Even in the US, apparently, up to 12% of the population[1] is sometimes in a position where they have to skip meals, so even there, I'd say the depths someone can fall to are, potentially, very low. And a lot of what makes our current system at least somewhat predictable is controls restricting the unfettered operation of the market. A truly unrestricted market would be very unpredictable. All in all, I don't see predictability as a particular strong suit of markets, even with the most optimistic assumptions -- and I'd also say that, contrary to the original post, promoting stability is not the reason they came about. Enclosure was not a particularly stability-promoting maneuver, for instance.
You keep arguing about the market, when the topic was the economy as a whole, as I've pointed out in my last post. A multitude of markets are certainly part of the economy, but they're not "the economy".
And those 12% are certainly terrible (although only 5% were significantly affected, if you read a bit bellow), but I'd say it pales in comparison to what people went through in a year of bad harvest in the past. That people having to skip a few meals is obscene nowadays is a sign of progress.
OK, fair enough. I had gotten some of the prior posts jumbled in my head, I guess. Still, we live under a market economy, which does not maximize for "a stable environment in which to raise one's children," although in aggregate it has made our society wealthy.
[1]https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo...