Laissez faire: cover for corporatism.

You should probably double check what that word means.

That is what it means.

But why should it be managed at all? — NOS4A2

Well, to start, there needs to be a central currency. Unless you think some sort of barter system can work in today's age.

Poverty, overconsumption, monopoly, wealth inequality, seem to me the common objections. Keynes said as much in his essay “The End of laissez-faire”. But all of the above are apparent in all systems — NOS4A2

Sure, but the presumption is that under a truly laissez-faire economy it would be worse than it is now.

All of it at the cost of justice. It cannot differentiate between just and unjust distribution of wealth. — NOS4A2

It might not be just to tax people, but it might also not be just for a government to let the population starve. We then have to decide which injustice is greater and act accordingly; as you say, we must "lay bare our conscience and morality." And most people with a conscience and a sense of morality would side with feeding the people, and so the necessity of tax-funded welfare.

I gave you evidence that there is no such thing as a "lack of regulation", and in fact there is a massive accumulation of regulation over time. The causes of the crisis were myriad, but to pin it on a system of laissez-faire when it has occurred in a highly-regulated mixed-economy is a bit out of bounds. — NOS4A2

You seem to be intentionally ignoring what is being said. All of these are true:

1. The United States did not (and does not) have a laissez-faire system, and
2. The economy was (and is) highly regulated, and
3. The 2008 economic crisis was caused by unregulated business practices

So perhaps rather than asserting the red herrings which are the first two you could actually address @frank's claim which is the third. To back up his claim, see The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report:

We conclude widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision proved devastating to the stability of the nation’s financial markets. The sentries were not at their posts, in no small part due to the widely accepted faith in the self correcting nature of the markets and the ability of financial institutions to effectively police themselves. More than 30 years of deregulation and reliance on self-regulation by financial institutions, championed by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and others, supported by successive administrations and Congresses, and actively pushed by the powerful financial industry at every turn, had stripped away key safeguards, which could have helped avoid catastrophe. This approach had opened up gaps in oversight of critical areas with trillions of dollars at risk, such as the shadow banking system and over-the-counter derivatives markets. In addition, the government permitted financial firms to pick their preferred regulators in what became a race to the weakest supervisor.

This is why a laissez-faire economy can't work. Contrary to your naive idealism, people are greedy and selfish and make many bad decisions. A democratically-elected government is the best tool we have to protect ourselves.

That is the fatal flaw in my arguments: it serves no utilitarian purpose. It won’t just work out. I do not believe laissez-faire or free markets results in some sort of market equilibrium. I do not believe it will work or function that well, especially in a culture crippled after centuries of state rule and intervention. It doesn’t aim for the greater amount of happiness for the greater amount of people.

The best laissez-faire could ever do is provide a space for humans to figure it out on their own, absent absolute power, the hard and soft despotisms and the game-rigging of a coercive and exploitative institution.

Most people probably are utilitarian and would side with letting the state take their money on the promise it would do charity wherever others refuse to. But an unjust transfer in wealth never results in a just distribution, let alone a just state of affairs. We cannot use injustice to reach justice. No matter the efficiency, no matter who gets what, it’s injustice all the way down.

So perhaps rather than asserting the red herrings which are the first two you could actually address @frank's claim which is the third. To back up his claim, see The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report:

All I know is that there are more causes, as I said. And it’s not clear to me that the absence of regulation can accurately be said to cause a certain activity. That’s why the conclusion of the dissenting statement in that report sounds more reasonable to me.

This is why a laissez-faire economy can't work. Contrary to your naive idealism, people are greedy and selfish and make many bad decisions. A democratically-elected government is the best tool we have to protect ourselves.

People are greedy and selfish and make many bad decisions, and that’s one of the many reasons why I do not want to give them power over others. It’s a faith of mine, but one founded on experience, that in the absence of state power a majority of free people will not resort tyranny, theft, murder, and they should have the means and ability to defend themselves against those who would. They will be free, at least.

What happens if people wanted to ban together to form hunting-gathering societies that are not based on private property but on shared property, like humans did for thousands of years before agriculture? What of the tyranny then? Whence the origination of private property? That sounds like a tyranny to me.

in the absence ofstate (private property)a majority of free people will not resort tyranny, theft, murder, and they should have the means and ability to defend themselves against those who would (take away their communal rights to live as free citizens in hunting gathering lifestyles). They will be free, at least. — Bizarro NOS

Who should stop them?

The irony of people like NOS whining about the state monopolizing violence is that such violence is outsouced to states by corporations, who rely on the state to carry out violence on their behalf. Private property as such is a legislative formalism backed up and enforced by nothing other than the immense power of the state, which consistently exercises that power when called upon by corporations, who would not exist without it. What a state provides, which corporations cannot, is a semblance of legitimacy, even as the state works directly for such corporations.

And of course the violence of corporations manifest in a myriad of ways: the destruction of environments - oceans, forests and urban ones - the ruination of living standards though the suppression of worker's rights and safety, the continued commodification of basic living necessities which lock people out of things like housing, healthcare, and even baby food, cancerous monocultures of food that fuck up people's health, the global division of labour that prays on poorer nations and keeps them in poverty, etc.

Corporations don't exert violence on bodies (except of course in developing countries where they freely assasinate environmental activists and so on). They exert violence by destroying everything that allows those bodies to sustain themselves. The violence on bodies they leave to the state.

an unjust transfer in wealth never results in a just distribution, let alone a just state of affairs. We cannot use injustice to reach justice. No matter the efficiency, no matter who gets what, it’s injustice all the way down. — NOS4A2

So your argument is either pointless whinging or lacks foundation.

The issue is what is just, not why people fear laissez faire. People fear laissez faire because they think it unjust. It's only sociopaths like you who think hoarding all the capital you can get your hands on is 'just'. The rest of us think justice is about what people deserve to get, not what people can get.

People fear laissez faire because they think it unjust. It's only sociopaths like you who think hoarding all the capital you can get your hands on is 'just'. The rest of us think justice is about what people deserve to get, not what people can get. — Isaac

Ha! Great comment! :grin:

Laissez faire: a great principle for those who want to produce, produce, build more to produce more, and more, and even more, freely ordering the loan slaves for as small salaries as possible, to gather even more and more and more. Until lost at the boundary of heaven.

Who should stop them? — NOS4A2

In a laissez fare system, the land, the resources, etc belongs to private entities and not a group. It’s not all shared like the HG arrangement. Private property prevents the sharing. In that model, economic freedom is only had through working as a community. State-enforced private property or anarcho-capitalist militias would use unjustified force to allow individuals to accumulate resources and not allow it to be open for everyone to use as see fit by the community. It would be state sponsored theft. Notice all the same language is used but with a different value system.

Well said.

What a state provides, which corporations cannot, is a semblance of legitimacy, even as the state works directly for such corporations. — Streetlight

Sadly, get enough of these Randian corporation-humpers in a room and they do have a fleeting, covenous semblance of legitimacy.

Laissez-faire economics is contrary to the principle of justice, that the fundamental rights of every individual are equally important. As well as guaranteeing equal liberty, the laws of social contract must ensure equal access to material advantages. This significantly takes the form of ensuring the rights of the most disadvantaged (John Rawls). Laissez-faire economics is nothing more than a glib attempt by the privileged to justify and maintain that position of unfair advantage through terminological fiat.

:up:

Yeah, basically they say laissez faire nous, let us do as we please.

But an unjust transfer in wealth never results in a just distribution, let alone a just state of affairs. We cannot use injustice to reach justice. No matter the efficiency, no matter who gets what, it’s injustice all the way down. — NOS4A2

Yes, that's the reality. As I said, we just have to decide which injustice is greater and do what we can to avoid that. I (and may others) would say that poverty and exploitation are greater injustices than taxation and regulation.

And it’s not clear to me that the absence of regulation can accurately be said to cause a certain activity. — NOS4A2

Absence of regulation doesn't cause bad behaviour, but it does allow for it. The entre purpose of regulation is to prevent such bad behaviour. The majority opinion of the report was that the activities that caused the financial crisis were things that should have been regulated precisely because of their risk and likely inevitable consequences.

It’s a faith of mine, but one founded on experience, that in the absence of state power a majority of free people will not resort tyranny, theft, murder, and they should have the means and ability to defend themselves against those who would. — NOS4A2

What experience? You admit yourself that there has never been a truly laissez-faire economy. And if we just look to individual issues we can see the fallacy of this view, e.g. the only reason we have laws that prohibit dumping toxic waste into rivers and child labour is precisely because without such laws these were practices that businesses engaged in. Regulations are a practical necessity to prevent even greater injustices.

That is the fatal flaw in my arguments: it serves no utilitarian purpose. It won’t just work out. I do not believe laissez-faire or free markets results in some sort of market equilibrium. I do not believe it will work or function that well, especially in a culture crippled after centuries of state rule and intervention. It doesn’t aim for the greater amount of happiness for the greater amount of people. — NOS4A2

I think this answers your own question. We fear a laissez-faire economy "because it will [not] work or function that well."

The best laissez-faire could ever do is provide a space for humans to figure it out on their own, absent absolute power, the hard and soft despotisms and the game-rigging of a coercive and exploitative institution. — NOS4A2

All you'll do is replace one coercive power (the government) with others (big business and the very wealthy). We either have a government that regulates the rich to better protect the poor or we have the rich exploiting the poor to enrich themselves even further. I'd rather have the former.

Sure, but the presumption is that under a truly laissez-faire economy it would be worse than it is now. — Michael

It's not a presumption. We have historic evidence that where people are left to their own devices their greed will lead to limiting consumer choice through anti-competitive behaviour. No EH&S regulations would directly lead to deaths due to contaminated foodstuffs because it's cheaper to make. The absence of labour law will increase the exploitation of labourers, which in the US is already bad enough as it is.

It’s a faith of mine, but one founded on experience, that in the absence of state power a majority of free people will not resort tyranny, theft, murder, and they should have the means and ability to defend themselves against those who would. — NOS4A2

No one disagrees with this NOS4A2. Its the word "most" that everyone is pointing out. That does not negate the existence of "the rest". The "most" have to come up with some system to handle "the rest", or "the rest" will ruin what "the most" have.

No one is also saying you can't have a group of people where all cooperate nicely for some time. This is usually if resources are plentiful and times are good. But when famine, disease, or intertribal conflicts come into play, you're more likely to have a few bad apples that will cause massive destruction for everyone else.

The problem everyone is repeatedly trying to point out to you, is that you present only the situation in which everyone is good in your laissaz faire world, and those who aren't good, are outside of it. Laissaz faire lets in "the rest" as well. You've been shown facts and history that prove this to be true.
Ignoring or dismissing this comes across to others that you are being dishonest. And if you are dishonest in your dealings here, how can anyone believe your world where everyone is honest and good?

So your argument is either pointless whinging or lacks foundation.

The issue is what is just, not why people fear laissez faire. People fear laissez faire because they think it unjust. It's only sociopaths like you who think hoarding all the capital you can get your hands on is 'just'. The rest of us think justice is about what people deserve to get, not what people can get.

That’s right. Little prigs like yourself would authorize stealing so you can give it to people you want.

Appeals to the population are not that convincing. Most people once thought the world was flat.

Yes, and “the rest” will not have the monopoly on violence.

Ignoring or dismissing this comes across to others that you are being dishonest. And if you are dishonest in your dealings here, how can anyone believe your world where everyone is honest and good?

Your dishonesty is proven because you left out the one sentence in your quotation of mine that directly contradicts what you said here. Compare this surreptitious quote-mining to the actual one.

Quote-mining

It’s a faith of mine, but one founded on experience, that in the absence of state power a majority of free people will not resort tyranny, theft, murder, and they should have the means and ability to defend themselves against those who would.

Actual:

People are greedy and selfish and make many bad decisions, and that’s one of the many reasons why I do not want to give them power over others. It’s a faith of mine, but one founded on experience, that in the absence of state power a majority of free people will not resort tyranny, theft, murder, and they should have the means and ability to defend themselves against those who would.

Why would you do that?

The reason The Wealthy purchase or influence power is because the people with power are selling it. If the state didn’t have that power The Wealthy wouldn’t be able to purchase it. The Wealthy do not have the power you claim they do until the people with power afford it to them, and even then it’s just the promise that the state will use its power to benefit The Wealthy. — NOS4A2

This is just more of the same Ayn Rand type BS you have already been spouting.

You think that the State itself decided to allow itself to manipulated and made into a puppet because it thought that it was a "good" thing to do without anything to make it so in the first place? Are you not aware of the fact that since the beginning of the creation of the State there have been wealthy plump older white men siting behind their little desks writing up the rules that everyone else have to live by in effect making it virtually little to no difference those who run and control the the State (who are again most wealthy plump older white men) and the wealthy people that wrote the rules in the first place? Have you never even heard of the Skull and Bones secret society as well as other similar secret societies with similar agendas to have most if not all the power in a small handful of uber wealthy elites? Have ever noticed or wondered why most Americans have to pay between 50%-66% of their income on rent while most of the rest of the developed world pay around 25%-30% of their income on rent or is that something that has never crossed your naïve mind?

Skull and Bones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones

The Poor, with no wealth, can only purchase or influence power through less-costly means such as voting or protest. — NOS4A2

Which is really no power. The only time the poor has real power is when things are so bad that they start working together collectively and stop relying on those with money or in the state to tell them what to do. Of course I imagine someone like you would call that socialism which of course is even a bigger evil then your so called "State"

Both seek to influence power, actual power. Both desire the same ends: to use state power to benefit their preferred group of beneficiaries. — NOS4A2

What conveniently forgetting with your Ayn Rand type rhetoric is the uber wealthy elites already have immense power over the plebs and wage slaves that serve them and with their easy access to money it is much, much easier for them to influence politicians then it is for the poor.

A police officer has the legal right to use force against you. The bureaucrat has the legal right take your children, your home, your wages. They can put you in prison. I don’t think any other class of people has that sort of power in the statist system. — NOS4A2

Again, I don't know what you have against cops but whatever it is it is likely unfounded. Police officers are mostly there to act as arbitrators in whatever disputes or crimes in the communities they serve and have to work in and obey the law just as much as the citizens they are there to serve and protect. Without their service (just as many ways the soldiers in the US military) you wouldn't have the freedom right now to speak your mind and spout your anti-cop nonsense and insult them.

I suggest you watch a movie called "Crown Vic" in order for you to get a better understanding of what it is like to have to be a cop since apparently from your comments you or pretty ignorant of what they are like and what they have to put up with on a day to day basis.

Crown Vic
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4558200/

Thin blue line
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line

Also you might want to know about one of the quotes used in the movie:

"People sleep peacefully in their beds only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf"- George Orwell

While you might think that "cops" are only brutes there to take advantage of you whenever they feel like it, you forget that without their presence that there would be other brutes to take advantage of you in every way possible without you being able to do anything about it. If you had any brains about you, you would rather have to deal with the former than the latter.

As with your rant about bureaucrats, it is just more BS sine they too have to obey certain set of rules just as citizens and cops do and can't not just take people stuff whenever they want to.

In this world the best we can hope for is that the majority of people who are either rich, poor, work for the State, or whatever do their best to work within the rules of society and when they don't that the law and other checks and balances that are in place are able to do something about it. The main difference between how I see things and what you see is that I'm well aware most of the working poor, bureaucrats, cops, and similar people have little to no choice but to try and work in society or have their world turned upside down at the drop of a hat where as you tend to think that this is not the case.

Again I have no idea what kind of Ayn Rand or Ayn Rand like nonsense you read to think that the little people have formed some kind of secret cabal and created the State in order to abuse and control "poor", "defenseless", and "helpless" uber wealthy people who really only want to help everyone else, but such beliefs are not in line with how things really work or how the state of the world really is.

If anyone in a discussion with us is not concerned with adjusting himself to truth, if he has no wish to find the truth, he is intellectually a barbarian. That, in fact, is the position of the mass-man when he speaks, lectures or writes. — Jose Ortega y Gasset - The Revolt of the Masses - p.72, footnote 1

:up:

I'm not sure exactly what it means but I like it. :grin:

That’s right. Little prigs like yourself would authorize stealing so you can give it to people you want. — NOS4A2

No, stealing is taking something which doesn't rightfully belong to you, you've yet to establish that the taxed part of your wage doesn't rightfully belong to the government. It's not sufficient to just say that you don't like it, this is a discussion forum, not a blog, we're not interested in your idle opinion.

To argue against government intervention on grounds of injustice you need to say why it is 'just' for you to retain your gross wage and unjust for the government to take it's taxes. The simple fact that it resides for any period of time in your bank account is not a measure of justice.

Laissez faire: cover for corporatism. — Xtrix

You should probably double check what that word means. — NOS4A2

That is what it means. — Xtrix

:up:

Laissez faire and Ayn Rand Objectivism are just BS/fantasy world for the uber rich (and the idiots they have brainwashed to think like them) that talks about how and why the government/State should only be there to keep the working poor/middle class in their place (ie taking care of and serving the rich) and protecting the uber rich.

It is almost a given that the uber rich are at least smart enough to know that if the State/government wasn't there to protect them there would be little to nothing to prevent the plebs that serve them from taking up arms and going against them. So they create the enough of a State to at least protect them, but do everything in their power to prevent said institutions to protect individual and human rights for the rest of us.

It is pretty much a given that countries that believe such non-sense devolve into little more than plutocratic or autocratic societies filled with cronyism, corruption, and other issues. Of course people like NOS4A2 think it some "evil" people in the State (such as the bureaucrats and cops that are in it) that cause these problems to happen and not the uber wealthy that buy and sell favors to the politicians they put in there, nor the politicians that sell their souls to said uber wealthy individuals.

IMHO at least with ideologies such as Machiavellianism, at least they are more honest with the manipulation/deceit that happens and they accept the fact that it is a dog eat dog world. With doctrine like Laissez faire/Objectivism, they like to cover up the fact the the uber rich are exploiting everyone else and that any given moment that the repressed might rise up and violently overthrown and/or punish those who have been abusing them. Arguments for Laissez faire type thinking like to just white wash that this kind of issue/struggle is constantly going on and when such doctrines are used for social policies, it increases the class divide and the odds that society will descend into violence between the haves and have nots.

So in a nutshell, your statement that Laissez faire beliefs are mere dogma/propaganda for the corporations and the uber rich that own them is right on money.

Excellent points, all.

In a rational world, that so many people of such divergent views can recognize how silly an argument is would give the proponent pause — and perhaps be inclined to open his mind to new vistas.

I’d like to think an old dog can learn new tricks. I’m proven wrong again and again.

It is almost a given that the uber rich are at least smart enough to know that if the State/government wasn't there to protect them there would be little to nothing to prevent the plebs that serve them from taking up arms and going against them. — dclements

Not only that. Yes they exist with the aid of the state, and are protected— but the state also serves as the fall guy. A nice distraction. When you can divert the (legitimate) anger and discontent to a source other than your class, that’s valuable indeed.

The reason The Wealthy purchase or influence power is because the people with power are selling it. — NOS4A2

In case I was too subtle:

Arguing that the wealthy “purchase or influence” people in government is like arguing Sean Hannity says what he does because Murdoch bribes/influences him. Completely wrong.

If this strikes you as weird, that’s understandable. But then it’s a good idea to perhaps re-examine such a fundamental belief.

Your peculiar conception of “state=bad” crumbles with this belief, incidentally.

The reason The Wealthy purchase or influence power is because the people with power are selling it.
— NOS4A2

Imagine actually believing this.

Put yourself in these shoes and consider it.

Frightening, isn’t it? — Xtrix

Yeah, when I read that it kind of made my head spin as well. It looks like NOS4A2 is willing to blame people in the State for being willing and going through with the selling of political influence to the uber wealthy while at the same time thinks that the uber wealthy are blameless in such transactions because it is merely what the wealthy "do".

With such logic one can justify almost any crime (at least where more than two are involved) if one frames one of the people as the "evil" criminal (in this casethe State) and the other person as someone somehow "coerced" into doing it. I don't know much of the law but I believe there is a difference between being merely tempted into a crime and someone being threatened and coerced into it, and the fact that the wealthy are merely tempted by the fact that they can buy influence doesn't mean that they are not criminally liable for the wrongful act that they are doing.

I might be missing something in the argument but I don't see how he can claim that only the people selling political influence are committing a crime and not those that trying to buy it. IMHO at least both are equally wrong but from a moral point of view it seems like those buying the political influence are worse since it is likely they they will commit further criminal mischief once they have said political influence and the act of "buying" political influence is just part of a bigger criminal plan to commit other crimes (often with the hopes of getting away with it). Of course since I'm not a lawyer, I don't know if such reasoning has any part in judging the significance of such crimes although part of me says they should.

No, stealing is taking something which doesn't rightfully belong to you, you've yet to establish that the taxed part of your wage doesn't rightfully belong to the government. It's not sufficient to just say that you don't like it, this is a discussion forum, not a blog, we're not interested in your idle opinion.

To argue against government intervention on grounds of injustice you need to say why it is 'just' for you to retain your gross wage and unjust for the government to take it's taxes. The simple fact that it resides for any period of time in your bank account is not a measure of justice.

I worked for that money and acquired it through the voluntary consent of all parties involved. The government did not work for that money nor did it acquire that money through the voluntary consent of all parties involved.

I worked for that money and acquired it through the voluntary consent of all parties involved. The government did not work for that money nor did it acquire that money through the voluntary consent of all parties involved. — NOS4A2

And?

There's no argument in there linking to justice. Why is it just that you should keep all of the wealth you have the potential to acquire?

Notwithstanding the fact that it's a lie. You did not acquire it with the voluntary consent of all parties involved. Did your employer specifically say that the taxed portion was yours to keep, or did the employer have an implicit understanding that part of your wage would be paid to the government in taxes? Unless you have something to the contrary in writing it'll be the latter. So you keeping the taxed portion is most likely against the will of the parties involved, who fully (and rightfully) expected it to end up in the hands of the government at the time they negotiated the terms of your employment.

Had the terms of your employment been negotiated in a state where the government did not pay for healthcare, unemployment benefit, roads, waste collection, education etc, your employer would have to pay for those things instead and he would therefore offer you a lower wage. You keeping it, against his wishes, is theft.