And yet as voters we must make these value judgments. Gambling for many is a dangerous addiction, one with significant societal costs. You could look at the financial crash of 2007-8 as being mainly about gambling at the institutional scale.

When transactions are truly consenting (which is not the case with addicts) and have no negative externalities, sure, we should default to letting people do their thing. But when that's not true, voters, who are the real insurers of last resort for societal risks, end up having to make value judgments.

Banking is the single most heavily regulated part of the economy. It is fantastic to claim the financial crisis was caused by solely private actors while dropping the governmental context.

>Banking is the single most heavily regulated part of the economy. It is fantastic to claim the financial crisis was caused by solely private actors while dropping the governmental context.

Banking might be the "most heavily regulated part of the economy", but the regulations that mattered were also disbanded one by one in the 2 decades leading to the crisis.

The government gave free reign to those "private actors".

Besides government, when it doesn't play its role as being there for all citizens interests, is just a lackey for private interests and powerful lobbies (and, no, "no government" wouldn't be a solution: just more of the problem).

Sorry, let me add it back: "The government was lobbied into allowing banks to gamble, and they shouldn't have given in to the banks." Feel better now?

> Before the international banking crisis broke in 2007, the total face value of outstanding derivatives contracts was many times larger than the world economy itself.

Really? I had no clue that it was that bad.

It sounds bad, but it's not particularly hard to get into that position. If everyone just insures their home, the value out outstanding derivates on peoples is already 1x. Now add in everyone that has mortgage insurance that is protecting lenders on home defaults, and you're already beyond 1x for total outstanding derivatives.

I had read that about Iceland, the US mortgage sector, etc. But I had no clue that aggregate global derivatives were so huge.

"for many" is a typical overstatement.

And if I go bankrupt gambling society won't bail me out, I need to get a job.

The estimates of problem gambling are on the order of 3% of the population. I think millions of people constitute "many". YMMV.

If you go bankrupt, that is society bailing you out. We cancel your debts and let you go free of them.

We also won't let your family starve, we'll pick up a chunk of your medical coverage, and you'll be consuming all sorts of public goods without paying your share until you're back on your feet. If you ever get there, because gambling addictions that go as far as bankruptcy can be devastating personally.

Value judgements don't stop when there's consent.

And consent is not a clear, tangible thing that makes it all OK when its given.

An abused woman might justify her husband, for example, and find all kinds of excuses and say it's OK.

Also, just because someone can consent to something because it's better than the alternative, doesn't mean the deal they are given is OK. Someone on the verge of starvation might be OK with a rotten deal. We might just need to assist them and fix what caused them to starve starvation in the first place, instead of validating the "benefactor" that came up with the deal.

So who chooses for all these people who cant be trusted to make their own decisions in your world?

The same "person" who gave you and me culture, language, education, built our roads, invented our inventions, sweeps the streets, creates laws, and more. Society.