What is "Unfettered Capitalism"?

[konradv]

Sorry, I have to disagree with that. There's nothing capitalist about the EPA.

I agree, but it's the equally important "fettering" part of the equation.

 

[Iceweasel]

We enjoy clear skies and clean water because of regulations
Our workers have rights and get paid better then china, india or some other shit hole because of minimum wage and unions.
Our quality is higher because of standards
Our food, medication and other products are safe because of the fda, cdc, etc.
Anti-trust laws make sure huge corps don't crowd out the entire industry...

All this is needed to regulate capitalism..Anyone that says that capitalism is self regulating is without the slightest clue of what they're talking about. You think capitalism cared about its workers in China??? Or in 1890's America? People come after money in capitalism.

Nixon started the EPA. There's nothing uncapitalistic about it. We all enjoy a healthier environment. Customers live longer and spend more in a healthy market too.

Sorry, I have to disagree with that. There's nothing capitalist about the EPA.

It's way too big but that's a different matter. How is it to the capitalist's best interest to let a company move in a turn the lake or water supply into a cesspool?

 

[Iceweasel]

Sorry, I have to disagree with that. There's nothing capitalist about the EPA.

I agree, but it's the equally important "fettering" part of the equation.

"Unfettered capitalism" doesn't exist. That's called anarchy.

 

[bripat9643]

Sorry, I have to disagree with that. There's nothing capitalist about the EPA.

I agree, but it's the equally important "fettering" part of the equation.

If your aim is to destroy the economy, then the EPA is important.

 

[RodISHI]

Capitalism is a self regulating system. Charge too much, someone will undercut you. Deliver bad goods/services? People will stop buying. Cheat someone? Expect a big lawsuit.The problems that people cite with "capitalism" usually are the result of lack of capitalism, i.e. gov't intrusion. Capitalism has raised standards of living and brought people out of poverty. Why would anyone want to fetter that?

What if there's no one else to buy or get services from because unfettered(unregulated) capitalism has driven out all the competition? There's also the matter of pollution and unsafe working conditions. Unfettered capitalism considers worrying about them to be unproductive and therefore ignores their effects.

There has never been a monopoly in the history of capitalism that wasn't legally enforced. Unsafe working conditions have been resolved by lawsuits. The record shows that the creation of OSHA has zero affect on the reduction in workplace accidents and illnesses.

Pollution issues can be resolved through the tort process.

The tort process won't work if the government refuses to do its job and prosecute crimes. When judges are bought and paid for you can't just go sue the person, company or people that damaged you. It sounds all nice but it does not work that away.

 

[Meathead]

Unfettered capitalism is a natural human state.

 

[konradv]

There has never been a monopoly in the history of capitalism that wasn't legally enforced. Unsafe working conditions have been resolved by lawsuits. The record shows that the creation of OSHA has zero affect on the reduction in workplace accidents and illnesses. Pollution issues can be resolved through the tort process.

It's easy to complain that torts can fix the system, but the real truth is that unfettered capitalism will control everything including the courts. Who can sue, if you don't have the money and the cards are stacked against you?

 

[bripat9643]

Capitalism is a self regulating system. Charge too much, someone will undercut you. Deliver bad goods/services? People will stop buying. Cheat someone? Expect a big lawsuit.The problems that people cite with "capitalism" usually are the result of lack of capitalism, i.e. gov't intrusion. Capitalism has raised standards of living and brought people out of poverty. Why would anyone want to fetter that?

What if there's no one else to buy or get services from because unfettered(unregulated) capitalism has driven out all the competition? There's also the matter of pollution and unsafe working conditions. Unfettered capitalism considers worrying about them to be unproductive and therefore ignores their effects.

There has never been a monopoly in the history of capitalism that wasn't legally enforced. Unsafe working conditions have been resolved by lawsuits. The record shows that the creation of OSHA has zero affect on the reduction in workplace accidents and illnesses.

Pollution issues can be resolved through the tort process.

The tort process won't work if the government refuses to do its job and prosecute crimes. When judges are bought and paid for you can't just go sue the person, company or people that damaged you. It sounds all nice but it does not work that away.

Yeah? So how are government regulatory agencies any different?

 

[bripat9643]

There has never been a monopoly in the history of capitalism that wasn't legally enforced. Unsafe working conditions have been resolved by lawsuits. The record shows that the creation of OSHA has zero affect on the reduction in workplace accidents and illnesses. Pollution issues can be resolved through the tort process.

It's easy to complain that torts can fix the system, but the real truth is that unfettered capitalism will control everything including the courts. Who can sue, if you don't have the money and the cards are stacked against you?

So no one ever won a lawsuit against a major corporation? Is that what you're claiming?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Now that Amazon is killing Walmart, I wonder how many of the Waltons are still happy with capitalism?

They're pretty fucking happy

 

[Iceweasel]

Unfettered capitalism is a natural human state.

Is that a quote from a Mad Max movie?

 

[Neser Boha]

The capitalism might have worked (in an extremely 'impure' form) for a while, but it's not a sustainable system. There is no endless growth, there are no endless resources. We are killing the planet by over-consuming cheap nasty crap that ends up sooner or later as trash. We need to go back to quality over quantity and more local/production/consumption. Luxuries should really be luxuries and necessities necessities ... I see it already happening. Development is headed that way. Plus governmental intervention is extremely important - it's in fact the people/citizens - making sure that the water is drinkable and the air is breathable - that all of the necessities and resources are not destroyed in the blind race after profit as has been done and is being done by unscrupulous corporations.

Capitalism is soon going to give way to some other system. It has to, our survival on this planet actually depends on it.

Thanks for taking a break from your crack pipe and filling us in, Oh Seer of Future Days.

You are welcome!

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

'What is "Unfettered Capitalism"?'

It’s a naïve myth contrived and propagated by many on the right, the unfounded notion that ‘government regulation’ is ‘unwarranted,’ where the private sector is capable of ‘self regulation,’ when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Government regulatory measures are necessary, proper, and Constitutional as authorized by the Commerce Clause.

 

[Meathead]

Unfettered capitalism is a natural human state.

Is that a quote from a Mad Max movie?

If 'what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours' was quoted in that movie. Never saw it/them.

 

[Neser Boha]

Capitalism : (Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch)

 

[MisterBeale]

This is what unfettered capitalism looks like.

When I talk to my local conservative, liberal, progressive, and libertarian friends, everyone agrees, that when the government makes rules and regulations that affect this, it is BAD.

I remember when the congress, senate and the administration passed that FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), I thought for sure that would be then end of the down town farmers markets. I haven't read the law. I guess there are exemptions.

What ever is in there, it was good for the HUGE food companies, it put out of business small competition, but for local farmers markets, they have blossomed. There must be some sort of exemptions for them.

But this is exactly what the end result of unfettered capitalism looks like. . .

People talking about stopping unfettered capitalism are clearly insane. Show me a liberal or a socialist that is an American that doesn't love their local farmers market, and I'll show you a hypocrite.

 

[amrchaos]

We see how self regulating it is by looking at China, India or 19th century America. Anyone that thinks it is self regulating knows nothing of what they're talking about.

Government and unions are needed for capitalism to be fair to the worker. One of the big reasons we did so good as a nation in the 40's into the 60's was because of this fact. Today? The rich have taken it all and moved operations to china.

China and India are communist/socialist countries, doofus.

yes, they are yet we still buy inferior and dangerous goods from China and both countries suck up industrial jobs like a mop from more capitalist nations.

If capitalism was self regulating, why are the communist/socialists countries being rewarded by it?

The capitalism they do practice is how they pay the bills. America votes with its' dollars. People don't want to pay for high priced union made goods if they have an option. That's a fact. Also over regulation is killing business. People think if you're in business you are wealthy and can afford to hand over more and more money to government.

So poisonous dry wall,lead laced paint and toothpaste is preferable? Sweat shops and cheating of migrant workers out of their pay is preferable? Devaluation of currency to manipulate trade is preferable?

That is the Chinese form of capitalism--where is the self regulation? There is None--Chinese Capitalism is off the rails!!

 

[MisterBeale]

Capitalism : (Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch)

 

[francoHFW]

OP- Brainwashed RW idiocy. Trust the rich has led to incredible injustice. Read "The Good Old Days- They Were Terrible". In the Gilded Age, poisonous food, working conditions, housing, poor houses and potters' fields, incredible poverty including farmers. Etc etc etc. TR was against 12 hour days because it was "communistic". He learned, you people are functional morons.

 

[Searcher44]

Capitalism is a self regulating system. Charge too much, someone will undercut you. Deliver bad goods/services? People will stop buying. Cheat someone? Expect a big lawsuit.
The problems that people cite with "capitalism" usually are the result of lack of capitalism, i.e. gov't intrusion.
Capitalism has raised standards of living and brought people out of poverty. Why would anyone want to fetter that?

That's a pretty simplistic economic theory that you would be hard pressed to find an Economist to agree with.
My economic thinking is simplistic to but I can back mine up with real Economists. I'm in a hurry so I'll give you mine in one broad stroke. Unfettered Capitalism is unfettered greed. I guess that's the opposite of your's, eh?you remember Reaganomics, supply side theory, Chicago School?


“When Friedman’s Platonic ideas of free-market virtues are put into practice, they have too often generated a systemic orgy of competitive greed — whose remedies, ironically, entail countermeasures of nationalization,” Marshall Sahlins, an emeritus professor of anthropology, said during the debate, speaking in a room adorned with murals of female students parading through the campus in medieval gowns. Sahlins, 77, noted a few weeks later socialist and capitalist countries alike are regulating or nationalizing financial institutions in a rebuff to Friedman."
"Off campus, the global meltdown is stirring anti-Chicago economists, who were voices in the wilderness during decades of lax government oversight of markets. Joseph Stiglitz, who won one of Columbia’s economics Nobels, says the approach of Friedman and his followers helped cause today’s turmoil."
- RIP Chicago School of Economics: 1976-2008 | The Big Picture

I've been quoting Adam Smith a bit lately. I've never taken him for the Father of Free Trade like a lot of people do.

Adam Smith....
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."

About Merchants....
"...men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
- http://www.davegutteridge.com/adam_smith_wasn't_a_capitalist

Gotta Run