Again, you can always choose another restaurant. You have a free market of governance, hundreds of countries to choose from. It is not our problem if you don't like the options. Not being able to find a deal you like better does not make the deals you are offered coercive. Not being able to steal services without paying does not make the deal coercive.
People take the benefits of society, such as roads, sewers, police and fire protection, armed forces, accumulated knowledge, education systems, and social services without paying. If you don't like it, shop around for a better deal, don't take without paying. The fact that you don't like our deal is not our problem. The fact that you don't like any other deals better is also not our problem, and it doesn't make our deal coercive.
Civilization includes police & fire departments, armed forces, roads, sewers, and social services. Yes, socials services. Without them, you would have the poor fighting the rich, unless you used guns to keep the poor down. I like an egalitarian society without too much inequality. It's more stable. So I pay for social services, because I want to. Again, if you don't want to, there are methods available to you to change things, or you could shop around and see what countries give you a better deal. We have a free market of governance, there are hundreds of countries to choose from.
Without government, you have no rights. Oh, you can blather on about rights, but without an organized system of cooperating individuals to back up those rights, all you have as an individual is power. Maybe you have enough power to protect your rights, maybe you don't. But once you create a collective system to uphold rights, you have government.
That's what government is. Citizens depend on government for their rights, without government 'rights' is a meaningless phrase that a powerless person tries to use to convince others not to take from them. Without a group backing you up, you can prattle on all you like about rights. I'm sure it will amuse the bad guys as they steal your stuff and rape your women.
Read up on social anarchy. As I have state, the greek root, 'an archos' means no tyrant. Not no government, as people often assume. Anarchy is not incompatible with rules and structure, as it simply means governance without force.
You may want to read up on the Mondragon Cooperative. They have a system that I believe gets it right.
Wrong, the CRA, which is what I assume you are referring to, is entirely voluntary. Loans given under the CRA have a higher repayment rate than regular loans, and banks are more likely to hold onto CRA loans rather than bundle them up and sell them off. Please don't repeat bullshit you heard on some right-wing blog.
You know, people won the Nobel prize recently just for figuring out what the problem of asymmetric information was. But now that you've fixed it, I'm sure there's another one waiting with your name on it.
What are you, some kind of a... (cue scary music) SOCIALIST? Heretic, the free market is God in America, how dare you question It? Would you put God in chains to mere mortal designs? Blasphemer!
They took something without paying for it. If they didn't like the deal they were offered, they were free to shop around amongst the hundreds of nations world wide. It is not our problem if they didn't like the other deals they were offered. That does not give tax evaders the right to take benefits without paying for them. Civilization is a benefit, but it comes with responsibilities as well.
Without civilization, rights are meaningless prattle. The only thing that matters is power. Rights derive from a collective agreement to uphold them. Without that agreement, it's just you talking in the wind. Rights are what you agree to uphold, there is a duty that comes along with every right.
So land owners got to the good places before you, and set up a collectively agreed upon system of government to uphold their rights. That's the free market for ya. There are plenty of nice islands, say for instance, the Saychelles or Vanuatu, where taxes are scant to nonexistent. You could buy an island and have your own little country.
Or, you are free to choose from the vast world market in governance, most of which is free. Or do you live in one of the few unfortunate countries that do not allow their citizens to leave? If not, then congratulations. You do not have to take the deal you were offered by your native land. You have a free market of choices in governance. Countries are no doubt competing quite fairly and openly for your skills. After all, there are hundreds to choose from.
I hear Hong Kong is quite friendly to libertarian ideals, and there's a large English speaking expat community there. Libertarians who really want to live their ideals should move there. Free tip, no charge, you're all very welcome.
As do many other things, such as asymmetric information. A prospective employee knows more about his potential value than the employer does. Therefore, employers must systematically undervalue labor. In a free market system, capital always has an advantage over labor. Besides the asymmetric information problem, the labor market is not a cost free market. Leaving a job and picking another one is not like choosing another brand of car. There is a cost involved with leaving a job without another one lined up, most people aren't free to just pick and choose jobs. Employers know this, and they treat people like serfs or expendable cogs because of it.
Monopolies, asymmetric information, and externalities are all known failure modes of the free market. The positive feedback created by the fact that money is power, and power makes money means that the rich will always get richer while the poor, at best, stay the same. With all the known problems that exist with the free market system, I don't understand why people argue against government, aka us, the public, regulating it.
I was responding to this phrase: "That's why you shouldn't steal. The government hates competition!" What is that referring to besides taxes? You fail at basic reading comprehension, congratulations.
You also fail at financial analysis. Freeloaders were never the problem. The problem was an unregulated financial market, which invented all kinds of ways of gambling on the underlying value of things. Look up 'derivatives.' You may also want to look up 'naked short selling,' where sellers pretend to own things they don't, and get away with it.
You fail at history. While there may not have been a federal income tax, there were multitudes of other taxes. Infrastructure and services need to be payed for, and they always were.
And finally, you fail at geography. Go live in a rainforest, no one's claimed the middle of those yet. Oh, technically they have, but nobody goes there. I hear Antarctica is also nice. If nobody goes there, its as good as unclaimed, nobody is going to tax you.
So, you don't like the current system of property ownership? Think it's a bit unfair? But why? There is a worldwide free market in governance. Very few countries forbid their citizens from leaving. I assume you aren't living in one of those? Well, there's your free market. Hundreds of countries competing for your skills and talents. Surely you can find one that offers a social contract better than the one you were handed at birth? I mean really, the fact that there are no alternatives out there that you like better does not make our deal coercive, does it? Because if that is true, then the whole free market, private property system itself is coercive. Surely you aren't some sort of a... communist, are you?
More like a prix fixe meal. You don't get to choose what food you eat, but you can always try another restaurant. Nobody is forcing you to stay if you don't like the social contract we're offering. The fact that there are no other alternatives out there that you like better is not our problem. Go buy an island, there are tons of nice ones available in very tax friendly countries. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's how it is. Your country is offering you a deal, just because you were born there, that it is not offering to just anyone. If you don't like the deal, don't take it. Go somewhere that's offering a better deal, the world is a free market of governance. If you can afford it, that is. Just like any other free market. You like the free market, right? Well there you are. There's your free market, go choose a country you like better than the one you were given for free. Plenty of people do, and are happier for it. Why complain?
You're right, I was being trollish. I blame too many years of so called patriots telling me to 'love it or leave it' when I try to point out problems with a country I really do love. Sorry. Sorry, libertarians. I really shouldn't poke at libertarians like that, I know how thin skinned you guys are. There, I feel better. Thanks, mjwx. Very nice point about corruption, by the way.
Billions of people seem to have disagreed with you over the course of the last 4,000 years. We know that in order to gain some liberties we value, we must give up some we don't, and we must let others be the boss of us sometimes. For instance, I gladly accept my duties as a citizen of the United States in exchange for the services I receive. It is entirely voluntary.
I let others be the boss of me not because I need bossing around, but because some people do. Most people will naturally cooperate successfully in a society without being forced to be good citizens. But there's always that small minority of people born without empathy or a drive towards fairness and reciprocity. And I need protection from them, because some of them are not only very clever, but very persuasive, and/or very violent. So I join a society and I follow its rules.
Look, I'm an anarchist at heart. Anarcho-syndicalist, actually. Part of the social branch of anarchy, as opposed to libertarianism which is part of the individualist branch of anarchy. But I'm a pragmatist, and I think that given the human condition today, if all government were to disappear, it would be, well, anarchy. In its negative sense, meaning no order or civilization, rather than its real meaning of 'an-archos', no tyrant.
I've been to real anarchist events like the Rainbow Gathering, where 'you're not the boss of me' is the rule. Nobody pays, nobody is forced to contribute work, yet somehow enough free food materializes and is prepared to feed tens of thousands. Most people naturally want to contribute, to pull their weight. Very few people enjoy being a leech. Some do, at Rainbow we call them 'drainbows' or 'bliss ninnies.'
We have to have our own police force and medical services, as well as the free food and shelter. Not to mention, communications, infrastructure management, budgeting committees, and cleanup. For a few weeks out of the year, we provide for twenty thousand people, better than the US system does, for free, on a voluntary basis. That is social anarchism in action. Can anyone provide any examples of individualist anarchy working in the real world?
But even so, there is the US system, surrounding the gathering both spatially and temporally. We can only do it for a few weeks a year, and only because we make enough money inside the system the rest of the year to pay for it all. One year a fellow came in with meningitis. We're not equipped to handle that! We had to take him to a local hospital.
I like civilization. I like being interdependent. I also know that in any system, there will be those who want to make me do things against my will. Sure, government attracts those kind of people, but the business world attracts them even more. At least with government, there is some semblance of accountability and transparency.
I fear that without regulations, pure unbridled capitalism will not lead to some sort of fair and equitable utopia, but to a new feudalism, a system where the owning class brutally oppresses the non-owning class by denying them the economic means to survive unless the serfs knuckle under and accept whatever the landlords deign to hand out. Price fixing of labor is only one problem.
The main problem is imbalance of information and how that affects the labor market. Labor will always be undervalued because employers know less than potential employees about the real value that potential employee can bring to their business. It is the same problem addressed in George Akerlof's famous paper, The Market for Lemons, asymmetric information. He won an economics Nobel for his research, so I think maybe he knows what he's talking about. Labor will never receive fair compensation in a capitalist system, it is a fault inherent in any free market system. If you can find a way to fix the asymmetric information problem, there may be an economics Nobel for you. And don't start by positing a set of companies that provide information, that simply pushes the problem back a step.
I stand by my assessment of libertarianism. I know you may disagree, but I hope you can at least see that I have arrived at my conclusions based on careful consideration.
It's only hard because we're used to civilization. If you were a hunter-gatherer who knew how to make every item in your cultural kit, you could survive in the wilderness all by your lonesome. The reason dropping out is hard is precisely because civilization is so nice.
Oh, people may be claiming it, but they aren't looking and besides, that whole 'right to your own property' thing? Yeah, that's part of that whole civilization thing that you don't want. Just go take it, no one's looking. Wait, you mean you didn't want isolated wilderness miles from anyone? You do want civilization after all? How odd.
Just because I like chocolate doesn't mean I like buying you chocolate. Unless you happen to be a pretty lady. Are you claiming you are a pretty lady who will perform sexual services for me in exchange for me providing you with money and security? Sorry, I'm already married.
I think they are, but free market zealots will claim that without government, there can't be any such thing. They will claim that, because you have to reduce the cost every time a competitor emerges, the free market is working. Seriously, that's how they think.
I was responding to this quote, "That's why you shouldn't steal. The government hates competition!" which implies that taxation is equivalent to stealing. That is ludicrous, selfish, and anti-social. Taxation is equivalent to getting food in a restaurant, and paying for it afterwords. The 'Taxes are theft!' whiners want to dine and dash, they have already reaped the benefits of civilization but don't feel like they should pay.
I certainly don't always agree with what the government does with my money, but that still doesn't make taxation coercive. There are methods to change things that I don't like in government, and again, if you don't like the system you can drop out and not take part. Taxation is only coercive in libertarian fantasy land.
Somalia would be a great place for tax whiners to live. They could also live in Alaska out in the wilderness. Most of the word may be claimed, but it's not like it's being checked. All I care about is that said tax whiners do not get the benefits of things they didn't pay for. I don't care if there are actually any nice places for them to go live. What they do rather than being part of civilization isn't my problem, it's theirs.
Surely you don't have a problem with people claiming all that land. I mean, government property is the same as private property owned by a corporation: it belongs to a group that invested in it. If your stance is, no one should own more than they are actually using, that I could agree with.
But I'm guessing you are just whining about the fact that the free market hasn't left you any pristine areas to exploit for free. Not my problem. If you want to live in civilization, you pay for it.
Amazing how price fixing could be going on at the same time that (as your article states) "existing capacity and planned expansions will cut so deeply into prices that by the time demand and supply are back in balance the industry will be mature."
That excuses everything. Conversely, if the same sorts of problems crop up under capitalism as did under communism, then capitalism isn't all its cracked up to be, now is it?
Of course screwing over others shouldn't be a crime if it interferes with corporate profits. Say, how come with all this price fixing, someone else didn't step in and offer LCDs for a lower price? That would have been proof that the free market works. Yet that never, ever seems to happen.
Ahhh, look! There's a 'world's smallest political quiz' link! Spoiler alert: you are a libertarian. I am a libertarian. Everyone who takes that quiz is secretly a libertarian.
If you start off with the assumption that anyone can do whatever the hell they please without regard to the consequences for others, you are a libertarian. If you want civilization without paying for it, you are a libertarian. If you believe that a government set up only to protect property rights can be anything except an oppressive regime designed to protect the rich from the poor, then you are definitely a libertarian. Libertarianism: if you think 'nyah nyah nyah! You're not the boss of me!' is a good philosophy, it might just be for you.
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Again, you can always choose another restaurant. You have a free market of governance, hundreds of countries to choose from. It is not our problem if you don't like the options. Not being able to find a deal you like better does not make the deals you are offered coercive. Not being able to steal services without paying does not make the deal coercive.
There are certain things about libertarians that I do like.
People take the benefits of society, such as roads, sewers, police and fire protection, armed forces, accumulated knowledge, education systems, and social services without paying. If you don't like it, shop around for a better deal, don't take without paying. The fact that you don't like our deal is not our problem. The fact that you don't like any other deals better is also not our problem, and it doesn't make our deal coercive.
Civilization includes police & fire departments, armed forces, roads, sewers, and social services. Yes, socials services. Without them, you would have the poor fighting the rich, unless you used guns to keep the poor down. I like an egalitarian society without too much inequality. It's more stable. So I pay for social services, because I want to. Again, if you don't want to, there are methods available to you to change things, or you could shop around and see what countries give you a better deal. We have a free market of governance, there are hundreds of countries to choose from.
Without government, you have no rights. Oh, you can blather on about rights, but without an organized system of cooperating individuals to back up those rights, all you have as an individual is power. Maybe you have enough power to protect your rights, maybe you don't. But once you create a collective system to uphold rights, you have government.
That's what government is. Citizens depend on government for their rights, without government 'rights' is a meaningless phrase that a powerless person tries to use to convince others not to take from them. Without a group backing you up, you can prattle on all you like about rights. I'm sure it will amuse the bad guys as they steal your stuff and rape your women.
Read up on social anarchy. As I have state, the greek root, 'an archos' means no tyrant. Not no government, as people often assume. Anarchy is not incompatible with rules and structure, as it simply means governance without force.
You may want to read up on the Mondragon Cooperative. They have a system that I believe gets it right.
Wrong, the CRA, which is what I assume you are referring to, is entirely voluntary. Loans given under the CRA have a higher repayment rate than regular loans, and banks are more likely to hold onto CRA loans rather than bundle them up and sell them off. Please don't repeat bullshit you heard on some right-wing blog.
You know, people won the Nobel prize recently just for figuring out what the problem of asymmetric information was. But now that you've fixed it, I'm sure there's another one waiting with your name on it.
What are you, some kind of a... (cue scary music) SOCIALIST? Heretic, the free market is God in America, how dare you question It? Would you put God in chains to mere mortal designs? Blasphemer!
They took something without paying for it. If they didn't like the deal they were offered, they were free to shop around amongst the hundreds of nations world wide. It is not our problem if they didn't like the other deals they were offered. That does not give tax evaders the right to take benefits without paying for them. Civilization is a benefit, but it comes with responsibilities as well.
Without civilization, rights are meaningless prattle. The only thing that matters is power. Rights derive from a collective agreement to uphold them. Without that agreement, it's just you talking in the wind. Rights are what you agree to uphold, there is a duty that comes along with every right.
So land owners got to the good places before you, and set up a collectively agreed upon system of government to uphold their rights. That's the free market for ya. There are plenty of nice islands, say for instance, the Saychelles or Vanuatu, where taxes are scant to nonexistent. You could buy an island and have your own little country.
Or, you are free to choose from the vast world market in governance, most of which is free. Or do you live in one of the few unfortunate countries that do not allow their citizens to leave? If not, then congratulations. You do not have to take the deal you were offered by your native land. You have a free market of choices in governance. Countries are no doubt competing quite fairly and openly for your skills. After all, there are hundreds to choose from.
I hear Hong Kong is quite friendly to libertarian ideals, and there's a large English speaking expat community there. Libertarians who really want to live their ideals should move there. Free tip, no charge, you're all very welcome.
As do many other things, such as asymmetric information. A prospective employee knows more about his potential value than the employer does. Therefore, employers must systematically undervalue labor. In a free market system, capital always has an advantage over labor. Besides the asymmetric information problem, the labor market is not a cost free market. Leaving a job and picking another one is not like choosing another brand of car. There is a cost involved with leaving a job without another one lined up, most people aren't free to just pick and choose jobs. Employers know this, and they treat people like serfs or expendable cogs because of it.
Monopolies, asymmetric information, and externalities are all known failure modes of the free market. The positive feedback created by the fact that money is power, and power makes money means that the rich will always get richer while the poor, at best, stay the same. With all the known problems that exist with the free market system, I don't understand why people argue against government, aka us, the public, regulating it.
I was responding to this phrase: "That's why you shouldn't steal. The government hates competition!" What is that referring to besides taxes? You fail at basic reading comprehension, congratulations.
You also fail at financial analysis. Freeloaders were never the problem. The problem was an unregulated financial market, which invented all kinds of ways of gambling on the underlying value of things. Look up 'derivatives.' You may also want to look up 'naked short selling,' where sellers pretend to own things they don't, and get away with it.
You fail at history. While there may not have been a federal income tax, there were multitudes of other taxes. Infrastructure and services need to be payed for, and they always were.
And finally, you fail at geography. Go live in a rainforest, no one's claimed the middle of those yet. Oh, technically they have, but nobody goes there. I hear Antarctica is also nice. If nobody goes there, its as good as unclaimed, nobody is going to tax you.
Kids these days. Don't they teach you anything?
No, they used the profits to clone unicorns. Seriously, what fantasy world do you live in? Can I visit?
So, you don't like the current system of property ownership? Think it's a bit unfair? But why? There is a worldwide free market in governance. Very few countries forbid their citizens from leaving. I assume you aren't living in one of those? Well, there's your free market. Hundreds of countries competing for your skills and talents. Surely you can find one that offers a social contract better than the one you were handed at birth? I mean really, the fact that there are no alternatives out there that you like better does not make our deal coercive, does it? Because if that is true, then the whole free market, private property system itself is coercive. Surely you aren't some sort of a... communist, are you?
More like a prix fixe meal. You don't get to choose what food you eat, but you can always try another restaurant. Nobody is forcing you to stay if you don't like the social contract we're offering. The fact that there are no other alternatives out there that you like better is not our problem. Go buy an island, there are tons of nice ones available in very tax friendly countries. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but that's how it is. Your country is offering you a deal, just because you were born there, that it is not offering to just anyone. If you don't like the deal, don't take it. Go somewhere that's offering a better deal, the world is a free market of governance. If you can afford it, that is. Just like any other free market. You like the free market, right? Well there you are. There's your free market, go choose a country you like better than the one you were given for free. Plenty of people do, and are happier for it. Why complain?
You're right, I was being trollish. I blame too many years of so called patriots telling me to 'love it or leave it' when I try to point out problems with a country I really do love. Sorry. Sorry, libertarians. I really shouldn't poke at libertarians like that, I know how thin skinned you guys are. There, I feel better. Thanks, mjwx. Very nice point about corruption, by the way.
Billions of people seem to have disagreed with you over the course of the last 4,000 years. We know that in order to gain some liberties we value, we must give up some we don't, and we must let others be the boss of us sometimes. For instance, I gladly accept my duties as a citizen of the United States in exchange for the services I receive. It is entirely voluntary.
I let others be the boss of me not because I need bossing around, but because some people do. Most people will naturally cooperate successfully in a society without being forced to be good citizens. But there's always that small minority of people born without empathy or a drive towards fairness and reciprocity. And I need protection from them, because some of them are not only very clever, but very persuasive, and/or very violent. So I join a society and I follow its rules.
Look, I'm an anarchist at heart. Anarcho-syndicalist, actually. Part of the social branch of anarchy, as opposed to libertarianism which is part of the individualist branch of anarchy. But I'm a pragmatist, and I think that given the human condition today, if all government were to disappear, it would be, well, anarchy. In its negative sense, meaning no order or civilization, rather than its real meaning of 'an-archos', no tyrant.
I've been to real anarchist events like the Rainbow Gathering, where 'you're not the boss of me' is the rule. Nobody pays, nobody is forced to contribute work, yet somehow enough free food materializes and is prepared to feed tens of thousands. Most people naturally want to contribute, to pull their weight. Very few people enjoy being a leech. Some do, at Rainbow we call them 'drainbows' or 'bliss ninnies.'
We have to have our own police force and medical services, as well as the free food and shelter. Not to mention, communications, infrastructure management, budgeting committees, and cleanup. For a few weeks out of the year, we provide for twenty thousand people, better than the US system does, for free, on a voluntary basis. That is social anarchism in action. Can anyone provide any examples of individualist anarchy working in the real world?
But even so, there is the US system, surrounding the gathering both spatially and temporally. We can only do it for a few weeks a year, and only because we make enough money inside the system the rest of the year to pay for it all. One year a fellow came in with meningitis. We're not equipped to handle that! We had to take him to a local hospital.
I like civilization. I like being interdependent. I also know that in any system, there will be those who want to make me do things against my will. Sure, government attracts those kind of people, but the business world attracts them even more. At least with government, there is some semblance of accountability and transparency.
I fear that without regulations, pure unbridled capitalism will not lead to some sort of fair and equitable utopia, but to a new feudalism, a system where the owning class brutally oppresses the non-owning class by denying them the economic means to survive unless the serfs knuckle under and accept whatever the landlords deign to hand out. Price fixing of labor is only one problem.
The main problem is imbalance of information and how that affects the labor market. Labor will always be undervalued because employers know less than potential employees about the real value that potential employee can bring to their business. It is the same problem addressed in George Akerlof's famous paper, The Market for Lemons, asymmetric information. He won an economics Nobel for his research, so I think maybe he knows what he's talking about. Labor will never receive fair compensation in a capitalist system, it is a fault inherent in any free market system. If you can find a way to fix the asymmetric information problem, there may be an economics Nobel for you. And don't start by positing a set of companies that provide information, that simply pushes the problem back a step.
I stand by my assessment of libertarianism. I know you may disagree, but I hope you can at least see that I have arrived at my conclusions based on careful consideration.
It's only hard because we're used to civilization. If you were a hunter-gatherer who knew how to make every item in your cultural kit, you could survive in the wilderness all by your lonesome. The reason dropping out is hard is precisely because civilization is so nice.
Oh, people may be claiming it, but they aren't looking and besides, that whole 'right to your own property' thing? Yeah, that's part of that whole civilization thing that you don't want. Just go take it, no one's looking. Wait, you mean you didn't want isolated wilderness miles from anyone? You do want civilization after all? How odd.
Just because I like chocolate doesn't mean I like buying you chocolate. Unless you happen to be a pretty lady. Are you claiming you are a pretty lady who will perform sexual services for me in exchange for me providing you with money and security? Sorry, I'm already married.
I think they are, but free market zealots will claim that without government, there can't be any such thing. They will claim that, because you have to reduce the cost every time a competitor emerges, the free market is working. Seriously, that's how they think.
I was responding to this quote, "That's why you shouldn't steal. The government hates competition!" which implies that taxation is equivalent to stealing. That is ludicrous, selfish, and anti-social. Taxation is equivalent to getting food in a restaurant, and paying for it afterwords. The 'Taxes are theft!' whiners want to dine and dash, they have already reaped the benefits of civilization but don't feel like they should pay.
I certainly don't always agree with what the government does with my money, but that still doesn't make taxation coercive. There are methods to change things that I don't like in government, and again, if you don't like the system you can drop out and not take part. Taxation is only coercive in libertarian fantasy land.
Somalia would be a great place for tax whiners to live. They could also live in Alaska out in the wilderness. Most of the word may be claimed, but it's not like it's being checked. All I care about is that said tax whiners do not get the benefits of things they didn't pay for. I don't care if there are actually any nice places for them to go live. What they do rather than being part of civilization isn't my problem, it's theirs.
Surely you don't have a problem with people claiming all that land. I mean, government property is the same as private property owned by a corporation: it belongs to a group that invested in it. If your stance is, no one should own more than they are actually using, that I could agree with.
But I'm guessing you are just whining about the fact that the free market hasn't left you any pristine areas to exploit for free. Not my problem. If you want to live in civilization, you pay for it.
Amazing how price fixing could be going on at the same time that (as your article states) "existing capacity and planned expansions will cut so deeply into prices that by the time demand and supply are back in balance the industry will be mature."
Huh. How's that work?
That excuses everything. Conversely, if the same sorts of problems crop up under capitalism as did under communism, then capitalism isn't all its cracked up to be, now is it?
Of course screwing over others shouldn't be a crime if it interferes with corporate profits. Say, how come with all this price fixing, someone else didn't step in and offer LCDs for a lower price? That would have been proof that the free market works. Yet that never, ever seems to happen.
Ahhh, look! There's a 'world's smallest political quiz' link! Spoiler alert: you are a libertarian. I am a libertarian. Everyone who takes that quiz is secretly a libertarian.
If you start off with the assumption that anyone can do whatever the hell they please without regard to the consequences for others, you are a libertarian. If you want civilization without paying for it, you are a libertarian. If you believe that a government set up only to protect property rights can be anything except an oppressive regime designed to protect the rich from the poor, then you are definitely a libertarian. Libertarianism: if you think 'nyah nyah nyah! You're not the boss of me!' is a good philosophy, it might just be for you.