NationStates Jolt Archive

Conservatives... how does a free market get around this? If the U.S. is supposed to be an example of a free market than a free market doesn't work (but then again, the U.S. certainly is NOT a free market.)

Where has there existed a truly free market or system of deregulation that has benefited people rather than harmed them?

I.e. deregulation of electricity prices in California contributed to the energy crisis, profits shot up because of power shortages. Around the world, in deregulated 3rd world countries, dictators and the like have opened their markets to foreign companies and have experienced various disasters (if someone wants I'll try to dig up examples) which were delibiratley put on... shortage of production for crucially needed supplies to provide basic human survival, the demand soars the price soars and profits are brought in.

In Mexico there are tomato farmers being paid 13c a day. The company they work for could easily raise their pay and still be making considerable profits, but they know that because of the desperate situation the workers are in, they can get workers to work such rediculous hours for horrid pay because they have no alternative.

How can a truly free market possibly avoid stuff like this?

BTW I'm really asking. I myself at the moment am heavily opposed to the likes of socialism, etc. and I don't mean it as a challenge. These are growing concerns I've had with capitalism.

In answer to your question, the free market cannot by itself avoid the excess.
The free market is concerned primarily in making the most profit out of the least resources available; the human equation is only applicable in terms of the presence of available labour.
This said, the free market is terrifyingly efficient and leads to innovation, progress and wealth for some.
However, this also has a negative side as the majority are cast-aside in favour of the owners rather than the workers. The very purpose of economy is to generate a relatively decent standard of living for the greatest number of people. Left alone, capitalism cannot provide this and so it is a flawed economic system.
A solution to curbing excess and therefore turning a flawed capitalist system into a less-flawed capitalist system is for the government to intervene at least partially on behalf of the less fortunate.

Sounds more Marxist than it should. Oh well!

No a free market can't exist in the meaning of many producers and many buyers having a equal exchange. Because that useally happen then market deregulate from political control (that is typically example of a market getting more free) is that fewer and fewer companies get control of more and more of the market. So the market is still controll but now of some few or a single companies this have happen to most of the natural resuorces on a global level.And also if you want to use the market argument on labor, it is pretty clear that a single worker that need the wage to survive don't have the same power as the company that probably can get some one else to do the job (this is ecpecially true at low skill jobs).

Freedom is impossible. One freedom tackles another freedom. The free market is the same. If you have free market of capital (I mean the means to produce goods), you can't have free market of goods. It's like you can't have the freedom to put barbed wires around your land and the freedom to move at the same time.
That's my opinion. Freedom is a concept that has been widely abused in western propaganda.

How can a truly free market possibly avoid stuff like this?

This happens not because the market is free enough to let it happen, but because of current inequality in the market. If every company tried to pay every worker these types of wages, then noone could afford to buy their products, and the prices would have to be lowered to reflect the buying power of the consumers. What makes situations like your tomato farmer example work, is that other nations and areas pay their workers enough to afford the inflated prices that companies apply to their products.

Ultimately, the theory is that if you completely freed up the market, it would balance itself out to avoid these types of situations. Companies would all move what they could to places where labor was cheapest. As the number of jobs began to equalize with the number of available labor, labor costs (wages and benefits) would go up. While this is happening, in order to compete, labor costs would be forced to drop everywhere else because as the jobs leave, the demand in their own nation for labor drops, and the supply of available workers goes up. This reduces the buying power of the consumers in richer nations, and lowers the prices of the products. This also devalues the money that the richest people all have. The ups and downs would continue for quite a while as companies move and remove to find the cheapest labor and the highest consumer ability. Eventually, the hope is that it would balance itself out to a point where labor is about the same cost everywhere, and consumer power is about the same everywhere. It would also have the added effect (through deflation/inflation, and all the costs associated with the reorginizations) of better balancing out the wealth accross the population. As the richest people and orginizations spend money looking for ways to better compete in the open market, more and more of that money ends up in the hands of the rest of us.

At least, that's the theory. I personally believe that it would work. But, that it would take a generation or two of ups and downs that were very severe for it to balance itself out to a sustainable point. I am one of very few people that feel that the ends would justify those means.

A lot of people say that a free-market system gives all power to the 'big companies', who use this power to enslave the poor, torture animals and pollute the world. While this may be the case at the present, we should realize that we, the consumers, have the power in the end.

If we decide not to buy tomato's for which the farmer didnt get a decent pay, companies will start to offer 'fair tomato's'. Why? Because that's profitable to them :) If we only start thinking about what we buy and where we buy it, we can stop the exploitation and pollution. Therefore the free market has the power to create a fair world, if only we are able and willing to choose the right products.

Konsumenten aller Länder vereinicht euch! :D

Please define free market. do patents help or tackle the free market? Does property in general help or tackle the free market. Is it free as in free from the democratic government or free as in free from oligarchic corporations?

A lot of people say that a free-market system gives all power to the 'big companies', who use this power to enslave the poor, torture animals and pollute the world. While this may be the case at the present, we should realize that we, the consumers, have the power in the end.

If we decide not to buy tomato's for which the farmer didnt get a decent pay, companies will start to offer 'fair tomato's'. Why? Because that's profitable to them :) If we only start thinking about what we buy and where we buy it, we can stop the exploitation and pollution. Therefore the free market has the power to create a fair world, if only we are able and willing to choose the right products.

Konsumenten aller Länder vereinicht euch! :DBut how do you know where the tomatoes come from and how fair the producer was paid?

That's my opinion. Freedom is a concept that has been widely abused in western propaganda.

That was probably the most personally offensive post I've ever read.
You probably don't realize how flameworthy that was.

PANORAMA CITY -- California's electricity crisis is not the fault of "deregulation" or the market -- because California's electricity market was never deregulated, the Libertarian Party of California asserted today, an assertion with which a growing number of economists and deregulation experts agree.

"Politicians who are predisposed against the free market have taken advantage of the current situation to blame deregulation and justify more government intervention," said Libertarian state executive director Juan Ros.

"Members of the media have followed along, continually referring to the 'deregulation' law passed by the Legislature in 1996. The fact is, as Libertarians will point out, the 1996 law did not deregulate electricity in California but rather forced power companies into a regulatory scheme that has led to the skyrocketing prices, shortages, and blackouts we are seeing today."

A consensus of experts agree with the Libertarian position that the electricity market in California is far from deregulated — and that government intervention is the real problem:

* Economist Thomas Sowell in his syndicated column published January 25: "The political micro-management of California's utility companies can hardly be called deregulation without twisting the meaning of the word beyond recognition."
* Lance Izumi, Senior Fellow in California Studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco, writing for the Knight-Ridder News Service on January 15: "The reality...is that government, not the market, is the cause of California's power woes. Despite [Governor Gray] Davis's slam against California's 1996 'deregulation' of electricity, state government did not totally deregulate the pricing mechanism for electricity."
* Pepperdine University Professor of Economics George Reisman wrote: "We do not yet have such a [deregulated] market yet. We have merely taken a modest step towards it, in the aftermath of numerous, more powerful steps in the opposite direction."
* Adrian T. Moore and Lynne Kiesling of the Los Angeles-based Reason Public Policy Institute noted: "California didn't deregulate its electricity market, but rather 'restructured' it, requiring far more state intervention in electricity transactions than existed before."

Concluded Ros, "Further regulation will worsen the situation. Libertarians and experts know that only immediate and complete deregulation will bring about an end to our power problems."

That was probably the most personally offensive post I've ever read.
You probably don't realize how flameworthy that was.
Why can't he say people have abused Freedom?

That was probably the most personally offensive post I've ever read.
You probably don't realize how flameworthy that was.
I don't know how offensive it is, but I know it is true.
Freedom is like distance. It's relative to something. the freedom of the market depends on your point of view. The olygarchs in the western world love to think their market is free, but it is only free for he who has the capital.

A lot of people say that a free-market system gives all power to the 'big companies', who use this power to enslave the poor, torture animals and pollute the world. While this may be the case at the present, we should realize that we, the consumers, have the power in the end.

If we decide not to buy tomato's for which the farmer didnt get a decent pay, companies will start to offer 'fair tomato's'. Why? Because that's profitable to them :) If we only start thinking about what we buy and where we buy it, we can stop the exploitation and pollution. Therefore the free market has the power to create a fair world, if only we are able and willing to choose the right products.

Konsumenten aller Länder vereinicht euch! :D

Thank you. What some socialist tards fail to realise is a simple, glaring fact. Those cash cows aren't really the people hurt by limited economic policies and heavy-handed regulations. They'll continue to thrive on a global level with or without changes in policy to the right or left of the current situation.
Most businesses are small. These limiting factors don't apply to them, they only hurt the small business owners, and make it much harder to complete. I should know, I own one of these *evil* small businesses.

Another question : how does privatization constitute deregulation?

I don't know how offensive it is, but I know it is true.
Freedom is like distance. It's relative to something. the freedom of the market depends on your point of view. The olygarchs in the western world love to think their market is free, but it is only free for he who has the capital.

Folks, this is where America is heading if we keep enacting more and more regulations. Pretty soon, we'll all be speaking of Freedom and Liberty as a steaming turd. That's seriously some scary shit.

We'll all feel better though with our all-pervasive babysitter to look out for us, backed up with a heavy police state to enforce their rules and values.

I'm feeling warm and fuzzy about it already. But then again, who needs a shitty thing like freedom when you can just settle for security?

But how do you know where the tomatoes come from and how fair the producer was paid?

That's what we have non-governmental organizations for. In Holland for example we have an organization that lists companies that don't use animals for testing, we have a brand of coffee which guarantees a fair price for the farmers (which makes their product a bit more expensive, but we should be willing to pay for that), etc. You're right that getting the information to the consumers is the central issue here, but through non-gov organizations it should be possible to fill in the gap.

Folks, this is where America is heading if we keep enacting more and more regulations. Pretty soon, we'll all be speaking of Freedom and Liberty as a steaming turd. That's seriously some scary shit.

We'll all feel better though with our all-pervasive babysitter to look out for us, backed up with a heavy police state to enforce their rules and values.

I'm feeling warm and fuzzy about it already. But then again, who needs a shitty thing like freedom when you can just settle for security?You are already there since more than 200 years. They've just managed to keep the blinders on.

That's what we have non-governmental organizations for. In Holland for example we have an organization that lists companies that don't use animals for testing, we have a brand of coffee which guarantees a fair price for the farmers (which makes their product a bit more expensive, but we should be willing to pay for that), etc. You're right that getting the information to the consumers is the central issue here, but through non-gov organizations it should be possible to fill in the gap.
How can I be sure that the organization is not owned?
And then what is the difference between a non-profit organisation and a government?

Psylos, from what Utopia are you from? What's the form of government there?
I need to know before I acknowledge your questions with answers because behind every comment you make is the smug assurance that your unmentioned form of dreamlike government is ultimately superior.
Please be specific (As in Poland, not Europe).

How can I be sure that the organization is not owned?
And then what is the difference between a non-profit organisation and a government?

Good point. An organisation that tells people which company is 'good' and which is 'bad' has a lot of power, which makes it very important to check wheter those organisations have no conflicting interests.
But if the media would be able to proof that for example Greenpeace is owned and used by some company, it would be a big scandal and no-one would ever donate to Greenpeace again. I think the media can handle this ;)

The major difference between non-profit organisations and the government is that the latter has a monopoly, while the ngo's have to compete with eachother for our attention and money. This brings up the problem that ngo's would probably produce information on 'spectacular issues'. Still I would prefer the ngo's to play a role in this process, because..well it just sounds creepy that the government would decide what we should buy..

Psylos, from what Utopia are you from? What's the form of government there?
I need to know before I acknowledge your questions with answers because behind every comment you make is the smug assurance that your unmentioned form of dreamlike government is ultimately superior.
Please be specific (As in Poland, not Europe).Well my dreamlike utopian state would be a global free market (of goods and services, not slaves) democratic socialism. I don't know if that is relevant though.

It just makes me cry when I hear people stating that capitalism is the same as freedom.

Good point. An organisation that tells people which company is 'good' and which is 'bad' has a lot of power, which makes it very important to check wheter those organisations have no conflicting interests.
But if the media would be able to proof that for example Greenpeace is owned and used by some company, it would be a big scandal and no-one would ever donate to Greenpeace again. I think the media can handle this ;)

The major difference between non-profit organisations and the government is that the latter has a monopoly, while the ngo's have to compete with eachother for our attention and money. This brings up the problem that ngo's would probably produce information on 'spectacular issues'. Still I would prefer the ngo's to play a role in this process, because..well it just sounds creepy that the government would decide what we should buy..
Another difference I see is that the people working for non-profit organisations are not paid.

Well my dreamlike utopian state would be a global free market (of goods and services, not slaves) democratic socialism. I don't know if that is relevant though.

It just makes me cry when I hear people stating that capitalism is the same as freedom.

Capitalism is not freedom. Look at China. Capitalist Fascist Police State. Not a good idea.
And what is the n-a-m-e of your c-o-u-n-t-r-y???

And I wasn't referring to your dream, I was referring to your actuality. Where do you live (outside of the internet :rolleyes: ), and what's the name of that place?

Capitalism is not freedom. Look at China. Capitalist Fascist Police State. Not a good idea.
And what is the n-a-m-e of your c-o-u-n-t-r-y???
Sorry I didn't understand the question.
I'm from earth.
I was born in Rodez, a small city in southern France. I'm currently in Brussels in Belgium. I've lived in Romania, Spain, Germany and UK.

And I wasn't referring to your dream, I was referring to your actuality. Where do you live (outside of the internet :rolleyes: ), and what's the name of that place?
Yep sorry I didn't understand very well the question.