Free Enterprise

The notion that corporate enterprises should be free from government restrictions.

For example, if a large established corporation is selling a commodity for a high price (such as long distance phone calls), and a rival startup arises to provide the same service at 2% of the cost of the large company's service (such as 'net phone kiosks), the large established corporation is free to bribe the government to compel the rival startup to raise their rates higher than the established company's rates.

-- PhlIp

I think it's important to note that free from government restrictions includes (among other things) the freedom from being compelled into an action one would not otherwise take (aka slavery). Therefore, the example described above is, at best, AsymmetricCapitalism?.

But how do you define compelled? With no social safety net, and no minimum standards to adhere to, the poor are easily compelled into functional slavery by economic necessity.

how do you define compelled?

In this context, I define compelled as threats of violence made by someone against another person or another's property.

Obviously, we all need to respond to MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds and, thus, we need to do things to things to satisfy those needs. However, what's compelling us in this case is not another person, but ourselves. I think that's a very important distinction to make.

With no social safety net, and no minimum standards to adhere to, the poor are easily compelled into functional slavery by economic necessity.

I agree that it's possible that the poor can have fewer transactions from which to choose to satisfy their needs. However, one thing we know about people: they willingly give time and money to help each other. So, the minimum standards that you talk about arise naturally out of our innate, good impulses.

While I admire your faith in human nature, I think you are dreaming. Sure, some people will help the poor. Others will try and screw them. The second group is richer, if not larger, and has many more resources. Recent US history supports me on this, not you, I am afraid.

Please provide examples.

On the side of human compassion, I point to the RedCross?, UnitedWay?, innumerable churches, synagogues, and mosques providing all sorts of social services. In the past, the US has had private charity hospitals (many people argue these are dwindling because of government regulations and crowding out by competing government services) while the Shriners are providing similar services currently. Other organizations include The Gates Foundation, The Ford Foundation, RonaldMcDonald? Houses, and private scholarships for education. I'm sure there are others, but these are off the top of my head.

Will return with more. For now, ask yourself why, in the light of all of these groups, the US lags most `western' nations in terms of number of poor, number of poor children, and quality of life of the poor. In this rich country, something approaching 1/4 of the population is struggling... not to mention the large numbers of poor (and suffering) by anyone's standards. The existence of these (admirable and necessary) organizations does not mean they are winning the battle. In fact, many have argued that at best they can supply a band-aid for symptoms, and are helpless to address the causes.

Again, please provide some statistics or evidence to support your claim. For evidence that the poor in the US are better off than at any time in the last 50 years or so, please see The Myths of Rich and Poor (ISBN 0465047831 ).

Statistics (showing the US has more total poor and poor children than most Western countries) : http://lisweb.ceps.lu/keyfigures/povertytable.htm. Took me all of a minute to find via Google then childstats.gov.

The problem with these statistics is they assume poverty can be proxied by measuring the difference in income between rich and poor (see their methods page, in particular, their use of Gini and Atkins coefficients and the Relative Poverty Rates). This measures the so-called 'Gap between rich and poor' and it turns out that this is a pretty poor proxy for determining the poverty in a society. In the US, the real price of nearly every good has dropped dramatically over the last 100 years or so. As evidence, the number of hours worked (at an average wage) required to buy a particular basket of food dropped by about 60%. Thus, if people work the same number of absolute hours, they have more money available for other things. There are plenty of other examples of the price of a good falling dramatically faster than income rises. Thus, I contend it is meaningless to use measures of income gap as a proxy for poverty.

"Provide statistics!" "Here's some statistics!" "I didn't mean those statistics"

is a particularly frustrating debating technique. If you don't like that measure, propose something else (price of a basket of essential goods vs income, perhaps?). Of course the definition of poverty is changing - most of what anyone would call poor today are unimaginably rich by the standards of a century below. But the claim was that the US lags the progress made in other countries, not that the US is not making any progress in reducing poverty over time.

Other studies have been done that don't use differential income. They have basically the same results (of US vis-a-vis other western countries). I'll try to find time later to dig out some references (I didn't supply the one above, and haven't read it). In real, walking-around-various-cities I have visited terms, there is no doubt in my mind that the poor in the US are worse off than much of western Europe, and Canada for that matter. It also seems to me (personally) to be at best holding position, but probably getting worse. YMMV.

Or you can have a walk downtown LA, and have a walk downtown Munchen for example (or trust those who tell you what Munchen is like). Much more entertaining comparison than any statistics. Downtown LA looks exactly like the war-ruined Lebanon for somebody who comes from Europe, not to mention the suburbs around LAX airport. I mean I was literally shocked when I landed in US and found myself in LA. Plenty of evidence out there, but Americans are pretty much insensitized to these issues.

If you want to take comfort in all kinds of statistics, that's fine. If you want to do reasoning on them, well, that's a real tough mathematical and economical problem because statistics can be interpreted from so many perspectives. For example, part of the progress for the lower income categories (like most of them can have a car, even if literally a junk), can be attributed to the overall progress of mankind that happens anyway. Therefore it's meaningless to compare the situation of people now with the situation 20 years ago or 100 years ago, in order to prove that a system made progress. It's human nature to make progress, and even the damn communists, with all the horror of their system, managed to send rockets into space. The question really is to analyze critically how much of a progress has been made, and compare with the alternatives (like capitalism in USA vs capitalism in Canada vs capitalism in Germany) and with the potential. -- CostinCozianu

The whole 'Capitalism must lead to the greatest well being' thing smells of an AmericanCulturalAssumption.

As far as I can see the basis of it is.

Finding the faults in this chain can be left as an exercise for the reader.

As a warning of the dangers of state control I found this in google after 2 mins.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/health/latestap/A20932-2001Sep12.html

The Associated Press Wednesday, September 12, 2001; 9:04 PM

HAVANA –– Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders said Wednesday that Cuba's health care system is better at keeping people healthy than the U.S. system

What's the life expectancy for a Cuban in Cuba, compared to people in the U.S.A? That should shed some light on this statements' veracity

Market economics is a great tool for organizing some parts of society, but saying it is the answer to all ills and that all failings of society and economics are due to lack of capitalism is as dumb as LanguageWars. Where has anyone said that capitalism is the answer to everything? The libertarian right seem to feel so, the world economic institutions offer only more deregulation as the solution to poor countries' problems.

I believe the contention is simply that capitalism, more than any alternative, lets people explore what they feel are the answers to their own problems. I would say that capitalism in many situation is a good enough solution to problems of resource allocation and reward. If left unregulated, it can lead to severe problems of economic instability and widening inequality, which as well as leading to much human misery, can lead to political instability.

This is often asserted. Can you explain the mechanism in a FreeEnterprise society, without government intervention, that leads to increased misery or widening inequality or economic instability?

What about FreeEnterprise between nations? I have heard many news stories about restrictions between countries, because one country X produces some product better than country Y. Then country Y's Government imposes import taxes on that product, because they want to protect the industry for that product within country Y.

A poignant example, close to my heart, is primary industry in America. Why shouldn't farmers be protected by the government and their way of life? -- sr

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