[Link] Why don't people like markets?

GLaDOS

An interesting piece with speculation on possible reasons for why people seem to be biased against markets. To summarize:

Market processes are not visible. For instance, when a government taxes its citizens and offers a subsidy to some producers, what is seen is the money taken and the money received. What is unseen is the amount of production that would occur in the absence of such transfers.
Markets are intrinsically probabilistic and therefore marked with uncertainty, like other living organisms, we are loss-averse and try to minimise uncertainty
Humans may be motivated to place their trust in processes that are (or at least seem to be) driven by agents rather than impersonal factors.

The last point reminded me of speculation from the recent LessWrong article Conspiracy Theories as Agency Fictions:

Do all theories of legitimacy also perhaps rest on the same cognitive failings that conspiracy theories do? The difference between a shadowy cabal we need to get rid of and an institution worthy of respect may be just some bad luck.

Before thinking about these points and debating them I strongly recommend you read the full article.

An interesting piece with speculation on possible reasons for why people seem to be biased against markets. To summarize:

Market processes are not visible. For instance, when a government taxes its citizens and offers a subsidy to some producers, what is seen is the money taken and the money received. What is unseen is the amount of production that would occur in the absence of such transfers.
Markets are intrinsically probabilistic and therefore marked with uncertainty, like other living organisms, we are loss-averse and try to minimise uncertainty
Humans may be motivated to place their trust in processes that are (or at least seem to be) driven by agents rather than impersonal factors.

The last point reminded me of speculation from the recent LessWrong article Conspiracy Theories as Agency Fictions:

Do all theories of legitimacy also perhaps rest on the same cognitive failings that conspiracy theories do? The difference between a shadowy cabal we need to get rid of and an institution worthy of respect may be just some bad luck.

Before thinking about these points and debating them I strongly recommend you read the full article.

A while ago I made a suggestion for a poll which interrogated LW users' beliefs in subjects deemed to be mindkilling. There were two reasons for this: to map the overall space of ideas where it takes place, and to look for areas which turned out to be overwhelmingly one-sided.

I go to great pains to think dispassionately about things, (as, I imagine, do a lot of LWers), but there are still some subjects which I know I can't think about objectively. More worryingly, I wonder what subjects I don't notice I can't think about objectively.

More worryingly, I wonder what subjects I don't notice I can't think about objectively.

One warning sign is attributing disagreement with your views on a subject to "bias", and then engaging in armchair speculation about the psychological defects that must be responsible for this bias. For an example, see the article linked in the original posting, and almost the whole of this thread.

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[Link] Why don't people like markets?

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[Link] Why don't people like markets?

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