[TITLE]
I don't believe that arguments supporting the idea that the free market can fix its own problems (monopolization, artificial scarcity, etc.) are generated from an ideological and hypothetical position, not one rooted in data, evidence and fact. CMV.
[cmagnificent]
One of the common positions I hear in defense of less regulation is that the free market will correct or "fix" itself. While I think this is true in certain circumstances, I don't see how it can fix all of the problems that stem for deregulation. Let's get into a couple of specific issues I see. The first issue I see is consolidation and monopolization. So, it just makes good business sense to eliminate competition. If you're the only one selling a product or service, people have to go through you, so it is in the direct benefit of any individual company to suppress competition wherever possible. This can be as "simple" (quotations because the actual process isn't simple at all) as bringing more independent brands and corporations under one umbrella and it can be as vicious as a full hostile takeover of a publicly traded company against its will. It seems to me that rather than this kind of consolidation and monopolization being the actions of a few that abuse the system, but rather that it is the natural consequence of natural rules of the free market. [Here is a ted talk](http://www.ted.com/talks/james_b_glattfelder_who_controls_the_world.html) on this idea of the global market as an "emergent system" (a system that displays behavior independently of its constituent parts) and how that "emergent behavior" is towards greater centralization of control of the market which is bad for competition and bad for the consumer. Furthermore [here is an infographic](https://lh3.ggpht.com/-3n_GbJVCIuI/UnUmZ-3ntzI/AAAAAAAAX04/WShRP19HwEc/s1600/10+Mega-Corporations.png) that shows just how many common brands that many would expect to be in competition are actually just examples of parallel marketing (a singular company selling multiple similar products with similar target demographics to maximize profit towards said singular company). An historical example of this would be the late 19th century in the United States, where monopolization and consolidation became so detrimental to the well being of the populace that the government was force to act. Remember Teddy Roosevelt's populist nickname "The Trust Buster". Trust was an old-timey term for monopoly or super-conglomerate and Teddy Roosevelt earned the hearts of the people by breaking them up. My second issue comes from the idea of artificial scarcity. The United States throws away half of the food it produces. In 2010 there six million homeless persons in the US and 18 million unoccupied homes. The free market is (and please correct me if this is a mistaken or overly simplified notion) dependent on the law of supply and demand and scarcity. Where I see an issue is that in the most developed countries is that technological advancement has rendered the scarcity of *certain* goods a moot point. This of course isn't entirely true globally, but even then there's a bit of a hairy issue in that in certain developed nations farmers are paid to not work the entirety of their available lands and these "regulations" were established at the heavy lobbying of food conglomerates to preserve the food markets (I'll get to interference in government by market forces later). So it seems to me, that rather than realizing the goal of organized society, where individuals wouldn't have to worry about their basic needs and would be free to pursue independent interests, market forces are keeping certain essentials of life artificially scarce to generate higher profit, to the detriment of all. A less overly dramatic example of this would be diamonds. Diamonds mining and production is entirely controlled by a very select few persons who individually control the supply of those diamonds. The result is, this group of individuals has kept diamonds artificially scarce, whereas if diamonds were sold on the basis of the actual global supply, they would be *significantly* cheaper. The fact that this selective group controls diamond production is a relic of violent Western imperialism, while related, is a separate discussion here. Third, I don't think the free market is capable of correcting market influence in the political sphere. Going back to my example of farmers being paid to not work some of their lands. This was not done with the goal of preserving and conserving farmland but was done to preserve the status quo of food markets. It's also been noted that if the developed world were to actually send all the food we could to starving populations, it would collapse their local agrarian economies, which would be bad. Now rather than seeing this as undue interference by the government in the free market, I rather see this as a natural consequence of the free market itself. As conglomerates and, let's call them "interested parties" gain more economic power, they also gain more political power. Politics is an extension of economics by other means after all. Power, simple power, is decided by those that can control the flow of material goods, and that's all that power really is. The free market through the aforementioned processes of consolidation and monopolization consolidates this kind of power (economic power). As this power grows, these groups influence the political process more and more. Now I understand this is a tricky point, because the obvious criticism of this is, "well that's interference in the free market" which, to be completely fair is true, but this seems like a case of the free market interfering with itself, or, another natural consequence of an unregulated market. Eventually economically powerful conglomerates will begin to influence policy decisions in their favor. In other words, the natural tendency of the free market, is to subvert the free market and skew economic policy in favor of those already economically powerful. The only possible correction for this is preemptive regulation to deny those already economically powerful. In other words, paradoxically, the only way to preserve the free market, is to regulate the free market. My final point is that I don't think the free market is capable of adequately combating poverty and poverty related ills. Now, it is absolutely and incontrovertibly true that capitalism and the free market has raised the global standard of living far more than any method of socio-economic organization before or since, I will never argue otherwise. This however does not mean that poverty and deplorable, inhuman living conditions do not still exist. I also don't think that the free market has any interest in fixing this problem, and furthermore is incapable of dealing with the problem in it's entirety. A simple argument would be drug patents. On the one hand, a biomedical corporation has every right to profit off of it's own idea that it spent money developing. On the other hand, this allows drug companies to charge excessive amounts that make treatment options cost prohibitive to those in substandard living conditions. I would also say that patent regulations are a form of market regulation and in a true *laissez-faire* fare system a company would be completely free to reproduce a drug, but I digress. Furthermore, independent charities are not by themselves enough to combat poverty. One of the main reason many wealthy conglomerates and individuals give to private charities is because there is a tax incentive to do so. Essentially the government says "you're doing pretty damn well for yourself, I think we're gonna tax you a bit unless you give something back". Which as far as I'm concerned, is a completely fair position. So to wrap up (holy fuck, this is way too long), what I'm looking for is the perspective of the other side. Most of the arguments for why regulation is bad or harmful stem from an ideological position that has little support in empirical observation and evidence. What I don't want is "regulation would be socialism!! that's bad!!". I'm posting here because I want to comprehend and understand the other side better. I have encountered very few arguments that don't come from an ideological position, or use some ideological boogeyman as a scare tactic as opposed to historical evidence and data sets. I also don't want to see arguments akin to "well of course *some* regulation is necessary, but we regulate too much!" because I think that's half agreeing with me and half going off on a different tangent. I have my own personal reasons for not being the biggest fan of free market capitalism, but that is not the discussion I'm looking to have. My goals are simple, I want to see, understand, and comprehend the other side from a view point based in data and evidence as all I've seen to date is ideological conjecture and hypothesis. If you can show through empirical examples and evidence that the free market is capable of solving the aforementioned problems without state intervention, I would consider my view sufficiently changed, even if you fail to convince me of the general position that the free market is the cat's pajamas, bee's knees, or whatever outdated colloquialism you choose to use. ***-Edit-*** The delta went to /u/NoMoreNicksLeft for his timescale argument. The gist of it is that the free market will eventually sort out its own problems (a corrupt system collapses under it's own weight eventually, even the most corrupt individuals eventually die etc etc) but that can just take a really long time to happen. As I don't believe any social power structure is capable of lasting forever, I am forced to begrudgingly agree.
[monkyyy]
Define free market. Your using examples from today and in the food, drug and diamond industries no less, which bother me. The farms restrictions and subsidies, drug and gene patents, and African diamond warlords are not my examples for free makrets.
[cmagnificent]
Okay, now to go back to something I've already said, I think this is getting back into no-true-scotsman territory. One of my criticisms of the free market is that it inevitably leads an unfree market. Groups, through free market tactics gain a large amount of economic wealth and therefore political power and then use that power to influence the market in their favor. This is one of the problems with the free market that I think the free market can't solve, unregulated markets historically lead to regulated markets with regulatory policies that favor specific groups over others. That's one of my criticisms. Saying that once this happens "it's no longer a free market then" not only fails to address my criticism, but as I've said elsewhere, renders the free market as a theoretical construct that is permanently safe from criticism. What I mean by this, is that if the free market becomes corrupted by a free market actor (like a private corporation) that's not an invalidation of my criticism, but *evidence of it*. In other words, the free market is inherently self-defeating and always moves towards a lack of freedom in the favor of particular groups.
[monkyyy]
It would only be no true scotsmen if I rejected the freest industries(like the tech industry); and you still havn't defined what you mean by free market, meaning I can't show how these industry have little to nothing to do with the free market or that your definition is flawed.(or be proven wrong, but....) Is it the free market that imposes these restrictions? I would argue the state is a cancer in society and when its ready to grow the capitalists in a good position, move themselves to avoid its harm, not that they cause it to grow. But thats a chicken or egg problem. I'll admit I'm not the average advocate for free markets(an-cap but I'm an anarchist first) but I think your making a mistake, your blaming the player for the the game; its not that the market is corrupting the state its that the state is corrupting in nature and its buy the regulators or die, or rush to the patent office before the patent trolls or die, or write the rules so they don't harm you but give the state power, or die. *You can't buy what isn't for sell*, and the political sphere is always thriving, always ready to promise favors to whoever will increase their power, wether that's money, good publicity or votes.
[totes_meta_bot]
This thread has been linked to from elsewhere on reddit. - [/r/Anarcho_Capitalism] [Does someone have the patience to answer to this post on /r/CMV? “Data” and “evidence” would be appreciated, apparently.](http://np.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/1ynhwx/does_someone_have_the_patience_to_answer_to_this/) *^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Comments? ^Complaints? [^Send ^them ^to ^my ^inbox!](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=totes_meta_bot)*
[LetsTalk86]
You ask some great questions. It seem you are taking a position that is argued among arnacho-capitalist and government minimalist. While there is some form of government a free market will move toward being less free. Private business owners have the incentive to monopolize, and thus will leverage the most powerful monopoly being the government to meet their ends. Your overall concern seem to be with monopolies. You would like to know how this can be managed within free market rules. It is true that a business owner have an incentive to grow into a monopoly, and usually act toward that, as the goal is to grow ones business ( To take OVER the world Lol ). I would ask who has counter incentives of the business owner? What is the incentive of the consumer? Is it in the consumer interest to have small group of people monopolizing the distribution of certain goods and/or services? If it is not in the interest of the consumer what steps can they take to minimize this from happening within the free market? A business owner grows due to their revenue obtained from customers. Therefore, the customer can regulate the size of a company. This is the free market mechanism that could be utilized to regulate the size of companies. Some people say unregulated market, but there are regulations, as in rules when it come to the free market. I ask how can each individual regulate instead of a small group regulating? The way for each individual to regulate the size of companies is through their money. Demanding to only do business with those who welcome competition, and start doing business with other companies once one seem to be growing too large.
[cmagnificent]
Okay, that does make a lot of sense. The "vote with your dollar" mentality correct? The issues I see with this are - 1) - It's predicated on the assumption of an informed consumer base, which is a pretty shaky assumption to make. While it's true that certain individuals will always try to know as much as they can as consumers, the "average citizen" will not take this same level of concern. So while it sounds good in theory, a closer examination shows it to be built on a shaky foundation and furthermore, this particular check on abuses of power has been ineffective in the past (late 19th century United States). 2 - This is built on another ideological premise of the "rational actor", here being the idea that every individual actor (be it a singular person or a corporation) will always act with rational interest in the economic sphere. This is also untrue. Even just a short century ago Valentine's day was not a big consumer holiday, nor was Halloween etc. Now they are thanks to mid 20th century marketers. So now, for two days out of the year people are spending ungodly amounts of money while there's no rational reason to do so.
[LetsTalk86]
" The "vote with your dollar" mentality correct? ". Well, right now I am focusing vote with one dollar toward minimizing the formation of monopolies to be more specific. 1) - " It's predicated on the assumption of an informed consumer base, which is a pretty shaky assumption to make. " I would agree that such an assumption would be rather shaky. I have observed my entire life that no individual has perfect knowledge, and thus I place my prediction toward people lacking knowledge in many things. I am a little confused here on what you are trying to convey to me, so I will move on to your next point for now. 2 - People acting rationally is untrue. We would have to agree on how we see rational. People buying things on valentines day does not receive satisfactions from it? You do not have to answer this question, as it seem we are going off course. I thought your concern was the formation of privately owned monopolies. Using examples of monopolies. Moving away from monopolies is creating too many permutations making it difficult to follow. Can you apply your knowledge concern when it come to monopolies. Are you saying the consumer will not be able to tell a company is becoming large?
[bsegovia]
I think you've got a point. Lesser actors in a free market will always seek to influence the state's monopoly on force to hinder competitors. What i hear you saying, however, is we need regulations for our regulations. I would prefer a state immune to these kinds of influences. One the US constitution specifically attempted. This fight occurs in the living document vs original intent debate. Certain regulations are simply illegal if viewed under the original intent view. This view acts as a legislative condom preventing disease, thus negating additional intervention.
[NoMoreNicksLeft]
The free market can fix its own problems... the trouble is that it may not do it on a timescale that appeals to you. If it takes 350 years for that monopoly to die after implementing reform, that's a long time to wait. If we have to wait for all the CEOs that are addicted to rent-seeking or short-term strategies to die of old age before companies start doing the right thing, who can be patient for that? Now, this isn't condemning the free market. If your bad policies have caused such problems and reform won't quickly fix them, meddling even more is unlikely to truly improve outcomes. And even if you cannot resist meddling, you'd still need to be smart about it and do so in such a way that reform eventually occurs.
[cmagnificent]
∆ You win for your time frame argument. Abuses of power cannot last forever even in a completely uncontrolled system and you're right, it is the timescale of waiting the decades, possibly even centuries for a corrupt system to collapse under it's own weight that doesn't appeal to me and I don't like very much.
[DeltaBot]
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/NoMoreNicksLeft. ^[[History](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/NoMoreNicksLeft)] ^[[Wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltabot)][[Code](https://github.com/alexames/DeltaBot)][[Subreddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/DeltaBot/)]
[starrychloe2]
The myth of the natural monopoly: http://mises.org/daily/5266/
[AutoModerator]
**Note: your thread has not been removed. ** Your post's topic seems to be fairly common on this subreddit. Similar posts can be found through our [wiki page](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/druglegislation#link) or via the [search function](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/search?q=pot&restrict_sr=on). Regards, the mods of /r/changemyview. *[I am a bot](/r/AutoModerator/comments/q11pu/what_is_automoderator/), and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[cmagnificent]
Thank you AutoModerator! I did a search of the subreddit and visited the wiki before I posted. I felt that the specifics of the position I was presenting, along with the goals of this CMV made it unique enough to warrant its own individual posting. Reading through the post clearly shows this is not a generic "I think the free market is bad" posting. I will of course let the votes of the community decide whether or not this is actually different enough from previous questions and postings so as to warrant its own thread.
[-moose-]
you might enjoy Study finds that a "super-entity" of 147 companies controls 40% of the transnational corporate network http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/lif3w/study_finds_that_a_superentity_of_147_companies/ The Four Companies That Control the 147 Companies That Own Everything http://www.forbes.com/sites/brendancoffey/2011/10/26/the-four-companies-that-control-the-147-companies-that-own-everything/ This Chart Shows The Bilderberg Group's Connection To Everything In The World http://www.businessinsider.com/this-chart-shows-the-bilderberg-groups-connection-to-everything-in-the-world-2012-6 Interlocking directorate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate would you like to know more? http://www.reddit.com/r/moosearchive/comments/1wflhm/archive/cf1it2h
[cmagnificent]
I think the Bilderberg Group thing is misplaced causation. I think people are invited to the Bilderberg Group because they're *already* powerful and influential people. I don't think nobodies get invited to the Bilderberg Group and then magically become incredibly influential in global politics and economics. Again, I think they were powerful already, and powerful people like talking to other powerful people which is why the Bilderberg Group exists. It's the best example of a not-conspiracy I can think of.
[BrainMagMo]
Wait, what part of "powerful people like talking to other powerful people" is not a conspiracy?
[cmagnificent]
Conspiracy (n) - A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. Powerful people talking to powerful people, is not, by definition a conspiracy. Sure, certain members of the Bilderberg Group might engage in a conspiracy, but the group itself, is not a conspiracy. Furthermore and just to reiterate my actual point on this, the people that are invited to Bilderberg meetings are *already* supremely powerful, and are perfectly capable of engaging in conspiracies on their own without the help of the Bilderberg Group. Saying the Bilderberg Group controls the world is at best wholly redundant - "the wealthiest and most powerful people hold the most wealth and power? You don't say..." And at worst incredibly misleading because it makes it sound like being in the Bilderberg Group confers some special power that one didn't have before.
[BrainMagMo]
Conspiracy: The act of two or more persons, called conspirators, working secretly to obtain some goal, usually understood with negative connotations. I still don't see how it isn't a conspiracy. Are the record of the meeting public? Do they not produce goals? Guess we'll never agree. Saying they are a conspiracy doesn't mean saying they control the world.
[GnosticGnome]
Most market consolidation appears to be done by means of government - to keep a monopoly one needs either a sufficiently small market or high barriers to entry. As the world has become more integrated, most barriers to entry have been shrinking and shrinking. It's easier to ship goods across a country (or even across an ocean); it's easier to advertise; it's easier to get raw materials; it's easier to get capital. The only barrier that's been increasing is regulation, and because of regulatory capture it is almost inevitable that laws designed to regulate an industry end up creating barriers to new competition to serve the existing players. The example you give of a diamond cartel likewise uses government force to maintain its near-monopoly. Patents are of course government-granted monopolies. Your example of farmers is a clear-cut case of government interference. Charities may not be doing enough to combat poverty, but few governments manage to either - many actually hurt more than they help. Given that the government seems to be creating most of the problems you describe, why do you think it can fix it? How would the government ever fight monopolies when the monopolies are paying off the politicians who write the laws?
[cmagnificent]
Okay, so I thought I had sufficiently addressed in the original post, but I clearly did not so my apologies. I fully recognize that many of the examples I provided of consolidation and monopolization are from government involvement, but it was government involvement at the behest of private corporations. To reiterate my point, from the history it seems like this is the natural consequence of the free market, to limit its own freedom to consolidate power. The only way to counteract this is through regulation to curtail the rights of interested parties to influence governmental policies, which is a regulation on the free market. To have freedom in the marketplace you have to curtail the abuses of power of certain groups, which necessitates regulation. And to reiterate another point, my goal here is not to argue that government is capable of fixing the problems of the free market, quite to the contrary I think that due to the nature of free market societies and circumstance I described above, it's actually impossible for a state actor to do so. So I'm not looking for someone to change my view on those grounds. I'm looking for someone to give me clear and historical examples of how the free market can fix the abuses of power it generates, including, but not limited to, corporate interference in government policies that quash the free market. Make sense?
[GnosticGnome]
[STA-CITE]>The only way to counteract this is through regulation to curtail the rights of interested parties to influence governmental policies, which is a regulation on the free market. [END-CITE]People who talk up the free market prefer to do so by curtailing the ability of the government to have effective policies of these kinds, which wouldn't be a regulation on the free market. [STA-CITE]>government involvement at the behest of private corporations. To reiterate my point, from the history it seems like this is the natural consequence of the free market [END-CITE]How can the exact behavior done by an unfree market be the "consequence of the free market"? Government involvement is always at the behest of private interests (whether those are individuals or corporations). The free market is when the government is not involved. So am I to understand that when you are talking about the "free market" you are talking about when the private interests controlling a government are corporations rather than individuals? If so, I would point out that most artificial scarcity is not at the behest of corporations. Sure, corporation/government collusion causes some harm in terms of the diamond cartel. But noncorporate government-induced artificial scarcity takes the form of the Holodomor or Zimbabwe's engineered famine. So even with this weird definiton of the "free market", the free market causes ~0% of the problem of artificial scarcity while non-market forces cause the other ~100%.
[cmagnificent]
Okay so let's step back into my way way back machine before policies beneficial to individual groups were instituted at a state level. What you have at that point is the full free market. Now, through the operations of this free market, certain groups through free market principles become wealthier and more powerful than other groups. This is to be expected in the free market. Then what happens is these groups use that power and authority, to influence state policy to be more favorable to them, thereby curtailing the free market. So here's the train of logic - In the free market certain groups through shrewd business and strong practices outpace other groups -[STA-CITE]> this makes those groups more powerful economically and therefore more powerful politically -> these groups then use that economic power and therefore political power to encourage policies favorable to them and not others -> the free market is quashed. [END-CITE]A condensed form of the argument is - free market -[STA-CITE]> unfree market. [END-CITE]My position is that the free market, by itself is incapable of solving for that. The free market is internally self-destructive and leads to an unfree market, and the free market has no internal ability to correct for that. Now forgive me if I'm coming out of left-field here (hehehe left, get it?) but what it feels like you're just ignoring that criticism and saying the second that happens it's no longer the fault of the free market, even though it is through the free market that these groups attain their power in the first place. It's kind of "no-true-scotsman"esque from where I'm sitting. Like if the free market leads to market regulation to the favor of certain groups, which historically it does, all of a sudden that's no longer a fair criticism of the free market. It puts the free market in an infallibile position where it is perpetually safe from criticism. An analogous argument in my mind is people that defend communism despite its horrible historical track record by saying "well a true communism has never actually existed". While I agree with the premise it also reduces communism back to a purely theoretical framework where it can never be criticized, much like how your position removes the free market from the eyes of historical analysis and puts it into a theoretical framework that can't be critiqued without violating the framework.
[GnosticGnome]
So you have a weird assumption I don't share: you think that the groups that through competition become wealthier and more powerful than other groups are the groups that then start using their power/money to influence state policy. It seems to me that the opposite is true: that the most successful and powerful companies don't rely as much on State influence. Let's look at the largest corporations in the US. #1 Apple. Barely influences US policy at all. #2 Exxon Mobil. Asks for plenty of tax breaks/handouts, doesn't try to crush competitors with State action. Mixed bag. #3 Microsoft. Minimal influence on policy. Eventually hired a few lobbyists after the government tried to break its "monopoly". #4 Google. Barely influences US policy. #5 Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett has asked for certain tax increases that will increase its value. But hardly a regulation-hog. #6 GE. Big lobbyist, buys tons of government contracts #7 Johnson & Johnson. Usually a small lobbyist, though it did recently spend huge amounts to support Obamacare and Cap & Trade for personal profit. #8 Walmart. Does try to get special tax breaks, trying to raise the minimum wage to hurt competitors #9 La Roche (I'm not really clear on their issues) #10 Chevron - similar to Exxon. So the big guys are not the big problems - and interestingly, they're not even close to becoming monopolies. The big Pharma companies? There are dozens of them throughout the world, and they aren't crowding each other out. The oil companies? Same thing - we hardly have Exxon and Chevron conspiring to eliminate their smaller competitors. Walmart and Amazon can battle all day, and I'm still buying crap on my street, or eBay, or Craigslist. Microsoft and Apple and Google are hardly about to kill each other - and certainly not via regulation. Who are the most guilty companies of using the state to crush competition? Taxicab companies Rail companies Radio (especially ClearChannel and PRI) Hotel companies Cable companies Airlines Why is there such a disconnect between the wealthy and the power-abusers? It's because rent-seeking only gets you so far. It gets you big profits and a failure to expand. To really expand and become big and powerful, you need to be open to new ideas, face competition, and grow in the face of that competition. When a company seizes control of the government to regulate away its competitors, it loses flexibility and agility - and that's why Apple is almost 20x the market capitalization of the largest airline.
[Washbag]
[STA-CITE]> Then what happens is these groups use that power and authority, to influence state policy to be more favorable to them, thereby curtailing the free market. [END-CITE]It's much more likely that the source of the problem is the state. Before we had free markets we had other systems that had even worse state intrusions/favoritism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism etc. It seems to me that state power is the source of the corrupting influence and not markets.
[dustyjames]
I want to call, as others here have, for you to define "free market". It seems to me that an unregulated market that exists in the same society as political power will quickly become a regulated market, if and only if the political institutions are allowed by popular assent or by constitution to regulate economic activity. If there was a provision in the US constitution that forbade government from interfering in any voluntary economic relationships (much like the first amendment forbids government from interfering in speech), and a credible judiciary that fastidiously protected that provision, then it would not automatically follow that the free market would become a regulated market. It still may, depending on the strength of the institutions in question, but the probability is not 1. We're now 227 years into this U.S. project with a constitutional protection of speech, and speech has not only remained free and protected, but is actually flourishing more than it ever has thanks to technological developments and evolving political and social norms. I see no reason why a strong and unambiguous protection for economic activity written into the Constitution could not have done the same thing for a free market.
[cmagnificent]
[STA-CITE]>It seems to me that an unregulated market that exists in the same society as political power will quickly become a regulated market. [END-CITE]As I said in my original post, I'm pretty sure that's the nature of politics. I even described it as an extension of economics by other means and what's more is a natural consequence of "market" forces. Even in the days well before capitalism when this fragile experiment called "civilization" was just getting off the ground, the exchange of goods and services was still dictated by what we would see as market forces, namely scarcity and supply and demand. Politics and governance was a natural extension in that it was a reaffirmation of power of the "Haves" over the "Have-nots". The very nature of politics in its most primitive, are "abuses" of economic power, and I don't see how some ink on a page (the constitution) could protect against that.
[dustyjames]
Of course ink on a page is worthless unless there are adequate institutions to protect the spirit and letter of what is written down, which I alluded to in my comment. I don't disagree that projecting economic power through political power is a feature common to virtually all political systems that have existed thus far, but that does not mean that the desire to do so, or the fact of it happening is a feature of " free markets", it's a feature of human beings. But human beings, were they to collectively value economic freedom sufficiently, could create institutions that are strong enough to withstand the attempts of the most powerful among them to project their wealth and power through the political system. In so doing, they would prove wrong your hypothesis that unregulated markets lead inevitably to regulated markets. Just because the creation of such institutions hasn't happened yet does not mean that it cannot ever happen.
[hacksoncode]
I would agree that most apologia that you see for the free market take this form. However, I think that there *is* a great deal of evidence that the "solutions" most often enacted have massive negative externalities and cause most of the problems that people claim accrue to the market itself. 1) Most monopolies that actually exist are actually created by regulation. Patents are explicit monopolies created by the government. Utility monopolies are protected and supported by government regulation, and suffer massively from regulatory capture. 2) The small number of monopolies that don't fit into that category, by the available evidence, seem to have relatively short lifetimes. Microsoft was viewed as a natural monopoly (and indeed there are arguments that network effect monopolies are the only ones that have and indeed can ever exist absent government protection). But as technology has continued to advance, and the computing world has moved on towards mobile devices, their predominance has not translated into the new paradigm, and on the surface that does not appear to have anything to do with regulation. 3) The aforementioned regulatory capture (where the monopoly ends up writing their own regulations in a way that actually protects their position rather than limiting it) seems to be even more common than any actual unregulated monopoly attaining lasting power. 4) There is an observed limit to the amount of damage that a monopoly can "inflict" on its customers absent any regulations that keep competitors out. Is that damage socially desirable? No. But ultimately, the only way a monopoly can continue to exist is if its customers gain more value from its products than they spend for them. If a monopoly goes too far beyond this, competition will succeed, absent any force they use to destroy competitors or retain customers. And I don't think you'll find anyone who is actually in favor of allowing monopolies to continue their existence, crush competitors, or retain customers by force. That's a very common straw man in this kind of discussion. 5) The history of monopoly legislation seems to indicate that most regulation of monopolies seems to be pushed not by damaged consumers, but by failed competitors.
[cmagnificent]
To reiterate something I just clarified, I consider corporate and business interference in regulatory policies to be a natural consequence of the free market. After a certain point, certain groups amass enough power and wealth to be able to influence the state into creating policies that directly favor that group. This is one of the problems and consequences of an unregulated and free market that I think the free market is incapable of fixing itself. A free market inevitably leads to an un-free market skewed in favor of the already powerful is the position I'm taking. I have yet to see any evidence that the free market is capable of correcting this problem itself. Secondly, the way you describe the operation of monopolies only applies to monopolistic groups in the post Sherman Anti-Trust Act era. To clarify *I agree with you* that the most horrible forms of monopoly no longer exist, where I disagree is that this was a natural correction of the free market. Rather I think it was a very long and hard fought political battle that eventually protected the free market from itself and disallowed the most historically egregious abuses stemming from monopolies to exist. Furthermore, you are still not providing any empirical data and evidence that the free market can fix its own problems. The free market itself led to the consolidation of political power in the hands of specific groups that then pushed lawmakers to regulate the market in a way that was beneficial to themselves. In other words the greatest threat to the free market is the free market itself. It either pisses people off so much that they try radical and untried solutions which results in disaster, or the free market eventually hamstrings itself against competition. Just to clarify another couple of things, I'm not looking for someone who's going to claim the most terrible monopolies should be allowed to run free. It's also not an argument I'm making. Again, what I am looking for is how the free market "fixes" or "solves" the problems it generates, including the aforementioned free market destroys the free market point. Primarily I want evidence for the free market fixes these problems rooted in history and empirical observation and not in ideological dogma. Finally let's address this. [STA-CITE]>there is a great deal of evidence that the "solutions" most often enacted have massive negative externalities can cause most of the problems that people claim accrue to the market itself. [END-CITE]The fact that non-market solutions don't work isn't proof that market solutions *do*. A negation of a negation doesn't make a logical positive. In other words, just because state based solutions don't fix the problems of the free market, doesn't mean that the free market is capable of fixing those problems itself. If there is no solution, then there is no solution and that's a response I can totally accept (and am kind of leaning towards).
[Arashmickey]
It's important to start with [definitions](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAnXK0_d_T8) Not everyone shares the same view on what a free market is, and that may lead to confusion and the need for clarification.
[Ordo_Spontaneum]
I like this list of commonly confused words: http://anarchocapitalism.us/commonly-confused-words-list/
[Arashmickey]
Hell that's awesome, lots of new words to learn! Interesting how I never learned these accepted factual definitions of words that are so commonly used, until after I learned about the NAP. Kinda not very happy about how that goes...
[Aggression_Is_Evil]
[STA-CITE]> To reiterate something I just clarified, I consider corporate and business interference in regulatory policies to be a natural consequence of the free market. After a certain point, certain groups amass enough power and wealth to be able to influence the state into creating policies that directly favor that group. [END-CITE]For most people, it is prerequisite to a free market that the state does not interfere in the economy, including at the behest of businesses. So what this really seems to be saying is that free markets are impossible, that state interference is an inevitability. Even if that were true, I don't see why it would preclude people for trying to push the economy in a free-market direction as much as is possible. [STA-CITE]> Again, what I am looking for is how the free market "fixes" or "solves" the problems it generates, including the aforementioned free market destroys the free market point. [END-CITE]I don't think that's the best way to look at the marketplace, as a self-regulating machine. All it really means is the body of individuals in the community, working and trading among each other. There's no magic or mystery about it. Everyone agrees that human interaction requires rules and standards of conduct. I oppose traditional states as monopolies of violence, but even I believe in community laws and standards. The question is what those rules are. For a market to be free, in the traditional sense, we mean that the rules should forbid all forms of violence, theft, fraud, and contract-breaking. These rules, I think, are the only set of rules that are really ethical; going beyond them penalizes non-aggressive acts. Such rules also forbid aggressively closing the market to outside competition, which is the only way to create a true monopoly, in my view. Simply because one firm or organization is the only producer of large share of a good or service does not make it a monopoly if other producers are free to come in.