The Free Market Existed...

in a land I call, the PAST.

Remember how much the past sucked? Ebeneezer Scrooge setting the minimum wage at like, three tuppence a week. Children working in textile mills for even less, getting sick, spewing up all over the fabrics, getting caught up in the gears of the factory and dying in working conditions that would fail to meet even the hygiene standards of the show Fear Factory.

So, we've come a long way from a "free market", which happened already and was pretty awful. Going back to that now would be like taking away those nets that keep the sharks out at the beach and letting them swim with your children, only now the sharks have had time to grow bigger and learn even better how to be more sharklike.

So the progression of history has it...

PAST = severely unregulated market, no one there for the workers
PRESENT= workers have unions, are more educated and effective at changing legislature, government regulates the corporate sector with more power
FUTURE= workers will own more of companies, have more bargaining power, government will be more effective in keeping big business in check

Anyone can see that the future is in a more regulated market, as big business gets bigger and more clever and even more in need of a powerful government to keep it honest.

 

Red Fox

The Free Market Existed... in a land I call, the PAST.

Been enjoying your posts but I’d disagree with this – In my view I don’t think a ‘free market’ has or ever can exist, and that’s the great con game of neoliberalism – any move toward the supposed ‘free market’ utopia they claim is achievable makes it actually more impossible to achieve - because free market policies only increase the power and influence of wealth, which subverts and corrupts the system in its own interests.

What we’ve had in the past were times when there were few regulations protecting the weak and when exploitation could take place but none where ‘free market’ they were just regulated and curb to accommodate the interests of those with power and influence.

In the industrialized nations of the west from the 1850’s to the 1950’s the spread of voting rights and the rise of organization labour slowly eroded the power and influence of wealth bringing in systems and regulations that would lessen exploitation, from the 1950’s onward wealth has been trying to regain its power and influence.

If you haven’t already read it I’d recommend

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brief-History-Neoliberalism-David-Harvey/dp/0199283273"]A Brief History of Neoliberalism: Amazon.co.uk: David Harvey: Books

 

Oh great, another vision of a socialist "utopia".

 

Sig

LOL - I suppose someone that fears to debate with people that question your views can only make silly snide remarks.

Poor little Sig

 

You cannot honestly call this a "progression of history". What you see as the future has already been tried in the past, with disastrous results.

I mean, if the the workers own more companies, what reason would the government have to keep big business in check? Surely the workers who own the businesses would be doing that? How do you advocate for workers to assume ownership of companies?

 

There has never been a free market, but the idiots who argue over silly, cliched crap like this don't even have an understanding of how money even comes into existence, or how the banking system which runs the government (every government) works to enslave people by offering solutions to the problems it creates, becoming bigger and bigger with each manufactured crisis. The further left a person is, the more they are in league with the mindset of people running things at the highest levels, who, ironically, control "capitalism." Politicians like to play the middle ground, but they are all in league with this agenda, knowingly or unknowingly.

 

Rat

Are the people in control still the Lucifer worshipping group or what?

 

Sig

Well there is the John Lewis route

“The John Lewis Partnership is an employee-owned UK partnership which operates John Lewis department stores, Waitrose supermarkets and some other services. The company is owned by a trust on behalf of all its employees — known as Partners – who have a say in the running of the business and receive a share of annual profits, which is usually a significant addition to their salary. The group is the third largest UK private company in the Sunday Times Top Track 100 for 2010” wiki

 

Actually, the 4 silver quarters minimum wage was in 1964, would be worth more than 20$ in today's money. So it seems like Mr Scrooge had his Christmas Carol, while Uncle Sam confiscated everyone's gold. So learn your history RJ, I mean 'red fox.'

 

there has never really been a true free market, although england got close back in the day.

 

What with Sterling? Yeah, and they devalued 14% in one day, causing collapse. America has devalued 400% since we came of the gold standard, and we think everything's fine.

 

Who think's everything is fine? Everyone can see that your country is pretty fucked at this point, I think.

 

America will get by. Fear sells and the battle between the GOP and the President's administration is heated, and the conservatives like to make you think we're on the verge of imminent collapse, but I think we'll get by.

Balbus, thank you for the link to that book, I will try to find it at my library. I will not pretend I've had a perfect education and know everything, I'm just throwing ideas out there with my posts.

I'm pretty angry over a lot of the GOP's ideologies, I truly fear what this country could be turned into if more of them get there way, and I am suspicious of libertarians like pressed rat and STP who I feel have interests aligned with those of the GOP.

I'm suspicious of anyone who tells me it's ALL a puppet show, that we have no power as ordinary citizens. I can see with my own eyes that bills are introduces, voted on, and sometimes passed, and we hold some sway over that process, each of us.

I'm not an enemy of the anarchists, I like their ideas and some are true fighters of civil rights, but I feel the people comprising the GOP in such a situation (anarchy) would band together and take the reigns. Anarchy is great, until the next big power comes in and sets up a dictatorship.

 

I don't like to be labeled anything, but its human nature to divide what we see into categories, that's a part of what science is like within the context of human life, so please don't be offended guys when I call an anarchist a libertarian.

 

Ideally government regulation should protect the people. I'm a big fan of government regulation of big business - it has protected the environment, the workers, the residents of whatever town plays host to any given corporation. Corporations have no interest in anything but their bottom line - profit - and therefore regulation is a neccessity.

I think the big problem, at least in the US, today is that corporations and government are so intertwined financially. The government doesn't have a lot of interest in regulating business because the individuals who run our government are profiting from deregulated business.

Also, I like the idea of employees of a company being a major stockholder. I can't remember the name of the company but I read about this recently; the employees owned the majority of the stock in a company. It worked really well, appearantly as they had an invested interest in any major business decision within the company. I don't really think this concept is some kind of hippie socialist utopia. It seems like a logical business model to me.

 

How would you go about it though?

 

Would it be Costco? I know there was a plywood company (and others I don't remember) that is employee owned. Sorry I can't come up with names.

 

I think that's how West Jet operates, in Canada. Mountain Equipment Co-op has a pretty interesting business model as well.

 

I don't think I can answer this without sounding ignorant I'm going to try to find the article I mentioned.

 

Sig

So you agree it can be a good thing in principle you are just wondering how best to do it.