Should the "Free Market" be left alone?

Your Star said:

To ensure that the meat we buy is good, and processed cleanly,(that goes for all foods), to ensure our water supply isn't polluted by companies pouring waste into them, to ensure that the medicine we take is okay, and fully vetted before it goes out to market, to ensure that people can't run rampant scams on other people, etc, etc, etc.

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You can always sue them after you are dead, obviously.

Anrch-Cptlst said:

We have never seen true Capitalism, that is why he thinks there is no such thing as a free market. Just like we have never seen true Communism, because the State owns everything in today's Communism. True Capitalism and Communism is Anarchy.

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Yes and no. As we have so many hybrids, I don't actually consider any given government "true" anything. Also, capitalism and communism come in various strains(anarchist is only one).

But yeah, because of the authoritarian governments toting the word "communism", too few people realize the validity of Anarchist-Communism. :2wave:

Fiddytree said:

There was something that Irving Kristol once said when he was thinking about socialism. He wondered if maybe there was something organic about socialism and communism that led to Stalinism, and he thought there was something that led to it. Perhaps the damnations of true free market capitalism showed themselves under controlled circumstances.

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The problem is the same with communism. Any philosophy that relies on people not being evil is doomed to failure. The setup leaves a huge power vacuum where someone is able to play on the emotions of the less fortunate in any economic situation for power that goes beyond just governing a business. Also, it underestimates the power of human greed, there are certain people who always want more and would bend the situation to a more fascist state.

Societies are never static and always have to react to some new innovation of figuring out how to gain power or some other evil and a free market would not last long.

There is your organic.

Hatuey said:

I'm somewhere between these two. The history of a "free market" is negative at best. The "free market" idea has allowed slavery, child labor, environmental abuses, dictatorships, institutional racism, sexism etc. Sure, one could argue that so has the government, however - this isn't the case in every society it has been tried in. There isn't a single country who has embraced "free market" without it leaving a pretty ****ty history. Latin America from the 60s to the 80s had bloody wars being fought in the interest of a free market societies. In Africa we have hundreds of places who are suffering environmental damage all in the name of the IMFs ridiculously dangerous free market strategies. The best we can do is use the Canadian or even Nordic approach and leave the market to make decisions with governments taking precautionary measures to balance the abuses and mistakes made by the market.

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First we have to understand that there is no historical point of reference for a truly free market.
Second, a government role in said market would only be to ensure the playing field is level for all participants.

To elaborate on the governmental role, I could do best by giving examples of how the US systems is in fact, NOT a free market.

1. Our government subsidizes. The very nature of this means that prices are manipulated from the get go, and competing corporations or industries have little chance of survival inside of our market.
2. Our government bails out failing companies for political purpose. GM was bailed out. Ford wasn't. Ford had requested to have the money available for them, should the need arise. There reason detailed below;

Government Bailout of Ford GM Chrysler and the Auto Industry

Ford requested a $9 billion line-of-credit from the government, and a $5 billion loan from the Energy Department. Ford pledged to accelerate development of both hybrid and battery-powered vehicles, retool plants to increase production of smaller cars, close dealerships, and sell Volvo. Ford is in better shape than GM or Chrysler because it had already mortgaged its assets in 2006 to raise $24.5 billion. Although Ford didn't need, and didn't receive any funds, it also didn't want its competition to get the upper hand thanks to the government bailout.

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3. The government has turned control of our currency over to the federal reserve, which has, in turn, reduced the stability of inflationary rates, and aided in the bubble boom\bust cycle.

The Federal Reserve Deserves Blame For The Financial Crisis - Forbes

The economic meltdown of 2008 should have surprised no one. Countless economists who belong to the Austrian School of economics saw it coming. Investment mavens Jim Rogers, Peter Schiff and James Grant—all proponents of the Austrian School—were among the very few who predicted the economic meltdown. Peter Schiff was literally laughed at multiple times on national television by media pundits for saying that an economic collapse was on the horizon in 2006 and 2007.

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I voted "Yes", as we as a society have not actually seen one, and based upon the fact that anybody who subscribed to the concept of Austrian Economics during 2000-2007 had said, a bust was coming. The majority were laughed at as nutjobs. I recall fondly the 2007 Republican Primary debates, where Ron Paul had stated that bad things were coming. He was mocked and laughed at by his peers.

Anrch-Cptlst said:

We have never seen true Capitalism, that is why he thinks there is no such thing as a free market. Just like we have never seen true Communism, because the State owns everything in today's Communism. True Capitalism and Communism is Anarchy.

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Capitalism is just the capitalist mode or production, with capital in private hands and done for profit.

Communism is where the economy is run collectively, i.e. democratically.

The US is Capitalist but the USSR wasn't communist, the US has the capitalist mode of production, mainly in private hands and mainly done for profit. the USSR wasn't even a political democracy, much less and economic democracy.

Oh. How about we have a pure free market where we can we can have a winner? A real winner, a conglomerate gets it all. We all would be working for the best.

I think the government should play a large role.

I am in favor of employee ran companies, which are started with state investment, which run a profit sharing model, and unprofitable organizations should be traditional state owned entities such as hospitals and police. This also means small businesses and profit sharing partnerships are fine.

The market can be used to determine prices, but since that can be dangerous at times (if food production isnt profitable enough, not enough food will be made that the poorest can buy, so either they need to have extra cash to buy food or producers need subsidies, either way the market fails ethicly) the state should regulate some prices.

molten_dragon said:

No, it should not be left alone entirely to self-regulate. The government should have some hand in the economy.

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And hows that working for you so far?

I will admit right up front my view is biased. As a former regulator, I saw the abuses of the so called "free market" system.

Longview and Yourstar had it pretty much right. If you combined them, they got it exactly right IMHO

Safety of workers (yes OSHA is alittle bit over board depending on the trade or industry, in some areas not enough like my field.)
Safety of Product - No dolls with nails inside (joke) or shoes that melt or light bulbs that explode (not a joke)
Safety of Produce - Our food is safe to eat. If you think it is now, ahhh well thats your opinion. Water is safe to drink. In most places today this is a marginal truth. You need to get a copy of your water quality report from the water dept and know what you are reading. Our air is fit to breathe. Good luck with that one.
Level playing field - Oversight
That may sound like more than we have but in reality we have less than you think. If I remember the stats correctly regulatory oversight of industry especially the food industry as far as inspectors to is down over 50%

People should be completely free to engage in market activities AS LONG AS they don't violate the person or property of others. It is essential that government be there to punish cheats and crooks. Otherwise, people should be left as free as possible.