Is Free Market Capitalism an Oxymoron?

+^d ! ANARCHY - try it again,....for the first time.
Hell,.....TRY it for the first time !

IDK I rather like child labor better.

Hey Mike,

I'll have the lobster thermador aux crevettes with mornay sauce garnished with truffle parfait grande with a fried egg on top of spam.

Gotta love Terry (egg on the face) Gilliam

The government doesn't care about Oliver's kids, except that the government wants to collect taxes from them. If Oliver's kids have a job they will be paying more in taxes.

Bad day?

The US is the ultimate manipulator of the markets. There's a reason Truman insisted the US Dollar be used as the world's reserve currency at the Bretton Woods meetings.

This is the ultimate problem with today's "Capitalism". The creation of money, currency, means of exchange, whatever you want to call it, is a government granted monopoly, for all intents and porpoises. This is not a true function of the free market. True free markets would have free banking and competing currencies.

Free Market Protection
http://mises.org/daily/4101

The thing is, that's an answer on a global scale. I'm much more concerned with the economic matters at a national scale, and you do have a point because Sovereign Wealth Funds can directly impact a global economy but on the flip side the funds themselves invest in anything the brokers deem fit to invest in, typically within their own networks, and not only that, but they can be used to invest in private financial products or companies that provide them having a direct impact on a national economy. Our social security money can therefore be used to chip in to companies like Morgan Stanly or Meryl Lynch. I just don't see how that's healthy for a "Free" whatever economy. It just decimates competition between companies...

Yeah I'm not swallowing that Koolaid. The purpose of "protecting the free market" is to keep a nation competitive in the global economy. However.... Unifying market sectors into Conglomerates potentially irradicates the small business enterprise especially when all participants of a conglomerate are allowed to stop feeding back into the working sector...we're falling apart from the foundation up. Had this not been over looked Gas wouldn't be destroying us. I think the first fund to contribute to world banks was the Emirate Fund of the oil industry which wasn't even its own sovereign state yet it was still owned by the Queen and so fell the first crumb...

exactly my problem with it

hmm must be some commies floating round here.

So people not using aggressive violence on each other automatically leads to slavery and poverty? You don't believe in peaceful solutions? You believe "profit motives" don't exist in governments?

"Exploitation of workers" is based on the economic fallacy of Labor Value Theory.

See: Subjective Value; Marginal Utility.

Profit motive? What other motive is there? Would you not quit your present job for one which pays more? Maybe YOU are the greedy bastard that tries to exploit the business owner and consumer.

THE LABOR THEORY OF VALUE: A CRITIQUE OF
CARSON’S STUDIES IN MUTUALIST POLITICAL
ECONOMY

by: ROBERT P. MURPHY

http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_1/20_1_3.pdf

Speak of the devil. There's Kevin "Mutualist" Carson again.

What I'm saying Spamklin is what I've said in the past, the government has a social contract with the people. If the government fails to support the people or the people feel they are not being represented, they overthrow the government through revolution or through elections. Corporations don't have a social contract with the people (Only profit motives). Government's first priority is to serve the people due to the theoretical concept from the enlightenment that we all know as the social contract. Profit motives in government partially exists but usually relates to making sure there is revenue in the government to provide services on the social end and the security end. Your ideas are HIGHLY idealistic with no real practical implementations. Your ideas are very much based on a set of assumptions that people can come together and live happily ever after without government. Tell me, are there any EXAMPLES that exist of anarchist capitalism working at all.

Examples? Why do you want examples? Just because it hasn't existed yet, doesn't mean it's not viable.

How about if you give me an example of a government that has ever existed in the history of civilization that WASN'T corrupt.

Again, someone who doesn't understand anarcho-Capitalism. Coercive government only collectivizes social services. Social services and social safety nets could very well be provided by voluntary contribution to voluntary organizations. In the town where I currently live, municipal trash collection was only implemented about 40 years ago. Do you think that before then trash piled up in the streets?

Yes, so workers who are not being paid a livable wage should remain content and happy about it then. Yeah, because the poor factory owner is only making a few million dollars a day and needs to keep you working for 12 hours a day in extremely dangerous conditions in order to help him get that second house he/she always wanted. So its technically greedy then for that worker to demand a higher wage that meets the basic needs for one's livelihood.

Just because government can be corrupt doesn't mean it should be eliminated entirely. Government is an imperfect institution that again, CAN BE CHANGED by the people through revolution and or elections. That is all

Yes. Nobody is forcing anybody to work anywhere. Only the government places restrictions on people who wish to start their own businesses. Usually, at the behest of the same people who want a "living wage". Why don't you just kick yourself in the balls.

Yeah, how is that "hopey changey" thing working out for you? Getting any better? We are now actively bombing what.....five fucking countries? How many people are in Gitmo? How many people in Gitmo will face secret military tribunals.

Yeah, change this!

Plus, we now actively seek out American citizens abroad for assassination with no Congressional oversight, or judicial review. Who are you going to vote for in 2012 Obama, again?

corporations legally exist only by virtue of government law. and they also have some measure of control via stock holders. sounds like something Noam would say though.

Then they are defining the word wrong.

If I called murder, birth, I would be the wrong one, not the definitions...

Exactly!