A message that everyone needs to see...
- Thread starter es347
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I can think of no time in history where any nation had truely laissez-faire capitalism. There has always been some sort of government regulation in effect. These regulations distort and pervert business behavior. In extreme cases, we have the sort of gangster business behavior as seen in Eastern Block former Communist states/nations.
For laissez-faire capitalism to exist, the people participating in it must understand the meaning of RATIONAL SELF-INTEREST. It is not screwing the other guy so you can double your share. It's about cooperative coexistence where no one violates another's rights.
What we have today is a government run monopoly where only large businesses that have contributed enough to the reelection coffers of powerful senators can have the rules bent to protect their markets, even if their products are shoddy or downright dangerous (the FDA for example, raiding raw food cooperatives because they are threatening the pharma industry with too many healthy people who don't need drugs).
These protected monopolies produce quite the opposite results of what they might have been intended for. But the problem is the basis core failure of an imperfect man ruling other imperfect men. Only worse, because when an imperfect man rules others with force, it creates a cataclysmic result. That's why government (beyond protecting individual rights, national sovereignty and courts) is fundamentally always a failure at legislating morality. We have a bunch of crooks and criminals, telling us how to behave ourselves. Oh the irony!
Quality of life is independence; financially, spiritually, and heartily.
Now, being able to be at the same level as everyone else on the entire planet is impossible.
And here's the dilemma. We cannot equally share what we have and don't!
Be my guest, take it from here and elaborate a little farther if you wish...
Now, being able to be at the same level as everyone else on the entire planet is impossible.
And here's the dilemma. We cannot equally share what we have and don't!
Be my guest, take it from here and elaborate a little farther if you wish...
Sadly, if people can screw others to double their share, they will.
The only way to stop them is by rule of law. That unfortunately, means government regulation.
If you count on rational self-interest you can count on feudalism. Pure free-market capitalism has been tried and found temporary. It's only lasts as long as it takes the self-interest of the few to gain the power to suppress the many, then it becomes much worse than the alternative. Kings, emperors, dictators have all been unregulated. They gave us the inevitable. We threw them down and chose a system of laws designed to prevent them from rising up again. So far, not too bad. The industrialists of the 19th/early 20th century almost brought it back, but we threw them down. Now economic freedom faces a corporate army of a million lawyers, junior congressmen and lobbyists who are centralizing economic power again.
Decentralized government/centralized commerce, or centralized government/decentralized commerce; power is going to concentrate somewhere. That's inevitable. In a functioning representative democracy it works pretty well concentrated in government because government is the people. We just have to get it functional again.
Tim
Decentralized government/centralized commerce, or centralized government/decentralized commerce; power is going to concentrate somewhere. That's inevitable. In a functioning representative democracy it works pretty well concentrated in government because government is the people. We just have to get it functional again.
Tim
Tim...how are junior congressmen centralizing economic power? And isn't "functional government" an oxymoron?
When you weaken, de-regulate and de-centralize the laws and enforcement of the laws the govern market and business practices, you strengthen, empower and centralize ecomonic power into the hands of fewer. Works every time. The "junior congressmen" was a cheap shot. We actually owe the current rise of corporate power/fall of representative democracy to a good three decades of American politics, from all three branches and both sides of the aisle.
"Functional government" is a relative term. The more polarized it becomes, the less functional it becomes. I can fairly bring the current Congressional freshman class back up at this point: There is no one alive in America who can remember American representative democracy being less functional than it is right now.
Tim
People are paying closer attention to what's going on in DC now than ever before, hence the polarization. Who knows, maybe congress and the administration will have to show some accountability for a change. Folks are demanding it and don't appear to be backing off any time soon.
The only thing worse than Laissez-faire Capitalism is government-controlled economy.
Gibson Guitars
Rawesome Foods
Raw milk
Amish farmers
Lemonade stands..
..need I go on?
I know of no society that has ever had pure unregulated Capitalism.
As far as companies screwing other companies in your imaginary 'capitalist' economy, that's a fallacy, because in an unregulated free market, there are no government mandated monopolies. There is no legal barrier to a competitor starting up, offering a better 'no screw' service, and putting the crooked corporation out of business. But in a socialised economy (which is NOT Capitalism), government barriers to entry prevent competition, so corporate screwing goes on with government blessings.
Gibson Guitars
Rawesome Foods
Raw milk
Amish farmers
Lemonade stands..
..need I go on?
I know of no society that has ever had pure unregulated Capitalism.
As far as companies screwing other companies in your imaginary 'capitalist' economy, that's a fallacy, because in an unregulated free market, there are no government mandated monopolies. There is no legal barrier to a competitor starting up, offering a better 'no screw' service, and putting the crooked corporation out of business. But in a socialised economy (which is NOT Capitalism), government barriers to entry prevent competition, so corporate screwing goes on with government blessings.
I wish that were the case, but I don't think it is. I think what is happening is people are getting more political news than ever before, but because of the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine in 1987 and the resulting proliferation of talking head political journalism, they're free to choose political news that never challenges their point of view. It only drives them deeper into a narrow, myopic trench, hence the polarization. If more people got their political news from reading newspapers (and not just the editorial pages), if more people out there watched Fox one night, MSNBC the next, if more people watched The News Hour, which makes those two "news" networks look like campaign ads.... If more people really knew what was going on in Washington instead of soaking nightly in their established beliefs, I'm certain we would have less polarization.
Tim
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Does government sometimes enable monopolistic practices it should enforce against? Absolutely. But if you think monopolies would be brought down by totally unregulated market, you have a very odd view of history. Of course you're right that pure unregulated captalism has never existed...well not long enough to become much of a society, anyway. Because in a pure, unregulated system, the strongest takes over and regulates the rest into subservience so quickly the the system evolves into monarchy or dictatorship or feudalism or communism...some form of actual or near totalitarianism, very rapidly. But if it comforts you to believe in a utopian view of that which has never outlived the first tyrant to come along, take that comfort. It will never be challenged by reality.
Tim
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