Does it seem that the same people who want to regulate "Capitalism" are the same ones who want "laissez faire" in the other areas of their lives?

Social liberalism doesn’t screw with people’s money, livelihood, or health…...Did you really just make that comparison? So letting gays get married is the same as bundling shitty stocks in a CDO and paying to have them rated AAA?

Some people see pure capitalism to be incompatible with “freedom” in other areas of our lives. Maybe you could elaborate on what you are getting at.

I’m sure that’s the case for some but I don’t believe one begets, requires, or implies the other. Each can be independently reasoned.

Well yes I do see that often, but you have to realize that our economic system and our social system are only somewhat similar, and would not benefit from having exactly the same system of control.

Pure capitalism, just like pure communism, will not work. Markets will cannibalize themselves…. Think of every game of monopoly you’ve ever played, someone eventually wins, and everyone else loses.. no matter how hard or smart everyone plays.

Without some level of regulation, capitalism won’t work and the economy will collapse. The correct level of regulation is the issue, and it will be a never ending one since the correct level is probably a fluid (if not abstract) concept.

@saint, a couple of points.

1. There is no such thing as an unregulated capitalistic economy. Adam Smith, for Christ’s sake, said government should regulate the market so that (among other things) sellers would not be allowed to collude and raise prices.

2. I think you are mischaracterizing the divide between the two kinds of “freedoms” among liberals. I think people should be free to buy and sell whatever they want—provided no harm is caused. I think people should be free to marry who they want, to do to their bodies what they want, and to say what they want—provided no harm is caused. How we understand “harm” and the methods we devise to prevent it are the sticking point.

In general I support freedom of choice in the marketplace, both among buyers and sellers. But, for example, I don’t think a ladder manufacturer should be free to sell a ladder in a marketplace if the ladder cannot support the weight of people over 150 pounds. I don’t think factories should be free to pollute the land they are on. And I don’t think banks should be free to make deliberately confusing and risky loans to people.

Likewise, I support freedom of speech and of action. But, I don’t think adults should be free to have sex with minors. I don’t think people should be free to make speech that incites violence. I don’t think parents should be allowed to beat their children.

And I’m pretty sure that conservatives also pick and choose the extent of what “freedoms” they allow. There is no such thing as absolute freedom in any society. Part of the reason is that under “absolute freedom” with no laws or regulation, I am “free” to enslave you.

What a corporation does affects everyone or a lot of people at the very least, very often in a negative way.
What you do, privately, in your own 4 walls, does not.

@tedd

Your comparison of a market economy to a game of Monopoly is fundamentally flawed because Monopoly is a zero-sum game which has as its object the “wipeout” of other competitors in the game. A real-life market economy has no such goal.

In other aspects the comparison is lacking because of the inability to innovate, to expand or modify offerings and to modify pricing in Monopoly. There’s absolutely no “consumer choice”: you go where the dice tell you to go and nowhere else. The cards say what they say and there are no “deals” to be made. All players in the game of Monopoly are forced to play… Monopoly, and no other game. It’s far too simplistic to say, “This is how Monopoly works, and our economy works in a similar fashion.” Only in the most simplistic ways does it resemble an actual, working economy. (And in other news, Monopoly certainly isn’t laissez faire. The rules are printed and very clear. No deviation or allowances are made for alternative play – other than what is spelled out in the rules.)

@CWOTUS, what do you mean market economies aren’t zero sum? Within any industry businesses compete for a set amount of customers; the business that gets the most customers with the lowest cost “wins.” And the greater your share of customers/profits, the easier it is for you to outcompete your rivals entirely and win. That’s like the definition of zero sum.

You can argue that a market-based society, as a whole, isn’t zero sum, because the intense competition between actors creates incentives for cooperation and feedback effects. But that’s only if competition exists in the first place! There’s nothing in “the market” that magically ensures competition exists. Which is why Adam Smith, the founder of capitalistic theory, said government should regulate markets!

Paradoxically, the people who want a totally free market seem to want to regulate what we do with our bodies, in our bedrooms and whom we marry.

@Qingu

You’ve presumed a “set amount” of customers which does not occur. Yes, there are “only” about 7 billion potential customers on the planet, but they aren’t restricted to acting in an individual capacity. They can act as individuals, in families, and in other organizations and form multiple purchase arrangements. Just because “the utility power boiler” market in which my company operates has only (today) a relative handful of customers doesn’t mean that we can’t have more customers tomorrow. “Winning”, even by your narrow definition of the term, is an ongoing process. Today’s winners can be tomorrow’s losers. Nothing is static.

In any case, your definition of winning is not accurate, either (except in terms of a Monopoly game, perhaps), because “most customers with lowest cost” doesn’t necessarily win anything. Profit is more vital than low cost or high volume.

I agree that there’s nothing automatic about competition in markets, and there’s no magic. But it almost seems magical that… markets work, however that happens.

As to Adam Smith, maybe you can show where he argues for government regulation of markets. I sure haven’t seen it.

@CWOTUS, while it’s true that there is never a set amount of customers in any industry, I think you’re being cute here. There may be a few more customers for power boilers in the future but I’m assuming your business still operates as if there is a scarce and competitive market for them… which was my point.

And profit = revenue from customers – expenses so I’m not sure what you’re disputing there. I guess I left out pricing? Oh well?

As for markets being “magical,” I think this goes a long way towards explaining what’s wrong with conservatives. You are in awe of the market and treat it almost as a deity that can do no wrong and must be appeased. If you’d simply read Adam Smith, you’d know that there’s absolutely nothing magical about markets. And certainly the history of modern industrialism is rife with examples of unregulated markets utterly failing.

And here are some choice Smith quotes:

On credit regulation:
“To restrain private people, it may be said, from receiving in payment the promissory notes of a banker, for any sum whether great or small, when they themselves are willing to receive them; or, to restrain a banker from issuing such notes, when all his neighbours are willing to accept of them, is a manifest violation of that natural liberty which it is the proper business of law, not to infringe, but to support. Such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respects a violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments; of the most free, as well as of the most despotical. The obligation of building party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a violation of natural liberty, exactly of the same kind with the regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed.”

On collusion:
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.”

On regulating how masters pay workmen:
“Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor of the masters. ”

In general:
“To expect that freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or a Utopia should ever be established in it,”

In general, Smith is skeptical of any regulation proposed by a particular interest—such as city-based industry or the “elite” (in Smith’s timepolitics was dominated by elite landowners—not so different from our time, really)—because such a regulation would distort the natural tendencies of the market (to, for example, favor city-based industry over rural-based industry). But Smith was not an anarchist; he acknowledged that some regulation was necessary and supported it in some circumstances. He also saw collusion and wealth inequality as explicit social ills, though he did not propose specific solutions for them.

FYI, Smith was also in favor of progressive taxation, i.e. higher taxes for rich people (or what Republicans today would call “class warfare”):

“The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”

And, while I’m at it, it’s worth pointing out that Smith supported “government spending” to facilitate commerce (road and bridges, etc) and for a public education system.

@Qingu Lots of people don’t mind taxation for infrastructure maintenance. Me, for instance. Nice roads are better for travelling on. But when my city is paying for kids to come to school via taxi from the next town over? I gets a bit crabby. Yes, they do that here. This in spite of the fact that I live in a bedroom community.
Unless Smith ties his progressive taxation back into the rest of capitalism, it’s merely an opinion. I’ve never read Smith, so I don’t know if he does or not.

@Nullo The taxi case sounds like a mismanagement issue? Have no idea what the circumstances are for sure so how did it ever come to this?

@Nullo, I’m not holding up Smith as some kind of sacred text. But he’s the founder of capitalism as we know it today, and I think it’s important to point out that even he favored some forms of government regulation.