Your political views

[DeistPaladin]

Somewhere between moderate liberal and moderate libertarian. The government has a role to play. Business' role is to generate the wealth for society and the government's role is to keep them honest. On social issues, the government has little role to play apart from victim-related crimes.

By modern American standards, that's considered "far left".

I'm a former conservative. As theVOID has posted, I'm driven by pragmatic results more than ideology. When I realized that my logic at the time wasn't based on a sound foundation of facts, I admitted I was wrong and shifted to the left to adopt a new political outlook that was based on the information I had.

Ziggy, you make Australia seem like a nice place to be. And, here I am, thinking of New Zealand.

So, by American standards, I suppose I'm a flaming-pinko-bleeding heart-Marxist-liberal.

That standard is shifting further to the right by the day. Although Bush once represented the right wing, now he's a centrist by Republican standards. Reagan, for all the reverence he receives by the Republican Party, is so far to their left that anyone like him would never get their nomination.

[Justtristo]

Ziggy, you make Australia seem like a nice place to be. And, here I am, thinking of New Zealand.

So, by American standards, I suppose I'm a flaming-pinko-bleeding heart-Marxist-liberal.

I dont think Australia is a bad place to live, however we do have our share of religious nutters. Including a significant young earth creationist organisation (Creation Ministries International).

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

Registered Democrat.

I think the best system of government is a powerful regulatory body that governs the peopel and regulates business. I don't think it helps out personal liberty to have a government that won't interfere with the abuses of the powerful upon the powerless. I don't think allowing businesses to run amok with little regulation can allow for a healthy society.

A lasseiz-faire government will invariably lead to plutocracy.

[LWP17]

I don't usually pay attention to the happenings of our government. However, I have always been a firm backer of a gold-backed or some other financial system that is backed by substance. What we have now was destined to fail and it has, not once, but multiple times. Before, it was cyclical and would always recover.

[Light of Truth]

Registered Democrat.

I think the best system of government is a powerful regulatory body that governs the peopel and regulates business. I don't think it helps out personal liberty to have a government that won't interfere with the abuses of the powerful upon the powerless. I don't think allowing businesses to run amok with little regulation can allow for a healthy society.

A lasseiz-faire government will invariably lead to plutocracy.

In an Anarcho-Capitalist (minarchist) ran economy you don't have plutocracies or monopolies. Government intervention in the economy accounts for those. If you have a true lasseiz-faire economy, which the U.S.A. most certainly has not had, the market does not allow for plutocracies.

LWP17, a commodity based monetary system - a gold standard in this case - is the only monetary system that works. Fiat monetary systems like what the U.S.A. has thanks to Keynesian economic thought and the Federal Reserve only destroy the economy and the currency. The Austrian school of economic thought (lasseiz-faire) predicts the boom and bust cycle of Keynesian economic policy and the inevitable downfall of the currency due to inflation,e.g., the Continental dollar during the American Revolution and the Weimar Republic of Germany.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Left leaning pluralist

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

In an Anarcho-Capitalist (minarchist) ran economy you don't have plutocracies or monopolies. Government intervention in the economy accounts for those. If you have a true lasseiz-faire economy, which the U.S.A. most certainly has not had, the market does not allow for plutocracies.

In a lasseiz-faire economy:
How would the market stop a monopoly from forming?
How would the market stop companies from keeping its employees in an endless pay loop where their cost of living is greater than their pay (which the company is glad to pick up as long as they stay employed.)
How would the small government keep the air clean enough to avoid major health risks?
How would the market make sure that the toys don't have lead paint in them?
How would the market solve this health-insurance healthcare debacle that the US recently passed a law about? The one where insurance companies rig the healthcare system to where they have a collective monopoly, can jack up their own prices on a whim, and cut people out of their program for getting sick.

The answer is that the market has no power over (and in fact promotes) these things. This is because good capitalists know that most of these stops can be circumvented and controlled. Disasters, shoddy products, and dangerous products can leak out into the marketplace and do damage long before there is even any kind of warning. Even with a watchdog group (a private one, since there would be no government body regulating anything) and assuming that they couldn't be bought off or otherwise removed from being important wouldn't be able to prevent the damage from being done beyond simply informing the public (likely at a marginal fee).

This isn't even to mention the fact that a monopoly has total control over an entire market and can quash any competition that manages to come along.

I'm not even going to begin to tread on how this sort of system is going to create an enormous wealth gap between the richest and poorest.

[Light of Truth]

In an Anarcho-Capitalist (minarchist) ran economy you don't have plutocracies or monopolies. Government intervention in the economy accounts for those. If you have a true lasseiz-faire economy, which the U.S.A. most certainly has not had, the market does not allow for plutocracies.

In a lasseiz-faire economy:
How would the market stop a monopoly from forming?
How would the market stop companies from keeping its employees in an endless pay loop where their cost of living is greater than their pay (which the company is glad to pick up as long as they stay employed.)
How would the small government keep the air clean enough to avoid major health risks?
How would the market make sure that the toys don't have lead paint in them?
How would the market solve this health-insurance healthcare debacle that the US recently passed a law about? The one where insurance companies rig the healthcare system to where they have a collective monopoly, can jack up their own prices on a whim, and cut people out of their program for getting sick.

The answer is that the market has no power over (and in fact promotes) these things. This is because good capitalists know that most of these stops can be circumvented and controlled. Disasters, shoddy products, and dangerous products can leak out into the marketplace and do damage long before there is even any kind of warning. Even with a watchdog group (a private one, since there would be no government body regulating anything) and assuming that they couldn't be bought off or otherwise removed from being important wouldn't be able to prevent the damage from being done beyond simply informing the public (likely at a marginal fee).

This isn't even to mention the fact that a monopoly has total control over an entire market and can quash any competition that manages to come along.

I'm not even going to begin to tread on how this sort of system is going to create an enormous wealth gap between the richest and poorest.

On monopolies - http://mises.org/daily/621

When discussing economics, one must always keep in mind the broken window fallacy. You have to take into consideration what is unseen. This is how it goes - a hooligan throws a brick through a baker's window and runs off. People gather by the broken window and state that it is actually a good thing for the economy because the baker will have to purchase a new window, which will boost the glass maker's business. This helps the economy. This is false because the glass maker's gain is merely the baker's loss. The baker had to spend $100 dollars on the new window and because of that he couldn't spend that money on a new coat he wanted, so the glass maker's gain is only the coat maker's loss. There is no gain in the overall economy. You have to take into consideration these unseen factors.

If a company doesn't pay its employees fairly, they will just leave to find a better job. The company will either fail because its production will go down significantly because of a lack of workers, or it will increase the amount it pays its employees, so that it remains viable as a company.

If a company puts out shitty products people will not buy those products. The company will fail or change their products.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

On monopolies - http://mises.org/daily/621

An interesting read, if founded on a number of false assumptions, like competition being able to not get quashed by someone who doesn't want competition.
The entire paper seems to be based (if not explicitly) on the same premise that power only corrupts when government is involved. But the kind of bought-and-sold power that being filthy rich gives you? You're a goddamn saint of Capitalism.

When discussing economics, one must always keep in mind the broken window fallacy. You have to take into consideration what is unseen. This is how it goes - a hooligan throws a brick through a baker's window and runs off. People gather by the broken window and state that it is actually a good thing for the economy because the baker will have to purchase a new window, which will boost the glass maker's business. This helps the economy. This is false because the glass maker's gain is merely the baker's loss. The baker had to spend $100 dollars on the new window and because of that he couldn't spend that money on a new coat he wanted, so the glass maker's gain is only the coat maker's loss. There is no gain in the overall economy. You have to take into consideration these unseen factors.

If a company doesn't pay its employees fairly, they will just leave to find a better job. The company will either fail because its production will go down significantly because of a lack of workers, or it will increase the amount it pays its employees, so that it remains viable as a company.

You ever hear of company-owned towns? What about being in debt to that company, allowing them to essentially keep you employed by law in a perpetual debt to them?
And that's just the nice ways that companies can essentially enslave their own employees, leaving things out like physical threats and intimidation in a world where public awareness and law enforcement can be purchased or controlled.

If a company puts out shitty products people will not buy those products. The company will fail or change their products.

Or, they can make you purchase their products because it's a necessary product (like gasoline and pharmaceuticals in the US) or they can control what information you have about their products beforehand or by eliminating their competition.

What's always fun in a world of no government regulation is the game of 'guess what's in tonights dinner' without the courtesy of intervention from the food and drug administration.
Have you heard about the US meat packing Industry in the 1900s? According to your logic, those employees should have just walked out and the meat packing industry should have failed, but thanks to a combination of the book "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, Unionization (which is something the government helped with thanks to other events during the mid-20th century), the Civil Rights Movement, and numerous safety, food standard, and sanitation rules, the entire industry managed to improve.
Also: the steel industry, railroads, car manufacturing, and many more.

[Jaysyn]

All of our minarchists should please keep in mind that nearly every business regulation that has ever come to pass is a direct result of companies abusing people, power or laws. They are all reactionary. We had pure, unfettered capitalism during the industrial revolution & it was only a good thing for a small handful of the wealthy elite.