Free market economists typically express confidence in the ability of markets to produce public goods. They cite norms, sanctions, and repeated small group interactions as mechanisms encouraging public goods production. At the same time, free market economists tend to be pessimistic about the stability of cartels in an unregulated market. If markets successfully produce local public goods, however, why are stable cartels not more prevalent? Critics of the market tend to take the contrary positions, leading to tensions in the opposite direction. Left-wing economists doubt the ability of markets to produce public goods, but they also fear that free market cartels possess great stability and power.
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