Debate: Which side Government or No government
Side: Government society

All these but law, are constantly being improved, both in quality and in efficiency of manufacture.This is true but what that boils down to is perceived quality and price. In practice, quality is very hard for the consumer to judge in the things I mentioned. Yes you can tell the difference between a really poor quality item (washing machine, hot dog, socks, etc), but can you tell the "real" quality difference between the "average" brands of these items? Most consumers can't and will just buy the socks from the first bin of socks they see at Walmart. Remember in a free market all of your "choices" from socks to police force are not determined by you, but are determined by the masses of consumers and their "informed" decisions. Imagine when the masses of "informed Walmart shoppers" are determining which police force stays in business in your town.As for price, how could someone with less money and power possibly out sell their competitor on that input by itself?PS. I have nothing against Walmart, it just seems like a good "symbol" of what consumers, given free choice, will gravitate to.Name a coercive monopoly that forms, or is maintained, without government protection (present or past).It does not have to be coercive to be bad. The simple formation of the monopoly and the "possibility" that it be coercive when ever it wanted is bad. At some point it's too late to stop it in a free market and it's at that point it could start to be coercive. Think about how non-democratic governments form. Have a revolution, concentrate wealth and power (seems OK at first, their the good guys), before you know it there is a new crooked regime that cant be replaced because they have too much wealth and power so you have to have another revolution.Plenty of monopolies have formed (coercive or not) or been prevented from forming. International Harvester and American Tobacco, Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, every non-democratic government/ruler. I'll let you provide arguments that show they happened because of the government. This supposes that there is no way for competitors to enter the market. What keeps them out?Competitors can enter the market, but again surely the guy with more power and resources, all things being equal, has an advantage over a new competitor? Not in every case, but on average and these "more times than not" add up over time. It's hard for the process to reverse direction (in the same proportion) which is what would be required to keep things even. If the average Joe can't beat the smart, wealthy, powerful guy at least 50% of the time, eventually 1% of the smartest, wealthiest, most powerful guys will own the world.They have the most to lose, by risking, therefore they will be more conservative in their endeavors.If their business is diverse they minimize their risk. They can create new autonomous companies that compete with the same "risk" level as another new start up. Obviously if your Microsoft and you try and create a car and flops, you could hurt your brand. But if your Bill Gates and you just start a new car company, there is no risk that any other new car company would face. No reason for Bill to be conservative. By what mechanism will they control everything?When the 1% controls 99% of the security companies, insurance companies, arbitration companies, real-estate companies, jobs, etc. they control everything except the poor workers personal property. Eventually, after a tipping point, the free market is no longer free and they can limit where you can shop, when you can shop, how much things cost, where you go to school, where you work, how long you work. Of course your "free" to be a salve to this, die or move to a new country.What sort of corporate corruption? Was this corruption possible without government coercion or protection?The only thing that makes bad corporate behavior corruption are our laws. So basically most of what we call corrupt behavior, would just be "business smarts" in a free market. There must be literally millions of specific examples but lets start here: Pyramid schemes, insider trading, financial coercion by company directors, theft, corporate espionage, environmental damage.Editorial:Wealth and power are some of the most powerful driving forces known to man. You want encourage a man to corrupt, steal, lie, kill, cheat or work himself to death....pay him. Free market allows these destructiveness tenancies to flourish to the extreme. Even with our progressive tax code and punishments, people still do crazy and terrible things for their wealth and power. Imagine what people would do with no punishments (except in the case of violating private property) and unlimited wealth (you keep every cent you make).I think the average free market proponent "thinks" they will be the one that will benefit in a free market, but look at your competition? The extremes of society will "win". The extremely smart or rich business men will own all the business, the extremely poor workers will own all the jobs. This is the most efficient is it not? I wish I was an extremely smart or wealthy business man, but chances are, over time, I'll get weeded out by those who are smarter or richer. The average man will be the poor worker. Just look at America today. It's taken a while, but you can see the market is separating the rich and the poor. If we got rid of unions, remove the minimum wage, remove the progressive tax system imagine where we would go? Nobody likes government, and you can make arguments that it's all the governments fault, but that is a way to simplistic view. The government is constantly changing the guard from one extreme to the other but the slow march of market capitalism continues to concentrate wealth and power and would do so even more were it not for minimum wage, unions, worker safety rules, progressive tax system, etc...