That’s a great article. As I’ve suggested before, our current system would better be labeled as “laissez-faire statism,” in which (in contrast to laissez-faire capitalism) the state is permitted to do whatever it wants, and individuals in the private sector are only permitted to do only what they are given license to do by the state.
I no longer have that cabin - our “free-market” government claimed it under eminent domain so they could build a Wal-Mart for the “public good”.
debates on this forum get very predictable. you guys roll out your list of articles from the heritage foundation and we respond with a bunch from mother jones and we all feel good about ourselves and sure in our positions.
here’s the bottom line. the country is fucked up. fucked up in a way that it has not been in a very very long time. its fucked up in large part because of the policies and actions of george w bush. his hand has been at the tiller for 8 years and even if you claim that he was not responsible for the deregulation or that he didn’t deregulate enough, the blame still lies with him. he put the country on this collision course with disaster.
now i’m sure the bush apologists will continue to blame clinton or carter or roosevelt, but even if they did screw things up with their twisted liberal philosophies, bush had 8 long years to correct them, and where are we?
its like 9/11 all over again. the same damn arguments from the same damn people. “its not bush’s fault, clinton cut military spending” absolute bullshit. bush was in office for 9 months when 9/11 happened. i know that if i’m in a job for 9 months and something really monumentally bad happens, i don’t get to blame the guy who had the office before me. i can’t think of another job in the world where you get a 9 month honeymoon and nothing’s your fault.
whatever your idealogy or your thoughts on the cause of this economic meltdown, there can be no doubt as to the culprit-in-chief.
man you really do have shit for brains…
Ask yourself if you fall into this camp?
Mitlon Firedman pretty much nailed it with this intro to his 1989 New York Times Op Ed called: We Have Socialism Q.E.D
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/opinion/19opclassic.html?pagewanted=print
Conventional wisdom these days can be summarized in the form of a syllogism.
Major premise: Socialism is a failure. Even lifelong Communists now accept this proposition. Wherever socialism has been tried, it has proved unable to deliver the goods, either in the material form of a high standard of living or in the immaterial form of human freedom.
Minor premise: Capitalism is a success. Economies that have used capitalism - free private markets -as their principal means of organizing economic activity have proved capable of combining widely shared prosperity and a high measure of human freedom. A private market system has proved to be a necessary though not a sufficient condition for prosperity and freedom.
Conclusion: The U.S. needs more socialism. An obvious non sequitur, yet there is no denying that many apparently reasonable people - including most members of Congress and of the Bush Administration - accept all three propositions simultaneously.
ask yourself if you fall into this camp.
thomas friedman said this; well he quoted another guy in his book who said this;
“socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. capitalism will collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.” we ignore ecological costs of capitalism or hide them off the books. we do not put a cost on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and treat it as a right that in a free market industry should have unfettered access to. well as we all learned in econ 101, that which we do not price we do not value.
does your free market utopia place any value on our environment and therefore a price on pollution? just curious.
your successful capitalist world is a train wreck waiting to happen. we are all making lots of money at the expense of our life support systems.
“you guys roll out your list of articles from the heritage foundation…”
Not sure who “you guys” are, but so far as I can remember I’ve never referenced an article from the Heritage Foundation.
“its fucked up in large part because of the policies and actions of george w bush.”
This is kinda scary, because for once I find myself with agreement with you. Add some capitalization and punctuation, and I might have written that sentence myself.
ask yourself if you fall into this camp.
thomas friedman said this; well he quoted another guy in his book who said this;
“socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. capitalism will collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.” we ignore ecological costs of capitalism or hide them off the books. we do not put a cost on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and treat it as a right that in a free market industry should have unfettered access to. well as we all learned in econ 101, that which we do not price we do not value.
does your free market utopia place any value on our environment and therefore a price on pollution? just curious.
your successful capitalist world is a train wreck waiting to happen. we are all making lots of money at the expense of our life support systems.
So you agree with Marx that capitalism will implode upon itself and that some other economic “system” will replace it? That is essentially what Friedman is echoing.
His prediction has yet to occur, and all this as we sustained the Great Depression and other severe economic perdiods of contraction. Our current problem will pass too and the capitlist system will continue to improve the quality of life for those countries and governments that embrace it, as has been the case for the last couple hundred years.
And mind you that your response to my post is completely outside of the context of what Friedman wrote. Do you agree with his logic statement, or, do you fall into the camp that believes more socialism is good?
OAD,
I almost agree with you about Bush…he spent like a drunken sailor - but what is funny, aside from the War, the rest of the spending is stuff the left adores (education/increasing Medicare benefits). Now with Obama proposals, it looks to be more of the same. If this $850B passes, we would have agreed to spend $2T more than we had planned to spend over a two year period…how much stimulus do we need? Would it not be wise to see how the $1.2T works first?
Why we think transportation, eudcation, postal services, etc. need to be pubic rather than private goods is beyond me. Everything run by the governrment is a failure.
thomas friedman is not echoing marx. he is very much a staunch pro capitalist, but he believes that regulation of capitalism is necessary and helpful. unregulated markets are driven by greed and by people with short term gains in mind to hell with all long term consequences. these people can do a lot of damage to markets (look no further than the current fiscal mess) and in friedmans case he argues that they are destroying the planet too. the only way to stop these pirates is to regulate them. capitalism works best when there are rules and regulations.
his prediction is occurring right now, today. its 80 degrees in LA today and it has rained 3 times in the last 12 months. our weather is all screwed up, are rivers are dry and our lakes are empty. its happening.
my response is perfectly in context of this discussion; we are talking about markets and regulation aren’t we? this is not about capitalism versus socialism its about regulation versus no regulation.
My grasp on the Federal reserve and the entire monetary system for that matter is admittedly shaky.
How does one “Build a system” around a “Free market” interest rate.
Obviously I see the glaring flaw in allowing the interest rate to be set by an individual “Central system”, but what or how is the rate set in a “Free system”?
Is it as simple as allowing the banks/people with money to lend money at rates they best see fit? I’m wondering how volatile, risky and inconsistent that would be compared to the current system. Forget the fact it would be utter chaos to try and switch over to a system like that from the current system.
~Matt
its fucked up in large part because of the policies and actions of george w bush. his hand has been at the tiller for 8 years and even if you claim that he was not responsible for the deregulation or that he didn’t deregulate enough, the blame still lies with him. he put the country on this collision course with disaster.
What if we’ve been on this “Collision course with disaster” for several decades? Maybe more. Yes Bush didn’t fix it, actually I wouldn’t expect him to as neither of the two major parties has anything to gain by “Fixing it”. So I blame Bush, and pretty much every politician and president for the last 40-50 years or so.
whatever your idealogy or your thoughts on the cause of this economic meltdown, there can be no doubt as to the culprit-in-chief.
Correct and that is the ideology that it’s “Government job to fix it for the people”. This ideology has been a slow growing cancer that has put us on this “Collision with disaster” and the course was set and steadily steered to this end for many decades now.
~Matt
his prediction is occurring right now, today. its 80 degrees in LA today and it has rained 3 times in the last 12 months. our weather is all screwed up, are rivers are dry and our lakes are empty. its happening.
Nice try but it was 23 below this morning and we’ve had so much snow I could puke. If it’s happening today, it’s only happening today in LA 
~Matt
thomas friedman is not echoing marx. he is very much a staunch pro capitalist, but he believes that regulation of capitalism is necessary and helpful. unregulated markets are driven by greed and by people with short term gains in mind to hell with all long term consequences. these people can do a lot of damage to markets (look no further than the current fiscal mess) and in friedmans case he argues that they are destroying the planet too. the only way to stop these pirates is to regulate them. capitalism works best when there are rules and regulations.
his prediction is occurring right now, today. its 80 degrees in LA today and it has rained 3 times in the last 12 months. our weather is all screwed up, are rivers are dry and our lakes are empty. its happening.
my response is perfectly in context of this discussion; we are talking about markets and regulation aren’t we? this is not about capitalism versus socialism its about regulation versus no regulation.
I can agree with what you wrote to an extent. I don’t think anyone is arguing for zero regulation. But make no mistake, the hand of government does more harm than good when it tries to interfere in the marketplace(and I’m talking beyond sensible and needed regulation of industry.) Case in point is the quasi-governmental agencies Fannie and Freddie that are a major factor in the subprime debacle. Representing neither a purely capitalistic model, nor a fully compliant socialist one, these GSE’s have been complete and utter failures. We all knwo the story by now so I won’t belabour it.
As to the negative externalties associated with capitalism–in this case ecological concerns–one has to recognize there are also positive externalties that must be weighed as well. For example, the capitalist system has helped increase life expectancies to levels people could only dream about just a few decades ago or so. There is a cost to everything we do on this planet, but advocating for socialism as a panacea (not saying you are) is not the answer.
who is arguing for socialism as a panacea? it helps the discussion if everyone is being intellectually honest. the only panacea i see being argued for is the opposite of socialism, that being a completely unfettered unregulated capitalist system.
there is a happy medium.
telling business that they can’t put lead in childrens’ toys is regulation, its not socialism. are you arguing that they should be allowed to do so if it makes the toy cheaper to produce, let the consumer decide? and how will they know if we deregulate consumer notice laws? when their kid’s hair starts falling out?
who is arguing for socialism as a panacea? it helps the discussion if everyone is being intellectually honest. the only panacea i see being argued for is the opposite of socialism, that being a completely unfettered unregulated capitalist system.
there is a happy medium.
telling business that they can’t put lead in childrens’ toys is regulation, its not socialism. are you arguing that they should be allowed to do so if it makes the toy cheaper to produce, let the consumer decide? and how will they know if we deregulate consumer notice laws? when their kid’s hair starts falling out?
Hello, did you read my response? And cut the “intellectually honest” crap, it’s annoying.
There should be some regulations and laws, but there should not be so many public goods like we have today, as they simply lead to more waste and poor allocation of capital. There indeed is a happy medium and that is one that is skewed heavily toward the system that works. Socialism fails, yet, people want more and more of it, hence the non sequiter comment by Friedman.
"How does one ‘Build a system’ around a ‘Free market’ interest rate.
Obviously I see the glaring flaw in allowing the interest rate to be set by an individual ‘Central system,’ but what or how is the rate set in a ‘Free system’?
Is it as simple as allowing the banks/people with money to lend money at rates they best see fit?"
That’s part of it. If the prices of peanuts are regulated, and we were trying to “build a system” around free market peanut prices, we would simply allow groceries/people with peanuts to sell them at prices they best saw fit, except obviously they would be constrained by the consumer demand curve for peanuts. The only significant difference is that the Federal Reserve (as fiscal agent of the Treasury) can at any time easily outbid all other lenders by lending money printed at a cost far below its value, while Kroger’s cannot outbid all the other peanut sellers by printing up new batches of peanuts. Consequently, the proper operation of the system also requires restoring the dollar to the gold standard or some other well-defined commodity standard. Under such a system, any lender would in effect be lending a certain quantity of the underlying monetary commodity, even though the transaction would normally be carried out using paper or electronic representation of that commodity. Furthermore, there is no reason why private producers should be prevented from issuing gold certificates in competition with the Fed/Treasury, so long as fraud is legally prohibited. The use of such certificates as money would require the repeal of current legal tender laws, as proposed by Ron Paul. If the idea initially sounds a little confusing, it becomes much more clear when you understand that the market would still have a single underlying money–most likely (because of its specific properties), gold.
I no longer have that cabin - our “free-market” government claimed it under eminent domain so they could build a Wal-Mart for the “public good”.
are you freakin kidding me?
that is tragic, really sorry to hear about that. 
it is a great example of what happens when the government gets an inch and will take a mile.
we had big eminent domain battles here in cincinnati awhile ago and one man stood strong and held tight. he won, and his house is the only one standing in the entire block. now the developers have to pay for damages; it’s beautiful. they wanted to build a shopping plaza. check out this link, there are pics of some of the wonderful homes that were destroyed. now it is an empty garbage lot.
http://eminentdomaininstitute.blogspot.com/2006/01/blighted-in-norwood-ohio.html
I no longer have that cabin - our “free-market” government claimed it under eminent domain so they could build a Wal-Mart for the “public good”.
are you freakin kidding me?
that is tragic, really sorry to hear about that. it is a great example of what happens when the government gets an inch and will take a mile.
we had big eminent domain battles here in cincinnati awhile ago and one man stood strong and held tight. he won, and his house is the only one standing in the entire block. now the developers have to pay for damages; it’s beautiful. they wanted to build a shopping plaza. check out this link, there are pics of some of the wonderful homes that were destroyed. now it is an empty garbage lot.
http://eminentdomaininstitute.blogspot.com/...in-norwood-ohio.html
Sorry kittycat, I was kidding. I posted in reply to OAD to demonstrate that our “free-market” system in the US is not really that free. My created example, and the real example you offer, are not that rare and are not characteristic of a truly free society.