adaher may be referring to
Not sure to whom she was writing this, but it sure seems very straw-man-ish. Most people do not truly consider money to be evil, in and of itself, just the manner in which it is abused.
And, yes, quite frankly, money is the tool of looters, some of whom do use it to legally screw people and nations over.
Money can be used for evil. It can also be used for good. Force at best, is never better than a necessary evil. Otherwise, it’s just plain old evil. And the only alternative to free exchange, as we have seen in the Soviet bloc, is force. A central authority decides how goods and services will be allocated, and if you disagree, then they use force on you. Actually, if you slack a little on the job, they use force on you. Because if the market isn’t free, then the labor can’t be free either, since labor is just a part of the market.
Honestly. We really do not know what “free exchange” looks like, and I doubt that we ever can know. The capitalistic marketplace is far from “free”, we have constraints and limitations and weird things like IP. Rand was of the opinion that people cannot be free unless, they can own stuff, but ownership confers responsibility, to the point that it can seem like stuff owns you, so this idea was/is more than a little paradoxical.
You just cannot have freedom for free, no matter how much you want that, and backtracking to comparisons of the former Soviet model is intellectually vapid in a world that needs to move forward, which is neither toward Rand/Hayek nor toward Lenin/Krushchev.
So thanks for the little display of RW-stupid, now we will be moving on.
The existence of rules does not make something not free. We are totally free to travel around the country as we wish, we just have to obey traffic laws while we do it. It’s not like Communist countries where you needed permission to live somewhere in your own country, or even to get a new job.
You would appear to be contradicting yourself. How much regulation of the market can we accept without it ceasing to be free? Zero regulation, or some non-zero amount?
Think of all regulations as if they regulated abortion. That’s an easy way to figure out if they are unjust.
Wait, hang on, are you proposing that we address regulations of all fields of the market as if they were directly affecting the right to bodily autonomy? That’s about as reasonable as implementing the death penalty for the Chrystler Building.
What I propose is that if a regulation substantially impacts access to a good or service, then it should be viewed with the utmost skepticism and the burden of proof that such regulations are necessary should be completely on those who want more regulation.
I like this! A business can operate any way it wants for the 1st 3 months, and can be heavily regulated for the next three, and can’t do any business at all for the next 3, regardless of the danger to the health of the business.
I realize this isn’t the stupid liberal thread, but give me your rationale for banning or severely limiting payday lenders’ ability to do business.
I hesitate to Wade into these waters, but you might want to take your sarcasmeter to the repair shop for a tuneup.
Because predatory high-interest loan-sharking is taking unfair advantage of people in times of helplessness and great need, and often leaves them in a much worse situation than they began in.
It’s the same reason there are heavy regulations on medical care: when people are desperate, sometimes for their very lives, it would be easy for an unscrupulous care provider to demand exorbitant amounts of money, and the sufferer might have no choice, other than to keel over dead.
There are laws against raising the prices of bottled water, say, or sheets of plywood, immediately in advance of an oncoming hurricane. Predatory pricing is one of those things our society has decided is an invalid business practice.
Ah, so we can make decisions for other people? What is the rationale then for not making decisions for women? European countries do it.
It’s not predatory, nor is it gouging. The high interest rates are due to the high default rate. They accurately represent the risk involved.
Not to mention the very concept of gouging is an idea rejected nearly unanimously by economists. If you don’t want goods and services to reach a disaster area, the best way to accomplish that is to put controls on prices. What I really love is when they arrest people for selling expensive generators or supplies to willing customers in the disaster area.
This thread has gotten boring since adaher took it over. I’m already familiar with his stupid Republican ideas.
I ignored him months ago. Now if people would just stop quoting him, I could remain blissfully unaware that he’s said anything at all. Ever.
899…
It’s always fun to contrast reality with Republiopathic caricatures. I don’t think adaher is a Hyperlibertarian, but you are supposed to dance with the one who brought you to the party, and the Koch Brothers and their ilk have bought out most of the GOP dance card.
Wow. :smack: I’d ask adaher how free he thinks movement is in the countries of Western Europe where rational social policies have taken hold. Does he think that Soviet communism, rather than rational centrism, is the direction against which the GOP is fighting?
It is actually American-style capitalism which is most constrictive. America has less upward socio-economic mobility than the rational developed countries. Conservative elements pursue policies, e.g. employer-funded health care, which make it hard for Americans to change jobs.
Most amusing of all is “We are totally free to travel around the country as we wish.” Perhaps adaher is unaware of the concept of private property which is so dear to right-wing idealogues. The only places in America where you are free to travel is on land owned by teh eevul guvmint. Indeed the most extreme Republiopathic venues are proud that shooting trespassers is within the law!
What an adorable little sophistic sociopath you are. Yes, we can make decisions for other people! A person’s right to freely sign contracts is significantly less intimate and significant than that person’s right to bodily autonomy! We don’t let people sign themselves into slavery, sign away their fundamental rights, or purchase substances that put others or themselves at risk. This is not rocket science, and I know for a fact you’re not clinically retarded, so stop acting like this is hard for you to grasp.
Right. Sure they aren’t.
Must…not…succumb…
The clinically retarded don’t post here. Just dishonest, sociopathic dirtbags who are willing to lie about anything to further their own political goals.