Is a truly free market system actually a good thing?

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Oct 16, 1999
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One big reason regulation is necessary is because businesses that choose to act ethically voluntarily will be put out of business by those businesses that choose not to.
 

JS80

Lifer
Oct 24, 2005
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Regulation is always net negative to society. Small group benefits at the expense of the whole.
 
May 16, 2000
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A 'truly' free market has never, and could never, exist. It's an ivory tower fiction. It's just a matter of degrees and sources of control. I'd rather a body which (in theory) exists only to protect the rights of individual citizens be that source of regulation. I would agree that there's plenty of room for improvement with the degree, type, and methods...but overall I prefer it to anarchy (ie each individual an enforcement power unto themselves). Fewer people die this way.
 

CPA

Elite Member
Nov 19, 2001
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I see the right parroting this notion time and time again. Someone argue why a system with no government intervention, rules, or regulations is better than one with them.

Can you show me one single post by a conservative poster that states we should have a free market with no intervention, rules or regulations? Just one.
 

Anarchist420

Diamond Member
Feb 13, 2010
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Can you show me one single post by a conservative poster that states we should have a free market with no intervention, rules or regulations? Just one.
I believe there should be no regulations and I'm a conservative. I'm not the only one who is an anarchist here either I hope. There are many Ron Paul supporters and he's an anarchist so there have to be other voluntaryists here besides me.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
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That's what you think. You don't even know my SAT scores. There are people here who think my alma mater is a "tier 4 school".

Easy for you to spew baseless bullshit at people you don't even know.

When you move out of your overly taxed affluent parents basement and get a job I might start paying attention to your posts.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
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Free market is what brings full store shelves and great gadgets to our lives. Most of the world knows this by now. Course you have to have mild socialist/redistributionist undertones or you get into a caste type of system with little in the way of bottom up prosperity.
 
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Demo24

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2004
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That's what you think. You don't even know my SAT scores. There are people here who think my alma mater is a "tier 4 school".

Easy for you to spew baseless bullshit at people you don't even know.

Your sat scores mean jack. That you are enabled off your parents means you havent figured out howto provide for yourself yet and since your whole plan is to inherit all of 1 mill means you dont have a good plan for the future either. Nature would have weeded you out long ago for being weak and also a moron.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
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The free market is great for consumer goods (candy and trinkets), terrible for necessary services/goods needed by the human condition.

Really the free market is just a facade to halt the great killer of capitalism and profit, overproduction, this is why capitalism must resort to mindfuck tactics like lying in advertising or using sex/insecurities to sell items that are utterly unrelated.

On the other hand responsible capitalism is really the best workable system we have come up with so far, for all its problems. Hopefully humanity moves on one day before some greedy assholes nuke this ball we live on over some economic injustice.

I am a bit of an idealist though, I am sure we will evolve into a more efficient hybrid financial system when it is workable in the free market of ideas.

We have a very backward victorian era view of work still really in western civilization where automation is removing the reasons for massive amounts of human labor more and more every year.

Problem is humanity is reeling from having to deal with the consequences of our technology leaps still. But we are a highly adaptable species.
 
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mammador

Platinum Member
Dec 9, 2010
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Economic agents are not rational. Libertarian free market arguments are based on the idea that humans are.

The difference in my mind is whether the state should regulate, or whether industries can self-regulate. Self-regulation works in some industries, like in ICT, so there is some evidence that it can be viable.
 

LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
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Free market is what brings full store shelves and great gadgets to our lives. Most of the world knows this by now. Course you have to have mild socialist/redistributionist undertones or you get into a caste type of system with little in the way of bottom up prosperity.

Yeah, that's right, the free market brought us the internet. It also brought us ENIAC. Modern spaceflight...etc. Yeah, the "free market" does everything.

When it comes down to it, the "free market" isn't the end-all-and-be-all of the world. It should never be unfettered.
 
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Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
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A 'truly' free market has never, and could never, exist. It's an ivory tower fiction. It's just a matter of degrees and sources of control. I'd rather a body which (in theory) exists only to protect the rights of individual citizens be that source of regulation. I would agree that there's plenty of room for improvement with the degree, type, and methods...but overall I prefer it to anarchy (ie each individual an enforcement power unto themselves). Fewer people die this way.
What's revolutionary, is our Constitution, which attempts to protect the individual.

250 years later, and we are at the verge of losing the individual. It's been a good run.

Free Markets are always right, it's just that Government (Emotion) gets in the way.

-John
 
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May 16, 2000
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What's revolutionary, is our Constitution, which attempts to protect the individual.

250 years later, and we are at the verge of losing the individual. It's been a good run.

Free Markets are always right, it's just that Government (Emotion) gets in the way.

-John

There isn't a single protection against corporations, wealth, or power in the Constitution, except from government. It leaves the people 100% at the mercy of anyone who can buy or beat their way to an unfair advantage. The Constitution merely frames the government system which is then to be implemented to carry out the protection of individuals from those forces I mentioned.
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
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Of course not, because Corporations, Wealth, and Power, are not to be feared.

They are to be desired.

-John
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
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The only framework, is a framework for success.

Unlike today, where the framework is for failure.

-John
 
May 16, 2000
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Of course not, because Corporations, Wealth, and Power, are not to be feared.

They are to be desired.

-John

ROFLMAO at the STUPIDEST, most IGNORANT pile of horse shit I have EVER heard. They are THE thing to be feared throughout all of recorded history (at least the latter two...corporations haven't been a serious threat until the 17th century really). Fear of wealth and power are the only reasons nations ever formed.
 
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infoiltrator

Senior member
Feb 9, 2011
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The Founding Fathers (women, non property owners and slaves exempted) wrote the Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation.
The Bill of Rights was adopted to protect the individual, as I recall catholics, Indians, women, slaves, and gays were not covered.

The nation was founded on livable compromises, most of the worst experiences were the result of bad compromises forced by stubborn greedy self justifying men at the time.
The nation goes from too liberal for the majority to too unliberal for the majority and back again, it allows us to live together without class violence (hopefully) and work out the future.
The citizens of this country voted in the men and women who screwed up this country, win or lose you are equally responsible.
Trouble is too many functionalists are drawing a line.
The two most uncontrolled costs in health care are the lawyer/malpractice burden and the administrative cost burden.
Community Health Centers are at this moment the best hope of containing administrative costs. Please note state governments feel free to rewrite contracts to match their budget needs, a common problem.
Do you want to return to health and sanitation squalor?
Many people apparently would.
Inoculations mean everybody, and some die or worse.
There is no one settled permanent existence, change is constant, adaptation is constant, not all rules can be enforced so choose the ones that can.
Sweeping changes, removing programs by removing funding is bullshit.
Fighting wars without funding is worse and is more responsible for our "debt" than "social issues".
Look around people.
PEOPLE are losing trust in "the American way of life" and the right is leading the naysaying massacre.
The Left is its normal squabbling "let's do something to find an answer".

Start by looking at what is wrong in your community. try to fix it, elect people who will work things out, not worse.

The USA has been independent of many aspects of the world economy for a long time, not any more, baby.
The anti socialized medicine groups saddle our big companies with medical insurance, other countries did not.
We have gone from a producing nation to a managing serving nation. Giving hope to people of a better life means everything.

So start.
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
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We can do it, of course.

But it relies on Government getting out of the way.

They are the ones that screwed this all up, and they should be the first to go.

-John