When is a free market economy good enough to stand w/o gov't vs. having limited gov?

[Foolness]

This post on the Wiki criticism for libertarianism made me think:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Libertarianism

This article needs to do more to expose the angry Paultards/Rothbardtards who mine the Internet 25 hours a day for dissenters against their pseudo-philosophy for what the overwhelming majority of them really are: arrogant hypocrites who search without end for some kind of high moral justification for personal greed by hiding behind the doctrine of "non-coercion", and only aiming to create an even worse environment in the end where a small, ultra-rich elite essentially takes over the role of the state in the absence of its coercive presence; in much the same fashion as an ultra-powerful, centralized and dictatorial government controlling every single aspect of the lives of its citizenry, a completely "laissez-faire" society, run by ever-powerful corporate interests, would not hesitate, under the pretext of operating under the "free market", to do the exact same thing for the sake of power, greed and selfishness. In the extreme minimalization or outright absence of virtually any form of government coercion, corporate interests would eventually gain total control of every aspect of society, including land ownership, and thus every "lesser" human being would be invisibly coerced to do exactly as they say and act exclusively in such corporate interests, or otherwise be denied any "natural" rights or opportunities because contrary interests would only serve to reduce profits, and are thus "evil". And if there is no real government to establish standards for private interests of such a size, or to tell them what to do, and if they simply bought out and owned nearly everything over time, who would ever be able to stop them? It's just another reason why libertarianism, along with Marxism, is just plain incompatible with philosophy or common sense in general. Consider this a partisan response to your equally partisan attack on the criticisms thrown against your movement.

...when is a free market good enough to really defend themselves against the ultra-rich elite?

I don't support the above and I think it is flawed to turn this into an anarcho- vs. libertarian scenario but there does seem kind of a point here that even if a free market economy was introduced to a location, there has to be some form of external market influence driving up the culture and unfortunately it seems only the mainstream media and a large federal government has that power to really spread the type of education required to educate people against the ultra-elite.

But the catch 22 is: a large federal government wouldn't have a reason to do that and would more likely intervene away from education.

The other problem is the ultra-elite/cartels/yakuzas/warlords/initial chaos... as much as the free market can allow these groups to be adjusted, it could also just as much lead to citizen demand for more government intervention during this flawed free market transition.

I'm posting this topic here in this section because it seems, as good as the concept of a free market alone is, often times the praised growth of a country is dependent more on free trade and in order for a country to really outrace the chaos before the masses get tired of a free market, you have to have both massive resources in a country as well as sound economics. But sound economics does not always happen in a free market as it's inhabitants may be coming off habits learned from mixed systems. Especially corrupt systems that leave a trail of entrepreneurship hesitation and ignorance.

[Wesker1982]

...when is a free market good enough to really defend themselves against the ultra-rich elite?.

When it is actually free. That is, when there is no possibilty for the initiation of violence to be legal and thus legitimized in the eyes of the public. There is no need to "defend from the ultra-rich" if there is no gigantic monopolistic machinery of violence for them to influence or completely control. Right now, the rich elite are dangerous only because of the government granting special privileges, outlawing competition, and enforcing other various barriers to entry. Without the government, these companies would either have to make an honest living or go out of business.

I suggest this short video:

In the first place, these critics overlook the fact that the operation of the free market is vastly different from governmental action. When a government acts, individual critics are powerless to change the result. They can do so only if they can finally convince the rulers that their decision should be changed; this may take a long time or be totally impossible. On the free market, however, there is no final decision imposed by force; everyone is free to shape his own decisions and thereby significantly change the results of “the market.”

However I realize, and just a cursory reading of history will make anybody else realize, that an oligarchy of corporate interests can tyrannize a population just as quickly and just as effectively as a government can.

Only when they use the guns of.... the government. Instead of competing in the voluntary market, some businesses see the giant weapon that is the government and decide that if they can influence or basically control (like right now) this giant criminal enterprise, they can effectively outlaw competition (licenses and regulations, etc.). Of course when you have an entity with a legal monopoly on violence, and the power to outlaw competition, some crooked businessmen are going to try to take control of this monster and impose barriers to competition. There will always be criminals, so I say don't give them the means to violate the right's of individuals on a massive scale that would be impossible without the State apparatus.

[helmuth_hubener]

Answer: When the ideology of the people changes enough that the vast majority is on the same page as far as being generally libertarian.

Until the ideology changes, well first of all it's not clear how we would get an anarcho-capitalist system without this ideological shift, but assuming we did -- stealth Rothbardians infiltrated Congress and all levels of government and then suddenly pulled a fast one on everyone -- a government very well might arise again in short order. But if the ideological groundwork is in place, there is every reason to believe anarcho-capitalism would be stable and defensible, even against ultra-rich elite. Hey, worth a try! The worst that could happen is we get a government again.

[nejar462]

LOL at a guy who doesn't know how to use periods telling libertarians/anarchists/minarchists they're wrong. The scary thing is in our society this person can actually vote!

[Wesker1982]

Answer: When the ideology of the people changes enough that the vast majority is on the same page as far as being generally libertarian.

The funny thing is that this is also a requirement for establishing a (lasting) limited government. And at the point of Minarchism, Voluntaryism will be practical and achievable.

[Foolness]

Until the ideology changes, well first of all it's not clear how we would get an anarcho-capitalist system without this ideological shift, but assuming we did

Well that's pretty unlikely isn't it?

It's why I posted the topic under this section. You guys are trying to answer it as if it was a topic on:

Individual Rights & Liberties

or

Freedom Living

or

Political Philosophy

The ultra rich elite is very real though. Not just for America but across the world.

The average people can't just be fed with the statement "when it is actually free" and magically transform themselves into an ideal society. Even those cultures that have tried in the past, America included, have found themselves regressing into corporatism.

Even for people who support the free market, they have never been a "when it is actually free" staters, they've always come at it from the power of a market structure dealing in sound money and good economics. Always mentioning how the lack of bail outs and non-government intervention are one good defense against the ultra elites.

It's this reality that I was hoping to get answers for. The reasons for the Gold Standard falling out of favor is a very real historical case. Not only that, you could argue that it was during a time when the fundamental support for ideology was stronger in that you have a guy like Milton Friedman being in the limelight of explaining economics in details and yet nowadays there's a very huge confusion and it's gotten so bad that it has put American economics in a bad spot.

I guess it's my fault though for naming the topic as it is. The space was short and the issue I felt was vast so I thought maybe the economists and sound money people could explain the definition of what is the highest form of pseudo-free market that can defend against the ultra rich elite, it could better clear out the confusion non-free market supporters would have.

I didn't mean to have an opposite effect. I really don't feel it's fair to just say when it is actually free because anarcho-capitalists and libertarians don't agree with when it is actually free. Even Ron Paul does not use go from a statement of we should be free but always discusses it from the practical standpoint of helping society be freer from the government. And even as Ron Paul tries to do that, the media can often paint Paul as a potential lame duck president because even Paul is poor/limited at explaining what he can do when he actually becomes president and often trails towards more ideological traits such as slow & long term reformations. Something that doesn't sound too good at all to people who fear the concept of the free market. (Even for RP supporters, some of them could easily be more in agreement of following the Randian philosophy of simply ending the war or not bailing out corporations. It's very rare that I hear a RP supporter online being able to defend and pursuing the necessity of a true free market society beyond mere ideology as stated by Friedman, Rothbard, Mises, etc.)

[helmuth_hubener]

Until the ideology changes

Well that's pretty unlikely isn't it?

The ideology is changing quite nicely, as I see it. The libertarian movement is expanding exponentially. What's more, the parts of the movement expanding the most are the most radical parts. It's very exciting. So I see it as quite likely.

What exactly is your question or issue you're wanting to discuss? Is it: "Wouldn't the power elite want to profitably oppress the people and make the free market back into a cartelized economy? How could we prevent that?"

[Foolness]

It is vast but yeah that's one possibility.

I don't live in America though so I often don't see the ideology quite changing. Even nowadays, for America, I see Ron Paul and Peter Schiff as getting past that pseudo-mainstream acceptance and more due to America's economical problem than anything. Outside of these two, people still quote Rothbard/Friedman or Mises.org - Few would bring up modern speakers.

Even Hayek rarely seems to get any mention except for when people are trying to link back modern economics to the flawed principle of Keynes.

It's two fold though. Cartelized economies are a threat when someone who is pro-free market gets in power. Pinochet in Chile for example and the situation in Somalia. Ultra-rich elites are just a general threat across all spectrums of politics. They can be part of a capitalist gone bad environment, part of a mixed environment - hell they are everywhere in this non-ideal world and the worst part is that their influence teaches the people to be more pro-democratic rather than pro-Republic where the people see Democracies as this fairy tale castle where if they enact King Arthur as president, the land will be saved from here on out and then they get Obama and then in a mixture of both Gravel and Barnum's statement: "A sucker is born every minute for every new generation of critics that breed and don't abort."