Bourgeoisie & Free Market

[Comrade #138672]

I had a "discussion" with a libertarian who kept talking about how the Free Market would solve everything (completely ignoring my arguments about competition between workers and low wages). That made me wonder about something.

Of course, the Free Market is not in the interests of workers, but is it even in the interests of the bourgeoisie? If not, then can we just say that a Free Market cannot exist?

The answer may be obvious to you, but maybe you can give me some more insights on this issue. Why do the bourgeoisie bother with the Free Market ideology when they actually prefer controlling everything by the government?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Do you mean a totally unregulated market? If so, then no - no capitalist actually really wants this and it has never really existed. Most of the time half-way savy libertarians will admit that and say they want SOME overall regulation, but just very light and minimal.

But do they want a free-market in the sense of actual market countries that exist? Yes, this is their field for their game. It does even the capitalists harm (which is why they always do try to regulate and manage it) and they can't really control it, it sort of controls them. Think of Faust or the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Why do they argue some of the ideological "no-regulation" stuff they do now? Well ironically, it's still regulation - it's just managing the degree of it. If a Hydro department opened the gates in a dam for a while, this is managing the system, not letting the river flow "naturally" and this is what regulations are like: sometimes the capitalists need to reign in things or they try and promote certain kinds of investment and other times they want a free for all. Again, this is attempting to manage forces which are much more unpredictable and powerful than can be really mastered, but it can have some influence and sort of channel things in the system.

[justinkjones24]

The entire premise of a "free market" is complete nonsense. In a capitalist economy, the federal government takes on the responsibility of enforcing contracts, issuing currency, setting interest rates, etc. The federal government prints the money for crying out loud. These right-wingers seem to think there's some kind of magic market fairy out there that makes all that happen.

Next time you argue with a libertarian, ask them how exactly contracts would be enforced in their libertarian utopia? Notice how they dance around the question. They are so against the initiation of force unless it's to protect their guns or their private property. But how would you even secure a contract? I believe some guns to heads would be probable. And the rich will have the guns.

[jookyle]

There's no actual liberalist or neo-liberalist who advocated a 100% "free market". People who think the free market means no regulations at all are simply taking the term at a literal face value and probably have never read anything on economics to begin with. It does seem that some people who call themselves "libertarians" these days do indeed advocate this 100% free market but, in my experience, have hardly done any research to back up their argument and tend to simple spout rhetoric or quote Ron Paul.

[Let's Get Free]

The bourgeois don't want want a free-market, they want a monopoly!They want a free market when it comes to lifting the restriction on what THEY want to do. They favor regulations when it will strangle their competitors to ensure their lock on the market, and state capitalism to bail them out when they blow it all on stupid, greedy investments on Wall Street!

[Strannik]

Do you mean a totally unregulated market? If so, then no - no capitalist actually really wants this and it has never really existed.

I was just wondering - back in feudal ages (or even earlier), when market was completely marginal to economic production as a whole - was it closer to this ideal "free" market?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I was just wondering - back in feudal ages (or even earlier), when market was completely marginal to economic production as a whole - was it closer to this ideal "free" market?Good questrion and I don't really have an answer for it.

It was almost certaintly different in different places - and I'm not sure if feudal laws would have interfered in ways other than maybe banning or restricting certain kinds of transactions.

In England, as far as early rural workers go, in some ways - before the enclosure of the commons but after the process of enclosures of some pesant lands, there seems to have been some ways of esscape - workers often used wages to supplement their own production on the commons in gathering and grazing animals. But for capitalism to advance, those escape routes had to be closed off and so there was a push towards removing old customs and rights to hunting and fishing and gathering in the commons - along with that came anti-vagabond laws and so people were forced through political means into a position where they could only survive through getting wages. So this is political power used to change conditions in the market - specifically the labor market.