zlacker

> These require governmental action.

While there are some dictatorships out there, in the democratic world the people voting with their wallets and the people in charge of government are the exact same people. Which means that any governmental change comes by what is ultimately the same mechanism.

> we can only choose between those alternatives which are offered.

Only in the short-term, though. The wallet can also communicate what one wants in the future, and that is only limited by what is fundamentally possible. Of course, often people don't actually want anything better, even if they say they do. Talk is cheap. The neat thing about the wallet is that it proves what people actually want.

>>random+(OP)
There are lots of things that the government will do when individual market participants don't have market incentives. In the US, the Interstate Highway System and rural electrification are two examples. Even the Transcontinental Railroad required the government to incentivize its development through land grants and so on. Governments and markets operate by different mechanisms.

>>stvltv+38
> Governments and markets operate by different mechanisms.

They do, indeed. While not all mechanisms are the same, the particular mechanism we are talking about is ultimately the same.