On Free Markets and Government Regulation:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

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.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In other words, how was it free with the Rockefeller and Carnegies around?

Perhaps you might summarize the source here, Jeff, as I'm hardly interested in a 67th Tigers-style "debate" where your argument is never able to source things or reference specifics in any sense of the terms which is your usual arguing style.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

In other words, how was it free with the Rockefeller and Carnegies around?

More to the point, you'd first have to demonstrate how that situation was worse than the alternative.

Perhaps you might summarize the source here, Jeff, as I'm hardly interested in a 67th Tigers-style "debate" where your argument is never able to source things or reference specifics in any sense of the terms which is your usual arguing style.

In other words, I tell you that there's a book out there that will tell you what you need to know, and then you accuse me of not having sources or references. Right. Keep pushing that myth.

Here's the summary - your entire idea of the robber baron era is false.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Simple: US troops firing on US citizens as law enforcement hired by the robber barons. If you don't see that as worse......

But no specifics as to how and why it's false. Yes, perfect 67th Tigers-style logic "What you say is false." "How is it false?" "What you say is false."

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Simple: US troops firing on US citizens as law enforcement hired by the robber barons. If you don't see that as worse......

So you've honed in one one instance assuming it's representative. Got it.

But no specifics as to how and why it's false. Yes, perfect 67th Tigers-style logic "What you say is false." "How is it false?" "What you say is false."

And if you don't want to read the sources provided, you're free to remain ignorant.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, I've honed on it in lieu of bringing up other things that would be rather more inflammatory.

No, dammit, provide information about what your source says for those not able perhaps to buy them. This is really the same kind of argument I have with this damn fool: http://67thtigers.blogspot.com/ who uses this kind of "thinking" to argue that Japan could march to California unaided. Since you won't explain anything about how my argument is false or why it is, I'm going to assume you either can't or won't.

[capthek.livejournal.com]

Oh underlankers, you just don't understand that I am always correct as I can state several book titles.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

No, dammit, provide information about what your source says for those not able perhaps to buy them.

You have libraries. You have Google.

Since you won't explain anything about how my argument is false or why it is, I'm going to assume you either can't or won't.

I assume it's not worth my time given the post to start.

[usekh.livejournal.com]

You are not a stupid man. You must know that simply saying "There is a book" is meaningless in discussions like this. If you want to reference a source, reference it. Pull out the quotes, facts and figures and the like.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. So you're asked to back a statement up but refuse to do it.

Right on par with 67th Tigers.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Never go into research or education. I can see you hollering at some historian saying "back yourself up, this citation is not enough!"

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, because the historian would actually be able to back up what he says. I've had debates with historians I disagree with and they can actually summarize. Which appears to be something beyond either your ability or desire to do so, which is fine. In a debate with someone other than someone like me who will not let that go.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Sure.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So can you summarize your source?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Sure.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

SUMMARIZE IT THEN.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Why? Is there any good faith reason why I should waste my time at this point?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I could ask the same here since I've been asking this from my first response to you and every response of yours has been an absolute refusal to answer a simple question.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I'e answered the question, just not in a way you prefer. By now, if you had no interest in reading the thing, you could have grabbed a summary from someone you trust rather than inevitably not taking mine.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Jesus Christ, I don't have the animosity to you that I would not in fact trust a summary if offered. If you think that it *is* that way then you obviously overestimate the degree of antipathy I have as regards you, which is slim to none.

Now, once again: Summarize the book.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

He believes in the 67th Tigers school of citing "I'll cite a source without any page numbers or even saying if the book actually proves my argument let alone disproves yours and if you question it you're a provincial backwards Yank."

Here's a thumbnail of Folsom's...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... argument on his Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_W._Folsom,_Jr.). I don't think Folsom paid too much attention to the mobster tactics that the monopolists used to establish their territories and exclude competitors. Libertarians tend to look the other way when gang banging is going on.