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I'm not disagreeing with you but I hope you at least understand that the world you describe hasn't existed since Teddy Roosevelt picked up "The Jungle" in 1906.

I'm not disagreeing with you but I hope you at least understand that the world you describe hasn't existed since Teddy Roosevelt picked up "The Jungle" in 1906. Since then Government has made a business out of trying to manipulate the market in a way that speeds along the positive aspects and eliminates the negative ones. A trend we all know has reached epic proportions with the current bail outs. So, for better or worse, we are a long long way from a Government that only intervenes when there's a monopoly.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
So, for better or worse, we are a long long way from a Government that only intervenes when there's a monopoly. We are where we want to be. The poster asked the question of should government intervene. To say that "government will intervene whether we want to or not" is to engage in circular reasoning. One supposes that in order to ask the question, there must be a choice for the answerer to make. I also have heard this "those were the old times" argument quite a bit lately, and its wearing thin for me. To some degree, yes, government has intervened and mucked around with markets. But to a larger degree it hasn't. And the decision to muck around or not, last I checked, was a political one, not done simply because times have changed. It's very much debatable whether government intervention in various markets constitute a good or bad thing. Teddy was a smart man. So was Jefferson. We continue to find and address these issues as we can, doing the best with what light we have.
- TomOfTTB 17y ago
  It would be circular logic if "Government Intervention" was a single thing rather than a designation that applies to a myriad of things. My issue with your line of reasoning is that it's academic. You're making an argument based on a model of Monopoly = Government Intervention and that's not where we are anymore.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

So, for better or worse, we are a long long way from a Government that only intervenes when there's a monopoly. We are where we want to be. The poster asked the question of should government intervene. To say that "government will intervene whether we want to or not" is to engage in circular reasoning. One supposes that in order to ask the question, there must be a choice for the answerer to make. I also have heard this "those were the old times" argument quite a bit lately, and its wearing thin for me. To some degree, yes, government has intervened and mucked around with markets. But to a larger degree it hasn't. And the decision to muck around or not, last I checked, was a political one, not done simply because times have changed. It's very much debatable whether government intervention in various markets constitute a good or bad thing. Teddy was a smart man. So was Jefferson. We continue to find and address these issues as we can, doing the best with what light we have.

TomOfTTB 17y ago
It would be circular logic if "Government Intervention" was a single thing rather than a designation that applies to a myriad of things. My issue with your line of reasoning is that it's academic. You're making an argument based on a model of Monopoly = Government Intervention and that's not where we are anymore.