Are you a Libertarian?

[Rhizomorph13]

Also, I'm under the impression that large corporations in environmentally hazardous industries would be reluctant to sacrifice a little profit in favour of preserving the environment were it not for government incentives to do so (or just plain coercive law). To be honest, there are quite a lot of areas in which I have a distrust for such a free and unhindered capitalism. I'm still waiting for Adrian to convince me otherwise

Bolding mine.

Luke,

That is the best and most simple reason that a truly free market economy will be catastrophic to society. What you are talking about are called externalities and almost all companies have them and they are controlled by the government.

Until recently, in the US anyway, there were no market forces that would compel a company to manage their waste generation. Now people are becoming more aware of how "green" a company is so you could argue that an informed populace would weed out companies that excessively pollute by refusing to purchase their products. The fact is that people, when faced with the choice between two similar goods, will choose the cheaper one unless there is a perceived difference in quality or service. Environmental cleanliness is low on the long list of reasons to purchase products. By the way, damaged workers are a form of externality too!

I support free markets because the competition creates incentives to create quality products because if your company produces substandard goods some other company will come along and capture your market share. Free Markets are self-regulating and they estimate and respond to the needs of the populace by limiting production of things people do not want, and granting production of things people do want. Admittedly there have been some things that I like that are no longer made because not enough people liked them, but that is the way of free markets. (I miss you OK soda, you too Misfits of Science)

The free market needs to be tempered by goverment controlled regulating bodies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), or the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The politicians that control these organizations are voted into office by the people based, not on value they provide to consumers, but on their ideologies, so market forces have less of an effect on who is elected.

A balance needs to be struck between free markets and social programs. In my mind if you can call it a sporadic need it should be socialized. Healthcare, for example is hard to build a business plan around because of its sporadic nature. Insurance was invented to make it easier to construct a sustainable business model. The problem with that is that corporate analysis of the situation leads to lamentable side effects, like employing resources to DENY people the service they have been paying for, or short changing medical providers by limiting what you agree to pay! One particular insidiuos plot is the designing of insurance codes that are so convoluted that it hamstrings medical providers ability to do their job without risking denying the patient coverage by coding their ailement as preventative instead of curative. One medical provider I know has a heck of a time figuring out the literal 1600 different insurance providers and how to choose a code that will NOT deny coverage to the patient!

Anyone who is FOR the current system in America is insane or ignorant.

Rhizo