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

I'll be more explicit: you can measure the outcome of a free market by observing how businesses behave when they have a level of freedom. The trend is always that a business will out compete its rivals unethically when there are no prohibitions against this.Kinda like how the growth of a paraplegic child is comparable to that of an able-bodied one.... oh wait, no it isn't. =/Companies behave differently depending on their situation. Free-markets must be judged on their own merits, not the merits of their highly-statist counterparts. You say "unethically", but I know you understand that ethics and morals are subjective. Saying "unethically" means nothing to me. All I care about is if the business is supplying the demand or not. If it is, it does well. If it doesn't, it fails. Nothing is better at "regulating" than the market itself. Except this never happens because reality is much more complicated.This is a cop-out. You've provided no argument but merely denied my own, so I'll repeat...Supply and demand. If there is a demand, then a supply will arise because persons see there is money in it for them. If the demand is For good quality products at fair prices, but also good working conditions for the employees then that's what the most successful businesses will look like. So long as persons behavior reflects their own rational self interest, which can be shortened to... - so long as there are persons; free-market enterprise will be a booming success. Monopolies are naturally favored by economy of scale and the unethical practices that follow from power.Again, "unethically" means nothing to me. If you fins a particular companies methods to be repulsive, then just don't do business with them.Monopolies are NOT naturally occurring. Anyone can start up a business and under-sell a company that charges monopoly rates. In order to keep a monopoly you must make it exponentially more difficult to get ahead for new businesses and the only way to do that is to appeal to the government and create barriers to entry.Same as above.Ditto. ;)It really isn't that simple. One business will acquire its rivals in a region, thus negating choice. The small companies will vanish as they are crushed by big ones or acquired. Then choice vanishes.I see no problem here. If one company is sooo amazing at doing their job that it actually makes the need for competition obsolete, then it means everybody is happy with their service.If they start abusing their position by charging monopoly rates or militarizing etc. etc. then another person will simply open up a like business and under-sell the first one. Problem solved. =3Again: private businesses evolved into the insurance behemoths you see today that screw their customers. What government intervention happened was the result of insurance companies buying favors from government. This is how business works.Reality trumps your text-book response.This is factually not true. Show me one insurance agency that started pre-United States and still exists today. Better yet, show me an insurance agency started pre-United States (or,any company that began in free-enterprise) that still exists today AND became less corrupt post-U.S (or any government for that matter).You can't, because they don't exist. Governments cannot halt corruption because governments are corruption. The only time government steps in is to expand their own influence over the market. It doesn't work that way.Since you seem to be oblivious to something really obvious, I'll just spell it out: businesses and politics is about creating false dilemmas to customers when a consumer or voter choice is involved.This is how power is achieved and then maintained. You give the consumer two or more choices that negatively affect him, so that no matter what he does, he is helping you despite his interest.Clear example: Palladium and PCs. Consumer advocates managed to cancel a proposed bill mandating the fritz chip. What later happened was that the design went into all motherboards sold, as it was taken up by manufacturers in the private sector, even though Palladium doesn't really serve our interests. The market created a situation such that no matter what PC you buy, you are supporting palladium, even if you don't want to.Again that wasn't under a free-market. You're comparing the behavior of a paraplegic to an able-body. Who knows what could of happened had the market not been so heavily influenced by the state.But, whatever. Lets say a natural monopoly did occur even under a free market. Lets say it tried to pull off something akin to your example. Lets even go so far as to say that absolutely no-one else had any interest in opening up their own business and providing a better service. All these things are astronomically improbable, but lets say it happened. If it was such a big deal that their customers would rather go without their service than have their money go towards a business they don't want to support, then that's what would happen. And when this company faces bankruptcy, it will have to change its ways to meet market demand. If that doesn't happen, then it wasn't such a big deal in the first place. With a free-market, you have natural fallback measures after fallback measures that you just can't have under state rule. You can't not pay for a government monopolized service and you can't compete with a government monopolized service. In a way you can, yes, but only if it ultimately is in the interest of the state.No, it didn't get better.yes, yes it did. Don't take my word for it, look it up yourself.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_in_Somalia http://mises.org/daily/2701You'll also do well to read up on stateless Iceland and Ireland, which held together for over one-thousand (1000!) YEARS!http://fringeelements.ning.com/forum/topics/anarchic-ireland-rough-draft http://fringeelements.ning.com/forum/topics/first-draft-of-anarchic Try observing ancient history, and also tribes, and lower primates. People band together to war without a state, it is merely about a different motivation.The chest-beating alpha-male bouts of lesser primates is hardly comparable to the warring nature of monolithic governments. XDAgain, check the links on anarchic Ireland and Iceland. There are guerilla armies, I'll give you that, but YOU must also understand that these armies come into existence in response to state armies and tend to disband when they're no longer needed. Oh, and by "tend to", I mean they do. Knowing, not thinking.Thinking, not knowing* you mean. =3Show me otherwise.You're a fucking retard.There's no need to get so upset, avesk. If children want to work, then the market will resemble this demand. A sweat shop is (and I quote) "a working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous", but what constitutes as "difficult" and "dangerous" is subjective. If the persons working in the sweat shop don't find their working conditions poor than there is no problem. If you personally don't like their conditions, then express your demand and only buy non-sweatshop clothing. Governments don't stop sweatshops, the market does.The developing nations.Name one.