General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCapitalism and Government Are Friends After All
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-13/capitalism-and-government-are-friends-after-all.html***SNIP
There is this idea, not discussed because it is so widely accepted even on the political left, that some sort of independent, free-standing market exists with its own laws, similar to those of natural systems, such as the law of gravity. Democrats want to poke, prod and regulate this market; Republicans say they want to leave it alone. But this so-called free market doesnt exist, not even as a valid concept. Governments create markets.
Creating Markets
Government is responsible for every aspect of the market economy, from writing the laws defining private property, corporations and intellectual property, to building the roads on which commerce depends. When business was simpler, centuries ago, government built simple markets. Today, it creates more complicated ones.
It took centuries of evolution to arrive at todays system of property ownership, where a piece of land can be measured, bought and sold like a commodity. For thousands of years, kings handed out patents -- essentially a grant of government power -- for land (thus land patents) or as a grant of monopoly power to sell something, say salt or bricks. In 1474, the Venetian Senate was the first to set up a patent system aimed at promoting invention. The new law let inventors know, in advance, that they would be rewarded with limited monopoly rights for significant new creations. Other nations copied this.
Governments have invested in physical infrastructure, such as roads, ports and waterworks, for as long as they have existed. A high point was New York States construction of the Erie Canal in 1825, inspired by an earlier federal plan for roads and canals put forward by Thomas Jeffersons brilliant treasury secretary, Albert Gallatin. Paul Johnson, the conservative British historian, called the Erie Canal the greatest public-works project of all time in terms of the wealth it created. Todays discussion in the U.S. of state and federal investment in high-speed train lines is a continuation of the long debates over which kinds of infrastructure to invest in.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)A patent, indeed all concepts of property ownership, is worth nothing unless you have the means to enforce it.
Without a solid Government you have no reliable means of enforcement. Even your henchmen are liabilities in that case.
But I'm intrigued by your choice of words to ask, do you prefer solid Government to protect Capitalism or "basic animal nature"?
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)We're in an era where the Government exists solely to protect Capitalism, or the masters thereof.
This status quo will only lead, in the end, to basic animal nature for those who are NOT the masters of Capital.
It will come to a point where the only way out is the total collapse of Government, in order to bring down the masters of Capital so the working class can have a chance to rebuild.
Most people fear anarchy and a new Dark Ages. What no one realizes is that we're headed for a world where anarchy and Dark Ages rules the 99% while the 1% watch safely from their gated communities. Protected by drones. Once that condition sets in, it will be fundamentally impossible to undo. Only extinction will cure that.
tama
(9,137 posts)But I don't see and experience anarchy as Dark Age or any other symbol of dystopia. I associate anarchy with freedom and democracy and peaceful cooperation, with friendship. And less alienation from our animal and organic nature.
Is socialism what you hope, state socialism?
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)An economy where the bottom 80% of the populace controls, perhaps, between 60% and 80% of the world's wealth, would be much more equitable.
that socialism was originally internationalist ideology, ultimately aiming for liberation from states and borders?
And that best known varieties of national socialism are stalinism and fascism?
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)And the difference is that Socialism means internationalism, not divide and conquer nationalism. I'm pressing this point because your islamophobic argument against internationalism in the other thread is not socialism. It's perversion of socialism just like stalinism and fascism.
Kindly Refrain
(423 posts)has been to open the world to US trade. They have done this effectively all around the world using tools such a assassinations, coups and general disruption.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Kindly Refrain
(423 posts)"Promotion of free trade is another sweeping policy that enjoys broad support, even as US regulations and legislation at times pull us in the opposite direction. Support for free trade is premised upon the belief that every country has a comparative advantage in some products, which it can use to develop a trade pattern that benefits itself and its trading partners. Until the current economic crisis in South America, US trade officials were often faced with a dilemma: Should Washington support MERCOSUR, the customs union in the Southern Cone of South America that promotes free trade among its members but imposes high tariffs on outsiders?1 What about Brazil, a member of MERCOSUR whose tone on trade issues bordered on anti-US rhetoricwas that country a friend or a foe in Washingtons effort to promote free trade? Free-traders said foe, but the administration determined that because MERCOSUR drove regional economic integration and trade expansion it was compatible with US objectives."
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)JHB
(37,161 posts)A market without "government interference" is one that consists of "I'll give you these deer hides and strips of dried meat for those arrowheads and stone axe.