Hmm. A reasoned, intelligent and civil reply. So please understand that challenging or disagreeing with a view by no means, is intended as disrepect for the person with that view.
The challenge with the concept you have been kind enough to expound on, is that it has never proven accurate in practice. I am reminded of Communism. In theory it sounds wonderful! In practice, it never turns out that way.
For example, America prior to the 20th century. Slavery. When there wasn't slavery, there was horrible discrimination. There were sweatshops where women and children work all hours for poverty wages - and even then, they were often screwed out of those wages and fired if they refused the sexual advances of managers etc... There was no defense and certainly no retribution. Did those shops just correct themselves? Nope. Nor did they suffer a loss of sales. Nothing.
The coal mining industry? Did the owners just decide to make working conditions safer? No.
The point being, America was not the Libertarian Utopia some of your compatriots claim it was, prior to the 20th century. Well maybe it was for rich, white land owners. The closest things I've seen to Libertarian economies / governments, have been Hong Kong and The Ukraine. To some degree, India. Even Mexico might apply. Very little government interference with business. Almost no regulation or enforcement of environmental issues, wage & hour, discrimination laws, no such thing as an equivalent of OSHA and so on. Guess what happens when companies realize the government isn't going to help anyone they screw? Guess how much power the citizen has against say PEMEX in a country where the market is left to correct itself? Or what they odds that they would be stupid enough to even file a lawsuit?
All of this is irrelevant, as you're still leaning on the mis-characterization of the concept of "self regulating markets" cited in your OP. Perhaps you missed my previous comments, or bill's above (my bolding), where we attempted to correct your mistake. You're also still conflating two radically different types of "regulation".
The first type is law that protects us from being victimized by businesses (or anyone really) who would harm people in the name of commerce. No one I know of expects the market to "self-regulate" on such matters. Protecting our rights and enforcing justice is the purpose of government, not the market.
The second type of "regulation" involves our personal preferences and values that we express through our voluntary interactions with others;
this is what a "self-regulating market" addresses. And
this is where the heart of the debate over the role of the regulatory state resides.
In this context, it's my observation that the reason the "self-regulating market" is so dissatisfying to the regulators isn't because it fails to accurately reflect the values and priorities of consumers, but because it succeeds all too well. To wit:
I mean, I get the part about companies will lose revenues if they don't provide a good service, product etc... but seriously, does anyone think less people are shopping at Wal-Mart just because it has been shown to systematically disriminate against women on a widespread basis?
Nope.
Has Wal-Mart disappeared?
They're more profitable than ever.
The "problem" here isn't that Wal-Mart stubbornly refuses the demands of consumers. The "problem" is that, on the whole, Wal-Mart customers care more about cheap prices than they do about insisting women are paid the same as men. And, moreover, that women working for Wal-Mart care more about having a job than getting paid the same as men.
The regulators answer is to override the preferences of the customers and employees of Wal-Mart, presumably requiring them to pay everyone the same and either raise prices or lay some people off to make up the difference. I want to point out that this is the nature of pretty much all of this kind of regulation. While it purports to be dictating business practices, in point of fact it's overriding the choices of individuals.
This the prototypical pattern of the regulatory state. In the name of protecting us, it limits our freedom to decide for ourselves what kinds of goods or services we can buy, what kinds of jobs we can work, how we attend to our healthcare, etc etc... In other words, it's the state "protecting" us from our own (obviously) misguided preferences.
