Government intervention is always a retardant of beneficial market mechanisms.

-=1=- I chose to define the price mechanism and explain its function because it, along with the profit/loss constraint, defines the market mechanism. This is why economic coordination and calculation is at all possible, and why government intrusion, which is not bound by either prices (in the short-run) or the profit motive, must necessarily lead to relatively suboptimal results (relative to the market). The failure of price controls is merely a small part of a much larger and systemic problem. -=2=- Rather than responding to my argument directly, you have decided to make a very specific argument about monetary equilibrium theory and the tenability of the gold standard. There is no possible way to respond to each of your points adequately since entire volumes have been written on this very topic by many great economists (Keynes, Hayek, Friedman, Myrdal, Wicksell, Mises, ect). Thus I am forced to give a very general and inadequate response: The Federal Reserve's record, over the past 100 years, has been quite atrocious by anyone's standards. This is because the Federal Reserve is essentially a socialist institution that centrally plans one-half of the market economy (money is one-half of all exchanges) and has contradictory mandates (full employment, price stability, economic growth, financial stability, ect) [1]. Since its introduction in 1913, the U.S. economy has experienced 19 recessions, including the great depression and the stagflation crisis of the 1970s [2]. All of this ignores the various hyperinflations that have plagued the world economy since the worldwide introduction of central banks (South East Asia, Argentina, ect). But the monopolization of currency and the extreme regulation of the banking sector predates the Federal Reserve act of 1913 [3]. Such intrusions have led to intense macroeconomic instability which is simply not found in relatively unregulated banking environments from previous historical periods (Scotland and Sweden in the 19th century) [4]. Next, in order to affect the general price level (general price inflation), the total rate of monetary growth must exceed both the demand for money and total output (expressed by the quantity theory, MV=PQ). So, for example, if total output is growing at a rate of 7% per year, total monetary growth must range from 8-10% in order to yield 1-3% general price inflation. If the demand for money rises, let's say by 5%, than total monetary growth must range from 13-15% per year in order to yield 1-3% general price inflation. Thus monetary expansion does not always yield general price inflation, but it always yields relative price inflation/distortions [5]. The effects of relative price distortions are disastrous: they lead to a misallocation of scarce resources towards ultimately unwarranted and unsustainable economic activities (bubbles) and reduce real wages (since laborers are the last to receive the newly created sums money) [5]. Either way, any expansion in the monetary base is, by definition, the monetization of government debt [6]. -=3=- You admit that voters are politically illiterate but you then go on to say that they have a general understanding of how complicated pieces of legislation, which are thousands of pages long, will affect them. But this requires intense political literacy, something that most politicians don't even posses. Many politicians openly admit that they do not read complicated and extremely important pieces of legislation [7]. Next, you claim that conservatives "stand for low taxes and free markets," but how can this be when our last president, a conservative, was one of the most interventionist presidents in U.S. history? He passed 8,000 regulations during his presidency, including Sarbanes and Oxley, a multi-trillion dollar Medicaid entitlement bill, and accumulated the largest fiscal deficits in U.S. history (more than all other presidents combined) [8]. Deficits are merely taxes that must be imposed upon future generations. The average voter is not only clueless about legislation that will directly affect them, but they are entirely ignorant of the philosophical ideologies that are supposed to define the political parties. How many people have read Marx, Mises, Friedman, Trotsky, Keynes, Nozick, Rawls, Rand, ect? The answer should be obvious. Thankfully, consumers do not need to be enlightened philosophers in the market; they merely need to understand their own subjective preferences. How many times has congress attempted to "reform" campaign financing? How effective has this been in diminishing the power of special interests? The answers are, again, obvious. Your faith in future reform entirely ignores the nature of government. -=4=- "Although some government intrusions have been detrimental, most have been helpful. Social Security, labor protection laws, roads, NHS, and many other programs have been very beneficial." How have they been "very beneficial?" 1.Social security and Medicare are utterly unsustainable. Collectively, they are 100+ trillion dollars in the hole and may bankrupt our nation [9]. 2.The public roads and infrastructure in the U.S. are horrific. Do you believe that without government central planning we would not have private roads? Why are you so sure that private roads would be worse than the deteriorating roads we see today? Can you cite any historical examples? 3.We already debated government intrusion into the labor market: http://www.debate.org... 4.There have been numerous government intrusions into the medical market, many of which began under FDR and were expanded upon by LBJ (employer-based health insurance, Medicare, ect). I've already given examples of government interventions into the pharmaceutical industry, and I could give many, many more. -=5=- The complicated nature of this information is merely one variable. My argument rests on the assertion that such information (a) is solely facilitated and dispersed by market mechanisms and (b) is required for a rational and efficient economic order. The government lacks all access to this information, and therefore does not engage in rational economic calculation and must necessarily override the subjective valuations of those that it governs. The fact that markets are imperfect does not necessarily or logically imply that government intrusions are appropriate and effective (the fact that a person is unconscious does not necessarily mean that bludgeoning him in the head is an effective way to wake him up). You said that you had a philosophical defense of government intrusion, but so far you have only given me various unsubstantiated assertions and highly controversial examples. The scope of this topic is enormous, which is why the argument must be both general and inherently philosophical. 1.Mishkin, Frederic S. The Economics of Money, Banking & Financial Markets. Columbia University, 9th edition. 2.http://en.wikipedia.org... 3.http://www.cato.org... 4.http://econlib.org... 5.Mises, Ludwig von. Theory of Money and Credit. Yale University press, 1953. 6.http://en.wikipedia.org... 7.http://www.cnsnews.com... 8.http://www.theobjectivestandard.com... 9.http://www.ncpa.org...