SmartMuffin posted...
Yes it is. Any basic analysis of supply and demand curves will prove this. The free market by definition results in the most efficient allocation of resources because it represents the collective wills of individuals.
Well...no, there are some pretty inefficient businesses, and if you don't think so, then you probably haven't worked for very many companies. What the free market ensures is that the most inefficient businesses will go bankrupt, and we're left with moderate inefficiency. Say...60% efficiency. It's consistent, and more importantly it adapts very quickly, with previous monoliths being torn down if they are no longer needed.
But publicly traded companies are actually not capable of reaching 100% efficiency. Too much of their budget goes into dividends and ads and executive bonus checks and money removed from the system as "profit" to be re-invested elsewhere. Notice, for instance, that many countries with socialized health care are considered to have more efficient (dollar-wise) health care systems than the US.
Actually...consider the USSR. It started out inhumanly efficient--literally going from a third world country to an industrial superpower in about 10 years. Capitalism literally could not accomplish that. But the USSR also stopped adapting--doing things like manufacturing the same car for 40 years with no modifications. What was once an efficient car became a very inefficient expensive car as the rest of the world adapted and the USSR did not. This nicely demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of capitalist and socialist efficiency models.
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Cats land on their feet. Toast lands peanut butter side down. A cat with toast strapped to its back will hover above the ground in a state of quantum indecision