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talkpoliticsOne 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.
(no subject)
Date: 17/11/10 18:21 (UTC)I support decentralization. I am not sure what makes you think otherwise.
(no subject)
Date: 17/11/10 19:45 (UTC)Not at all. I have no clue how you get there.
I support decentralization. I am not sure what makes you think otherwise.
You support a central power that will dictate and force your idea of what the social order should be. *shrug*
(no subject)
Date: 18/11/10 14:08 (UTC)Oh, so you do believe in redistribution of power?
You support a central power that will dictate and force your idea of what the social order should be. *shrug*
Nope. I'm a socialist, which means I believe in the devolution of power to the people through and through. Please find where I've supported centralization of power.
(no subject)
Date: 18/11/10 18:02 (UTC)If defined by how you'd define it, probably not.
Nope. I'm a socialist, which means I believe in the devolution of power to the people through and through. Please find where I've supported centralization of power.
As a socialist, you believe in the centralization of power, as centralization of power is the only way socialism can exist. You must force socialism on those who disagree with it to make it happen, thus it requires a strong central power to enforce it.
Most socialists I've encountered and studied seem to miss that part.