This is an absolutely terrible article!

Yep, the author has the same old blind spot that I’ve picked authors up on many times on OLO;

He can only see an economic system that is predicated on continuous and never-ending growth…and at a very considerable rate; well in excess of 3% per annum, in an era when we need to be acutely aware of the folly of expanding economic activity, of human expansionism per se, and of our overall effect on the planet’s resource base and environment... and on our own future.

Ok, I guess that at about this point Dr Hartwich has turned away from my comments, rolled his eyes and passed me off as some extreme leftwing greenie tree-hugger! (;>\

Based on the necessity for humanity to very quickly steer itself towards a sustainable existence, what is the better system, a free market or a strong regulatory regime?

The answer is crystal clear – strong government control.

I hope to goodness that the current global fiscal dilemma will engender a regime of much-improved government regulation of economic matters. It is certainly looking that way.

However, it has got to be the right sort of intervention….and that is not looking too crash hot. All indications are that a regime of continuous quite rapid growth is being propped up and that any thought of slowing economies down or of strongly focussing on the technological innovation side of growth and moving away from the increasing resource exploitation side…let alone declaring limits to growth…are still not even within the mindsets of economists and politicians.

Even so, there has got to be greater hope for the achievement of a sustainable future with strong government regulation than with a relatively unfettered market-forces regime.

The author's comments about central banks seem poorly informed. For example, a look at Wikipedia shows that the US Federal Reserve System, the USA's central banking system, is fundamentally different from a central bank controlled by a socialist state:

Structure of The Federal Reserve System
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System

"Independent within government

The Federal Reserve System is considered to be an independent central bank because its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive branch of government.

The System is, however, subject to oversight by the U.S. Congress.

The Federal Reserve must work within the framework of the overall objectives of economic and financial policy established by the government; therefore, the description of the System as “independent within the government” is more accurate.

[see] (http://www.federalreserve.gov/pf/pdf/pf_1.pdf)"

Oversight by the US Congress is hardly "hands on the tiller" by radical socialists, or even left-of-centre politicians. My general impression, (sorry to break the consensus) is that the Fed has largely been controlled by the big investment banks in the US. Show me I'm wrong, and I'll correct my impression.

Get a grip, Oliver. And show you know a bit more about what you are supposedly analysing.

Hiyah, Ludwig, mate.

Not really a full bottle on the subject myself, but do have a good knowledge of philosophical history, which does bring in Adam Smith, so-called father of the free-market.

In my own words, it seems Smith, though favouring competition,
did talk about the difference between need and greed.

Smith thus as also a philosopher does point out, that though freedom was necessary for the entrepreneur to ply his way for the good of the nation, it still needed strong and sensible government to have laws to protect the need for competition from overmuch human greed.

Simply means, Ludwig, that the term economic deregulation itself sounds a bit crazy when even honest moneymakers can soon gain that lust in their eyes for bigger profits.

Regards, BB, WA.

I must give the author some support. The cause of problem has not been the free market but Greenspan's reign at the Fed. His job as any person who is head of a country's Central Bank is to lean into the wind and also stop market excesses. He does have a planning role. However unlike MacFarlane and Stevens who pricked the Australian property bubble by raising interest rates and speaking out against spruikers like Kay, Greenspan let the money supply rip using the excuse that the market would take care of it. The market has taken care of the distortion with a vengeance. The irony is that Greenspan distorted the market to help his crony Republicans,the tragedy is that we are now going to enter a period of quasi nationalisation. One only has to see shambles like the Australian car industry where the annual subsidy to keep each worker (who mostly immigrants) in his job is over $100,000 and which under Labor will rise dramatically to see where anti-market measures will lead.

Ludwig
You're suprised at this article? .... from the CIS the independent (sic) think tank who has never supported a people centric policy and OLO's resident "free market" (sic) advocate,surely you don't expect a mia culpa.
Notwithstanding this he does have a point to dump the system entirely would be worse than the disease. But it seems to me that you and I are in agreement with a significant paring of the excesses.

All their so called experts all ignore the human element. And that Humoungus is both uncontrolable and doesn't have humanity as its primary interests.
But beyond that his piece is little more than a weazle worded, mudding of the water as an excuse for not seeing the obvious before.
If you start your deliberation from a commited perspective don't be surprised if GIGO is the result.

The difficulty with these discussions is that the term free market has taken on too wide a meaning.

When it comes to buying and selling goods and services free markets are the most efficient method to allocate resources.

Trying to allow capital markets to determine the budget allocation between competing priorities has failed. Governments still have to budget how much as a community we spend on defense, health, education, infrastructure etc and no money market mechanism is going to provide a short cut to do that.

Markets are not designed to be a replacement for budgeting.

So markets are good at allocating resources efficiently but they are not good at determining the priority of where the resources should be allocated.

We have confused the issue by corrupting the measure of value money by making it a measure of debt instead of measure of asse.

We need to keep markets and extend them where appropriate.

1. Let budgets priorities be set in the political marketplace of where the vote is the measure of value.

2. Let budget allocations be disbursed by a market mechanism.

3. Let us turn our money back into a measure of assets not debt so that money markets are markets in something more easily valued than debt.

We sort of have 1 but it can be improved by extending voting to more cases where money markets are inappropriate such as voting for ABC directors and the board of the Reserve Bank.

Our privatisation attempts for 2 have failed and we need a better way of doing 2. Those of you will who have read my other submissions know I propose Rewards as a market mechanism to spend money.

3 is the most immediate problem and it can work with 2 by eliminating debt money by only allowing banks to lend money if they have it on deposit and by the Reserve bank creating new money as needed for the growing economy. Let them then distribute the money through the market mechanisms of 2.