The illicit drug market is almost the ideal free market. It works very efficiently and effectively, and it certainly maximizes profits for the vendors, but one can see why regulation is very important for consumables. While drugs are not healthy, the things people “cut” them with are worse.
You see, it’s not enough that dealers sell their product for 25-100% profit, tax-free. Human greed knows no bounds, and dealers are not saints (not all of them, anyway). They cut powder drugs like heroin or cocaine with all manner of substances. Baking powder, baking soda, sugar, artificial sweeteners, salt, crushed pills of all kinds… they often find their way into drugs which users snort and inject.
The government tends to control for those kind of things in a normal market. You don’t open up your Cheerios and find metal nuts and pennies with holes drilled in them (although I wouldn’t put it past the cereal companies… “Now with 200% more of the essential minerals Iron and Copper!”).
I don’t know the definition of “conservative.” I have no clue what it’s really all about. All I know is what I have observed, and I have observed that conservatives are insane.
When markets fail because private companies engage in windfall profit seeking, a conservative will say, “This never would have happened if there were less regulations.” When someone gets shot, they say, “The whole thing would have been averted if everyone had a gun.”
Look… let’s say you and your friends used heroin. If one of your friends OD’d, would the solution be to use more heroin? Of course not, but you’d probably do it anyway. Why? We build up mythological existences for ourselves. When the light of reality creeps in, we shrink deeper into the shadows.
I don’t think drugs should be illegal. I don’t think all guns should be illegal. I don’t think market economics is wrong. But when things get fucked up, I don’t recommend doing drugs, buying a gun, or granting predatory companies who screwed us over the freedom to do it again.
You cannot keep doing the same thing and expect different results.
For crying out loud! Government regulation for the public good? That's SOCIALISM!!!
ReplyDeleteIf only the regulations in place were a little more sane.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand "conservatives" and I'm thankful everyday that I'm not one.
ReplyDeleteGovernment regulation for the public good? That's SOCIALISM!!!
No, it isn't "socialism" at all. Socialism, if it means anything at all, is the ownership of the means of production by the workers, which can only really occur under social anarchism, in which case there is no state (and no government in the sense that you mean) at all.
What you're talking about is mixed economy, capital "democracy", which is what we have now and is exactly what the ruling capitalist class wants (for the most part). Most "regulations" help existing corporations and elites maintain their privileges by doing things like granting monopolies and shutting out competition in general.
The other government "socialism" is State socialism, as in the old Soviet Union, where of course the workers did not own anything, it was all owned and controlled by the state.
There are plenty of regulations which need to be adjusted, but just because it's technically illegal to, say... sell food from your porch doesn't mean eliminating food preperation laws is the way to go.
ReplyDeleteI have friends who technically own their own business because they work for themselves, and I understand it's almost more of a hassle than it's worth. However, I also know that there are a world of problems we've already experienced that caused us to hurriedly enact those shitty laws. The mess we're in isn't are dire as the mess before, so there hasn't been a strong push like there was when people were falling into meat grinders, which just kept on making hamburgers.
I agree we can fix them. All it takes is a strong enough collective will to change unjust laws.
And as for anarchy/socialism...
Maybe you won't agree, but I know the US doesn't stand for anything remotely resembling the USSR. Look at how twisted Lady Liberty's panties got over the healthcare stuff. There's really no danger of swinging too far in that direction; there's literally a brick wall miles before we hit danger.
I still assert that any type of anarchy would be horrible, especially for the weak. I also assert that any model where we divide up into smaller groups and compete serves only those with economic interests in the arms industry.