> For Friedman, satisfactory is maximizing shareholder value.
Not so. Friedman's "goal" is not maximizing shareholder value, but rather maximizing economic efficiency, and economic efficiency includes things like social programs, health, the environment, etc.
Balancing long- and short-term benefits is part of what markets can do as well. The problem is that the further into the future you look, the wider the possibilities, but the lower the confidence you can have both that your present plan will persist and that your present plan will yield the results you intend.
The interest rate (if it was determined by a market) is essentially the price of renting money, or in other words, the market's description of the value of using capital now versus using that capital in the future. The interest rate is one major way that markets can balance long- and short-term benefits. It is a fundamental and vital part of an economy, and it (along with issuing money itself) is arguably the part of the economy most interfered with by governments.
>Balancing long- and short-term benefits is part of what markets can do as well.
Markets can selectively ignore variables. For instance, the energy industry is not worried about externalities. If it did, we'd be nearly fully using renewables by now.
If markets cared about health instead of what's cheap, addictive, and easy to ship and store, grain and sugar wouldn't be so heavily pushed.
Healthcare is cheaper all around the world because it's intensely regulated by the government. "Market forces" are great when you can have failure. You can't have failure with something that's keeping you from dying.
The petroleum industry lobbies for subsidies and receives them, since it's an incredibly good return on their investment.
Healthcare is "cheaper" in many places than the US because other countries regulate healthcare more effectively than the US does. The US government spends more per capita on health care than most nations, including the UK and Canada.
> "Market forces" are great when you can have failure. You can't have failure with something that's keeping you from dying.
Surely you recognize that governments can fail in their regulation of health care. For example, there is no shortage of cases where the FDA certainly caused many deaths and a lot of suffering by banning or slowing down the introduction of numerous drugs.
>For example, there is no shortage of cases where the FDA certainly caused many deaths and a lot of suffering by banning or slowing down the introduction of numerous drugs.
You can't safely introduce drugs without doing controlled studies.
Not so. Friedman's "goal" is not maximizing shareholder value, but rather maximizing economic efficiency, and economic efficiency includes things like social programs, health, the environment, etc.