A subsidy-fueled boom helped build China into an electric-car giant but left weed-infested lots across the nation brimming with unwanted battery-powered vehicles.

  • Hirom@beehaw.org
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    11 months ago

    Subsidies skew the market toward specific sectors, technologies, or actors. A company that do not benefit from subsidies is at a competitive disadvantage vs a company that do get subsidies.

    A totally free market wouldn’t have any subsidies. But markets aren’t totally free in practice.

    Subsidies are typically a good thing when it benefits cleaner tech or improving energy efficiency. It’s the fossil fuel subsidies that do the most harm.

      • Hirom@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        That’s part of it, even if that’s not the only part.

        Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor.

        Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

        • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
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          11 months ago

          Sure, in the same way that a central characteristic of Communism is being a Stateless society, even though that part never seems to happen either (thanks, Lenin). “True Capitalism has never been tried before!”

    • Sonori@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      I would argue that being horriblely disadvantaged by not getting free money is not in fact a restriction on the market.

      • Hirom@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        That’s technically correct. It’s not a restriction. But it’s not a neutral for the market either.

        • Sonori@beehaw.org
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          11 months ago

          Of course it’s not neutral, but we’re talking about wether or not it is comparable with unrestricted capitalism.