Great points, Alceste. I'd like you to clarify one point about the so-called free market capitalism of the U.S:
- America boasts the least regulation and lowest taxes of any Western nation.
- Countries with greater regulation of banking practices (like Canada) have not suffered as greatly from the current economic conditions as countries where banking is less regulated (like Britain and the US).
When you say America has the least regulation and lowest taxes of any Western nation, that seems to imply that America in some sense has the most free market economy of any Western nation. However, I suspect you would agree that it is only "free" (or largely so) in a very curious sense, a sense which includes things like less regulation and taxes for businesses, but which excludes other forms of freedom.
It's not really a free market when you consider:
- The bailouts for large lending institutions;
- The subsidized agricultural industry;
- The public funding which provides R&D and a market for the high-tech and weapons industries;
So for example, the pharmaceutical companies, and the most extreme "free" market advocates, oppose the creation of a parallel public health insurance system, because private companies would not be able to compete with it.
In other words, entrepreneurship, competition, free consumer choice, winners and losers -- key ingredients of a *truly* free market -- are ONLY allowable when certain people are the winners; namely, a few rich entrepreneurs, not millions of middle-class entrepreneurs. And that is called a free market, in the special sense of the word "free" used by capitalists at the extreme right end of the spectrum.
I respect the "free market" argument in principle, but in practice it sometimes resembles the Southern plantation owner who criticizes the North for meddling with his freedom to do as he pleases with his property.....sure, he is technically correct....but he is not really interested in freedom, he is only interested in "freedom" in a special sense, namely the sense which benefits himself.
To cite more examples of the game that seems to be played with words in this debate:
If the public supports a law which requires banks to state their interests rates clearly and straightforwardly, and any changes to those rates clearly and loudly, and in advance of the due date, so that people will not get behind on their payments and sink into debt..... that is inefficient government "regulation". That is not called responsible consumer action. It is not called de-regulation, even though it may reduce the complex, confusing regulations, terms & conditions, and other "gotcha" rules imposed by privately-owned banks....regulations which are designed to encourage people to unwittingly fall behind on their payments and pay higher interest, maximizing so-called "efficiency" (profits).
-BUT-
If banks hide their interest rates in fine print....and send pages and pages of terms and conditions, which are deliberately lengthy and deliberately dance around the bottom line...in the express hope that no one will read it....in the hope that their customers get behind on payments and lose track of the rising rates.....and if they give you a rate, but impose lots of regulations and exceptions on that rate....that is "de-regulation". That is comfortable, unrestricted "freedom". The refusal of consumers to band together in any way to prevent themselves from slipping into debt is called "personal responsibility".
Another example: If a government bureaucrat tells me which people I may/may not see for medical treatment...(which of course they already do, in the most fundamental sense possible, by issuing licenses to practice medicine)....then they are infringing on my free choice.
-BUT-
If a health insurance bureaucrat working for a private company does the same thing, that's preserving my free choice (again, using the special sense of "free").
Third example: "investment". When the public invests in anything, it does not count as investment. Roads, schools, environmental protection....this is "spending" not investment. Bailouts, loans to private businesses....the public can do this, but it must give this money to the private business owners with no strings attached, and not try to assume any of the rights normally accorded to an investor. It certainly can't demand a share of the profits, only rich individuals are allowed to profit, not the public, not even when it is public money being invested.
Fourth example: "Spending". $6 trillion for the war in Iraq alone. Hundreds of billions spent on every year, on R&D and purchasing of high-tech weapons we need to defend ourselves, because our thermonuclear arsenal isn't enough. This is not "spending".
-BUT-
Money for museums, public libraries, internet access in rural communities, public transportation, student loans, a public health insurance system....things that might conceivably yield returns on the investment (to use forbidden words)...now this is "spending", even though it amounts to a fraction of what is cited above.
I am not sure, but it seems to me there is certainly a role for free markets....but the idea of completely, 100% "free" markets is a fantasy, the question is where/how/how much to influence markets, and who benefits, i.m.o.
