The deregulated "free" market is unsustainable

In a debate, the way a case is made is to make one or more contentions that support a resolution, then to support each contention with arguments. Each argument should contain logical reasons based upon facts. The purpose of a reference is to provide a an authoritative source that supports a claim of fact. An unsupported opinion is a claim made without any discernible basis in the reality. In this debate, Pro gives his opinion that "the deregulated free market is unsustainable" but he gives no reasons why, nor any factual evidence to substantiate his opinion. He references others who sometimes seem to share his opinion, but other times just seem to have random conspiracy theories that make no obvious sense. Pro might have offered some theoretical argument the "unregulated free markets cannot be sustained because ... " He didn't do that. He might have attempted to show in history where unregulated free markets could not be sustained. He didn't do that either; of course there is no such thing. Pro rambled around the resolution without addressing it. I provided historical evidence that unregulated free markets were in fact sustained. Free market thrived before government regulation was invented, and that was the case from the silk road trade to Native American trade very long distances. Pro says he doesn't see how "societies that existed before the birth of the modern corporation can have any relevance towards our current capitalist society." Whether Pro sees it or not, the principles of economics do not change with time. If Pro wanted to claim they had, he should have either constrained the resolution or at least made he argument before the last round. The debate is about "free markets" not about "modern corporate capitalism." In modern times, with corporations fully in play,we see that free markets produce immensely more prosperity than regulated markets. That's been shown in Hong Kong, South Korea, and the other examples I cited. The evidence is the more free the market, the greater the prosperity. That is contrary to Pro's claim that free markets are unsustainable. In this round, Pro argues that "nursing" and "day care" have been improved by having regulation, and that the regulatory agencies in a list he provides have "improved standards of living." He provides no arguments or evidence that any of them have improved standards of living. It seems to me that the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Farm Credit Administration, for example, are not even regulatory agencies, that while the Consumer Product Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have improved health and safety, then probably did not improve the standard of living. In any case, whatever regulatory agencies do to make things better or worse, their mere existence does not prove Pro's claim that free markets are unsustainable. We'd have a booming economy without them. Consider what would happen if the Consumer Product Safety Commission did not exist. Before the Consumer Products Safety Commission existed, the private Underwriters Laboratories certified the safety of products. "UL is the trusted resource across the globe for product safety certification and compliance solutions." http://www.ul.com... A product bearing UL approval was and is preferred by buyers. Consumers prefer products that are safe over products that are not safe and free markets naturally assign value to safety without regulation. Companies buy insurance to protect them from lawsuits, and independent certification of safety as well as direct inspections by insurance companies work in the free market. People buy insurance in free markets to protect against losses. Insurance companies then have an interest in promoting safety to minimize there payouts. Here is an example of insurance company safety promotion on the web: http://www.statefarm.com... People buy insurance voluntarily in the free market because they are worried about injury and about losses due to fire and other hazards. Regulatory agencies do not protect companies from lawsuits, so companies voluntarily buy insurance to protect against lawsuits. Insurance companies work to make sure that their client companies do not make products that are dangerous. Besides, having defective or dangerous products is very bad for sales. The main protection against dangerous products is that markets want safe and reliable products. Might is be that regulatory agencies help inhibit marginal producers? Perhaps, but it might be that without the regulatory agencies, consumers would be more demanding of things like UL approval. The regulatory agencies were supposed to protect consumers from defective Chinese toys and from the Bernie Madoff scam, but they did not. Without the supposed regulatory protection, skeptical consumers might well have demanded more reliable private inspections and certifications. Free markets provide what consumers want, including safety and quality. Even if we were to grant that regulatory agencies improve safety or other aspects of certain markets, it does not prove that free markets are unsustainable. The logic is that if a problem appears, buyers are going demand it be fixed, and they will withhold their purchases until it is fixed. Pro most recently claimed that nursing and child care benefited from regulation. If the government did not regulate those activities, it is quite likely that consumers would demand some kind of independent inspections or certifications. For example, parents would want child care providers to have some certification from an association before they left their children with a provider. Lacking that, they would perform a lot of their own checking. Shared child care has been going on in communities all over the world for a very long time without the benefit of government regulators. Pro points out that the US has 5% of the world's population and uses 24% of the world's resources, and he finds this to be a bad consequence of free markets. In fact, it is a product of prosperity, and prosperity is a good consequence of free markets. It's true that people in abject poverty use few resources. India and China are prime examples of growth and prosperity produced by free markets. Today, China is rapidly increasing its use of resources. Fortunately, economics is not a zero sum game. In a free market economy, everyone can get richer without any practical limit. Advancing technology allows growth by expanding the resources. For example, we know how to get electric power from satellites that convert solar energy to microwaves beamed down to earth. It is now too expensive, but it will get cheaper as the technology improves. Pro summarizes, "A system motivated and revolving around profit, and characterized to have ideally the least amount of responsibility as possible can not be sustainable for humanity." The truth is quite the opposite. Companies that do not bring value to the marketplace go out of business. Only government can sustain irresponsibility, because the alternatives are far more difficult to achieve. Pro says, "I am making some rather harsh and practically unheard claims..." I have been hearing them continually for fifty years. Pro has not said a thing that is novel. One peak of the claims of unsustainablity was around 1970. Books were published to great acclaim, and a computer model of the world economy agreed: the world faced economic collapse before the year 2000. It didn't happen. Prosperity has never been greater. Corporation are a type of collective, providing a legal means for group activity. A corporation may be for profit or not-for-profit. The charter can impose any desired restriction on the type of business and business practices that owners want. There is nothing more to it. Free markets are proved sustainable. > Note Pro's ad hom attacks throughout.