A free market devoid of all government intervention would hurt the U.S. economy

BOP: Pro claims that he only needs to find a single example of a beneficial government intervention to fulfill his burden of proof. This is absurd—he claims that “a free market devoid of all government intervention would hurt the U.S. economy”—to prove that, he needs to show that a free market would be harmful overall, not just in one specific case. Definition:Free market—a system of voluntary exchanges based on respect for private property rights. To the extent that there is respect for private property, there is a free market. [Source? As a market anarchist, I think I would know.] Government intervention—for the purposes of this debate, any actions of the United States federal government 1. PatentsContrary to popular belief, IP hinders innovation rather than encourages it. Patents can increase the amount of revenue an inventor would receive for a given idea, but this greater incentive does not necessarily translate into more ideas. Patents also discourage innovation by causing patent-holders to waste much of their time suing people who violate their monopoly rather than inventing. Patents also discourage innovation by restricting the ability of people to improve on existing ideas. Look at the invention of the steam engine. James Watt thought of the idea in 1768, but production didn't really start until 1775, when his monopoly was secured until 1800. Production was slow during those 25 years, and exploded afterwards, and when a superior steam engine was developed, Watt spent most of the 1790s suing its inventor. [1] Because of Watt's monopoly, innovation stalled during those years, with fuel efficiency, for example, stagnating during Watt's patent, but increasing by a factor of five by 1835. [2] This delay of innovation had serious consequences, as the industrial revolution only took off in England after Watt's patent expired and the industry could thrive. But would Watt have had the incentive to invent the steam engine if patents didn't exist? Yes. He actually made most of his money after his patent expired. He was forced to constantly innovate to keep up with the competition, and, as a result, his steam engines were recognized as the best ones and thus the best-selling.What about pharmaceuticals? Don't we need patents for those? No. Historically, the pharmaceutical industry grew much faster in countries were patents were fewer and weaker. The unprotected German industry, for example, grew much faster than the protected British industry, which is the opposite of what you'd expect if IP laws actually encouraged innovation. [3] And when countries did introduce patents, they saw no significant increase in innovation. Switzerland and Italy both had thriving pharmaceutical industries without IP laws, until they were introduced in the late 1970s. [4] Contrary to what one would expect if IP laws actually worked, neither country saw an improvement in pharmaceutical innovation. [4]2. Insider TradingHaving information that others don’t have and acting on it is how all money is made in the stock market. If everyone knew that a stock was going to go up, you wouldn’t be able to make money buying that stock—the only way you can make money with your information is if other people don’t know it. (If a stock was going from $10 to $100, and you knew it, you could make a profit buying now and selling later. But if everyone knew this was going to happen, no one would sell you their stocks at $10.) And people acting on this information that others don’t have is a good thing. Everyone can’t have universal knowledge—knowledge is spread out over millions of people. The way this knowledge is communicated is through prices. Stock prices communicate knowledge about the health of firms. The more accurate these prices are, the better. Say Firm X is fundamentally insolvent, and is heading toward bankruptcy eventually. It’s better for the economy if this happens sooner rather than later, so resources stop being wasted by the inefficient firm. That’s where stock prices come in—if they’re low enough, some person or other firm could buy a controlling interest cheap and sell off the assets. So, it’s better for the economy if speculators drive Firm X’s price lower.What’s the moral and economic difference between this and “insider trading”? Nothing. Inside traders act on information that others don’t have, which is no more unfair than anyone else in the stock market acting on information others don’t have. And their actions communicate vital information to the market, like the actions of any other successful traders. By acting on accurate information, inside traders make stock prices more accurately reflect a firm’s true value, and let capital be allocated more efficiently. They also lower the volatility of stock prices—they buy low, making the low price higher, and sell high, making the peak price lower. Pro states that if insider trading happens too much, outsiders will “lose confidence in the system” and stop investing, lowering the amount of capital available for corporations. But he fails to provide any facts or evidence to support this assertion. Furthermore, the “outsiders” who trade with insider traders were going to trade anyway—the inside traders didn’t force outsiders to buy or sell their stocks, they just bought stocks people wanted to sell or sold stocks people wanted to buy anyway. And because of the inside traders extra demand or supply, the outsiders get a better deal than they would have—if I want to buy a bunch of Firm X’s shares, because they’re $9.75 now and are going up to $15 later, then I’m actually helping the sellers. They were going to sell anyway, but because of my extra demand, they got $10 per share instead of $9.75. 3. ExternalitiesPro claims that “a truly free market would not prohibit a party from maximizing its profits.”—so firms would be allowed to hurt people by dumping dangerous waste, and such. Of course, this is a ridiculous description of the free market. In the free market, you can only do what you want with your own private property if you respect the property rights of others—this is why the government, which initiates force against person and their property, is not part of the market. Maximizing profits is only part of the market if you do it while respecting the property rights of others. Firms dumping waste on other people’s land are not part of the market.Pro also claims that companies would dump waste in common lands. But the free market easily solves this problem—with private property. There are only common lands if the government intervenes and makes them so. In a free market, these lands would be someone’s private property, preventing corporations from dumping their waste on it if they didn’t own the land. While air couldn’t be owned, air pollution that damages the air someone breathes, or the property they use, would be a property rights violation, and thus impermissible in a market.Other cases of removing government intervention:War:War spending is terrible for most Americans. Resources, labor, and money are diverted from creating more goods that consumers want to creating destruction and death halfway around the world. Imagine how much better off Americans would be if they had an extra few hundred billion dollars, because the money for war spending wasn’t stolen from them by the government.Corporate Welfare:As with war spending, billions is diverted from hard working Americans to special interests. Agribusiness alone gets around $180 billion annually from the government. [5][1] Carnegie, A. (1905), James Watt. Doubleday, Page & Co.[2] Lord, J. (1923), Capital and Steam Power. London: P.S. King & Son.[3] Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 215.[4] Scherer, F. M (2003), "Global Welfare in Pharmaceutical Patenting," mimeo Haverford College, December.[5] http://bit.ly...