Your 'Free Market' is very much like Communism - Edit 1
Before modification by SilverWarder at 05/02/2010 10:05:49 PM
It works great on paper if you ignore the fact that humans are involved.
Wow. That's hilarious. You actually believe that drivel you're spouting.
I'd like to introduce you to this thing. It's called the human race. In it, there are these annoying things called humans and they have this real tendency to like power. What's more those who GET power have this real tendency to want to keep it.
See, in an entirely unregulated industry, one of the most common things you get is a cartel faction. At some point folks running things start figuring out that operating in conjunction is much better for everyone than furious competition. Furious competition, in fact, isn't the best policy for large organizations. It cuts their profits dramatically and gives workers all those annoying freedoms to do stuff that the big guys don't want them to do.
So, a few of these guys get together on the golf course and say, "You know what? I'm tired of real competition. Let's all sell cars for about the same price. Since we all make slightly different cars, it's cool, there's room for all of us. That way we can set the price to whatever we want and people will have to pay us or they won't get cars!"
And if some little person steps in and starts to build cars on their own, they either do nasty things to them (like burn down their shop or what have you) or just buy them out and hire them. Or undercut him locally until his startup runs out of money and he goes down and then jack the prices up again.
This is why we HAVE anti competition laws and why monopolies aren't legal. You should have SEEN some of the crap that old Ma Bell was pushing back in the day. Install your own phone extension and don't pay them extra for it? Oh no! If they catch you at that, *Poof* no more telephone service. This happened (my dad used to disconnect and hide the wiring for our extra jacks any time the phone guy had to come over for something - I'm serious).
"Free Market" doesn't work like you describe because, like Communism, it relies on us humans all agreeing to follow its principles. However all it takes is a few very powerful people to decide to ignore those principles and it brings down the entire thing.
Of course it is. You are talking about a system where the government makes NO RULES. As such the 'rules' (albeit they won't be laws, just agreements between the powerful) will be set by those who have the power to enact them.
If no one will hire black people - where will they go in your 'Free Market'? You think, without desegregation laws, that blacks would have risen to where they are today in the southern US? Nope. If not for laws the 'old boys network' would have kept them down for a long time to come. The laws made that illegal and that eventually made it unfashionable.
No rules on the market just means that those who control the market make the rules. They may not be laws, but if it's work for pennies or starve, there ain't much choice now is there?
No, I think that companies which were run by fairly misogynist people (up until very recently) would simply have NOT HIRED THEM.
There were no laws preventing women from working in the 1800s and some did as nurses, teachers and sometimes factory workers in some industries. But move beyond their appointed 'station'? That only happened when the laws changed. The 'Free Market' was happy to simply not hire women because, well, they were women and their place was in the home. Employers didn't hire them for their qualities because they didn't believe that they had any (and in many cases they weren't wrong as they were also prevented from getting the necessary training to develop those qualities).
Your entire argument is based on the fallacy that everyone will 'buy into' the Free Market mentality as YOU do and operate that way. Reality is that those who do NOT buy into that mentality will have an advantage and will use it to destroy the very philosophy you want from the inside.
Unregulated (or largely unregulated) industry was tried early on. It failed. It failed for the very reasons it would fail again if tried now. Because not all people are nice and, quite frequently, the people who rise to the top of the corporate world aren't very nice - because they had to be not nice to get there.
The percentage of socio/psychopaths in society is roughly 1% overall (at varying levels - we're not talking axe murderers here, just those who put their own interests entirely above those of others). In the corporate world that ratio rises to 10%.
And that's in our nicey nice, regulated society.
You need to learn about reality. Same Sex marriage is perceived as a threat to the 'morals of society' by many devout Judeo/Christians. The reason, of course, is that in the bible it's a no-no. It's seen as turning the country into Sodom and bringing on the wrath of God and their religion says "DON'T ALLOW THIS."
In a secular society, no one would really care. But we do not live in an entirely secular society. Not even close.
Your absurd view of society as monolithic is what is amusing. At some point, black people who did not want to work in the fields would offer their labor elsewhere at an advantageous price, and some business would accept that offer and employ black people in order to gain a competitive advantage. The "society" you speak of is exactly what I seek to avoid by endorsing a free-market! It is LAWS that cause such practices, and these are laws that inhibit trade and work, you imbecile! Why don't you find a post where I endorse only a partially free market? If the free market is truly practiced, and the government ARE prohibited from interfering in it, your scenario would NOT happen!
Wow. That's hilarious. You actually believe that drivel you're spouting.
I'd like to introduce you to this thing. It's called the human race. In it, there are these annoying things called humans and they have this real tendency to like power. What's more those who GET power have this real tendency to want to keep it.
See, in an entirely unregulated industry, one of the most common things you get is a cartel faction. At some point folks running things start figuring out that operating in conjunction is much better for everyone than furious competition. Furious competition, in fact, isn't the best policy for large organizations. It cuts their profits dramatically and gives workers all those annoying freedoms to do stuff that the big guys don't want them to do.
So, a few of these guys get together on the golf course and say, "You know what? I'm tired of real competition. Let's all sell cars for about the same price. Since we all make slightly different cars, it's cool, there's room for all of us. That way we can set the price to whatever we want and people will have to pay us or they won't get cars!"
And if some little person steps in and starts to build cars on their own, they either do nasty things to them (like burn down their shop or what have you) or just buy them out and hire them. Or undercut him locally until his startup runs out of money and he goes down and then jack the prices up again.
This is why we HAVE anti competition laws and why monopolies aren't legal. You should have SEEN some of the crap that old Ma Bell was pushing back in the day. Install your own phone extension and don't pay them extra for it? Oh no! If they catch you at that, *Poof* no more telephone service. This happened (my dad used to disconnect and hide the wiring for our extra jacks any time the phone guy had to come over for something - I'm serious).
"Free Market" doesn't work like you describe because, like Communism, it relies on us humans all agreeing to follow its principles. However all it takes is a few very powerful people to decide to ignore those principles and it brings down the entire thing.
Segregation is NOT a free market practice. How on earth is specifying the conditions under which businesses may serve their customers a free market practice? How is specifying who a employer may hire, and what labor he may employ particular individuals at, part of a free market?
Of course it is. You are talking about a system where the government makes NO RULES. As such the 'rules' (albeit they won't be laws, just agreements between the powerful) will be set by those who have the power to enact them.
If no one will hire black people - where will they go in your 'Free Market'? You think, without desegregation laws, that blacks would have risen to where they are today in the southern US? Nope. If not for laws the 'old boys network' would have kept them down for a long time to come. The laws made that illegal and that eventually made it unfashionable.
No rules on the market just means that those who control the market make the rules. They may not be laws, but if it's work for pennies or starve, there ain't much choice now is there?
Companies that did NOT require such practices would have a competitive advantage in hiring female employees. Unless you think women are too inept for an employer to seek to hire one for her beneficial qualities?
No, I think that companies which were run by fairly misogynist people (up until very recently) would simply have NOT HIRED THEM.
There were no laws preventing women from working in the 1800s and some did as nurses, teachers and sometimes factory workers in some industries. But move beyond their appointed 'station'? That only happened when the laws changed. The 'Free Market' was happy to simply not hire women because, well, they were women and their place was in the home. Employers didn't hire them for their qualities because they didn't believe that they had any (and in many cases they weren't wrong as they were also prevented from getting the necessary training to develop those qualities).
Your entire argument is based on the fallacy that everyone will 'buy into' the Free Market mentality as YOU do and operate that way. Reality is that those who do NOT buy into that mentality will have an advantage and will use it to destroy the very philosophy you want from the inside.
Unregulated (or largely unregulated) industry was tried early on. It failed. It failed for the very reasons it would fail again if tried now. Because not all people are nice and, quite frequently, the people who rise to the top of the corporate world aren't very nice - because they had to be not nice to get there.
The percentage of socio/psychopaths in society is roughly 1% overall (at varying levels - we're not talking axe murderers here, just those who put their own interests entirely above those of others). In the corporate world that ratio rises to 10%.
And that's in our nicey nice, regulated society.
We have constitutions and laws BECAUSE minorities need to be protected. If we didn't the majority will often abuse and marginalize them. Sometimes even enslave or kill them.
What exactly, is a novelty practice like same sex marriage protecting anyone from? The principle you cite is needed to protect people from having to fund such farcical practices because of the fashions among those with power. You need to learn about reality. Same Sex marriage is perceived as a threat to the 'morals of society' by many devout Judeo/Christians. The reason, of course, is that in the bible it's a no-no. It's seen as turning the country into Sodom and bringing on the wrath of God and their religion says "DON'T ALLOW THIS."
In a secular society, no one would really care. But we do not live in an entirely secular society. Not even close.