Consumers love choice, although many hate the idea of a free market. Consumers of all kinds love choice so much that live auction-style, buy-and-sell platforms have become the new free market spaces for many. Whether there is a free market resurgence or a small glimpse of it, platforms such as Whatnot, Property Room, Facebook Marketplace, Sotheby’s, and DealDash, to name a few are bringing free market concepts back into vogue.
The peculiar thing is, the haters of free markets and enemies of capitalism, are some of the very people who participate in the market space and buy-and-sell action platforms. Free markets haters love highly-regulated markets and central planning to control market economies, so why do they love the fruits of unhampered auction-style platforms? Maybe it is “rules for thee, but not for me”—regulate everyone else but let me buy how I want. That seems plausible, but haters of free markets may say the auction-style, buy-and-sell platforms do not produce real needs or wants for people. I would concede this to Mises, who said,
Under laissez faire [free markets], says the planner, the goods produced are not those which people “really” need, but those goods from the sale of which the highest returns are expected. It is the objective of planning to direct production toward satisfaction of “true” needs. But who should decide what “true” needs are?
Free markets are not absent rules, as the free market haters assume. Auction platforms have rules but do not hinder common folk from making a profit from human actions. These digital platforms that offer “fruits of free markets” can be seen in the variety of products available, the competitive prices, and the constant innovation attributed to the sellers on virtual platforms. F.A. Hayek was right when he said there is a fatal conceit that man could not create such a harmonious system as the free market—a system that delivers to people what they demand, and in turn, the seller receives the signals of what to sell through the exchange of money. However, most importantly, the free market depends on a system of private ownership over the productive materials.
Free markets allow individuals to exchange without coercion, bring about better competitive prices and deals, encourage innovation from the seller, and are more efficient in the exchange—the overall buying and selling process. Amazingly, some people still do not see the harmony in a free market—despite their enjoyment of Facebook Marketplace, Whatnot, or DealDash. Ironically, the haters of free markets are users of shopping and auction-style apps. That is to say, disbelievers of free markets disagree with its tenets, theoretically, but practically, they use these auction-style platforms as consumers and enjoy the fruits from them. In other words, people who bemoan the dangers and greed of the free market are the same customers who are them. “Rules for thee, but not for me” is what I hear from enemies of free markets.
Auction-style, live-shopping platforms enable consumers to buy and sell their privately-owned economic goods. While the enemies of free markets and private property lament about the way the free market functions, in their words, there are no laws and rules, and it is a dog-eat-dog or winner-take-all. Alternatively, they say free markets are full of greedy profit seekers. However, these live-streaming, auction-style platforms show that private property, peacefully traded between real flesh and blood people, is a real thing. The naysayers misunderstand the free market—especially those buyers who think that an abundance of regulations will operate better than a free market—not looking at the facts in the marketplace.
Auction-style shopping platforms are exploding and expected to experience further growth as more people see the advantages of human action between buyers and sellers, especially for common people. People always seek freer markets to exchange their goods with unhampered movement, without nudging, force, or coercion (i.e., the forces of socialism).
What makes a free market? What does a free market mean to real people like you, me, and your neighbor? Going beyond the freedom to trade with the best seller under unhampered conditions, it elicits ingenuity, entrepreneurship, greater variety, but—more especially—it gives owners individual use and application of private property to make a profit. There is a societal benefit when individuals own private property and are enabled to exchange as seen fit under the law. In the auction-style platforms, there are no artificially made winners and losers, who are granted special monopolistic privileges. Conversely, in a free market, people are free to try as shown in marketspaces that are converted to auction platforms. On the economic front, these action-styled platforms lower the knowledge costs of searching to find goods that may have huge markups or are incredibly unique at a price agreed upon by the buyer and seller.
The buy-and-sell platforms encourage private owners to sell in a virtual economic space, which is important because there is minimal startup costs and expenses, overhead costs, permits, and fees to get started. In other words, common folks are not going into business to go out of business.
For property owners, these apps and live-stream auctions are safe and secure for sellers. The beauty is, after all, the use and freedom of the free market within a marketspace comprised of trusted folks with little to no outside intervention. The free market naysayers do not know that no one person was credited as the creator or inventor of a free market. This is a testament to marketspace auction-style platforms. Who invented them? A central planner did not make the apps sellers use to auction off their economic goods; people did it themselves over time, using the best method agreed upon as the most harmonious.
Auction-style selling platforms negate the so-called disparity caused by free markets. It is not true that free markets cause disparity and, in fact, it is creating the opposite effect; namely, real, flesh-and-blood people are converting their property into higher passive incomes. Many free market and capitalist haters will admit their philosophical dislike for free markets and the need for highly-regulated markets, but practically, these same people enjoy the fruits of the auction-style platforms with a free market flavor.
Meanwhile, the newly-minted seller, or entrepreneur, who uses live-stream shopping and selling platforms are seeing huge benefits. In other words, these platforms provide value to the common person. While all the sellers and buyers may not appreciate the free market system, they are reaping the benefits from the very system they lament is controlled. Therefore, it seems we are moving toward the final and last frontier—the market space, where people of all sorts value the freedom of exchange and the use of property for profit and gaining passive income. It boggles the mind how non-free market consumers can love the fruits of free markets so much and simultaneously hate its tenants.
