wait-next-recession
======
wayoutthere
In the US, it's less active protest and more things like slacking off heavily
at work because it's a treadmill we can't win. We have absolutely no incentive
to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income.

We as a nation have basically told people "no, you can't have a comfortable
life or save for retirement because your parents' generation still needs to
get 10% annual growth to make their retirement math work". Nevermind that
retirement isn't going to be an option for us. That's lead a lot of us to
abandon our work ethic, which will have some severe repercussions down the
road.

~~~
bluedino
>> We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't
materially affect income.

Pride? Character? Respect from colleagues?

~~~
cryoshon
pride, character, and respect from colleagues are things that don't pay the
bills, even though they're nice to have.

i know this is sounds like a snarky and low-effort response, but it is not
intentional. it's just the way things are, and there isn't really a diplomatic
way of saying it.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _" pride, character, and respect from colleagues are things that don't pay
> the bill"_

I can name several dozen colleagues I've worked for over the years who will
vouch for me and help me get a job if I should ever need it and that does pay
the bills.

People who say things like the above quote, can't.

~~~
cryoshon
what if you met those colleagues at a relatively low-wage job, and neither you
nor anyone else who will vouch for you has advanced very far beyond that low
wage level?

sure, they can get you a job, but it will be a horizontal move for you if you
are currently employed, and certainly no step up from your prior employment if
you're suddenly unemployed.

consider that for many young people outside of the software and finance
worlds, this is precisely the situation. all the good reputation in the world
doesn't much matter if it doesn't get you any further than where you are.

~~~
AstralStorm
Presuming you want or need to get ahead - and you should carefully examine the
reasons why you do. There is usually a cost to getting up.

Horizontal moves are acceptable and sometimes even optimal.

------
jahaja
Imagine if the current protests against inequality (and thereabouts) going on
all around the world would be reported, scrutinized, and debated as much as
when any of the established "enemies" have civil unrest. How quickly would
things change?

~~~
douglaswlance
Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they
protested against value contribution inequality...

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
What do you say to people who are protesting against income inequality because
they benefit from it and know how unfair the whole thing is?

Say I received a million $ from my father (that's income inequality, isn't
it?) and now I'm saving all my work income because I can live on my capital
gains from "gifts" and watch all my friends work harder and harder to try and
earn few extra cents while I'm getting richer doing very little.

My dad did "things", I'm doing "things", and I'm getting paid for it! How
would you evaluate my "value contributions" anyway? . My income is growing, I
can wait.

PS: for some reasons, my taxes in % of my income keeps decreasing because
where I live, capital is less taxed than work. And the politicians who chose
that explains they're lowing taxes because other countries are doing the same.
So all countries are help the rich because rich are being helped elsewhere.
How cool is that?

~~~
douglaswlance
How are you earning capital gains with that million, specifically?

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Mostly by buying stocks and it works: the SP500 doubled in the past 10 years,
and I did far better than that. You can consider my investment as
contributions, because I most certainly bought stocks from other rich persons
and the stock markets is growing fast mostly thanks to the bank central
policies (note that my free money never directly helped the company of which I
bought stocks). I purchased an apartment too, and that did not cost me a dime
because my family offers free mortgages and the government does not tax any of
that! Plus, real estate prices keeps growing where I live thanks to the
continued gentrification of big cities. When will that stop?

~~~
douglaswlance
Any investment can fail. You spent money to bet on the price going up and won.
Someone else lost.

The markets aren't exclusively available to the rich. Anyone can buy and sell
stocks.

Successful people get to live better than the poor. That is why we should do
more to encourage more poor people to live better by contributing more.

The economy is not zero-sum.

~~~
AstralStorm
Second part is a lie. Tried managing stocks on your own? And having no
leverage?

It's not even close to competitive with hired specialists dedicated to the
task. You cannot compete.

It is not contributions not success that makes people live better or longer.
It is ownership, diet, mental health (including low stress) access to medical
care. Check out how many of successful people actually live shorter or painful
lives. Your argument only works for have-nots.

Economy is negative sum, unless you discount externalities. It does not break
physics. Mined out and used up materials do not suddenly reappear. We just
move the goalposts to have the same "positive money" outlook, keep everything
from deflation. Until recently inventions (esp. energy and mining, then
production efficiencies), made the economies grow. But it is not an infinite
resource.

~~~
douglaswlance
Managing stocks is easy. Buy winners and hold them. That's how Berkshire
Hathaway earned their billions. They're not day-traders.

Contribution is the surest path to financial success. The more value you can
contribute and capture, the more wealth our society will reward you with.

The Earth's resources are miniscule compared to the wider universe.

For example, there's a near earth asteroid that we discovered that has enough
platinum to turn every person on earth into a billionaire at the current
prices.

That's just one of tens of thousands of near earth objects.

Plus, there's millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt when we exhaust
those.

Finally, we're already starting to mine them:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)

So we are not restricted by resources.

Regardless, we live in an information economy that is mainly driven by credit
and debt, not mining of resources.

------
npo9
I’m really surprised this piece was almost entirely about public opinion, only
using economics to discuss the likelihood of a recession soon and the effects
of inequality.

The levers our governments have been pulling to steer the economy are reaching
their maximum. The system where we reduce interest rates to spur spending to
stimulate the economy (probably) don’t work when interest rates negative.

~~~
bsanr2
The problem is that you either incentivize higher economic volume or you get
deflation. They tried printing money and giving it to the banks to loan
because they're afraid to do the one rational thing there is and, in doing so,
piss off the wealthy. But now that it seems that we're going to see
instability and unrest no matter what, it's time to play that card, and
hopefully shorten our inevitable economic Dark Age:

Wealth tax.

~~~
DuskStar
> Wealth tax.

HAHAHAHAHA

If anything, a wealth tax is what turns things from "depression" to
"catastrophic failure" \- capital flight would be a _massive_ problem. And
even ignoring any effects from changing incentives, why would taking from the
_most_ productive and giving to the government improve the economy?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Adam Neumann (WeWork) coaxed billions of dollars out of Softbank for nothing
of value in return. I would not consider that productive. Having wealth does
not immediately confirm the activity that allowed for that wealth was
productive, nor that one is productive for having amassed wealth.

~~~
DuskStar
Ehhh, fleecing the Saudis is arguably productive. But yes, there are certainly
wealthy people who are not more productive than an S&P 500 index fund. (this
might still be more productive than the US government, of course) But how do
you propose to tax them and not the Bezos' and Musks of the world?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Bezos and Musk reinvested all of their wealth into their own endeavors. Craft
policy to support such efforts. You still tax productive activities, just not
as much as unproductive activities (such as mega-yachts or sailing teams,
which are luxury goods).

~~~
DuskStar
Sounds like you want a consumption tax, and not a wealth tax then?

~~~
toomuchtodo
A little of both.

~~~
DuskStar
Ok, so another wealth tax question - do pensions and other such instruments
count? If not, what's preventing someone from buying a large annuity and
avoiding the tax?

And if you do... A lot of public pensions are worth 2+ million. Are public
pensions supposed to be excluded? How does that get explained to the voters?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Great questions. I think we look with a critical eye but still make generous
allowances for retirement savings vehicles.

Keep in mind, the problem isn't people with single digit millions of wealth,
the problem is those with tens, hundreds of millions, and billions of dollars.

~~~
DuskStar
But _why_ are they a problem?

Look, there's two kinds of taxes. One is to raise revenue, one is to punish
behavior we don't like. Once you start describing the rich as a _problem_ , it
makes me think that this is the second kind of tax, and I _really_ don't think
that accumulating wealth, and helping out everyone else along the way by
growing the economy, is something we should be punishing.

If you say "the uber-rich ($10m is 99th percentile) do bad things, therefore
we should tax the uber-rich", I'll really have to disagree - _tax the bad
things they do_ , not the demographic group!

~~~
bsanr2
>accumulating wealth, and helping out everyone else along the way by growing
the economy

The latter doesn't follow the former. In fact, consolidation of wealth is a
hindrance to volume of activity outside the bounds of the owner of that
wealth's interests. Case-in-point: Wal-Mart has done gangbuster business over
the last half century. They've grown our economy. Almost every community its
touched has been devastated by this, from the destruction of other businesses
within its purview; to the flooding of the market with cheap goods that - in
many cases - do nothing for society in their cheapness, and which actually
create issues of overconsumption and waste; to the negative effects their
influence has had on the shape of welfare. It's not about what Wal-Mart does;
its _very existence_ at its size is destructive. The only positive thing it
did was grow the overall economy, which is like celebrating a tumor growing
your overall lean mass.

The over-aggregation of wealth is the problem. A wealth tax is the direct
solution (it does not have to be permanent or perennial). Wealth flight is a
fantasy, and for anyone who tries, the federal government has access to the
resources necessary to make sure everyone pays their fair share.

~~~
DuskStar
> The latter doesn't follow the former. In fact, consolidation of wealth is a
> hindrance to volume of activity outside the bounds of the owner of that
> wealth's interests. Case-in-point: Wal-Mart has done gangbuster business
> over the last half century. They've grown our economy. Almost every
> community its touched has been devastated by this, from the destruction of
> other businesses within its purview; to the flooding of the market with
> cheap goods that - in many cases - do nothing for society in their
> cheapness, and which actually create issues of overconsumption and waste; to
> the negative effects their influence has had on the shape of welfare. It's
> not about what Wal-Mart does; its very existence at its size is destructive.
> The only positive thing it did was grow the overall economy, which is like
> celebrating a tumor growing your overall lean mass.

I would _highly_ disagree there. The ills you describe aren't caused by Wal-
Mart being _big_ , they're from the business model itself. 100 independent
companies spread across the country would be similar.

> The over-aggregation of wealth is the problem. A wealth tax is the direct
> solution (it does not have to be permanent or perennial). Wealth flight is a
> fantasy, and for anyone who tries, the federal government has access to the
> resources necessary to make sure everyone pays their fair share.

Because I certainly trust the US government not to come back to the money
spigot after using a wealth tax the first time. Not.

As for wealth flight - dafqu you mean it's a fantasy? Does "facebook exec
renounces citizenship to avoid capital gains tax" not ring any bells?

~~~
toomuchtodo
RE wealth flight, renouncing your citizenship comes with an exit tax. You can
leave, but you'll have to pay up.

------
adultSwim
Wait until this soft gentle wave of climate activism fails...

~~~
wayoutthere
We will see at least one war over climate change this century.

~~~
ianleeclark
There've been arguments made that the Syrian Civil War was sparked over
farmers revolting due to ahistorical droughts. I can't speak to their
validity, but the first of many may have already happened.

~~~
wayoutthere
You could also argue the same about Kashmir; it's not so much about ancestral
homelands as water rights.

------
perceptronas
>After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved
capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it
with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from
below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class
conscious young people.

As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would
want to overthrow capitalism. Its what makes the west so prosperous.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
>Its what makes the west so prosperous

And destroy our habitat.

~~~
playing_colours
It is orthogonal to a system. In USSR they polluted air, water, soil as hell.
Eastern Germany was just a bit better:

[http://www.naturschutzgeschichte-
ost.de/index.php?id=206](http://www.naturschutzgeschichte-
ost.de/index.php?id=206)

[https://grist.org/article/2011-04-21-underground-
environment...](https://grist.org/article/2011-04-21-underground-
environmentalism-in-communist-east-germany/)

------
aazaa
> ... The last economic crisis contributed directly to the rise of populism
> over the following decade, but the next crisis will come squarely within the
> age of populism. ...

Although the article doesn't mention it, the next recession will also likely
come during a powerful wave of job losses tied to automation.

Mixing popular resentment over the last debacle in which had few consequences
for those responsible with the bewildering lack of jobs is a recipe for
scapegoating other countries.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
I don’t know about anyone else but I’m tired of the “automation” doomsday
predictions that don’t understand we don’t lose jobs, they just transfer with
new technology.

Did the cottongin end slavery? No. It make it more efficient.

Did the rail system go away with national highways? No. We have much better
last mile access.

Have robots replaced union workers? Union membership has decreased since the
80s, but unemployment has also decreased with a lot more population.

Despite computers we still have secretaries, and librarians, we have massive
drilling equipment but also have miners, there are less mounted police and
soldiers but despite cars horses are still around. Sailing, boats, and marine
related people have jobs despite most travel being by plane. Inventing planes
created more jobs than were lost, etc etc.

With every disruptive tech comes opportunity and transition. People aren’t out
of jobs despite automation. They’re just in different jobs.

This prediction that there will be a billion people standing around with
nothing to do because of robots is wildly naive of history.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
I agree with your thrust but one caveat:

 _" despite cars horses are still around"_

This is an absolutely terrible argument, because the population and societal
use of horses have been greatly reduced once the automobile came into play. If
we were to transfer this with people, this means that once automation comes
into the play, the vast majority of working humans will be culled and those
remaining are only luxury/recreational items...

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Ok, fair enough, but read the larger context though. The people who had
equestrian professions didn’t die. And there weren’t a mass of people
displaced as refugees as the car became popular.

It just created different jobs. Things that weren’t possible or didn’t exist
before cars.

It’s the same thing with “automation”. People like to pretend that one day
soon everything will just be straight up replaced with robots overnight and we
just won’t know what to do with ourselves. Not only isn’t that the case, it
ignores the history of disruptive technology for the last 10,000 years.

The root of the argument is made much better with overpopulation. But
developed countries can’t be made to subsidize that - make the argument
automation and maybe you can convince some people to believe in socialism.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
Actually from what I understand automation did displace certain specialty
professions, such as weavers, and those people displaced generally had to take
Shittier jobs or start from square one again in a new profession. That is to
say, assuming there will not be upheaval as certain careers are completely
ravaged is ahistorical.

------
cryoshon
>"The higher savings rate, we believe, has had disinflationary impact, driving
the relatively slow growth and low inflation in this recovery," wrote an
analyst for Raymond James, observing that younger people are "saving instead
of purchasing like last generation, limiting demand growth."

this is what the constant specter of economic instability causes people to do.
stash money under the bed, defer big purchases, and refuse to buy things that
are not necessary for life. then, when the economy worsens, people feel like
they are at least a little bit more prepared. the trick, of course, is that
the actions taken to respond to their feelings of instability are more likely
to cause a recession.

overall, the liberal-capitalist response to the outcry of the young public has
been "shut up, get a job, consume more, be more competitive" \-- and it will
be just as tone deaf and infuriating in the coming recession as it has been
since before the last recession.

------
gen220
Maybe I’m naïve, but to me the word “capitalism” is not an “economic policy”
that can be changed through deliberate action, but rather a framework of
analysis that makes predictions on supply, demand, and pricing in markets that
are varying levels of free.

I’m confused when people in my generational cohort say things like “capitalism
is unfair” or “capitalism sucks”, in reference to the system of government and
benefits we have currently. Every economy has had forces that were usefully
explainable with capitalism, even the soviet economy in the 80s. Markets
abound, and capitalism is a powerful explanatory tool, so to me “let’s end
capitalism” sounds a bit like “let’s end gravity”.

For somebody more in the know, this can’t be what people are meaning, right?
Are they just trying to bargain for a “better“ social contract with fewer free
markets? Any idea why they associate this with “ending capitalism”?

~~~
tangent128
"Capitalism" is used as the label for the policy one might more precisely
describe as "regulatory minimalism"; the philosophy that opposes minimum wage
laws, that opposes collective bargaining by employees, that opposes safety and
environmental regulation, that opposes universal health care, etcetera.

This philosophy is associated with the term "capitalism" because its
proponents tar any improvement of the social contract, acknowledgement of
climate change, or balancing of negotiating power as "socialism/communism"\-
terms used interchangeably as a boogeyman rather than for any engagable
definition, but always pitted as the opposite of "capitalism".

~~~
malvosenior
It's funny because most of the things people are struggling with are a direct
result of government regulation. High costs for education, housing and
healthcare are _caused_ by regulation, not helped by it. Let student loans be
discharged in bankruptcy and watch the cost of education drop like a rock. Get
rid of zoning restrictions and watch house prices fall. Health care costs
would dramatically improve if health insurance wasn't mandatory and people
could buy it from anywhere (I'd happily get mine from India or South America
if it was an option).

The market isn't the problem, it's government interference with the market
that's the problem.

~~~
dragonsngoblins
Healthcare and Education are both very affordable because of regulation in
Australia where I live. It isn't regulation at all that is the problem with
affordability you describe, it is the form the specific regulation you guys in
the US have

------
NTDF9
The proponents of current form of capitalism miss a big big aspect of free-
market capitalism. That is: taking losses.

Every capitalism proponent is so tied up to the stock market that they don't
want to see losses. Thus they resort to policies that would somehow socialize
losses.

If you are really free market, you need to accept losses.

\- Let the FED not print money which causes inflation which is driving a
regular life out of the young's reach

\- Let students declare bankruptcy on student loans

\- Let your social security go bankrupt, it is market driven

\- Let your house prices go underwater. Whoever said it should always go up
and that the young should burn their lives to buy it from old geezers at
elevated prices.

But no, the boomers don't want those losses. This is where cries for socialism
is coming from.

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
> The proponents of current form of capitalism miss a big big aspect of free-
> market capitalism. That is: taking losses.

It might be clearer if you just called "the current form of capitalism" crony
capitalism. It's not free market and that's why I laugh whenever people say
that capitalism is failing. Progressives won a long time ago (during the
Progressive era) and crafted a massive government, instituted heavy
centralized planning, and we're seeing the failure of the centralization of
government play out today.

~~~
NTDF9
Are you really kidding me? I'm not sure if you are looking at things
objectively when you blame progressives (for something they didn't even do)
while the current administration is enriching the oligarchs

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
Enriching the oligarchs? Compared to under Bush and Obama when their
administrations espoused the notion that "everyone dies if we don't inject
massive amounts of money into irresponsible corporations." Everyone enriches
oligarchs. Blaming it on one administration or the other misses the larger
point that strong central planning is the defining feature of anything done by
federal govt nowadays (something that, like I said, we got from the early 20th
c).

~~~
NTDF9
Every administration has a problem. You are the one who brought some
"progressive" nonsense in the first place, when you yourself know that it's
not a political party issue. It's a problem with our politics which is sold
out to the highest bidder.

Oligarchs in our system are people funding lobbyists. How else do you think
Oligarchs work?

Let's be rational and remove the blame game. Focus on the problem and we know
none of the political leaders are doing anything to fix it.

------
ptah
>On the other hand, 41 percent of those over 65 supported Biden, compared to
26 percent for Warren and an incredible 2 percent for Sanders.

it seems that the ones that grew up in a time when tax policy was closer to
bernie sanders' are less likely to support him

~~~
departure
That does not surprise me. That generation benefited from those tax rates by
living some of the best recorded lives in history and don't want to do
anything that could change their own status quo now that they are rich and
powerfull.

~~~
Ambele
I agree. Retirees and the elderly vote much more than the youth. Unless that
changes, policy will continue to be more favorable towards retirees and the
elderly.

------
sek
"The more they feel that the system is rigged against them, the more they will
demand the system itself be overthrown"

The author talks about it like the only alternative is overthrowing the
system. This is another extreme, maybe the word you should use here is the
social market economy
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy)).
We use this term here in Germany, even our most deregulation friendly party is
committed to it and by definition it's still capitalist.

------
ClumsyPilot
The illusion that there is one thing called capitalism needs to go. Because of
it, the discussion always goes to "oh, you think communism will be better? We
will have gulags before the month is over!"

Most people are unaware there are like 9 different schools of thought in
economics, which complement each other. They might have heard of Keynesian and
neo-liberal. Of all places, HN readers should know about Schumpeter's model,
as it explains the rise of new industries often comes with disruption to the
old ones.

Many problems of the last decades come from shoe-horning neoliberal economic
model where it does not belong, without understanding it's limitations. (which
are numerous). Privatising natural monopolies is the classic example.

It also seems the fall of USSR has freed our leaders from any need for self-
reflection. The consequences for fuck ups could be dire, now all you get is
"occupy wall-street".

~~~
KirinDave
I'm always amazed how no one has heard of Mutualism. It's also a testament to
how effective the USSR (and the US, I guess) were at portraying all legitimacy
around non-capitalism concentrated around authoritarian state capitalism.

------
MildlySerious
This whole "capitalism bad" debate feels incredibly black and white.

I think what most people are really against is the one way street that
capitalism established. It's a broken system, and it wouldn't matter if we had
any other system as long as it would still be broken and abused.

On a global level, there are tax loopholes that allow multi billion
corporations and individuals to pay essentially no taxes. This money is then
used to further enrich the same parties through a financial market that is
equally broken.

It has nothing to do with capitalism that wealth is created without a flow of
goods or other value that is created from it. All it does is devalue all other
wealth at a growing pace.

Capitalism is not ideal, it won't be. But if we moved towards actual,
functional capitalism where governments did their part in keeping the whole
thing from turning into a one way street, we would have a long way to go
before we needed something else.

~~~
jakelazaroff
Is it not just as black and white as the whole "socialism/communism is bad"
stuff we're fed? People act like Medicare For All would be catastrophically
expensive, when even our arguably closest allies in the UK — not exactly a
socialist haven! — have the NHS, which seems to work out great. They pretend
the Green New Deal would mark the end times for the US, as if the last New
Deal's massive investment in infrastructure didn't help revitalize the
economy.

But yes, I agree — the idea that best thing to do is dogmatically implement
one particular economic system is absurd.

~~~
MildlySerious
My wording clearly wasn't the best, so thanks for picking this up. Your
comment reflects what I had in mind. We don't have to go from one to the other
in one big swing. Evolving and moving towards a less broken system would go a
long way already.

------
40acres
If you were born in an advanced economy in 2000 you've lived through at least
two recessions, weak growth, rising inequality and asset prices, and high cost
of schooling. Yes, capitalism isn't really looking great right now.

~~~
zip1234
Contrarian opinion--you've lived in two boom times with high growth and have
more knowledge that is easier and cheaper to access than any other time in
human history.

------
qbaqbaqba
Capitalism or just bankers and other usurers?

------
throwaway123x2
Can capitalism be fixed with a wealth tax? Like tax 2% of wealth greater than
some arbitrary amount - say 1 mill USD - and feed that back into social
services?

------
jumbopapa
I can't understand what people actually have against capitalism. Most of the
times when I hear about the problems of my generation much of it comes down to
personal choice. You don't have to go to an expensive college, you don't have
to live in the "it" part of town, and you don't have to use your credit card.
I've heard so many people complain about the injustices of the world, but at
the same time they pay twice as much for rent as me and have 1/3 the income. I
have trouble feeling sympathy when you could just make better choices and
improve your life without asking the government to come in and take care of
you.

~~~
poidos
This opinion leaves out many of the parts of living in modern society that go
beyond what we can choose. Just as a quick example, in the US, you don't
_choose_ to get sick and fall into medical debt -- but capitalism underpins
the health system that induces that medical debt (which is a major contributor
to poverty [0].)

It seems like you may be confusing the situation of the people in your
immediate circle with the larger, systemic problems that are directly related
to the accumulation/hoarding of wealth.

To your last point -- the majority of people are not able to simply "make
better choices." No one _chooses_ to be born into poverty. No one _chooses_ to
lose their job. No one _chooses_ to be ill. It is exceedingly harder, year
after year, for working-class people to even have the ability to improve their
lives meaningfully.

[0]: [https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/09/12/medicare-
for...](https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/09/12/medicare-for-all-
would-cut-poverty-by-over-20-percent/)

~~~
sol_remmy2
> you don't choose to get sick and fall into medical debt -- but capitalism
> underpins the health system that induces that medical debt (which is a major
> contributor to poverty [0].)

The medical system not a free market. It is a hybrid of a state-controlled
system and a capitalistic system. Here are some ways of how the system is
state-controlled:

1\. Hospitals cannot be freely constructed. One must apply for a "certificate
of need" to gain permission from the government to build a hospital. This is
not a free market.

2\. Credentialism is BAD in our medical system. There is only one group of
people approved by the government to do prescribe most medications and perform
most surgeries - doctors. This is not a free market and greatly increase
costs. Doctors earn a median of 300k/year and are the highest paid profession
in every state. This is not a free market.

3\. Hospitals are legally forced to treat anyone who shows up at their door -
even if they can't afford the treatment. This is not a free market.

4\. Medicare/Medicaid are forced to nearly buy any drug, regardless of cost,
if it could save a live. Even if a drug is 500k/year, the system is forced to
buy it. This is not a free market and greatly increases costs.

~~~
zip1234
I think with points 3 and 4 there are very difficult decisions. Turning people
away or not trying treatments sounds pretty bad, but there doesn't need to be
an entire new system just to solve them.

