[url=http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1684118&cid=32561144]
* disasters? Do you mean the kind of disaster that brought up the standard of living for everybody across the board?

For who? For us? Or for the people who suffered from things like the Union Carbide disaster in India? Or the pollution fueled economy of China where we get all the cheap crap we want? I suppose wearing filtration masks are a big step up.

Or how about a few depressions, which always hit the middle and lower classes harder than those on top of the pile. For example, the late 1800's saw quite a lovely depression. No Fed necessary.

The only reason the standard of living has increased for everyone overall is because government stepped in and said you can't treat your workers like shit. Period.

* The kind of disaster that lead to the greatest progress in the history of the human kind?
*
* I welcome those kinds of 'disasters'.

I guess that all depends on which side of the fence you sit on I suppose. For example, there 6-7 billion people on this planet, and most of them do not really get to see or feel this progress. However, we do appreciate the cheap labor to fuel our progress.

Then there is the poisoning of the planet, consumption of non-renewable resources at an alarming rate, weapons that can kill millions, etc. . The progress of humankind has come at a tremendous cost. But our free ride won't last forever.

* You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before the industrial revolution and the creation of capitalism that lead to the
* same levels of increase in overall standard of living, in everybody's ability to get access to the best that the people could ever
* provide.

Most major civilizations had a golden age where, more or less, everyone had a better standard of living compared to others of their time. Capitalism has been around for quite some time.

As far as access to the best provided services, we don't have that. If you have the money you do. If you don't, you become a debt slave, or simply suffer and/or die. Free markets don't provide services to the poor masses, the government does.

* You'd be hard pressed to show any time in history before that lead to the kinds of innovations, discoveries and inventions that
* became possible due to concentration of capital through savings and investment into businesses.

Uh...no. The Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, etc. all made plenty of innovations discoveries. Later on, during the age of enlightenment, more innovations and discoveries were made.

* I HOPE people are assholes, that's the only way that we get progress, because assholes want to have it all and to live better
* and they work on it pushing the progress forward.

Progress at all costs? The ends justify the means? You sound a lot like a "visionary" dictator, which has rarely turned out for the best.

* people don't play fair, I hope they don't otherwise we'll have the 'fair hell' on this planet.

Ah I get it. So it's okay, in your view, to destroy other people in the name of your own progress. Got it.

* The one single problem is that the political system needs to be controlled to make sure nobody can take over it with simply
* money, that is a problem and we are STILL Learning how to do this right.

And free markets would do this precisely how? Without regulations on what a company can or cannot do with it's money, how precisely would you ensure that companies/owners weren't doing inappropriate things with their funds? Without regulation, how would one check the books to ensure a company was behaving itself?

* you are wrong. Free Market is the ONLY single tool that allows progress and simultaneously brings down the prices through
* competition.

Oh competition. Right...right. Forgot about the competition. But exactly where does the competition come from?

In a free market, what precisely would be in place to prevent Big Company A from crushing Little Company B into the ground? Nothing. What prevents Big Company A from operating at a sustained loss to undercut said competition until Company B has no choice but to fold? What protection can Company B get to ensure that Company A doesn't pay special favors in order to keep Company B locked in a box?

In a free market, and history has born this out, you get monopolies and oligopolies. The free market is not a fair market, as you have pointed out. Once a company becomes big enough (if it lucky enough to do so), it can enact whatever measures it can to PREVENT competition. That can range from outright sabotage to choking the supply chain so tight that it's competitors simply die off.

Competition can only take place if there is a level playing field. Otherwise it is not a competition, but domination. Free markets have no way to ensure that the assholes running big companies play fair.

* Governments on the other hand always lead to inflation through printing money / borrowing and living on debt while producing
* nothing...

Except for schools. And roads. And libraries. And police departments. And fire departments. And national defense. And space programs. And weather monitoring systems. And so on and so on.

Yeah, this internet thing? The government started that. IR and microwave satellites for monitoring hurricanes? Yeah government did that too. Velcro? Teflon? Lightweight composites? Nuclear power?

The government produces absolutely nothing.

* and they always lead to price increases, which is worse than what Free Market does specifically because it decreases the
* standard of living across the board.

I guess your free market differs from the one I've seen operate in the past. Have you bought any tulips? I hear there the next big investment.

* that is the one single reason to have a collective bargaining power like a government can provide. Government's only role must
* be in Judging / Punishing those who abuse trust, who hurt people or environment.

You mean, sort of like they do now with all those regulations on emissions, the FDA, the CDC, and the like.

I'm confused. You said the free market should be unhindered by government, and then you say we need government to make sure the free market doesn't hurt people. That implies that government would have to, I don't know, make up rules to specify what companies can and cannot do in order to protect the environment and people.

Sort of like what we have now.

And what about national defense? Or fire departments? Or police? I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that thought of a for profit fire department or police is scary.

Or would you say it is the governments job to ensure the safety of it's citizens in general?

* Of-course that wouldn't make much friends or money for the government, so they obviously don't do this.

O_o

Come on. I don't necessarily agree with or like everything the government does, but you know that statement is just plain horseshit.

* French revolution had nothing to do with taking down any 'free market', you are insane for saying this. France was a Monarchy,
* this implies total dictatorship, what kind of lunacy and fucking idiocy is in your head to say that French Revolution was about
* Free Market? Are you on actual drugs or are you 12 years old?

Ah, now come the infantile insults mixed with ignorance.

I never said the French Revolution was caused by the free market. I was using it as an example of what happens when the majority of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few powerful (economically and politically) people.

Unfettered free markets leads to an unbalanced wealth structure, which itself leads to social instability. Our own country is an example, with fewer and fewer people controlling greater and greater amounts of the wealth.

Imagine, for a moment, what would happen in this country if all social programs were suddenly canceled. We would have millions and millions of starving poor with nothing left to lose. The country would be in social chaos in a matter of days.

Free markets aren't fair. You said so yourself. That ultimately leads to social instability UNLESS there is a strong government to ensure the free market behaves itself.

* Free Market does NOT make any assumptions except for one: GREED.

Not quite....

* Greed is Good...

That's the one.

* No matter what people still tell you, Greed leads to progress, nothing else ever did.

You mean like Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot?

Like all things, young grasshopper, greed is good in moderation. Unfettered greed is highly destructive, especially when you have non-fair, sociopathic assholes at the helm.

Oh sure, greed can lead to progress. But what is the cost of that progress?

For example, cheap oil has fueled America for decades, and our progress as a result has been notable. But did we have to do in order to get it? Overthrow governments? Subject people to the rule of bloody dictators? Wars? Proxy wars? How many people have died for that progress?

Greed is great when your on top. You only see the happy shiny side. Unfortunately, a lot more see the gross disgusting underbelly of greed, and reflected in that is all the terrible a despicable things we do to each other and ourselves.

* Communism is a state religion, which does not recognize any competition, all must submit to one rule and individuals do not
* matter.

No. Your describing an authoritarian dictatorship. Communism is an economic philosophy where the state controls the resources on behalf of it's people.

Like the pure free market, it fails because it doesn't take into account greed. The only way to enforce communism has been heavy handed government, and since humans are easily corrupted it goes without saying that communism is doomed to failure.

Pure free markets fail on assuming that greed is good, which apparently ignores the human capacity for committing atrocities against one another. It fails just as communism does.

So far the best system seems to be a mix of free market and socialism. The free market still exploits the greed, while the socialism provides basic levels of service to most of the general population, which helps maintain the social order.

* Free Market only needs one thing: government that can do a good job at Judging and Punishing the guilty.

We covered that. That makes the free market not free, since the government, by definition, would have to step in and put clamps on companies to prevent them from doing things that, while profitable, are not in the best interests of the public.

* Grow up.

I have. I have seen the ugliness in humanity, and know that unfettered greed leads to death, destruction, and chaos. You may not see this, sheltered in your little world of happiness and plenty, but the majority of the world gets to experience every day the cost of feeding your relatively gluttonous lifestyle.

You have no idea, and your endless rantings on the glory of the free market verifies you have no clue about what the rest of the world is like. You don't know or don't care about the impacts our collective appetites have had on the rest of world.

Free markets are your happy ideal because you've never had to live with consequences of the greed that fuels the corporations that employ sweatshops or offshore their production in places where environmental regulations don't mean squat. You don't breath noxious air, or work 16 hours a day for dollar. You don't drink mercury filled water or eat contaminated food.

And why is that? Because the government you so despise is protecting your ungrateful ass from companies feeding you shit and driving you like a slave.

You don't pay the price for your own greed in your privileged little life. Other people do.

But that's not your problem now is it? It's not your fault that China's regulations suck, or some Polynesian Islands has no child labor laws.

You know, you might just have a different perspective of the great free market capitalist machine if you didn't live such a happy cozy little life. But you do. You live on the high side of the free market. You don't see the negatives, or the consequences, or the destruction. Oh sure, every now and then you might see something like the BP spill, but if it doesn't affect you who cares right?

You see, people like you don't bother to stop and think about the price that has been paid, and is still being paid for our actions. You don't think about sustainability. You don't think about the world outside of the nice place you live in. All you can think about is how great it would be if it were all for one, and more for me. You can't even hear the rest of the world over the sound of how awesome your are.

Grow up? Man, you aren't even out of diapers.