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]

Moderation in pursuit of liberty is no virtue, and extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. It's the Right Wing that stands the best chance of turning this country into a police state.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Wasn't that Goldwater?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes. And I frankly have not in the least any inclination or desire to respect the wishes of a Theocratic movement that has taken over a major political party and is seeking to impose a very narrow strand of religion on the majority of the population.

Especially given that it was only after the bottom fell out that the Right-Wing claimed it foresaw the recession all along where when it was *falling* out they denied it even existed.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

You have a talent for bringing together varied threads of argument and weaving them into a disorganized jumble that makes no sense and is near-impossible to understand.

Which wishes are you disrespecting? How does this assist you? Why do you keep capitalizing the "T" in theocratic? I understand that you think the Tea Party is the American Revolutionary Guard, but you do precious little beside toss epithets and make vague references to the Civil War to support this. It's not "extreme" so much as it is "extreme and nonsensical." At least paft is clear about her ad hominem and tu quoque arguments. Yours are just as senseless, but you try to shroud them in copious references to force others to look up your work on Wikipedia.

I was trying to point out that it was amusing that you'd quote, with apparent approval, a guy who thought "extremism in defense of liberty" was opposing the Civil Rights Act.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The wishes of a segment of society that want to do to LGBTQI individuals in the United States what they're propping up in Uganda. They aren't the Revolutionary Guard. The Revolutionary Guard is a disciplined bunch of barbarians. The Tea Party would be simple to disperse with grapeshot.

And technically speaking the Founders were a bunch of people who made money every day from trafficking in owning other human beings. Does that invalidate the Constitution?

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Re: The first half: This has nothing to do with Goldwater. It's like you just spew justifications.

Re: the second half: fair enough.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Spew justifications? Fuck that shit. I'm taking them at their words and vehemently disagreeing with them.

[ofbg.livejournal.com]

The actual quote; "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

really? and how does that jibe with all the left-wing police states history so fondly remembers?

but back to the point. you seem oddly afraid of the tea party, a group of mostly middle age, middle income workers and small business owners. are you seriously worried they're about to rise up and revolt?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

If this conversation was between Russians you'd have a point. This is the United States, socialism died with Eugene V. Debs and A. Philip Randolph.