[Craig] Yes, but you're avoiding the all-important 2nd half of the equation. Generally, voluntariness is not SUFFICIENT for an economic transaction to be moral, but it is NECESSARY.
[Arlo] Voluntariness? :-) I'm not sure how you're disputing my point. In fact, you're supporting it. The "market" is amoral (to use Krim's word), it will move people, drugs, weapons, you name it. It is society that always regulates these transactions by overlaying its moral principles onto the market. For example, copyright is a restriction of the market. It says that I can't bring goods to the market that the State has deemed are the "intellectual property" of another. Without that regulation (as we see in "pirated" items on the black market) the market will move these goods without blinking. Another example, regulations that restrict sex shops and liquor stores within a certain radius of public schools. The "market" would set up a massage parlor right next to your local elementary school if it would earn a profit there. It is a societal action to impose a moral restriction on the market to deny this. (A regulation, I might add, that is nearly ubiquitously attributed to "right-wing" politicians). The term "free market" is just political bullcrap. It is a "market", and both the right and the left impose what they feel are valid and necessary regulations on that market; whether they be copyright, sex-shop free zoning, or even the forbidding of moving human slaves. "Free market" is a strawman. It is a term used to demonize the other political party, even though the right supports a regulated market as well. Now, you can argue which regulations and when, how much is too much, when more is needed and when less is needed, all you want. Those are valid arguments. But to say "we want a free market and they don't" is simply atrocious ideological rhetoric. [Craig] Economic systems can be seen along a spectrum from free market economies to command economies (fascism, socialism, communism). [Arlo] Yeah, and the point you miss here is that the end of the spectrum on the "free market" side is anarchy, a "black market" with no regulations or restrictions of any kind. So both conservatives and liberals fall somewhere in between, but both supporting a regulated market of some sort. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
