Asymmetric information

I have never learned economics in school. I hardly know anything about the subject and I probably can't explain any economic-term in a sufficient manner. However, I do have some "home-schooling" in economics and I have studied some of the most-used terms in the public-discussion. I also know that many economic-terms are abjused by the Left to explain "market failure", and the term asymmetric information is one of them.

Information asymmetry has been defined as the situations where one party to a transaction has more or better information than the other party. This is an easy term to grasp. When you go to a doctor you don't have a lot of information about your condition other than a cough or a pain somewhere. The doctor says something, writes something and the next thing you know you have to pay a high bill for treatment and drugs without having any option of comparing differenct doctors or ask about other possibilities of cure! The same goes for car-buying where the car-dealer, or the car-owner who is trying to tell, has information which you don't have and keeps it so in order to jack up the price at your expense

This information asymmetry has been used by many to "explain market-failures" at various fields - the most popular ones being welfare-issues, health-care and education. Skeptics of the free market point to studies of economic Nobel-price winners like George Akerlof who say that "[i]t is even possible for the market to decay to the point of nonexistance" because of asymmetric information. Also:

Because of information asymetry, unscrupulous sellers can "spoof" items (like software or computer games) and defraud the buyer. As a result, many people not willing to risk getting ripped off will avoid certain types of purchases, or will not spend as much for a given item.

Of course, market sceptism has deep roots and will therefore continue to bring about many offsprings. However, in the case of information asymmetry, the Left will not succeed in their critisicm. The arguements, as far as I can see, are at best distant armageddon-theories. Can some-one point out any market free of information asymetry? I certainly cannot. I bought a phone in good faith of word-of-mouth, technical reviews, producers promises and sellers guarantee. The same goes for the computer I'm using now, the glasses on my nose, and so on. The Left is yet to learn that the free market doesn't need perfect flow of information about products between buyers and sellers. It only needs to offer induviduals to chose and not chose certain products/services for whatever reason they want. If a seller lies about his products, the free market will punish him faster than any government agency.

The new role-models of the Left like George Akerlof and Joseph E. Stiglitz may well provide usefull insigth into the function of the free market, and doubt and be concerned and whatever they want to be. They can probably explain better than others why socialism failed in Eastern Europe, and maybe even blame the West for it, and these men can probably argue that governments role should be greater and/or market distrust more ruling in peoples every day actions. However, as long as governments ignore their message, and stay away from the free market outside of law enforcement, then I'll be perfecly happy with their preaching.