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talkpolitics2010-11-16 09:07 am
underlankers.livejournal.com) wrote in talkpolitics2010-11-16 09:07 am
Entry tags:
On Free Markets and Government Regulation:
One thing that does not surprise me these days is to see people making multiple millions of dollars advocating laissez-faire systems where they'd benefit greatly but very few others would. The question I have is a simple, if provocative one: isn't it better said that free markets are best made free by government regulation? The height of the Laissez-Faire era co-incided with the robber barons, and it was not a co-incidence. Bereft of things like the income tax and anti-trust laws, essential government regulations for any society making a pretense of freedom much less trying for the real thing the result was the emergence of wealthy and powerful men like Gould, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Astor, and Carnegie.
The "free market" system led not to freedom but to things like said robber barons calling in the US Army to disperse strikers with gunfire into the ranks of said strikers. It led to things like Black Friday, a known incident where a Robber Baron deliberately triggered an economic depression in 1869. The regulations that emerged under the Progressives, FDR, and the Great Society have led to a much deeper prosperity minus the brutality of right and left that resulted in the age of Laissez Faire at its finest, when poverty was also much vaster and deeper than it is today (when one out of every five Americans goes hungry).
So the question I have is simple: if Tea Party anarcho-capitalism gets its wish to rescind things like the income tax, like direct election of Senators, like the Federal Reserve, and like the various anti-trust laws that have been in effect for most of the 20th Century, how do they intend to deal with the emergence of latter-day Jay Cookes who'd have immense sums of money and like their predecessors would be just as keen to have Federal troops disperse any workers foolhardy enough to ask for their rights?
X-posted to my LJ and The_Recession.
The "free market" system led not to freedom but to things like said robber barons calling in the US Army to disperse strikers with gunfire into the ranks of said strikers. It led to things like Black Friday, a known incident where a Robber Baron deliberately triggered an economic depression in 1869. The regulations that emerged under the Progressives, FDR, and the Great Society have led to a much deeper prosperity minus the brutality of right and left that resulted in the age of Laissez Faire at its finest, when poverty was also much vaster and deeper than it is today (when one out of every five Americans goes hungry).
So the question I have is simple: if Tea Party anarcho-capitalism gets its wish to rescind things like the income tax, like direct election of Senators, like the Federal Reserve, and like the various anti-trust laws that have been in effect for most of the 20th Century, how do they intend to deal with the emergence of latter-day Jay Cookes who'd have immense sums of money and like their predecessors would be just as keen to have Federal troops disperse any workers foolhardy enough to ask for their rights?
X-posted to my LJ and The_Recession.
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The rich are predominantly made up of financiers. They add no value to products, and in fact (specifically in the case of derivatives) often inflate costs.
The rich need their finances reappropriated to serve the common interests. Then they can fuck off - things will look much better then. :-)
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Completely incorrect. Most of the innovation comes from the top end. What you enjoy, what makes your life easier and better? You have the rich to thank.
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Thanks for letting me see the light :-)
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So, the rich shouldn't be beholden to the working class because we do a majority of their work. We should be beholden to the rich because a select few innovators form a small minority of the highest echelon of society.
How could I have ever thought otherwise?
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I mean look at Microsoft, from beginning to end innovation was not lead from the top.
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I'll put it another way - Google may be one of the few companies where the innovation isn't coming from the top, but, then again, most everyone who works at Google would be considered rich by this crowd.
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