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schmidtleonard parent
I have a whole list of things I'd like from my car that the market does not provide because it is more profitable not to. Why do I get the feeling that instead of seeing this as a horror story you would scold me for unreasonable expectations, even though it is the identical mirror form of the horror story you just told?
WalterBright
Mass production reduces costs by standardizing things. But still, car companies offer a wide range of options if you're willing to wait for your order. If Ford doesn't provide what you want, there's GM, Toyota, Hyundai, etc. There's no shortage of variety.

There's also a small cottage industry of people who will make fully custom cars for you. They're pretty expensive, though, as they don't benefit from economies of scale.

stego-tech
Because Mr. Bright has a long, storied comment history of neolibertarian fantasies being wielded as a cudgel against anyone who dares envision a future that does not align with his own.

Speaking from experience with them in another thread. Your best bet is to ignore the bait and move on to more fruitful discussions.

WalterBright
I merely point out that economic history shows that economic freedom works better than any other system.

Besides, I enjoy debate, like other people enjoy playing football. If you don't, why are you here?

fragmede
With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely as you've accomplished far more than I have, you aren't here for debate. Your viewpoint is stuck in the cold war mentality where Soviet communism was a failure (it did, but that doesn't mean that everything they touched was bad) and America and its brand of Free Market capitalism is perfect (it isn't) and responding to your comments is like talking to a brick wall for all the "debate" that actually occurs. Other long time posters here know better than to engage, but hey, you caught me waiting on Claude.
dh2022
Having lived through communism I can say the only good things were equality of men and women (in my communist country there were just as many women doctors, engineers, managers, accountants as men) and equality between people (students from Africa were very much welcomed). Everything else though was miserable: our free healthcare, our free cold apartments that had electricity 2 hours a day, our free education, our cheap on paper but non-existent food and medicaments.
WalterBright
All attempts at communism failed. Did you know that there have historically been 20,000 communes founded in the US? I wonder what happened to them!

I never said American free markets were perfect. They certainly aren't. But they are very successful.

> responding to your comments is like talking to a brick wall

I could say the same of the people I respond to! I don't expect to change anyone's mind here. The average stay at a commune is about 2 years, after which the members leave, cured of the notion that communism is better. I encourage you to join one.

AngryData
I would consider co-op businesses a form of small scale communism, and they have steadily been growing in number for many decades with both workers/owners and customers praising them.

I also would consider many nation level communist movements that are held up as examples of failed communism to not really represent basic communist values very well at all, and to be mostly a thin PR cover for changes and turnover within the ruling class. Its not like the USSR was actually paying fair or equal dividends to the working class citizens who they claimed owned and controlled the country, the vast majority of the wealth, power, and control was still mostly diverted to a small class of elite.

r14c
Communes of that sort don't really have anything to do with Communism. At least not the political traditions that the word is typically associated with originating with thinkers like Marx, Bakunin, Lenin, Mao, Kropotkin, &c. Which specifically define communism as a level of economic development with certain specific prerequisites that none of these "intentional community commune" projects even attempt to meet.

Communism as a pure failure is literally propaganda, but I don't have time to cover the full comparative history of economic development under capitalism and socialism in a comment. All human projects have flaws and it's hard to compare them if you don't get into the nitty-gritty of both the successes and failures.

vinoveritas (dead)
derektank
My take would be to scold you to start your own company that provides the features you want from your car if it's not already being provided by the marketplace
schmidtleonard OP
I'd have more luck petitioning the Central Car Design Committee because

> it is more profitable not to

...and if anyone thinks this is ridiculous, I'd ask them if they are for or against repealing all of our current motor vehicle regulations. If "for," they have admitted to being a hopeless libertarian, and if "against," they have acknowledged that important reasonable features can be incompatible with the profit motive of a free market and it no longer seems so strange that I might have a list which is more of the same.

jack_h
> I'd have more luck petitioning the Central Car Design Committee because

Highly doubtful. Command economies have far less variety in what they offer. This isn't theoretical either just look at western cars vs Soviet cars. There's this mistaken belief that if the free market can't provide some good then a command economy could, but the reality is that if a free market can't provide a good then the chance that a command economy could is even more doubtful. Command economies tend to be very bad at allocating resources efficiently as outlined by Hayek in "The Use of Knowledge in Society".

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