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Adam Smith's Invisible Hand?

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Adam Smith believed that a free market worked the best. In particular, he said that rational self-interest and competition lead to economic prosperity.

Do you think that this is absolutely best or mostly best and if you favor a small amount of regulation where would you place it?

Thank you.
 

Timothy Bryce

Active Member
A totally free market with absolutely no regulation is not a good idea. An example of that scenario is Somalia. One could argue that Somalia is the most capitalist country in the world.
 

Cassandra

Active Member
A totally free market with absolutely no regulation is not a good idea. An example of that scenario is Somalia. One could argue that Somalia is the most capitalist country in the world.
Adam Smith invisible hand is often misunderstood. For Adam Smith it meant something entirely different than many people think today. They think he meant that through adjustment of price demand and supply will be matched on a reasonable level and this is something of a economic law of nature.

Adam Smith however saw "the invisible hand" as the hand of God. To him it was the justification for why the rich stayed rich and the poor stayed poor. It was Gods hand! Because in his day there were lots of workers and huge unemployment and wages kept falling to starvation levels.

The rich have always felt and will always feel that their richness is somehow justified by a higher cause. They are different. Either it is because they are related to the Gods, or because God clearly loves them better than the rest, or because evolution made them the top of the food chain. And it makes them pretty insensitive to the suffering of the people they exploit.

Free market is an ideal! It does not exist in the wild as our economy is driven by greed and profit. For profit driven companies it is much more attractive to end the free market and become oligopolists or monopolists than to compete on price. That is why we see these constant takeovers. By rooting out the competition one can set the prices in stead of following the prices.

Whatever they may say: profit seeking companies are long term against free competition

The Free Market ideal only exists in Nature where there is a lot of abundance. In society driven by greed, free markets can only exist through government regulation. That is why the USA is the most heavily regulated country when it comes to markets and employs relatively most government workers. It pays off as prices in the USA are some 25% lower than in Europe because of that.

Lately the USA has be deregulating. Bush did that with some terrible consequences. For instance deregulation of oil market led to speculation that drove oilprices to above $200 a barrel. And deregulation of foodprices led to doubling of the prices of rice and grain for people in developing countries. that was the cause of the Arab Spring.

Without regulation there is no free market!

Many people think that free market means no government interference, but it is exactly the other way round. Trump is going to deregulate further and the result will be more speculation, takeovers, less suppliers and higher prices for the consumers. That is what the corporations want.

In the same way lower taxes for corporations has not led to higher employment but has enable corporations to drive out the smaller competitors. These smaller competitors combined employed much more people than after the takeover. Big corporations take them over, buy them out, or lower their prices to a level they can no longer compete with. That is why the USA now has the least number of self-employed people in the world. They still call themselves the land of the free, but are all wage slaves, and 80% is working for big capital. (In the past Republicans were horrified about the idea of wage slavery and called it that name).

American people nowadays understand little about the great ideas of their forefathers. They think neo-liberalism is liberalism, while in reality it is neither new nor liberal. It is corporatism and corporatism is feudalism in disguise. A new kind of capital feudalism is rising and trying to take over the world and destroy local companies. It is colonialism 2.0 but this time it hits the rich and the poor countries. This degeneration is called "The iron law of oligarchy". This is what our ancestors have been fighting against, and why they made the constitution.

A person who has been warning about this for years is Ron Paul, but few people care to listen to him. They rather listen to utter liars like Donald Trump, one of the new corporate aristocracy that is going to destroy free market in return for the corrupt corporatism. The presidency is becoming a family business. His daughter is now sitting in with foreign leaders so they can strike business deals for the family.
 
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Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
A totally free market with absolutely no regulation is not a good idea. An example of that scenario is Somalia. One could argue that Somalia is the most capitalist country in the world.
Absolutely best!
Some useful regulation.....
- Monopoly prevention
- Environmental protection
- Ensuring safety
- Fraud prevention
 

Kuzcotopia

If you can read this, you are as lucky as I am.
Adam Smith believed that a free market worked the best. In particular, he said that rational self-interest and competition lead to economic prosperity.

Do you think that this is absolutely best or mostly best and if you favor a small amount of regulation where would you place it?

Thank you.

The key word is "rational" self interest. Regulation is designed to protect against irrationality, to keel it as simple as possible.

Capitalism can be a good idea because it gets people to produce so much more. A lot of prosperity can be invariably spin off of the process.

But it's also a bad idea becaus it's incredibly inefficient, and essentially amoral.

Regulation must be used if we want to reduce the kinds of inefficiencies that keep too many people in nonsensical jobs, producing goods and services that have little to no value.

Any industry with a moral consequence must be regulated or socialized.

Health care, education, and food. . . These belong in the public sector. The aims of capitalism do not work, because the morality of monetizing them is philosophically dissonant to their aims.

Energy, housing, industries that rely on overseas labor, and the like. . . These require regulation. . . Their potential for immoral or harmful outcomes need to be checked by the will of the people.

And all the other stuff, we only need serious consumer protections, strong worker's right advocacy in the form of unions, and a non-profit media. . . With those in place you can make all
the widgets and do-hickies you want and I see no reason why you can't
profit to your heart's desire. Tennis shoes and video games? Those are true capitalist enterprises. . . Leave the important stuff to the people.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
The key word is "rational" self interest. Regulation is designed to protect against irrationality, to keel it as simple as possible.
I look at regulation not as preventing irrationality, which can be OK (so long as no others are harmed).
Instead, regulation should prevent harm to others, be it due to rational interest (eg, over-fishing, toxic
waste dumping) or irrationality (eg, incompetence).
But it's also a bad idea becaus it's incredibly inefficient, and essentially amoral.
No system is inherently moral.
And some have greater systemic tendencies for immorality.
Socialism has a 100% record of oppression & starvation.
Regulation must be used if we want to reduce the kinds of inefficiencies that keep too many people in nonsensical jobs, producing goods and services that have little to no value.
Value should be determined by the consumer, provided that measures are taken against fraud.
Seances & baseball have no value, but tis not for government to regulate them away.
Any industry with a moral consequence must be regulated or socialized.
And you call yourself a "capitalist"....barsh flimshaw!
Health care, education, and food. . . These belong in the public sector. The aims of capitalism do not work, because the morality of monetizing them is philosophically dissonant to their aims.
And when public education fails, we should be able to get it from the private sector.
A "plan B".
 

Kuzcotopia

If you can read this, you are as lucky as I am.
I look at regulation not as preventing irrationality, which can be OK (so long as no others are harmed).
Instead, regulation should prevent harm to others, be it due to rational interest (eg, over-fishing, toxic
waste dumping) or irrationality (eg, incompetence).

No system is inherently moral.
And some have greater systemic tendencies for immorality.
Socialism has a 100% record of oppression & starvation.

Value should be determined by the consumer, provided that measures are taken against fraud.
Seances & baseball have no value, but tis not for government to regulate them away.

And you call yourself a "capitalist"....barsh flimshaw!

And when public education fails, we should be able to get it from the private sector.
A "plan B".

And here I was, expecting you to agree with me on all these points!

;)
 
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