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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kash johal who wrote (108976)	5/1/2000 10:34:00 PM
From: Joe NYC	Respond to of 1577188

Kash, You sound like a real believer in the true free market for political and philiosophical reasons. I personally like it for primarily because free market is the most efficient method of creating wealth. This is purely practical reason. If you consider how many arguments and even crime start over money, most likely because the lack of it, how many arguments have been over how to divide the pie. That's where the free market helps: Make the pie bigger! The real problem of lack of something is likely to be lessened, or may disappear completely. All you may be left with is irrational envy, class warfare, and other squabbling. On political / philosophical level, I like the free market because it is the least intrusive. Whatever intrusion there is mainly comes from the collective wisdom of all the participants in the market, rather than some elites living in ivory towers. And there are also strategic reasons for a country to want to control its means of food manufacturing or military manufacturing or power generation or education services etc. I guess then, the subsidies should be put in the military budgets. Since people don't like military budgets, the likelihood of the money being spent on farm subsidies would be lower. But practically, if you look at countries that are the biggest offenders (Japan, Western Europe) happen to be the places on earth that are least likely to see a protracted war. Joe

To: kash johal who wrote (108976)	5/2/2000 12:26:00 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577188

OT You sound like a real believer in the true free market for political and philiosophical reasons. Yes and practical reasons as well. If you look at history, it is pretty clear that the "free market" needs controls or it runs roughshod over individual peoples rights. That depends on how you define "free market" and what you consider peoples rights. Arguably a situation with a true monopoly (not just a dominant company, but one that totally controls the market) is not a free market. I would support some anti-trust enforcement but I think such enforcement should be rare. There are few true monopolies except those that are put in place by governments. Personally I think government attempts to control businesses are far more likely to run roughshod over people's rights then businesses are. Note- A strong free market means businesses are largely free from regulation of their businesses practices and they don't face extremely high taxes, but it does not mean they are free to abuse peoples rights. Companies might have gotten away with abuses, or even have hd the government accept the abuse, but this acceptance is not a nessisary prerequisite for an extremely free market. What would you consider running roughshod over individual rights? Bashing in the heads of union organizers? Yes that would be an abuse of individual rights. It can and should also be illegal even in an extremely free market. Paying low wages? I do not consider this an abuse of individual rights. I am not just for a free market because of efficiency but because I support freedom. Heavy government regulation limits freedom. In some cases it is justified, but in the majority of cases the benefit gained does not justify the infringement on our freedom. In many cases there isn't even a benefit gained as not even considering freedom the regulation is a net negative. You equate subsides and regulation with freedom by comparing my opposition of them to support of dictatorship. I would suggest that more subsidies and regulation bring you closer to an experience like that of living in a dictatorship. Also dictatorships are often not efficient. They often are more corrupt then democracies, and even if the government structure itself is efficient (hardly a given), they often arbitrarily control sections of the economy (giving out exclusive licenses to the dictators relatives for example). Increased freedom is far more likely to result in increased efficiency than imposing a dictatorship is. Tim