Market "interventions": Functional vs dysfunctional

[ygolo]

I was motivated to start this thread because of strong reactions to the election Zohran Mamdani to become mayor of New York. This post sparked a bunch of comments by @The Cat , @Virtual ghost , and @SensEye. I know others have posted about it too(I know @ceecee did at least, a while back). I apologize if I missed it. Mamdani's election has been in the making for a while.

On the particular issue of his election, I think the best we can hope for is someone who cares about the right problems, is thoughtful and empathetic, and willing to move fast and adjust if things go wrong. He seems like all those things, but I don't live in New York(at least not now). We will see how things play out.

He has many Social Democratic ideas. This seems to freak people out.

But I think it denies reality to believe in a "free" market.

I think it's clear that you can't have a functioning market without the government creation of rules, or at least incentives (just as you can't have any activity with many people, e.g. boardgames, without rules or incentives-accidental though they may be). The government may create incentives accidentally (forcing people to underground/black markets or other extra legal systems). They can provide legal places for exchanges instead.

I believe we can say about markets:
1) (re:goods) People will do almost anything to get their needs and sometimes wants met. I don't believe this statement is controversial. They will barter, beg, and steal if there were no way to use currency. People also often get rid of things they don't need or want. They'll barter, gift, or throw away things without the ability to use currency.
2) (re:services)People like spending time doing things that have nothing to do with directly finding or cleaning water, growing food, building shelter, making clothes and all these other substance related things. I believe people like being able to trade time doing what they like and are good at and still being able to survive.
3) So having some form of "market forces" is also inevitable.

I also think it denies reality to think the state can control everything, or that all proposed policies in a mixed economy are good. It's also denies reality to think they are all bad.

My default emotional reaction to most Social Democratic policies is a good one, and "about time," is something I think reflexively. But the main argument made by critics is that many policies, although instituted with good intentions, backfire.

I think making evidence based decisions, is important, where we have evidence. When we don't have evidence, being able to adjust quickly when things go wrong (which means you have to see results of your policies quickly) is what's most important.

Economics is inextricably connected to politics, but can also be grounded in data and facts. The process of collection and reporting of evidence is always colored by those doing this act, so I want to consider the source. But I believe we commit the ad hominen fallacy if we take that consideration too far.

What follows is certainly not comprehensive, nor reflective of my beliefs, but a way to start a reasoned process about issues. At least in terms of minimum wage, and rent-control, I searched for credible sources that challenged me.

Probably the two that have been most used (and studied) are:
1) minimum wage (one source, and it's organizational bias), and

VII. Conclusions and Discussion What may be most striking to the reader who has managed to wade through our lengthy review of the new minimum wage research is the wide range of estimates of the effects of the minimum wage on employment, especially when compared to the review of the earlier literature by Brown et al. in 1982. For example, few of the studies in the Brown et al. survey were outside of the consensus range of −.1 to −.3 for the elasticity of teenage employment with respect to the minimum wage. In contrast, even limiting the sample of studies to those focused on the effects of the minimum wage of teenagers in the United States, the range of studies comprising the new minimum wage research extends from well below −1 to well above zero. This wider range for the United States undoubtedly reflects both the new sources of variation used to identify minimum wage effects—notably the greater state-level variation in minimum wages—and the new approaches and methods used to estimate these effects. A [...]

2) rent control (one source, its main institution, and its main authors[1, and 2])

Conclusions and recommendations The challenge to those attempting to make private renting both a better investment and a better place to live is as much about creating and setting the right agenda as it is about the detail of any policy change. As we have stressed throughout the report, debates about the private rented sector are typically deeply polarised and this has been reflected in policy with different administrations tightening or loosening regulatory controls. However as private renting has grown in size and the composition of both tenants and landlords has changed there is increasing recognition that government cannot stand back from the PRS but needs to engage to ensure that it does operate as effectively to deliver good homes and services to the fifth of the population who rent privately. It is also the case that all parties now recognise that with a seemingly intractable housing supply problem government needs to harness the potential of the PRS –seeing it as part of the solution rather than holding on to long held beliefs that it was part of the problem that had to be solved. [...]

But things like universal healthcare and childcare have also been done often and has some evidence that can be used for research.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/universal-health-coverage-(uhc) (bias)

WHO response​

UHC is firmly based on the 1948 WHO Constitution, which declares health a fundamental human right and commits to ensuring the highest attainable level of health for all.

As a foundation for UHC, WHO recommends reorienting health systems towards primary health care (PHC). In countries with fragile health systems, WHO focuses on technical assistance to build national institutions and service delivery to fill critical gaps in emergencies. In more robust health system settings, WHO drives public health impact towards health coverage for all through policy dialogue for the systems of the future and strategic support to improve performance.

But WHO is not alone: WHO works with many different partners in different situations and for different purposes to advance UHC around the world.

Some of WHO’s partnerships include:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7962710/ (the institution, and its author)

Abstract​

Research shows that affordable nonprofit childcare results in a variety of beneficial developmental outcomes for children, as well as benefitting families and society at-large. As leaders and influencers, paediatricians are well positioned to advocate for access to affordable, nonprofit childcare. This commentary aims to provide a framework and evidence base for Canadian paediatricians interested in learning more about this issue and how they can support increased access to nonprofit childcare.

 

[ceecee]

Literally everything Zohran has proposed either exists or use to exist. Rent controlled apartments in NYC have existed my entire life. Free public transportation is a thing in Kansas City as well as;

• Akron, Ohio
• Alexandria, Virginia
• Avon, Colorado
• Baltimore City, Maryland
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Breckenridge, Colorado
• Cache Valley, Utah
• Chapel Hill, North Carolina
• Clemson, South Carolina
• Commerce, California
• Corvallis, Oregon
• Emeryville, California
• Hoboken, New Jersey
• Island County, Washington
• Missoula, Montana
• North Central New Mexico, New Mexico
• Olympia, Washington
• Park City, Utah
• Raleigh, North Carolina
• Richmond, Virginia
• Savannah, Georgia
• Summit County, Colorado
• Tucson, Arizona
• Vail, Colorado

Head Start and Early Head Start are free, federally funded (Trump admin plans to cut by 90%) education and day care. Build off this existing platform.

There are so many "radical" things that were once very normal things in the US. Post office banking, public banks, free or very low cost college and university... People just don't remember them or they were born well after politicians of both parties ended these programs.

And city owned grocery stores. The pinnacle of socialist overreach and pie in the sky thinking, according to most people and media.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/30/business/zohran-mamdani-grocery-stores

https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-sub/wp-content/uploads/sites/281/2024/03/18104854/Public-Grocery-Stores.pdf

 

[ygolo]

The only restriction I would put on solutions is that they work, and work quickly enough that there's enough time for them to work.