15 Oct 2003 @ 12:48, by Bruce Kodish
Although I favor the capitalist, free market orientation, I eschew economic fundamentalists who operate under that banner. Just because I despise the socialist ideal of ensuring equality of results by negating individual rights and incentives, doesn't mean that I approve of every maneuver done in the name of 'capitalism'.
Examples of dogmatic doctrine spouted in the name of 'the market': the notion that economic growth is always good, the fixed belief that what's good for powerful corporations is automatically good for the rest of us, or the view that government regulation and economic planning is always bad.
Supporters of capitalism should not be afraid of casting a critical eye on corporations which attempt to regulate governments, through lobbying, campaign funding, etc.
This leads actually to a subversion of free market principles, i.e., corporate socialism, where governments make laws that allow corporate entities to make the costs of their actions--pollution, developmental sprawl, etc.--hidden, and therefore payable by the rest of us.
Government regulation and planning works best when minimized (See the works of F.A. Hayek). Libertarians, Classical Liberals and Conservatives should work doubly hard to provide solutions to socio-economic problems that will preempt the tired and flabby remedies of socialists and those unimaginative liberals who follow in their wake.
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