what romney's economic proposals portend...,

atheistethicist | Over the course of the next four days, I am going to discuss four reasons why Romney's economic intentions will fail.

Furthermore, I will make this criticism from within the context of free-market economics. Effectively, I will make it from a context which Romney's running mate Paul Ryan would have to agree with - if he is at all consistent with the free-market principles he claims to uphold.

Free market economics actually tries to be about the real world. It tries to incorporate facts about the real world into its system. What Romney and company is peddling, on the other hand, is a cheap knock-off of capitalism that profits the seller and poisons the buyer. They steam the label off of capitalism and put it on their snake-oil as a way of increasing sales - a way of getting more voters to buy it. It will kill some of those buyers, maim others, and otherwise impoverish still more. It will, however, profit the sellers.

In order for Romney's snake-oil to be effective, the following four things will have to be true:

(1) There are no positive externalities.

(2) There are no negative externalities

(3) All agents are perfectly rational and fully informed.

(4) All agents have the same economic power.

In the real world, none of these are true. Consequently, in the real world, Romney's snake oil will not work. The sellers will pocket the money, but the buyers will end up no better off as a result of the snake-oil. Some will end up significantly worse off.