isn't unfairness and lack of freedom a result of government intervetion?

[Elliot_R]

you see, the more the government interferes with the economy, the less free the people are. replace government with any governing body that would manage the economy in a command type economic system. the government hinders people from producing what they want by laws regulating compeition, environmental policies, the government using subsidies, public goods avaliable to everyone that could be for profit. if we privitizate these public goods, they would be a better qualitiy. in addition when the government monoploizes some industry they have to charge higher prices than another firm that could do it. the government is inefficient by regulating the free market. i think the root of the problem that create inequality of this "capitalist" system is the fact that the government prevents economic freedom. wouldn't an unregulated free market create MORE freedom...? this just seems reasonable, but i'm always up for why i'm wrong ok

[RGacky3]

Not really, you can vote for your government, you can't vote for your boss.

[Elliot_R]

i'm saying regardless of the government, nobody advocates the true free market. there are always regulations. your boss is restricted by policies enforced by the government. voting for your boss? haha, that's good. but you can always leave your job tho.

[RGacky3]

but you can always leave your job tho.

And pick another boss, not much better, also thats not an option for many people.


your boss is restricted by policies enforced by the government.

very rarely, a lot of unions nower days are enforcing government laws.

The thing is theres no such thing as a free market, its only free for the 5% or so with the money and the power.

For most people they have to sell themselves into wage slavery to enrich someone else so they can stay afloat.

[Elliot_R]

although there are exceptions, most people at the top like your boss etc all started up in crappy positions in order to get there. actually a true free market would be free for everyone :P

[RGacky3]

although there are exceptions, most people at the top like your boss etc all started up in crappy positions in order to get there. actually a true free market would be free for everyone :P


I don't know what to say, your first statement is flat out untrue, and even if it was would'nt be defending anything (many dictators and kings started out in crappy positions),

and your second statement has nothing to back it up.

So your just blowing hot air, like I said, its only free for the few in positions of priviledge and power.

[RevolutionaryKluffinator]

The free-market is a huge exercise in contradiction.

Laissez-faire capitalism will never create freedom because an unregulated market will always trend towards monopoly and inequality since there is a wealthier class controlling the working people.

Capitalism necessitates that one class will always work to exploit another.

I'd like to quote Alexis de Tocqueville here:
Democracy In America: Part Two: Chapter Twenty: pgs. 530-531
"How Aristocracy Could Issue From Industry."

"What can be expected of a man who has spent twenty years of his life in making heads for pins? When a workman has spent a considerable portion of his existence in this manner, his thoughts are forever set upon the object of his daily toil; his body has contracted certain fixed habits, which it can never shake off; in a word, he no longer belongs to himself, but to the profession that he has chosen. It is in vain that laws and manners have been at pains to level all the barriers round such a man and to open to him on every side a thousand different paths to fortune; a theory of manufactures more powerful than customs and laws binds him to a craft, and frequently to a spot, which he cannot leave; it assigns to him a certain place in society, beyond which he cannot go; in the midst of universal movement it has rendered him stationary.
In proportion as the principle of the division of labor is more extensively applied, the workman becomes more weak, more narrow-minded, and more dependent. The art advances, the artisan recedes. On the other hand, in proportion as it becomes more manifest that the productions of manufactures are by so much the cheaper and better as the manufacture is larger and the amount of capital employed more considerable, wealthy and educated men come forward to embark in manufactures, which were heretofore abandoned to poor or ignorant handicraftsmen. The magnitude of the efforts required and the importance of the results to be obtained attract them. Thus at the very time at which the science of manufactures lowers the class of workmen, it raises the class of masters.
While the workman concentrates his faculties more and more upon the study of a single detail, the master surveys an extensive whole, and the mind of the latter is enlarged in proportion as that of the former is narrowed. In a short time the one will require nothing but physical strength without intelligence; the other stands in need of science, and almost of genius, to ensure success. This man resembles more and more the administrator of a vast empire; that man, a brute.
The master and the workman have then here no similarity, and their differences increase every day. They are connected only like the two rings at the extremities of a long chain. Each of them fills the station which is made for him, and which he does not leave; the one is continually, closely, and necessarily dependent upon the other and seems as much born to obey as that other is to command. What is this but aristocracy?"

[RevolutionaryKluffinator]

Capitalism really just turns freedom into a commodity:

You may have as much as you can afford.

So, for a worker in a sweatshop in India, who makes a few cents an hour and works 14 hour days, there is little real freedom.

Furthermore, do not forget that the free-market does not create an equal plane for everyone to compete on.

Rather, a wealthy class arises and passes on their wealth to their children (Who really didn't work for the money they inherit).

[Elliot_R]

if you think your boss cant see how unfair his policies are on you, realize that he was there too one time. yeah its shit for a while but soon you'll be making tons of money. you wouldn't know if the free market yields inequality because of the fact that it has always been regulated. regulations hinder freedom. if there is more economic freedom, there is more freedom in general.

[RGacky3]

if you think your boss cant see how unfair his policies are on you, realize that he was there too one time. yeah its shit for a while but soon you'll be making tons of money. you wouldn't know if the free market yields inequality because of the fact that it has always been regulated. regulations hinder freedom. if there is more economic freedom, there is more freedom in general.



Have you read anything we wrote? Get your head out of the clouds, look around.

[Elliot_R]

yeah because this is not capitalism. capitalism is laissez-faire.

[RevolutionaryKluffinator]

"if you think your boss cant see how unfair his policies are on you, realize that he was there too one time"

No, that's not true at all. Take Wal-Mart for example. Sam Walton worked hard, got rich, died and his kids own Wal-Mart. They're billionaires! They've always lead a life of privilege and never worked for their own tyrannical corporation!

"yeah its shit for a while but soon you'll be making tons of money. you wouldn't know if the free market yields inequality because of the fact that it has always been regulated. regulations hinder freedom. if there is more economic freedom, there is more freedom in general."

Ha! There was a time when there was complete laissez-faire back in the mid 1800's and that lead to horrid working conditions and corporate monopolies.

At which point, the corporations united with the government to create regulation that favored them!

That's the truth: Regulation has typically favored business and not the government!

Plus, since economic freedom leads to great inequality, that leads to less social freedom.

So, while I am in favor of freedom, I do not believe in the freedom to enslave and exploit people, sell people defective or harmful products, or abuse the environment!

[Bud Struggle]

if you think your boss cant see how unfair his policies are on you, realize that he was there too one time. yeah its shit for a while but soon you'll be making tons of money.

:thumbup: My kind of guy. :)

Seriously, some make the money but most don't. There's a bit of a crap shoot there.

[RGacky3]

There's a bit of a crap shoot there. A bit of one??? Common man, again, look around.



yeah because this is not capitalism. capitalism is laissez-faire.


In Laissez fiar capitalism 1 of 2 things wouuld happen,

1. corporations would become governments in themselves, and probably the most tyrannical that history has seen.

2. No one would respect property laws and Capitalism would coppapse (which is why most major corporationsm and many minor ones like the government around).

[Demogorgon]

Is there no unfairness and lack of freedom in Somalia?

[Labor Shall Rule]

if you think your boss cant see how unfair his policies are on you, realize that he was there too one time. yeah its shit for a while but soon you'll be making tons of money. you wouldn't know if the free market yields inequality because of the fact that it has always been regulated. regulations hinder freedom. if there is more economic freedom, there is more freedom in general.

Yes, 'regulation' - such as making sure your boss at least pays you the minimum wage, that your lungs don't blacken and rot in the mines, or that the roof does not collapse on your head - is a 'hinder(ing)' to our freedom. :blink:

The capitalist logic of supply and demand means that we are cattle. The growth of high-tech jobs, for example, is qualitatively expanding, so, despite of the computer education that a worker may have paid so much into receiving, the wages' would decrease across the board. The excess of supply in the labor market means that their value falls, and they find themselves as unable to tier up a higher standard of living.

That is a social regulation in itself - it leaves workers without the training, or education, to enter the labor market with inelastic skills that do not decline in it's value overtime (such as, a doctor or teacher).

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Is there no unfairness and lack of freedom in Somalia?

That's my question. Show me a functional anarcho-capitalist society that manages to sidestep the ills of the 19th century laissez market. I'll be sure to visit and reassess my views.

The OP starts out with a false assertion, though. I don't want the government running my life. On many subjects I'm in agreement with the Austrian school. However, there are blatant failings with the market and until they are able to refute the historical role of capitalism as an oppressive system of commerce, I remain unimpressed.

Markets are fine. Capitalism is not.

[GPDP]

Markets are fine. Capitalism is not.

While I agree that a truly free market would most likely not be a capitalist market, how would you deal with the subject of externalities?

[IcarusAngel]

Wasn't the Gilded Age period, when we had laissez-faire capitalism, the greatest period of inequality in American history? Not to mention the coercion and abuses that existed in the work force, the low pay, the lack of a 40-hour work week and the right of workers to organize, the private militias that were allowed to enforce corporate rule, and so on.

[Rosa Provokateur]

Capitalism sucks and government intervention only keeps it around. Bail-outs, subsidies, etc. only keep it supplied and strong no matter how it cheats people. If the government didnt intervene then businesses wouldnt bribe and buy politicians, making the state easier to get rid of.

[Anti Freedom]

I consider Elliot R statement to be *more* true than false, but this is given flexibility on what the "free market" means. After all, I think the traditional individualist anarchist position is that government prevents the free market from working, and even that defense organizations could be privatized for the public good:
"defense is a service like any other service; that it is labor both useful and desired, and therefore an economic commodity subject to the law of supply and demand; that in a free market this commodity would be furnished at the cost of production; that, competition prevailing, patronage would go to those who furnished the best article at the lowest price; that the production and sale of this commodity are now monopolized by the State; and that the State, like almost all monopolists, charges exorbitant prices" - Benjamin Tucker (quote shamelessly stolen off of wikipedia)

We can question the capitalistic elements of this statement though.

[PostAnarchy]

Government interference and the state itself is indeed reactionary and does act as a bulwark against the working class -- that much is true. However it is incomlete as the economic superstructure of capitalist as well results in the unfairness, lack of freedom and severe exploitation of the working class at the hands of the bourgeoisie.