Free Market ideas

[rainonlevs]

It occurred to me tonight on the ride home that I may be talking cross-topics with my friends that are big Austrian economy and laissez faire capitalism people. We seem to usually start from a particular issue and each talk about a different aspect of it. For example, I'll focus on the effect of what I see as 'free market' and deregulatory ideas

Comments

[gray_ghost]

I don't think there is anything to stop the powerful from abusing their power in a pure deregulated environment. Capitalism is a pretty simple system, but I have never thought of it as equal players competing in the free market to provide the best product to the consumer. What it actually is is corporations doing anything necessary to establish monopolies in their respective fields, and strangling out any competition. They only have one purpose - to maximize shareholder profit by any means necessary. And and it's base, you have a pool of workers whose labor can be exploited for the benefit of the corporations. Without a base of cheap exploitable labor, the system doesn't work.

So you know where I am coming from - my political views are more closely aligned with democratic socialism, and I think capitalism is one of the most evil human systems ever devised. It is one of the most unstable - too. Primarily this is because it has only two states. It is either expanding into new markets and growing exponentially, or it is dying. If it is dying, it causes terrible pain for those trapped inside. There is no steady state with capitalism. The only reason it has continued so long unchallenged is that the resources of this planet have been so vast. I think we may be nearing a limiting point though.