Attempt at Economics

I will just clarify now. I am not, have never been, and probably will never be, an economics person. A lot of the complicated stuff goes right over my head. However, below are just a couple of musings of mine which I'm fairly sure make at least some sense. If they're completely off the mark, then oh well. On with the show.

The Paradox of the Free Market
It's something beloved by Americans, Thatcherites (irrelevant, but Google Chrome's spell checker suggests 'Thatcherites' should be 'hesitater'. Biting satire there from Google Chrome) and Pinochetians (which, as far as Google Chrome is concerned, just shouldn't exist). But is this fabled 'Free Marker' actually possible? Can it exist? (There's the crux; 'can', not 'should'. I've nothing against the market, per se; not without its flaws, of course, but anywhoo. That's another debate for another day.)

The problem is, as far as I can tell, that there seem to be two different definitions as too what constitutes a free market:
1) A market free from government regulation and influence, where pure capitalism takes centre-stage
2) An economic environment wherein one is free to compete and potentially prosper.
And the way I see it, these two are mutually exclusive ideas. Only something that combined the two would truly be a 'free market', in my opinion, yet such a scenario is impossible.

Allow me to demonstrate with the aid of soup. In this free market, government would take a back seat and everyone who wanted to make soup would have a fair chance at doing that and making a living out of it.

However, without the government, a few soup empires will rise to the top and crush all opposition. No room for the small soup merchant here; oh no. Huge business has a stranglehold on the market; ergo, it is not truly 'free'. Free suggests the freedom to compete, and this clearly isn't here.

On the reverse side, though, if there is to be competition, then businesses have to be kept artificially small, or at least restricted on where and to what extent they can pop up. This calls for Big Daddy State to step into the ring and make sure everyone is playing nicely. Hello government; goodbye free market.

Why Raising Tax Makes More Sense
Obviously, in an ideal world, we'd pay no tax. All the many services that people want and require would mystically find some sort of  easy, everlasting funding; the nuclear fusion of the public sector. As it is, if people want to live, they have to cough up a bit of money to the government. We can agree, hopefully, that this is basically acceptable, unless you're the cold hearted person who doesn't mind the old dear across the road croaking because you wanted a new box-set of Friends.

As it is, about 29 million in the UK pay income tax, which is the broad supply of funding for government spending. Raising or lowering this amount is a contentious issue. Using the complex science of 'Big Numbers', I will try to argue why raising tax makes far more sense than cutting it.

Basically, the science of 'Big Numbers' suggests that 29 million is quite a big number; in terms of pound sterling, at any rate. Conversely, 1 is quite a little number. Following? I should hope so. Anyway, 29 million people across the country are unlikely to notice, or be hugely affected either way, by a change of £1 (approximately 5 Freddo Bars, or a teeny-weeny-eeny chunk of the Swedish Forests). Raising tax by £1 per person, or even a little bit more, is unlikely to cripple households. They may have to go a week with a slightly less posh bag of crisps. But to the state, £29,000,000 is really quite useful, and can be spent on whatever needs £29,000,000, or even double that, should people be forced to fork out an extra £2 rather than 1.

Now, flip this scenario (I mean reverse; not the very polite, middle-class curse. Oh, flip this flipping scenario!), and apply the same figures to lowering taxes. Families up and down the nation aren't going to jump up and down for joy because the Chancellor has made them £1 or £2 better off each year. And The £29 million or £58 million loss of revenue for the state is going to hurt. For tax lowering to actually be useful and worthwhile, they need to be really quite big. And this just puts a drain on the country as a whole's income.


There. I hope that wasn't to banal, inane, or wrong. If you would like to learn more about the science of 'Big Numbers', then pick up your nearest calculator and press 9 until your finger starts bleeding.