this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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Trade secrets don't need to be enforced much by law. You can create an ad hoc trade secret regime by simply keeping your secret between a few key employees. As it happens, there are some laws that go beyond that to help companies keep the secret, but that only extends something that could happen naturally.
To get closer to the free market there would have to be a duty to disclose any- and everything that's now a trade secret, no matter how easily kept. To not just get closer but actually get there we all would need to be telepathic. As said, perfect information is a bitch of a concept.
Being free to innovate and keep your own ideas to yourself sounds like it should be part of the free market though.
Forcing people to disclose their (mental) secrets seems bizarre.
I'm not arguing for any policies, just explaining what would be necessary to make the theoretical model of the free market a reality in actual reality: It assumes perfect information and perfectly rational actors, it's a tall order.
What definition are you going by?
Adam Smith's. He pioneered rational choice models in general. Came up with the whole shebang that 20yold econ 101 students love to ignore in favour of "free market is if I get a fat payout".
And why should I listen to someone that defines a word differently than everyone else?
Adam Smith came up with it. It's also how actual economists use it. Don't confuse that with how business majors, politicians, and generally peddlers of institutionalised market failure use it.
Can you point to a few examples of economists using it? Obviously I won't count Lemmy users.
In the hardcore contemporary literature you mostly see more precise language such as perfect competition, (theoretical) situations which are pareto-optimal, which is built on Adam's rational choice models. The maths became more solid, the idea didn't change. They didn't have game theory back then.
And FFS read The Wealth of Nations and see what he thought of monopolists he'd consider our billionaires to be no different than the kings of old. The father of capitalism was out for universal wealth and happiness, not personal enrichment.
You honestly seem obsessed with that adam dude.
I think your problem is that you seem to think that "perfect" mathematical models will ever work in real life.
I said the exact opposite the whole thread. Are you confusing me with a capitalist or something.
It's all you talk about though.
No one cares about Adam when his ideas are frankly stupid. Or at least how you describe them. He might be a solid dude.
It's all you fucking asked about.