The Free Market: Fallacies and Facts | Thomas E. Woods, Jr

Archived from the live Mises.tv broadcast, this lecture was presented by Tom Woods at the Mises Circle in Houston on 14 January 2012. Includes an introduction by Douglas E. French.

[@CritterCrew1]

Best part of the video: "And as I say, here we are at a time when the greatest benefactor, materially speaking, the world has ever seen, is under greater attack than its been in the lifetimes of many of us. And the attacks are so unfounded, and so unfair, and so frankly deranged; made by people who wouldn't even have the leisure time to make these arguments had it not been for the pampering of them that the market provides..."

[@johnvannewhouse]

AOC comes to mind immediately....woman has not the slightest clue how to run a business but is telling Jeff Bezos how to run Amazon.....

[@Sigridovski]

It is at 52:50...listen! Ha, ha!!!

[@leadlefthand]

@@johnvannewhouse AOC: the bartender who can't even get her bartending right (based on her rant about her experience mixing up orders). And the scarier part is people actually voted for this incompetent loon.

[@SVladZ]

Libertarian thought especially voiced by its most lucid and lettered individuals is almost like a drug that is so pure and good for you, that doing it as often as possible is the first incurable symptom.

[@tl6359]

Translation; " It makes sense"

[@88spammer]

PLLLEEAAASSEEEEE GO ON THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE, PLEAAASSEEEEEE!!!

[@tcomben]

I thought it would be cool if he went on JRE. But if you watched the Peter Schiff episode, it just turns into Rogan screaming about why we need government for the environment. Now, I know Tom Woods would have an excellent response to that question, Rogan would simply ignore it.

[@oidni1]

tcomben Walter Block should go on to Joe Rogan. :)

[@immaculatesquid]

now more than ever

[@dantheman1337]

@@tcomben sustainable business is good for business, plus the moral consumer will buy that which does not damage or perhaps even helps the environment. Saying free market capitalusm is bad for the environment is basically giving little faith in consumers and more faith in government. My business is sustainable for example, renewable electricity, raw material is sustainable oak, boxing is all biodegradable etc, i don't harp on about it to the customer, i am not forced to by rules, i just do it for ethical reasons.

[@nicolasstanley2420]

YESS!

[@joshuaclements9684]

Quite possibly my most favorite Tom Woods speech.

[@rkecseg84]

this lecture is one of the most valuable practical explanations I have seen regarding the role that freedom plays in organizing society. Tom Woods has a talent in juxtaposing a free society vs central planning. Brilliant, stunning, an enlightening needle in the haystanck of societal ignorance

[@ldsiverling]

Been watching a lot of Tom Woods's videos. Great stuff.

[@TruthOverEverything]

***** Turd Flinging Monkey 21:00 how the free market/capitalism helps the poor 25:00 the natural cooperation that arises out of individualism 28:00 power of the free market 31:00 government vs market economy 32:45 average leftist/solipsist mindset 36:45 government vs corporations and addressing the greatest evil 40:45 addressing bottom line 42:45 growth of population, growth of living standards, life expectancy, poorest enjoy the most amazing things in freeR markets 44:30 inequality: in the old days the rich traveled via a coach driven by four horses whereas the poor traveled on foot with no shoes, today both the richest and poorest people (in freer countries) travel by car (gap getting much closer) 46:45 Louis CK everything is awesome but no one is happy 48:00 the robber barons in America were the ones who grew rich off of taxation, the ones who we should salute are the ones who brought the prices of everything down (steel rails $160 a ton to $17 a ton....4000 people could produce more people at Carnegie's plant than 15k in Europe in THE best plant they had...Rockefeller brought oil down from $1 to 10 cents per gallon...James J Hill made money and prospered with no government subsidies at all, even prospering and making money during a recession while fares were decreasing....Vanderbilt defied the steam boat monopoly....transport from one place to another for 10 cents....and then for FREE made money via food sales on the ship...delivered passengers for 1/4 of a cost that government subsidized institutions could not aka beating the companies stealing from people via taxation)

[@TurdFlingingMonkey]

The problem is people want power and influence for themselves. Advocating a free-market means that politicians won't be in charge of picking winners and losers, and thus nobody will be kissing their asses and calling it ice cream.

[@oidni1]

Turd Flinging Monkey Good to see my fellows here. :)

[@oidni1]

Good to see my fellows here. :)

[@fsujag54]

Nobody makes an hour-long speech on economics, government, and philosophy as interesting and entertaining as Tom. Kudos, pal!

[@MikeSears100]

Great lecture, Thomas Woods.

[@soapbxprod]

Dear Tom- you RULE! You and Lew Rockwell and Peter Schiff and Judge Napolitano and John Stossel (also Niall Ferguson and Charles Murray) are just the best. Thanks for speaking facts to the Witch Doctors and Attilas. Ms Rand would be proud. :)

[@soapbxprod]

Friend- you don't even know what the words "conservative" and "liberal" even mean. I bet my life that you're receiving a check every month from the "Wise Overlords" that you love so much. You're a collectivist coward parasite fraud. What do you do for a living?

[@conundrum11]

Don't forget Bill Still and Joe Bongiovann MONETARY REFORM is where it's also at!!

[@soapbxprod]

conundrum11 Indeed- Bill Still knows the score- it's all about monetary reform and ending the Fed... the money cartel... As Murray Rothbard explained so well: The Founding of the Federal Reserve | Murray N. Rothbard

[@soapbxprod]

***** OK- I give up- you're some kind of Communist, right?

[@soapbxprod]

Hey imbecile- this is my Grandfather: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacher_v._United_States

[@ChrisHarperKC]

Nailed that one. Great speech.

[@danielleyton9715]

that was beautiful.

[@inmymind801]

Nothing short of riveting ideas. Tom Woods speaks so passionately about the Austrian position and his Libertarian beliefs that you cant help by listen and be engaged no matter what else you got going on in your life. Seriously, thanks for opening me up to ideas I dont think I would have heard in College and certainly didnt in High school.

[@SirTenenbaum]

Excellent as always. Tom Woods rules!

[@SomeUnsoberIdiot]

Gods, listening to Woods is just brilliant. An hour-long lecture that felt like 5 minutes.. I dare any teacher of economics to do half as well!

[@TrippingTheTube]

Excellent watch. Thanks for posting.

[@NicosMind]

Been waiting for a Mises lecture for ages :)

[@umhchud]

Tom is fantastic.

[@Uruz2012]

1) So you've never left a job in order to work somewhere else? I've worked in call centers, restaurants, retail and construction over the past decade. Why did I change jobs? Because different employers in different industries are *gasp in shock* different. 2) So the free market is corrupted by government agencies (courts, parliament/congress, local mayors/chieftains/etc)? At least we agree on something...

[@Kaasperav]

I was here, what a great speech!

[@NDB1790]

Thank you, Jeremy!

[@PoppinSean]

That was pure awesomeness

[@michaelmurray8668]

I really enjoy this guy's speeches

[@fagan411]

Awesome as always

[@Tonytonytone582]

@Fernando balase did you watch the video? do you know what the free market is? or a bailout for that matter?

[@Uruz2012]

We're capable of creating programs to distribute goods and services in an efficient manner. It's called the price system... If there's demand for a product in a given region, then someone will use their resources to either create that product or bring it into the region. Since they want to maximize ROI, they'll do so in the most efficient manner possible. If you've solved the economic calculation problem then you should probably share it with the world since you'd be the first to do so!

[@cankorgbr]

another classic. I send them all to my family members, they will not watch it, as usual.

[@ThingWhatKicks]

It's important to distinguish between *inventing* a technology and developing the means to *mass produce* it. Governments have indeed invented some things. But ONLY the free market can coordinate the mass production of such inventions.

[@the8searcher7]

Great video!

[@mike8903]

Bravo Tom

[@s0lid_sno0ks]

That intro riff is still 🔥🔥🔥

[@MrLibertyFighter]

Excellent speech!

[@oidni1]

A very good talk!

[@batmanthe]

@mtanousable So you only eat during a certain time of the day? ie no breakfast or lunch?

[@nilricci4835]

whats the end song? sounds great!

[@StrafingMoose]

Ahh at last, we get another Woods treat!

[@pablomaximilianoherkenroth8334]

someone knows the name of the Essay of Anthony Gregory that Thomas Woods is quoting (35:00)?

[@mytech6779]

I think its a blog post, "2012/11/07/dont-despair"

[@grandeoliba]

What is the video that he talked about in the beginning of the video? Is it in youtube?

[@MrGTR22]

46:25 How awesome is that!

[@Professionalpatternrecognizer]

Can anyone link me to that Anthony Gregory essay he cited?

[@sgtmcwallace]

great opening music

[@sion1138]

Can't believe you managed to scrunch together so many words. No period but still, good job.

[@ArmednSafe]

Tom Woods is the rock star historian/economist.

[@dylancarper8334]

where did Tom get the statistics about disposable incomes and poverty rates? Can anyone site the sources?

[@IcyScythe]

what's the song in the intro? I dig it

[@jackhughes1654]

Where have they all come from?

[@paul1964uk]

44:07-44:17 Actually 'New Coke' was sweeter (and thus a more attractive product) than the old Coke recipe (see Wikipedia). It initially had about 90% approval over the older brand, but there was 'hard core' of about 10% that took exception and were highly vocal. The result was continued production of two brands (New AND Old) on sale despite the higher costs to the company of doing so. An interesting case study in the theories of free markets.

[@obviouslykaleb7998]

I would say it’s comparable to the SJW phenomenon of today, a small vocal minority is dictating the actions of large corporations and because of the pandering they lose money.

[@hallavast]

A one hour long oral re-tweet... great.

[@garrettpatten6312]

This guy is awesome

[@Buffalo122333]

James J. Hill is an interesting character. His railroad was the basis for Taggart Transcontinental in Atlas Shrugged.

[@keatonsmith5669]

Tom Woods for Secretary of State! Over the four year span of the Kokesh Administration, state secretary Thomas Woods oversaw a massive reduction in the executive branch. The state had been sold.

[@brukernavn142]

More relevant today than 10 years ago

[@chiefsittingstill6061]

Watch one Mises video, add another four to my KZbin 'Watch later' list. So the cycle continues!

[@cabgt]

@tstruss912 I gave examples in a previous post, and yes, America in the 1800's is a good example as there were relatively few government interventions in the economy compared with today. Standards of living continued to increase, especially during the latter half of that century, often termed the Great Depression. Technology is constantly improving and would be far better if we weren't so heavily oppressed by governments. It is a tragedy that people are still poor in the U.S.

[@LouigiVerona]

Very nice speech

[@sharperguy]

It's funny - what he said about I, Pencil is basically a well known concept in software engineering - separation of concerns. No person knows how a large piece of software works, but it still functions because the task is broken down into small chunks which are then handed out to the responsibility of various people, who make "contracts" with each-other through specifications of how the communication between the modules should work - meaning programmers don't have to know how each module works.

[@SwissMissMonika]

my new kindred spirit; interesting that we share the same birthday

[@sequorroxx]

Third critique by the lady about 'no common ends' can be refuted by her own argument: When one says 'one cannot know the truth' that is a performative contradiction. It defeats itself because necessarily implicit is the claim 'I know this is true'. So, when the lady argues we have no common ends, implicit is a categorical preference for truth over falsehood. She is accepting rational means to investigate the world and is expecting such from those she debates.

[@SameBasicRiff]

such a cool bass line! haha

[@Uruz2012]

I din't take it as an attack. I apologize if it seemed that I did. I just have a great love of truth and I hate being wrong.... If you've got an alternative to the price system then I'd like to hear more about it. Are there any videos on youtube that explain such an alternative system?

[@TrippingTheTube]

Larry Kudlow today on the radio said the dollar was strong and inflation was low. He said he's expecting strong growth for 2012. Just thought I'd say. We shall see about that.

[@truevoice08]

@ThisMachineKillsReds Nice sources. I don't have a position on this one yet.I'll have to look into it.

[@simonpurist4499]

Greed implies domination and deception, while free trade means voluntary cooperation and informed consent.. It's not rocket-science, but it is intellectual honesty.

[@timbitsnomson]

I swear this guy is Rothbard in spirit.

[@eyesopencam]

Damn he's a champion

[@FrediMerkuryZWenus]

@synestheticmonotony The top-rated comment of yours contains a quote by Rothbard. I thought it was one of Mises but I've got it mixed up with another, similar one. This one is indeed Rothbard's, so you were right.

[@FrediMerkuryZWenus]

@synestheticmonotony It was a Mises' quote ;)

[@reecealeck8314]

Watched ✅

[@ComradeChristov]

I am so going to start saying "Australian rules" now.

[@Mooxieclang]

Clearly it is because the private owner of the land would have had to purchase from the land owners in order to gain that land. Unlike government which can come in and seize any piece of property it deems necessary and able to obtain.

[@SomewhatStaid]

In a substantively free market it would be easy to leave a job and start your own business. Anyone who employed you would have to treat you well for fear you would become competition. This happens sometimes in the skilled trades (my job sector,) but it's getting rarer as the gov't uses the rhetoric of"safety" or "fairness" or "eco-friendliness" to erect barriers for small business creation, most of which are easily circumvented or absorbed if your business has a multi-million dollar cashflow.

[@mtanousable]

@batmanthe Bah. My bad. I eat three meals and I eat whatever I feel like. It doesn't seem to cause me to gain weight. I think it's because I eat snacks in between (candy, chips, cheese sticks, sandwiches, whatever), so I don't gorge (well, compared to what I could be eating - I have a high metabolism anyway) at any meal. My point was that if anyone tells you that X diet is necessary, they are probably wrong. And if the government tells you - they are almost guaranteed to be lying to you.

[@gardeniabee]

I admire this man's work. I wish that he would distinguish the "free market" from "predatory capitalism" which the American military-industrial-pharma complex has imposed upon the world.

[@kepstein8888]

Starts at 12:30

[@gloriouscontent3538]

6:48 Well thanks if you really are the reason he's on there. Bob Murphy's twitter is amazing.

[@stevewellz]

Multiple brain-gasms here. I am going to have to buy some of this guy's books.

[@cabgt]

@tstruss912 I'm not comparing socialism with murder. I was making the point that although we may not see 100% pure free markets in our time, it does not mean one should not strive for that just goal. Much in the same way that we should strive to eliminate/prevent murder, although we will probably never eradicate it from society. The more we move towards voluntary exchanges and less government violence, the better off we will be.

[@DoctorMandible]

The speaker's point was that the factory jobs offered a higher standard of living than the people made on the fields. But that's only partially true because their standard of living was made artificially lower by the enclosure laws. But for the enclosure laws, most people would have probably stayed in the fields. And there were very similar efforts made in other countries; Britain is just what I've studied the most. In the U.S. there was no history of peasant and yeoman farming though.

[@genli5603]

That's actually not true at all. Enclosure was blamed, because they saw that enclosure resulted in a mass movement toward the cities. Real wages of the people in the countryside actually jumped quite a bit first--with more money came more demand for goods, and that pretty much started off the industrial revolution, which then tempted laborers with even HIGHER wages. Real wages of an agricultural laborer doubled between 1790 and 1820, and it had been tracking up for quite some time before then. Agricultural laborers had previously been permanently unmarried men living in the houses of their masters. With the increase in wages and the cottage industry system, they moved into cottages and started families. When the cottage industries were replaced by even more advanced industrialization, though, the men's agricultural wages didn't increase fast enough to fully replace the income of the wives and kids, so there was a decrease in their average quality of life. Laborers also no longer considered it acceptable to simply never get married anymore--the genie was out of that bottle and wasn't going back.

[@kRudAres]

Hey Mises Media, whats the "free market" solution to bid rigging and price fixing? The formation of cartels? Resource allocation? Who's resources would it be if, lets say, a state didn't exist to legitimize claims to vast amounts of land/resources? What happens when an industrial property based market system needs global resources in order to function? What if other nations/people don't want to play along (war)? Why is full employment not possible and what do we do with the unemployed?

[@zerofoxgiven9586]

John McFarfignoogin what's the free market solution to bid rigging and price fixing? Have you actually watched any of Tom's speeches?

[@NikolajsenNiklas]

No. While employment in agriculture did now grow to keep pace with population growth after the enclosure laws, it did not fall either. And many chose the cities as an alternative to the dirt poor life as a farm hand. All over Europe, people migrated to the cities as industry started to grow and demand labor, enclosure laws or not. Which makes sense, given the real wages one could expect...

[@KnicksForTheWin]

The free market promotes growth and exploration into the world by embracing the egotistic trait of greed that is inherit in all of us. Say what you want about it, but it has led us a long way that I do not believe we could presently be at without it.

[@jjames1977]

The minimal price of a material good is detemined by the following factors: prorated cost of upkeep and construction + research and development + labor cost to make the good + material cost to make the good.+ market wage of non-entrepreneurial activities. Research costs start out high for an innovative good, but then dissipate as the tools and skills necessary to make that good spread throughout the economy. If an entrepreneur fails in the sphere of entrepreneurship, his only option is to depart into the labor market. Any profit earned over and above these costs is called an economic profit, or rent. In a well-functioning free market, rent is bid to zero, but it can be kept high by innovation and monopolistic competition. Properly unskilled labor is always abundant. It always exceeds the demand. The market price of unskilled labor is determined only by the physical needs of the worker, which vary from worker to worker. This is lower bounded literally by the amount of energy needed by a worker to perform the work, resulting in the "wages bid to zero" phenomenon. Utility theory tells us that employers may not demand all of even that, so some workers will become exhausted while on the job. In practice, all labor is skilled in one way or another. While improvements in productive facilities increase the abundance of work, they obviously reduce its skill, concentrating the skilled labor in the more skilled profession of designing the productive facilities, and the less necessary profession of organizing them.

[@georgesaxman1461]

Higher in nominal terms at best. Consider the quality and availability. VERY different.

[@s0lid_sno0ks]

Starts at 12:24

[@lAljax]

Tom Woods is the man! He should be Ron Pauls vice president!

[@jedeye15]

I don't think that would necessarily hold true because the Chinese have a lot of reserve currency (as does any large trading nation) so any appreciation of the yuan would immediately be offset with the Chinese central bank selling off their reserves to keep it down, they actually did do so according to Timothy Geithner in early 2009. In any matter, with regards to the amount of yuan floating around, they Chinese wouldn't mind as that would keep their currency value and their exports cheap

[@buttole]

'This same process engulfed Europe which led people to flee to the "new world"' the early settlers from britain fled for what is now termed religious reasons, and you'll notice they came over in small numbers. yes people eventually did crowd out and fled, but you can see my previous post for the reason for that

[@genli5603]

The Virginia settlers were economic settlers. They did not flee for religious reasons. The people seeking religious freedom were a fairly small minority overall. A fair number who came over weren't even voluntary migrants--and I mean all the indentured servants (including kidnap victims and prisoners of war auctioned into servitude!) not just slaves.

[@prycelessly]

I just tweeted this! ;)

[@mtanousable]

@swordsman1600 I agree, but it's his choice. Personally, I think my diet is the best - I just eat whatever I feel hungry for each night. I seem to be doing well - more than well, actually, at around 135 pounds for a 5'11" male. I'm like abnormally skinny.

[@Uruz2012]

The point is that the western American region was more or less beyond the reach of state enforced law for quite some time and Iceland had no state for a few hundred years. Neither of those regions had rampant theft or murder. In fact, the biggest thieves in the American west were government agents in the form of military backed land grabs (breaking treaty agreements left and right) and one was more likely to die of illness than murder (murder rates were lower than in the eastern cities).

[@genli5603]

To be fair, murder rates were pretty damned high everywhere back then, and gangs ran a lot of the cities and were deeply involved in the city governments. The relative lower levels of murder probably had more to deal with the lack of racketeering than any particular virtue of the "Wild West."

[@fleskebille]

@d3adp001 explain how this "monopoly" uses force, please.The drug dealer isn't using force if he just gets someone hooked by giving samples.

[@KnicksForTheWin]

Never said our system wasn't corrupt just said greed was the driving force behind almost all innovations.

[@Metal_Auditor]

9:00 to skip to the substantive part of the speech.

[@drewmandan]

Woods at 1:40

[@comesahorseman]

👍👍👏

[@Lucian86]

About the speech at 49:00. Let me add Ryanair (which is so hated by many) who allowed people in Europe to travel all over the continent at ridiculous prices; that for millions of people every year.

[@djb5255]

@evangrogers As a personal trainer by trade, I never advocate the paleo/primal diets. It's not bad necessarily, and it has its benefits but it really isn't that efficient.

[@valgez1]

I think, the issue with the drugs is not "harming someone else". The drugs consumers will not be able to produce as much profit as the clean ones. Think about it this way: Suppose, you own a factory, would you hire a worker who likes drugs? Would you trust such an employee? Or would you prefer a clean one? Macro-economy is based on the same principles. We all are laborers, producing profit and paying taxes

[@channel1.946]

starts at 6:39

[@againstjebelallawz]

I think they did, at least in broad terms.