Debate: Free-Market Police: Better or Worse?
Side: Much, much worse...

If "look-a-likes" are selling in China, it means there is demand for cheaper electronics AND these cheaper electronics are profitable. The fact that these replicates aren't sold here only proves that state regulation has enacted subsidies and regulations allowing large firms to overcharge for their products by suppressing the expansion of cheaper electronics. Now, who enacted those regulations and subsidies?Government represents the people, but the wealthy have an intrinsic advantage. Therefore it must be that those regulations did not exist at one point, a monopoly or hegemony formed and undermined the power of democracy so that people were forced to pay more for something.Actually, reading your comment, it sounds eerily like an anti-statist argument. Especially the "overall much more freedom when a big business is disallowed to affect laws." part.Such simple thinking.What happens without a state and free market? Factions form, fight and a dominant one emerges. Businesses form, compete and a dominant monopoly forms. What does the monopoly do? It buys political favours from the faction.What happens with a state and a free market? Businesses form and compete, a monopoly forms, buys political favours. Cycle repeats.What happens in a state and regulated market? Regulations exist which punish businesses which try to become monopolies. Wealthy businesses may band together and buy political favours. People band together and try to punish this in an endless cycle.All states are hierarchies, but not all hierarchies are states. There's no reason why all hierarchies must end in massive fiat land claims and several coercive monopolies, this is just something you're assuming.Why did single-cellular life become multicellular?Stopped reading here. I know where this is going and once again it's going to be wrong.Just like a creationist. You'll quote Mises or some crackpot website to "debunk" reality. Just like how a creationist quotes Kent Hovind or Answers in Genesis. Did you know that the earth is 6000 years old? It isn't? Well you must be wrong because Mises... err... Answers in Genesis says so.Those damn teenagers, kicking up the bushes and whatnot. Surely this proves anarchism fails. XDBesides, I'd take a country with "in-fighting pillages" over the monolithic wars coming from the rest of Europe any day.Pillaging means theft and violence perpetrated against others, and this was an expected, normal part of life. Training for the inter-clan fights that needed warriors.This is just want we expect in anarchy. A lack of central authority breeds factions which fight for power.This is mere opinion. "Nearing and fading from the height of scientific knowledge" and "a period of great minds." means nothing. Even then, this scientific knowledge could only come from natural demand for knowledge.When you evolve past fighting for land and foraging for food, and have a stable society where you are provided for, higher demands develop for knowledge and so science flourishes.It also isn't opinion, try studying history.I absolutely CAN make these claims.- State and taxation ended- economy flourishedI have one for you. The economy improved, then pirates returned to make a living. This proves that pirates are caused by a flourishing economy.Libertarians. Gotta love the stupid.... ... ... Okay, I'll be more explicative. I'm starting the clock before the collapse and then comparing the three nation's progress. All three started as highly statist poverty stricken hell-holes, but one saw huge economic growth that wasn't seen by the other two.Three authoritarian states with monopolies and corruption. One loses the corrupt and authoritarian government, and the monopolies vanish. Gee, I wonder why a region without heavy-handed law, vote-rigging, and monopolies is doing better...You're doing that thing again. That thing were you back out of your previous statements by being vague.The point still stands that if the civil war you were talking about was ongoing from before the state collapsed, it was a war unconnected to the collapse.Therefore you would be lying to say that the collapsed state sparked the civil war.Simple minds again.The state was in near-anarchy and civil war before the collapse. Then it subsided. Next we saw clans fighting for power in guerrilla warfare, in other words a new civil war amongst new factions that formed after the state collapsed. Then it was quelled, and a transitional government was attempted. Long story short, Transitional government versus Islamists is yet another civil war that broke out.I count at least three civil wars in Somalia. The one which formed to take Barre out. The one that formed in the power vacuum that occurred. The one between the UN transitional government and the Islamists.There is no group more fitting of the title "death squad" than states.More non sequitur brought to you by a simple mind. The point is, you don't fear for your life every day because gangs with machetes aren't busting down doors in your village.See, this is the sort of vagueness I'm talking about. Am I to guess your arguments again? Accountable to whom? Us? The way the state is set up, it's clear they expect us to be accountable to them. Otherwise they wouldn't need to make their monopolies coercive.An invasive state would become accountable if it's invasion was a success, so it doesn't matter.An existing state is accountable to the people within that nation. An invasive state is accountable to, obviously, the foreigners who make up its citizens.Ireland proves only that Christianity was an easy religion to spread hundreds of years ago. The fact that England spent hundreds upon hundreds of years failing to take over Ireland via military campaigns proves that coercion is not enough to conquer an anarchy.Except that coercion did eventually conquer Ireland.You're arguments are getting weaker and weaker by the post.So now capitalism fails because a businessman can pay a respected member of society to speak well of his product? Air tight argument you've got there. =/I said requests. This is an example of business corrupting the principles of trade.All firms pay as little as they can get away with, but whomever offers the most desirable working conditions will be able to expand faster than their competition because workers will naturally gravitate towards their firms and factories.Except they didn't. In over a century labour reform was essentially nil. History proves you wrong.In modern sweatshops they do not work towards fair practices, but fight them at every level.You seem so hell bent on the industrial revolution being a terrible time, but what you don't seem to realize is that the Industrial revolution lowered work hours, raised real wages, raised life expectancy and reduced the need for child labor compared to pre-industrial times. No it didn't. Quit comparing the Industrial Revolution to feudalism. People worked 16 hours a day and it wasn't until decades later that they were permitted an afternoon leave. Wages were so low that the people lived in windowless, cramped rooms, drank from polluted water because they could not afford spring water, or liquor and cider. Death was rampant. Children occupied much of the workforce and were paid so much less than adults despite that they needed nutrition more than adults and their bones were becoming flexible from malnutrition.You are simply regurgitating what you read from Mises and libertarian propaganda. If you had an ounce of integrity you would research the Industrial revolution from independent sources.Your view doesn't even make sense. Before mass production the population was lower and so there was more space in the big cities for residents. The waterways weren't polluted yet from factories. Factories, as part of mass production existed to maximise productivity by placing people as close together and working them as long as possible. Before factories there were guilds and workshops but they didn't need to be as cramped, the loss of productivity was compensated for by higher prices on goods. Factories put these safer, more comfortable work environments out of business, and this is where the Luddites came from. Anger at losing a way of life that was relatively comfortable for a forced life of toil for 16 hours a day, with beatings, for less pay and inferior goods.No matter how you look at it, the industrial revolution was an improvement on society.I wish dumbasses like you could be transported to early 19th century England.And I suppose you know first hand how "wretched" this life was?You've already admitted in this sob-story that parliament (you said "wealthy" too, but since the wealthy only have extended market control thanks to the state, it doesn't matter) suppressed the voice of the public, so there's not much else to say here, but...Do you wish to live as a cotton-picking slave? You never experienced it first-hand. Maybe it's all sunshine and lollypops.If it was a chieftain, or council, they would have ignored the plight of the lower class because the nobility would have their ear.But of course, when the unsettling facts stare you in the face, they're just sob stories. Thank god you're part of an unenlightened minority, because the rest of us who learn from history would rather not go through this again.The only way for the temporary monopoly phase to be extended is through state patents. A patent allows the inventor to extend his market mini-monopoly as no one else is allowed to produce the product/produce in the same manner. Which monopolies extend using their wealth and clout. That's why IP has an ownership duration of 75 years after the owner's death. The wealthy have a louder voice than the rest of us. This never changes.No they don't. They're sluggish, shabby and tend to kill themselves. Clearly you've never owned a business. What's this now? You know better than all the factory owners and robber barons spanning almost two centuries?This doesn't mean that because they are expendable they will be whipped and beaten, merely that they don't see the same benefits.I mean, it doesn't even make sense from a capitalistic standpoint. Why pay someone to whip your workers when you can just fire the unproductive ones and replace them. It wouldn't be hard, seeing as there's such a surplus or workers, after all. What don't you get about high turnover and sweatshops? The labour supply always exists. Each job station is cramped and the workers are treated like units, not allowed to have individuality, with rules that punish any form of independent thought. Pay may be docked, beatings issued, because it is an uncomfortable workplace, with long hours, and the workers outnumber you. You are exploiting people and there is always the chance that they might retaliate. Hence you keep them in line with fear.If they are injured you replace them. If they die, big deal. They are replaceable. Your primary concern is extracting work out of them and keeping them submissive works.Are you trying to say there was not a state at this time? Hmm?Quality of life has improved down the ages since the end of the middle ages. You're argument fails.I am saying that it took an entity bigger than the factories to hold them responsible.The quality of life improved, then took a major hit in the Industrial Revolution, then improved again once regulations were enforced.Even weaker still. Come on, avesk. You really think this is a good argument???I don't even know where to begin with something like this...The only reason why the state had to declare unions legal was because it first made them illegal.The Industrial Revolution happened in the mid-1700s. So it would make sense that the wealthy had parliament pass laws to suppress their workers.The wealthy have a louder voice.And even weaker still. Factory farmers are making a profit. This is proof that they are not taking more animals than they can upkeep.Do you not understand how the market works? This is intro to economics 101 stuff. If you can't upkeep your livestock, you loose profit. Therefore if you're making a profit you are not conducting business beyond your means.They are making a profit at the expense of damaging the environment around them that they own. Tragedy of the commons.Precisely why the state needs to be abolished.Stupidity maybe? It doesn't matter if it's a state, or clan, or tribal council. Wealthy people buy favours from political entities.