There is no better argument for deregulation than marketplaces.
If you haven’t experienced one, I recommend it.
Ebay, Uber, Lyft, Amazon, Rover, Facebook Marketplace, the list goes on.
Anytime buyers and a sellers congregate together something beautiful happens. There is a special kind of harmony when the friction of regulation is removed from transactions, and people are set free to deal with each other peacefully.
Even the negotiation process is a form of art. Both buyer and seller have a price point that makes sense to them for a particular good. Neither has to participate if the price doesn’t fit their model. But when both parties finding that happy medium – magic happens.
Markets free people people to signal their preferences with the world: “I have X good at Y price, who wants it?” and “I have X budget, and am looking for Y good, who’s willing to sell?” Both parties participate of their own accord. Peacefully.
People often give markets a bad wrap. Protesting low wages for ride share drivers, or Amazon and Ebay as disrupters of the retail industry. But they’re missing the point.
In free marketplaces, no one forces others to participate in exchange. It happens voluntarily. Spontaneously. Beautifully.
This kind of mutually-beneficial exchange forms the bedrock of a free, prosperous, peaceful society.
Markets are an amazing innovation. They’re something to marvel at. Not condemn.
And the most difficult thing to grasp about marketplace exchange is that while two parties may agree upon the price point for the exchange, both parties have different opinions of the value of the commodities involved in the exchange. This dichotomy is what makes talking about economics so difficult.