Destroyed by Total Capitalism

[Tiberius]

wouldn`t without that seperation, things have been worse?
GM would have gone and withit it`s jobs.
If the banks would have gone, people would have lost their savings.

I understand the argument against lobbyism. But shouldnt the goverment be able to interfere when things get out of hand?

It depends on how you view government. If you want government to be a mother-figure and constantly interfere with people's lives, then you would want a close relationship between the state and the market. However, in my opinion, this does more damage than it does good. Firstly, it rewards failure...a corner shop that can't afford to keep going will close down, and that seems logical, but why isn't the same for a big business that has clearly made bad decisions? Secondly, if the government doesn't have total control over the market it is trying to interfere with, things get even more out of hand. How much of the bailout money went directly into bankers' bonuses? Quite a lot: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/business/31pay.html

True, GM would have gone, and so would its jobs, but when a company cannot afford to keep paying its employees...it is a failed company. It does not deserve to be propped up by the government. The whole point of the free market is free competition. If there is an influx of new employees into the market (from a big corporation failure), and there is still a demand for their trade, other companies will either take them on board or form out of those that are left.

To posit another scenario; there are thousands, and possibly millions of people who work in the printing industry, whether it be for newspapers or books. Now imagine (in a very likely near-future scenario) that the market for printed newspapers and books is either drastically reduced, or wiped out completely. Should the government step in to save the jobs of a now effectively useless sector of the market? No. That would be absurd; a complete waste of money. The world changes, and people have to change with it, whether that means learning new skills, or adapting the ones they already have.

I'm not denying the market can be a cruel place, but it works for the simple reason that supply and demand works. It is the most natural of systems, and without knowing the future, it is the best system we have.

The case of banks is a little different. People operate under the delusion that banks are a free and risk-free place to store money. They are not. Banks make the profit through investments, and they use the money of their customers to make these investments. It is the customer who risks their money putting it in a bank. They do not need to; they can store it in a safe if they so wish. The benefit of storing it in a bank often outweighs storing it in a safe of course; you get additional physical security, and can accumulate interest. However, you do so at the risk of losing it if the bank goes bust.

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The market cannot control the state, and the state cannot control the market.

Do you pray to that god of yours, Tibs? Because that sure as hell sounds like the same kind of religious drivel we get from the theists.

Maybe you should sacrifice a goat or something to the Koch Brothers.

I was being prescriptive, not descriptive. Nothing religious; just a statement of how capitalism is supposed to be set up for it to properly match the definition.

A similar example for socialism would be: The state controls the market. The market (at least, the people) control the state.