Pure socialism is as broken as pure capitalism .. both place the welfare of institutions (corporations or parties) ahead of the welfare of individual citizens. I'll say no more on this as we are now drifting WAY off topic. As my father would say "everything in moderation, nothing in excess".
I agree with you in part. Capitalism does need policing just like the streets do. Deceptive trade practices and fraud do need to be punished. And government is needed to serve the purpose of policing capitalism. However, government policing itself is a whole different problem. And this is why waste, fraud and abuse runs rampant in government. Bureaucrats get a pass when they break laws due to political connections. I prefer the free market because customers and a bottom line is a powerful regulating system. Government doesn’t have such checks except for elections.
Except for the decades of cutting corners, abuse, and pollution done by so many companies in pursuit of the bottom line, until government regulations and agencies were created to stop it. Of course bribery, aka "lobbying and donations", have corrupted enough legislators that some abuses continue to this day. The "free markets" are a complete failure at regulating itself and providing the best for humanity.
We all certainly have a limited radius of free will. We get to choose what restaurant to go to, what food brands to buy in the grocery store, what kind of car to buy (so far), what movie to go see, what field of study to pursue in college, what technical skill to learn. We certainly don’t have unlimited free will. The same applies to the free market. As long as we can freely exchange goods and services, we have a “freedom of choice” of what products to buy. If there is a dispute over what causes harm, that is what a court system is for. I don’t believe there is one person or a few to sit up high on a pyramid that should decide for the rest of us what we should have access to in the marketplace. Nobody is that qualified to do so.
You ought to read Richard Thaler’s Nudge. You’d be surprised who is already doing much of this today, and how susceptible we all are to it.
Which proves that the free market is not good at regulating itself, completely contrary to your earlier claims.
When the free market fails, that is when the courts step. That doesn't prove the free market should be destroyed!
It proves the free market cannot work on it's own. By the time it gets to the courts it's already far too late, that's why government regulations are needed and should be enforced.
Well, nothing works on its own. Everything requires maintenance. Our whole experiment with civilization is a trial and error process. Our free market system allows a far greater variety of options for us to select from. If something is harmful, we can correct for it. I get the impression that some of you here are more interested in castigating certain groups of people (because they disagree with you) than you are in trying to improve the well being of our civilization.
The opposite of course. Some of us are simply not delusional enough to ignore all the failures of the "free market" and pretend it can work unfettered. History has proven that companies will often do anything to maximize profits at the cost of public health and safety.
History is a wasteland of errors and disasters, caused by a "free market" that permits hazardous results to permeate the environment,
So, what do you believe? Is there one person that should decide for us (court) or is nobody qualified (no court).
Your very well being is due to the free market. You benefit from the diesel powered trucks bringing products to the store shelves that you purchase. You have necessities like everybody else. The products to sustain your life are produced and transported by fossil fuels. Hell, a Tesla mobile service vehicle that came out to my house was an ICE car! Tesla uses ICE cars to reduce their operational costs. Imagine that!
