There can be. If the electorate will vote into office members of the legislative and executive branch who will slow, and then reverse, the reach of government. Unfortunately, lately we seem to be racing headlong into the other direction.
Companies spending money to lobby government do so in expectation of some return, or favor. If the government is powerless to grant them any special favors than the companies are wasting their money.
The more power the government is allowed to exert over the choices of consumers, the more companies will flock to K street and attempt to manipulate that monopoly on legal means of force to their own advantage.
The definitions of words are conventions rather than absolute facts. “Capitalism” seems to have vaguely negative connotations. “The American free enterprise system,” evokes nationalistic sentiments in most Americans. Otherwise I see no difference.
In the United States it has always been pretty much the case that small businessmen were on their own while the owners of large corporations could buy business subsidies and other favors from the government with campaign contributions.
Well, Free Enterprise is ‘market economy: an economy that relies chiefly on market forces to allocate goods and resources and to determine prices’, while Capitalism is defined as ‘an economic system based on private ownership of capital’. So, the two are related, and you could probably say that Free Enterprise is simply a subset of related ideas under the superset of Capitalism.
Basically, you are trying to redefine the terms and then use your new definitions to make some obscure point that is, well, probably little understood by anyone except you.
Sometimes it goes the other way, though. In Quebec are various laws that favour small retail businesses (who collectively exert political power and I suppose in aggregate could be considered “large business”), typically by putting restrictions on the operating hours and workforce sizes of large supermarkets, i.e. they can only have four cash registers operating from Friday evening to Sunday. Lately, the big stores have been sneaking around this by installing stations where the customer can scan his own groceries and pay an ATM-like machine. And the arms race continues…
Something similar went on for years in Japanese retail, as well as rice-farming. At least, that was the case when I studied the issue about 10-15 years ago.
The same general principle holds, however. Whether influence eminates from one, large player or an aggregation of smaller players, the incumbents are attempting to distort the rules of the free market to protect them from competition.
That’s why I’m always immediately suspicious of any business ‘support’ for regulation - invariably, they are hopping on board the regulatory train to create barriers to entry for someone else. Sorry to mix metaphors.
I’m afraid that I was overly ironic in the OP. ETA. Would scare quotes on “Envy” have been helpful?
The illusion of ‘democracy’. Does anyone there have any more than that. Does anyone on the fucking planet?
After the War, Europe was largely rebuilt in the interest American Capital, paid for by the US taxpayer. To speed up the process, concessions to public welfare there were in order. The US, otoh, was untouched and booming. Time to start dismantling Glass-Steagal and expand the consumer base by giving Blacks the vote and letting women into boardrooms.
Everyone on board and in debt? Cars and TVs in place? Time to shake off these pesky regulations on “free enterprise.” Fuck me running.
You don’t say?
I guess it’s because the American People seem to prefer guns to butter in the polling place. Of course, It’s seldom put in those terms in our Corporate Media.
Truly free enterprise deals in trade. Capital deals in arms. I think, with your help, I just answered my OP.
What xtisme and New Deal Democrat said. They are both descriptors of aspects of market-price-based economies, and depending on context they are used interchangeably (and sometimes sloppily) or as subsets of one another. NDC’s use of the phrase “the *American *free enterprise system” was just an example of how by adding that denomination to it, it is tranformed for PR/marketing/propaganda purposes into some sort of noble ideal, so people think they may attack the one but must support the other, with no dissonance.
It has been pointed out correctly that in the existing system, sectors of capital use their power in order to distort the market in their favor (or to the detriment of others). That by itself does not make the concepts intrinsecally invalid, but it is a factor in why most developed nations have a greater or lesser degree of a “mixed economy” - neither fully socialized nor free-for-all laissez faire.
Of course, those who just want to say: “Resolved: Wherefore Capitalism is Bad, therefore, Capitalism is Bad” are welcomed to it but that’s been so done…
One never hears of the Canadian free enterprise system, just as one never heard of the Parliamentary Committee on UnCanadian Activities.
In the United States there is less regulation of private industry than in other affluent democracies, lower taxes, and less of a safety net. We do not have laissez faire capitalism, but we have a closer approximation of it than exists in other countries. That is what is meant by the American free enterprise system.
Oh, good point. And dinky sentient coffee grounds fan scalding and mugwump cantoi, with ravens and writing desks, after all.
I want you to know, adhay, that these days there are MANY decaffeinated beverages that are just as tasty as tar sands. I mean that from the bottom of my top, man…FIGHT THE POWER!