Yeah the supposed genius of private markets has been massively oversold.
I really think the power of capitalism lies not in some magical ability of markets to make good decisions but in the freedom it affords to route around bad decisions and the bureaucracies and corporate institutions that make them.
In a vertically integrated Soviet-style economy a single bad bureaucracy results in the total failure of that industry. It's not really possible to sidestep it; there is no "permission free innovation." In a free market those big dumb slugs still exist but it's at least possible for some people to go around them.
i.e. basically what Taleb mentioned repeatedly in his books: The power of capitalism lies in its capability to allow people to freely explore all sorts of potential ideas. Many, or even most of them will fail, but some of them will get lucky and hit the mark. Many inventions/breakthroughs throughout the history were achieved "by accident" instead of intentionally/in a planned manner.
I really think the power of capitalism lies not in some magical ability of markets to make good decisions but in the freedom it affords to route around bad decisions and the bureaucracies and corporate institutions that make them.
In a vertically integrated Soviet-style economy a single bad bureaucracy results in the total failure of that industry. It's not really possible to sidestep it; there is no "permission free innovation." In a free market those big dumb slugs still exist but it's at least possible for some people to go around them.