What is the definition of a "Free Market"?

[dmatic]

Ah ... a great marketing jingle. Sounds good but I don't believe ya'll'd be the first to try 'n hang your hat on it.



Liberty, "free market", same same and baring strong arm imposition are naturally occurring phenomena.

Somehow, someway, someone convinced a significantly larger portion of peepses to surrender the fruits of their labor to further empower that someone ... little girls can't sell cookies or lemonade on the sidewalk in front of their homes without storm troopers showin up to demand permit. Ya got your work cut out for ya.

O.W.

Well, we aren't afraid of a little work to make the world a better place. The whole mission statement reads: ...to advance and defend God-given liberty by promoting Constitutionally limited government, free markets and fiscal responsibility. I like your equating liberty and free market. Interesting. Tucker Carlson had an interesting monologue on January 3rd, to which Ben Shapiro took issue, about 'worshiping' free market capitalism instead of doing what is best for the people. Still pondering those guys' thoughts, but I recently changed my "party" affiliation from Republican to Libertarian, even though I have some problems with their views as well.

It seems to me that we cannot all be "free" without being "moral". Question is: whose morality is best for a free and fair system to operate within, if, indeed, we need a system at all. I, of course, believe God is the definer of true morality. The Bible convinces me that God is concerned about "economics" and just and fair balances and scales.

Economics is the study of the production, distribution and consumption of wealth. God says that He has given us the power (or right?) to create wealth. My working definition of wealth is anything and everything made valuable by human effort.

Obviously, Capitalism is the proven method by which more wealth is created in a society or system. Capitalism seems to be a system where private property is "allowed" and subsequently protected by "government". Whereas Socialism is a system that does not allow private property, in that all things seemingly belong to everybody...

Even though our country was established on mostly capitalistic ideas, socialism has diluted many people's thinking and caused many to not even know what is right anymore.

I agree that the work required to return us to more Godly principles will be great, but so what? We need something to occupy our time....

[dmatic]

Allowing cheating is alright? At am minimum, I'd be cool with enough careful government supervision to avoid the corruption of weights and measures.

Supervision of the government too. I favor enough government control that would prevent most of us becoming serfs.

No, cheating is not moral. Not allowed in God's Kingdom principles....so people are not "free" to cheat. There would be a "cost" imposed upon them, if caught. We can talk about that later.

i am curious, though, how you define serfs, and what you suggest the government control would be to prohibit such a result? Thanks

[dmatic]

Buyer beware? SELLER beware too.

Around here you see the free market peeking out from under the rubble of the government controlled economy in various ways. A lot of "illegal" food trucks parked on the road around payday as someone tries to make a little money, or the fishermen sell their catch on the side of the road in front of their houses.

I never go to one of those food stands the first time I see it. I want it to know it's been in place for awhile and plenty of other people are eating there too. Why? Because if they were selling bad food nobody would stand for it. The answer to getting food poisoning or finding out you've been eating dog meat wouldn't be, "I'm going to report you to the government" but instead it would be losing some teeth when the angry public catches up to you.

More often than not the government protects bad businesses from the people they've screwed over. I don't know exactly what a free market looks like since they haven't existed in the United States since before I was born. But I have seen glimpses of what markets look like outside of government control and I tend to prefer those.

I like your point! Buyer and seller beware! We should all fear God and treat one another the way we would like to be treated. What we are looking for is a just and fair system. Wherein all are treated fairly and justly. Government is not to protect bad businesses, obviously. Nor those who steal from innocent sellers when their backs are turned. Most of us realize that we need a government, because hearts are still wicked and deceitful. So, what does a righteous government look like? Stealing from wealth producers, to "subsidize" favored "business", whether it be farming or candlestick making, is unjust and is definitely not a free market situation.

[Davy Crockett]

Both sides win instead of one side winning on deals

[Miradus]

Just weights and measures, if you will. I know what I'm getting as opposed to a government stamp telling me it's alright because some bureaucrat got paid off.

[Miradus]

Most of us realize that we need a government, because hearts are still wicked and deceitful.

Whenceforth shall these angels who comprise the government be drawn, if hearts are wicked and deceitful?

[Green Man]

Whenceforth shall these angels who comprise the government be drawn, if hearts are wicked and deceitful?

Most of those bureaucrats of whom you speak are just doing their jobs, not looking to screw anybody. There's actually a team that looks for and tracks down the salmonella in the lettuce in your store. that's just one example. They go into action when there's an outbreak. They prevent a lot of people from getting sick. There are countless others. None of them want to get screwed, either.

They're not angles, to be sure but neither are they wicked and deceitful.

[dmatic]

Whenceforth shall these angels who comprise the government be drawn, if hearts are wicked and deceitful?

I suppose we can imagine what the world would be like with no governments. Israel and Judah had both good and bad kings.

[Oscar Wilde]

Well, we aren't afraid of a little work to make the world a better place.

Herein lies some of "our" problem ... too broad of scope. Start small, village, town, city. Each of these is rife with corruption and wrong doing in general. If 'we" each could "fix" our own little bitty part of the world, then the world would be a much better place.

For one teeny tiny group of well intended folk to attempt such a task ... well, it'd be mind boggling. Where do you start? Ya start small, teeny tiny "dents". When enough dents are made all the edges touch and the world, collectively is once again a near perfect place ....

.... instead of doing what is best for the people.

See, here's another problem, "doing for the people". People don't really need to be "done for", folks can do for themselves. If an entity exists to "do for the people" and them people need done for, then what we have here is a form of slavery.

Folks that can't manage to do for themselves ain't gonna make it unless charitable folk step up. What we have now is confiscation of hard earned wages from hard working peepses to just be handed out to those who just can't do ... and them who doin the confiscatin is freeloadin POS too. This needs to be stopped ... at the local level, a tiny dent.

It seems to me that we cannot all be "free" without being "moral". Question is: whose morality is best for a free and fair system to operate within, if, indeed, we need a system at all. I, of course, believe God is the definer of true morality. The Bible convinces me that God is concerned about "economics" and just and fair balances and scales.

Of course we can. The very basic, freedom of choice. That an entity (high faluten peepses) exists to establish a standard of morality speaks again to a means of absolute control. One either adheres or one become absolutely controlled.

Nope, freedom of choice and folk of like mind congregate and standards not need be set. That a significant deviation from the norm occur suggests a "mind" is not in harmony with the group.

Freedom takes work. Work to maintain one's self discipline and work to counter outside efforts to impose and exploit,

Economics is the study of the production, distribution and consumption of wealth.

Economy / economics is a word created by "them". It's a measuring stick of harvesting the labors of wee peepses and how much of our labor wee are willing to exchange for goods and services. I remember G.W. sayin "don't be afraid, get out and spend, it's for the economy"!

God says that He has given us the power (or right?) to create wealth. My working definition of wealth is anything and everything made valuable by human effort.

Man said that Father "Said" this ... to what end?

Obviously, Capitalism is the proven method by which more wealth is created in a society or system. Capitalism seems to be a system where private property is "allowed" and subsequently protected by "government". Whereas Socialism is a system that does not allow private property, in that all things seemingly belong to everybody...

Let's not compare and contrast just yet. Let's stick to the wonderful "system" wee got goin on here now.

Capitalism, as it's currently employed in our society, is the epitome of exploitation of wee peepses. By definition it sounds like a good thing ... this needs to become another small "dent".

You know what IGA is right? Independent Grocers Association ... grocery stores? There aren't many left ... capitalism, protected by government. Who received the protection eh?

Even though our country was established on mostly capitalistic ideas,

Our country was established by our "founding fathers" because explorers discovered potential resources to be harvested, resources that belong to someone else. Colonization occurred under contract with the King which our founding fathers broke so we had our first civil war ( it was more of a war amongst the colonies).

I agree that the work required to return us to more Godly principles will be great, but so what? We need something to occupy our time....

Tiny dents my friend ....

O.W.

[Green Man]

No, cheating is not moral. Not allowed in God's Kingdom principles....so people are not "free" to cheat. There would be a "cost" imposed upon them, if caught. We can talk about that later.

i am curious, though, how you define serfs, and what you suggest the government control would be to prohibit such a result? Thanks

Not to disrespect your question but this is one thought about modern-day capitalistic morality:

The Remoralization of the Market

The right response to economic populism.

By David Brooks
Jan. 10, 2019

Suddenly economic populism is all the rage. In his now famous monologue on Fox News, Tucker Carlson argued that American elites are using ruthless market forces to enrich themselves and immiserate everyone else. On the campaign trail, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are telling left-wing versions of the same story.

In an era of tribal emotionalism, you’re always going to be able to make a splash reducing a complex problem to a simple narrative that separates the world into the virtuous us, and the evil them (the bankers). But I’d tell a third story about our current plight, which is neither economic populism nor free-market fundamentalism.

My story begins in the 1970s. The economy was sick. Corporations were bloated. Unions got greedy. Tax rates were too high and regulations were too tight. We needed to restore economic dynamism.

So in 1978, Jimmy Carter signed a tax bill that reduced individual and corporate tax rates. Senator Ted Kennedy led the effort to deregulate the airline and trucking industries. When he came into office, Ronald Reagan took it up another notch.

It basically worked. We’ve had four long economic booms since then. But there was an interesting cultural shift that happened along the way. In a healthy society, people try to balance a whole bunch of different priorities: economic, social, moral, familial. Somehow over the past 40 years economic priorities took the top spot and obliterated everything else. As a matter of policy, we privileged economics and then eventually no longer could even see that there could be other priorities.

For example, there’s been a striking shift in how corporations see themselves. In normal times, corporations serve a lot of stakeholders — customers, employees, the towns in which they are located. But these days corporations see themselves as serving one purpose and one stakeholder — maximizing shareholder value. Activist investors demand that every company ruthlessly cut the cost of its employees and ruthlessly screw its hometown if it will raise the short-term stock price.

We turned off the moral lens. You probably know the example of the Israeli day care centers. Parents kept showing up late to pick up their kids. To address the problem, the centers experimented with fining the late parents. But the number of late pickups doubled. Before, coming to pick up your kid on time was a moral obligation — to be fair to the day care workers. After, it was seen as an economic transaction. Parents were happy to pay to be late. We more or less did this as an entire society — we switched to a purely economic lens.

A deadly combination of right-wing free-market fundamentalism and left-wing moral relativism led to a withering away of moral norms and shared codes of decent conduct. We ripped the market out of its moral and social context and let it operate purely by its own rules. We made the market its own priest and confessor.

Society came to be seen as an atomized collection of individual economic units pursuing self-interest. Selfishness was normalized. As Steven Pearlstein puts it in his outstanding book, “Can American Capitalism Survive?” “Old-fashioned norms around loyalty, cooperation, honesty, equality, fairness and compassion no longer seem to apply in the economic sphere.”

Anything you could legally do to make money was deemed O.K. A billion-dollar salary for a hedge fund manager? Perfectly acceptable. The Apple corporation exists because of American institutions. But, as Pearlstein notes, Apple parked its intellectual property in an Irish subsidiary so it could avoid paying taxes in America and support those institutions. It saved $9 billion in 2012 alone. This is clearly sleazy behavior. Apple employees should be humiliated and ashamed.


But today the amoralism of the trading floor governs corporate decision-making. Pearlstein quotes Carl Icahn: “I don’t believe in the word ‘fair.’” So Apple paid no reputational price when it stiffed its own country.


Social trust arises from a covenant: I give to my company, my town and my government, and they give back to me. But that covenant was ripped. Now the general perception is: When I give, they take. As we disembedded individuals from traditional moral norms we disembedded companies from social ones. Human beings are moral animals, and suddenly American moral animals found themselves in an amoral economic system, which felt increasingly alienating and gross.

We wound up with the secession of the successful, and in many parts of the country we wound up decimating the social trust that is actually a prerequisite for economic prosperity.

Capitalism is a wonderful system. The populists are perpetually living in 2008, when the financial crisis vindicated all their prejudices. They ignore everything since — the 19 million jobs that have been created, the way wages are now rising at 3.2 percent.

But capitalism needs to be embedded in moral norms and it needs to serve a larger social good. Remoralizing and resocializing the market is the great project of the moment. The crucial question is not: How can we have a good economy? It’s: How can we have a good society? How can we have a society in which it’s easier to be a good person?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/opinion/market-morality.html