I've heard this argument before. The serious conservatives I know aren't advocating anarchy, but they're basically saying that the scope of the government's interaction with the market should be limited to making sure that people obey their contracts. I apologize in advance if this isn't your view that I'm about to attack, but this is a terrible idea. 'Markets' as we know them aren't the basic resting pulse of human interaction. Left to their own devices, people will do whatever maximizes their profit. Racketeering, corruption, and anti-competitive practices are the norm. In fact, that's what you see in a lot of broken and failed states without the strong regulatory architecture that we have in the US. Instead, the job of the government should be to ensure that the only way to make a profit is by better serving your consumers. Somebody brought up cell phones earlier, and they're a great example. When cell phones were becoming popular, there was some debate about whether or not you owned your cell number. The phone companies, naturally, didn't want their users to own their numbers. If you have to give every single person in your contact list a new phone number every time you change carriers, you're clearly unlikely to change. This is an example of market failure. Now, most libertarians would say 'Tough luck. (possibly a libertarian's favorite phrase) That's a private company, and if you don't like it, don't buy their product.' But I seriously doubt most people think we'd be better off in a world where it was really hard to change cell carriers. Without government intervention, 'free markets' trend towards abuse and stagnation, not satisfied consumers.
True. Privitization is sold under the commonly repeated meme, but seldom proven theme that private industry is always more efficient than government. A great deal of the time it is just a way for the usually conservative pols to help their political backers to make money and the newly privitizwed industries are a place for the pols to make big money once they leave office.
I'll just pick some of the low hanging fruit. There would be a lot of sick people and deaths from lack of regulation in medicine, subscriptions, and food. People would be eating unhealthy food all the time, getting sick from it, and then taking unregulated medicines which would also make them sick or kill them. Courts would be backed up for years, because the dream is that if anything would go wrong a lawsuit would scare companies from doing something bad. Of course that isn't true, but there would be a flood of lawsuits. Of course the wealthy corporations would have the best lawyers and nobody but wealthy people would be able to sue. Most wealthy people wouldn't by the crap that isn't good peddled on the rest of us, so the business world and the lawyers would win most of the lawsuits. Meanwhile more people are just getting sick and dying. Another reason the lawsuits would be hard to win is because people wouldn't know if it was the bad medicine, bad food, poor working conditions, bad water, poor air quality, chemicals in paints, or unsafe working conditions that was causing their illnesses. Also with all of the years wait it would take to get the lawsuit taken care of, many of those that were sick would die off. Education would be going downhill for most of the population. Only the wealthy would be able to afford a decent education. That's just for starters.
We libertarians have the proof and it is too complicated to explain. Read all our books. Do you have any other answers?
This reminds me of the argument my crazy Aunt made when using wingnut history books to homeschool my cousin. She said that the book she was reading refuted all the evidence of mistreatment by owners of slaves. After all, a slave is property and you wouldn't intentionally scratch your dining room table so why would you hurt your slave? That sounds plausible in theory I guess, but the theory fails when you factor in some basic human qualities. Customers may demand quality control (or safety), but why does a corporation have to pay attention to consumer demands? Because they might get sued or regulated by the government. The current power of consumers comes from government. You can go to court or write a state or federal agency or lobby a lawmaker. Libertarians crack me up when they make this argument because they don't realize that the basis of their position comes from what they oppose. In the dystopia that is the Libertarian fantasy, the courts would be useless and government would be stripped of regulatory power. Corporations would be free (the only kind of worthwhile freedom) to do whatever they wanted to corner markets and stifle competition. Meanwhile the rest of us would be watching our kids chew on unidentified lead paint toys, eating Soylent Green, bathing in improperly recycled poop water, and driving death traps. No thanks. Government is obviously imperfect, but it is essential. Libertarianism is a quick path to disaster.
To Republicans: To Democrats: The truth: Think about a privatized nation, a nation where the rich have a better police department, better firefighters, better roads, better schools... heck, even better mail service. It isn't horrible, but it isn't great...
Downhill? In some areas, cities and whole regions it wouldn't exist. No disrespect to the trade; but what educated, licensed teacher would go into an unsafe area to teach unmotivated kids for less pay, if any? What dirt farmer who's owned and lived off the land for generations would drive his kids 100 miles into the city to learn something that would take capital, time, extra labor and his future workers away at 18, or worse yet, when eventually gets old? Replace education with some other service that requires real capital, labor and infrastructure. Electric power? Irrigation, sewage? Communications infrastructure of any kind? Wholesale food production, distribution or retail? Why the hell would these people build or invest even one mile out of a major city center with wealthy professionals?
Only complete idiots think markets self-regulate. And only the dumbest of the dumb would use Telecom to make this point
Really? You can't think of another reason a corporation might want to pay attention to consumer demands? Rather than putting a gun to their head and demanding quality, how about just not giving them your business?
911 Dispatcher: Houston Police Department. Mr. Good Citizen: Hey I see my neighbor being robbed at gunpoint outside his home. 911 Dispatcher: Ok, we will get our specially trained officers on the way. And our best swat team is also standing to assist if needed. May I have your credit card number? Mr. Good Citizen: Why would you want my credit card number? My neighbor is the one who needs help, not me. 911 Dispatcher: Ok, may I have the credit card number of your neighbor? Mr. Good Citizen: Dammit!!! how in the world would I have the credit card number of my neighbor? 911 Dispatcher: Sorry sir, we need to be paid before we can provide service. That's our corporate policy. Mr. Good Citizen hung up.
The fact that you find over 90% of the populace to be untalanted is disturbing. Most people have talents. The truly sad thing is when people never discover where their talents lie or those talents otherwise go wasted.
In fairness to Glynch, I think he was speaking sarcastically using the voice of the Galtian overlords. The point you make is still a good one though, and one of the major reasons health care reform is so important. If you are not chained to a job for want of health care, you have much more freedom to pursue that entrepreneurial idea, the artistic calling, the work you really want to do.
That's why corporations stopped child labor, that's why corporations instituted the 40 hour work week, that's why corporations put the ingredients for their products on the packaging, that's why corporations don't lie about their products, that's why corporations stop putting out defective products before they kill people, etc. etc. etc. Good call.
lots of corporations have voluntarily chosen not to use child labor why would a customer care how long the employee chooses to wrk? you make no sense. lots of restaurants and food companies voluntarily give out information about whats in their food. The ones that do tend to go out of business see above total wiff dude.
Well, as a consumer I would certainly care if your bus drivers, truck drivers, airline pilots, doctors, nurses, nuclear plant operators, etc. etc. ETC. were working an ungodly amount of hours. Maybe I'm just too stupid not to live in your fantasy world where these companies realize what's "good business" and don't try to exploit their workforce and their customers to whatever degree possible and then let the workers and the consumers deal with the consequences. It sounds as if in your fantasy world companies don't generate risk/benefit analysis of dangerous products and proceed with those products when the potential costs in lawsuits (which they'll fight and drag out in court of course) and the number of dead aren't substantial enough to offset the profits generated. Unfortunately, in the real world, these things happen and without government involvement they would happen a hell of a lot more often because business isn't about your life or mine or the environment or safety, they're about profit and that's all that matters. You also don't seem to understand that corporations are run by people and those people have their own profit motives which don't involve the long term health of a company. It's shocking what a simplistic and naive view you have of the world.
my crazy 'fantasy world' where businesses try to give their customers what they want without being forced? How totally nutty. Have you ever worked in the private sector? Have you ever heard expressions such as 'the customer is always right'?
