My colleague Deirdre McCloskey, back in 2018, listed over 100 economic and social problems that, through the ages, have been deemed as market imperfections, bad consequences of markets and challenges of limited government, or else failures of standard economics, that supposedly require corrective government action or at least different policies.
I’ve trimmed and then added a bunch to her list below. Many of the new additions have surfaced or grown in prominence since her paper was published.
What are we missing?
I’d like to build out as complete a list as possible of these accusations. Please provide a reference for anything obscure! (Note: we are not saying all of these are always wrong, just looking to account for them…And undoubtedly there’s probably some overlap or double-counting for some of the below.)
- overpopulation
- land rentiers
- excessive capital accumulation for the rich
- the stationary state
- greed
- alienation
- harmful consumption choices by the poor
- poverty
- alcoholism
- insufficient protection of infant industries
- eroding national economic distinctiveness
- workers’ lacking bargaining power
- racial mixing
- women working
- immigration of undesirables
- wage race to the bottom
- monopolies and trusts
- capitalism leading to imperialism and exploitation
- food and drug poisoning
- ostentatious consumption
- unemployment
- insufficient coordination (rationalization movement)
- rampant self-interest
- business cycles
- underinvestment in increasing-returns industries
- production externalities
- overinvestment abroad
- under-consumption
- monopolistic competition
- principle-agent problems
- market inefficiency requiring planning
- markets being unnatural
- secular stagnation
- investment spillovers
- unbalanced growth
- capital insufficiency (particularly in developing countries)
- sticky prices
- prices set by corporate strategy, not profit max MR=MC
- predatory pricing
- insufficient competitors (Big is Bad) or harm from market power in vertical relationships
- entrepreneurialism alien to some cultures
- inequality from dual labor markets
- cost-push inflation
- capital-market imperfections
- oligopoly
- irrationality among peasants
- cultural irrationality
- human desires go beyond financial incentives
- poverty traps and a cycle of poverty
- the prisoner’s dilemma
- public goods
- insufficient property rights
- incomplete contracts
- overfishing
- tragedy of the commons
- resource depletion from overpopulation
- transaction costs
- public choice
- regulatory capture
- free riding
- institutional sclerosis after long periods of peace
- missing markets
- informational asymmetries
- unions as good monopolies needing state protection
- third-world exploitation through trade
- corrosive effects of advertising
- public underinvestment
- recessions without demand-management
- false trades
- imperfections = world of second best
- middle-income traps
- path dependency
- chaos, unpredictability, and sudden shifts
- undervaluing cooperatives and codetermination
- need for international “competitiveness”
- vulgar consumerism
- consumption externalities and merit goods
- overworking
- menu costs
- knowledge as a public good
- behavioral irrationality
- irrational entrepreneurs
- hyperbolic discounting
- too big to fail
- environmental degradation and climate change
- private discrimination and social discrimination
- markets undervalue care workers
- GDP a poor indicator (happiness econ)
- unjust prices
- profits a poor reflection of social good
- excessive CEO pay
- poverty pay deters automation
- undervaluing the entrepreneurial state
- enduring global poverty
- neo-stagnationism/plucked low hanging fruit
- income and wealth inequality
- underemployment and hysteresis
- savings glut
- obesity and health epidemic
- drug addiction
- monopsony power
- lack of “resilience” and “self-sufficiency” to supply-shocks
- greedflation
- price volatility
- usury
- price complexity (junk fees) & gouging
- the pink tax/gendered pricing
- algorithmic price discrimination
- short-termism and market myopia
- tail-risks
- speculative bubbles
- crypto energy needs
- “financialization”
- trade deficits
- loss of manufacturing harming innovation
- racial wealth gaps
- job insecurity and precarious work
- work intensification and workplace surveillance
- digital surveillance of consumers
- over commercialization of human relationships
- motherhood penalty
- McDonaldization of culture/cultural imperialism
- overpackaging and waste
- unequal healthcare access, food desserts, postcode/zipcode “lotteries”
- commodification of nature
- two working parent trap
- monetization of attention
- atomization/”the phones”/social media harms
- network effects & winner-takes-all markets
- unequal pay for “work of equal value” and other disparities
- weaponized supply chain interdependence/free trade hurts national security
- resource wars & conflict commodities
- bullshit jobs
- aesthetic decline
- loss of “real” journalism
- ideas harder to find
- mass immigration harms
- gentrification
- biodiversity loss
- oligarchic capture of democracy
- fertility decline/underpopulation
- capitalism erodes virtue
- feminization/HR-ification of workplaces
- need for energy independence
- corporate concentration
- social immobility
- share buybacks
- tax avoidance/offshore tax havens
- gambling
- stakeholderism/DEI/ESG
- mental health crisis and loneliness
- deepfakes, misinformation and disinformation
- censorship via content moderation
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