RE: Why Steem Is the Real Libertarian Platform
"A person who truly believes in freedom and free markets understands that if the system is designed well, the so-called "abuse" when exposed to light will self correct"
Sounds like someone has never read Sinclair. We tried unchecked capitalism in the past; we got the gilded age of robber barons, corporate slavery, horrifying wars for the purpose of imperialism, and a few corporations tried to overthrow the government.
This idea of "Oh, it will just fix itself! The consumer has all the power, after all." is bullshit because the consumer can only change if he KNOWS about the practices being used and corps are always highly secretive when it comes to what they're doing. You wanna sit around eating questionably sanitary horse meat for 5 years before someone blows the whistle? Want the poor to be forced to live in company housing, buying from the company store and running themselves hopelessly into debt? Where privatized police have you pay a premium for prompt service?
Because corporations exist to make money. The market crash a few years back showed us that they will happily engage in immoral, short-sighted, and inevitably self-destructive behavior if it makes them a buck today.
A truly free market is no different than the much touted perfect communist worker's utopia. It is an idyllic dream which will fail to crystalize into reality because it fails to take human nature into account.
Appreciate the discussion. But true capitalism will put a cost in externalities (like pollution, crowding, noise, etc.) and charge people for producing these things. We never tried that. Just the opposite. Few pollute, but the whole society bears the burden, for example.
Ah.
Alright, then you won't mind paying a 150 dollars for your plumbing, 200 for your trash service, 75 service charge for owning your land (monthly, of course), internet for 10 dollars a GB download, etc.
Oh, but if they charge that much I'll just switch to another service! Oh but you can't! See, total free market means no anti-monopoly laws. So you get to eat shit mr. consumer because there's only one service in this city and you need to use it.
I agree with you ecto. What we have leads in some instances to monopolistic businesses, sometimes due to economis of scale and sometimes due to regulations / politicians' blessings.