Do we really have a "free market" system?

[salin]

I believe that we have a great deal of government interference - that favors the already very large companies by giving them huge subsidies in various tax breaks, loop holes, etc and that lowers their overhead/business costs and greatly impinges the "market forces" of competition from smaller, more innovative companies/goods/services, etc. Furthermore, I believe that this "pro business" administration has done more to impinge on the "Free Market" than any administration in many, many years.

Just my opinion... what say you?

[bullimiami]

1. no we have a crony capitalist system

horribly corrupt.

[Deja Q]

3. Irreparably corrupt, perhaps?

Those in power will not give it up once they get it.

Would you?

Would I?

We'd be hard pressed to, though we would be more likely to if we remembered where we came from. Most of corporate america has forgotten where they came from, hence their greed and selfishness (which are two Biblical sins that were the cause of the destruction of more than one city by the Wrath of God...)

[Inland]

2. You and I deal with markets: Bush, Cheney et al. do not.

These people trade on influence and connections to government. Bush was staked by political friends, saved by Saudis, Cheney hired by Halliburton because of ties to government.

[Solon]

4. The Free Market is a myth...

there are only rare cases of an actual free market, such as in countries with no government, like Somalia. Ever since civilization started, the Market was always controlled, either by the elite, or in few and far between cases, the working class. Always been that way. The Market, uncontrolled, would collapse, it is unsustainable as is, and needs huge infusions of subsidies just to survive today.

[TahitiNut]

5. Try changing your phone company, your cable company, ...

... or the company that collects your trash. When the secular government takes a "hands off" attitude to the market or (even more egregiously) protects the monopolies, then the lessons learned as long ago as the Spice Road are lost. A market is not 'free' as long as there are barriers to entry by new providers. Those barriers are both legislated and by pricing dominance.

[kentuck]

6. Too big to fail...

When you're talking about Chrysler and the big airlines, we will bail them out with hundreds of millions and billions of dollars but if you have a small business, then you're SOL.. That's a free market?

[McKenzie]

7. not in the context that Smith et al envisioned

The market is not a free market; at best, it is oligarchic. At worst, it is interventionist/protectionist in favour of big, corporate interests. The fact that the US government applies tarrifs to imported goods gives the lie to the pretence that it's all a free market with healthy competition. Steel is a case in point.

I'm no economist though the subject interests me a little. From what I understand about global economics, they are at the polar opposite of what classical economics regards as a free market. As long as the means of production continues to be concentrated in a few hands, there is little prospect of free market econmics ever threatening the corporations.

[jobycom]

8. "Free Market" is just a phrase, it means nothing

Government and business are intricately entertwined. Without some form of government, there would be no regulated money supply, no security in banking or other money manuevering entities, no legal force to protect businesses, no patent or copyright protections. Government regulation is what makes business possible, and anyone starts screaming about the free market is only doing so because government (which in a democracy simply means society) has stopped them from robbing someone else.

I was a medieval historian, and if you want to examine a free market, just look at Europe after the collapse of Rome. There was no government beyond land ownership in many places, and the economy was below subsistence. Not until stronger government began to re-emerge did the economy rise above that level, to the point of consumerism.

Even in America, our nation became the leader of the economic world under the very policies the Republicans claim are bad for business. They are a pathetically clueless lot, Republicans. If they say something, assume it's a lie, or stupid.

[proud patriot]

9. no

:-(

[baldguy]

10. Try to introduce a new computer operating system.

Or a new auto manufacturing company.