It's interesting how effective those opposed to free markets have been at portraying fascism, crony capitalism, or corporatism as a free market. It's equally interesting how many people, specifically politicians, who say they believe in free markets, but actually believe in fascism, crony capitalism, or corporatism.
Free markets or low taxes or across-the-board deregulation did not get us into our current mess. Special tax breaks, selective deregulation, and devaluation of our currency in order to steer markets did. Those concepts have nothing to do with free markets or the Austrian school of economics.
It was central planning that brought us our current depression.1 The planners create an artificial demand by offering tax breaks for certain sectors like housing, insurance, or credit cards; they call them consumer incentives (generally things that put people into debt, because they don't understand the power in saving.) They then, deregulate a specific sector to make it more enticing. Then by devaluing currency they inflate prices beyond reasonable value. When it's all over, those who orchestrated it are surprised when it can't sustain itself, often leading us to believe "no one could have seen it coming." That is not entirely true, however. The Austrian economists saw it coming, they predicted it. In fact, they have predicted, with accuracy, exactly how and why the central planners would fail in every great collapse in the last century. Somehow, their warnings are still widely ignored.
A true free market has tons of regulation, just very little that is mandated by law. The mandates that would exist would be the same laws of equal liberty that apply to people.2 No business would have the right to take any actions that infringed on any individual or group of individuals rights or freedoms. For example, you don't need specific pollution mandates, which more often than not outline exactly what arbitrary amount of pollution is O.K. for business to put into your water sources, instead of saying business can't pollute period. In a free market, if you polluted my water source without my consent, I would own you. The law of equal liberty at that point clearly dictates that you are infringing on my rights, and it is the proper role of government to uphold the law of equal liberty when it is broken.
This brings me to a second form of regulation the unmandated regulation of consumer action. This form of regulation is part of our human nature, and it is our responsibly to hold businesses accountable for their actions. No business can continue to exist in a free market without customers who are willing to do business with them. So, let’s use the above case of the company and it’s decision to cheaply dispose of pollutants into our water again. Once they are taken to court and found guilty of any charges brought against them, It's the responsibility of us consumers to continue to hold them accountable and say, "Listen, I don't want what it is you are making until it is no longer negatively effecting the health of the communities around you." This company has a huge incentive never to pollute in the first place because the monetary losses from a law suit would be very damaging, but even worse would be the potential of future losses from the decrease in business because of customer dissatisfaction. This system holds businesses truly accountable for their actions. Instead, the current heavily regulated system first and foremost gives businesses a guide line of just how bad they can be with out having legal action taken against them. Then, in the cases that they do break those rules, they often receive special privileges in the courts in the form of lesser fines and or protection from any crimes committed all together. That is not a free market. Moreover, a free market any elected official who allowed a company, or individual for that matter, to break the laws would be guilty.
If I were to give you the location of an individual, I knew you intended to kill, and also gave you a gun, I would be an accessory to murder. Our politicians, as well as us for putting them in power and not holding them accountable, are accessories to murder: the murder of the free market and with it individual liberty.
-D
1) That's right, I called it what it is: a depression. They began calling the Great Depression as it was just over 12 months after it happened, and it was officially coined as such in 1934, less than five years after the crash. From 2007 to 2011 is a similar length of time. Instead, we are told that the recession is over. Suppose you had a glass of water and I poured half of it out. After your complaining for two years about having only half a glass of water, I come along again and tell you that the glass is now full. If you now believe you have more water, then you probably also believe the depression is over.
2) The law of equal liberty is a doctrine first named, although not first conceived, by Herbert Spencer in his book Social Statics in which he says "Every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty to every other man." Or, stated a better way by Spencer, "each has freedom to do all that he wills provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other." The concept of such liberty is present in the founding documents including The Federalist Papers, this is why Spencer is not credited with conception of the idea.
Free markets or low taxes or across-the-board deregulation did not get us into our current mess. Special tax breaks, selective deregulation, and devaluation of our currency in order to steer markets did. Those concepts have nothing to do with free markets or the Austrian school of economics.
It was central planning that brought us our current depression.1 The planners create an artificial demand by offering tax breaks for certain sectors like housing, insurance, or credit cards; they call them consumer incentives (generally things that put people into debt, because they don't understand the power in saving.) They then, deregulate a specific sector to make it more enticing. Then by devaluing currency they inflate prices beyond reasonable value. When it's all over, those who orchestrated it are surprised when it can't sustain itself, often leading us to believe "no one could have seen it coming." That is not entirely true, however. The Austrian economists saw it coming, they predicted it. In fact, they have predicted, with accuracy, exactly how and why the central planners would fail in every great collapse in the last century. Somehow, their warnings are still widely ignored.
A true free market has tons of regulation, just very little that is mandated by law. The mandates that would exist would be the same laws of equal liberty that apply to people.2 No business would have the right to take any actions that infringed on any individual or group of individuals rights or freedoms. For example, you don't need specific pollution mandates, which more often than not outline exactly what arbitrary amount of pollution is O.K. for business to put into your water sources, instead of saying business can't pollute period. In a free market, if you polluted my water source without my consent, I would own you. The law of equal liberty at that point clearly dictates that you are infringing on my rights, and it is the proper role of government to uphold the law of equal liberty when it is broken.
This brings me to a second form of regulation the unmandated regulation of consumer action. This form of regulation is part of our human nature, and it is our responsibly to hold businesses accountable for their actions. No business can continue to exist in a free market without customers who are willing to do business with them. So, let’s use the above case of the company and it’s decision to cheaply dispose of pollutants into our water again. Once they are taken to court and found guilty of any charges brought against them, It's the responsibility of us consumers to continue to hold them accountable and say, "Listen, I don't want what it is you are making until it is no longer negatively effecting the health of the communities around you." This company has a huge incentive never to pollute in the first place because the monetary losses from a law suit would be very damaging, but even worse would be the potential of future losses from the decrease in business because of customer dissatisfaction. This system holds businesses truly accountable for their actions. Instead, the current heavily regulated system first and foremost gives businesses a guide line of just how bad they can be with out having legal action taken against them. Then, in the cases that they do break those rules, they often receive special privileges in the courts in the form of lesser fines and or protection from any crimes committed all together. That is not a free market. Moreover, a free market any elected official who allowed a company, or individual for that matter, to break the laws would be guilty.
If I were to give you the location of an individual, I knew you intended to kill, and also gave you a gun, I would be an accessory to murder. Our politicians, as well as us for putting them in power and not holding them accountable, are accessories to murder: the murder of the free market and with it individual liberty.
-D
1) That's right, I called it what it is: a depression. They began calling the Great Depression as it was just over 12 months after it happened, and it was officially coined as such in 1934, less than five years after the crash. From 2007 to 2011 is a similar length of time. Instead, we are told that the recession is over. Suppose you had a glass of water and I poured half of it out. After your complaining for two years about having only half a glass of water, I come along again and tell you that the glass is now full. If you now believe you have more water, then you probably also believe the depression is over.
2) The law of equal liberty is a doctrine first named, although not first conceived, by Herbert Spencer in his book Social Statics in which he says "Every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty to every other man." Or, stated a better way by Spencer, "each has freedom to do all that he wills provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other." The concept of such liberty is present in the founding documents including The Federalist Papers, this is why Spencer is not credited with conception of the idea.
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