We [Modern Western Culture] abhor Social Anarchy.
Social Anarchy is rejected because it is seen to result in chaos
and the dominance of those prepared to be most ruthless.
Anarchy is presumed to result in a violent, indulgent rich
exploiting a barely subsisting poor.

I ask: Is Modern FreeMarket a type of Economic Anarchy?
And can we expect the same types of results from economic anarchy as we can from social anarchy?
We now have record foreclosures at the same time as record profits for banks.
Is this the economic equivalent of Social Anarchy and the dominance of the ruthless?
Have we simply substituted physical violence with economic violence?
And (in a world where everything costs money) is there any difference?

In short..yes.

Some people die inside when their livelihood is taken.
A bullet or a bank..makes no difference.

Yeah, freemarket anarchy is not far removed from social anarchy.

A free market that is driven almost entirely by the short-term profit motive, with the big and powerful able to swallow up smaller competitors and become bigger and powerfuller, is a recipe for disaster.

Big companies that operate in countries where labour is dirt-cheap and quality of life is miserable, and sell stuff in developed countries, are competing unfairly against stuff manufactured in countries with decent wages and quality of life.

Companies that are based in tax-havens and who fail to pay anywhere near their fair share of tax in countries where they sell stuff or compete with domestic entities are again operating in a very unfair manner.

And of course all of this continues to work strongly against the imperative to stabilise, if not considerably reduce, impacts on our resource base and environment, and achieve sustainability.

No, the free market economy, without strong governance that is completely independent of the profit motive, is just going to continue to suck wealth out of the pockets of the poor and load up the already obscenely rich and powerful, and eat our future!

Social anarchy is bound to result.

Question – rather than a free market, who regulates the market which is allowed, because, with no market, the economy stops, depression ensues and what was established to preserve what we had ends up destroying everything.

Now the great myth of big business versus small business.

Most folk in Australia and Japan as USA and Europe do not work for multinationals.
They work for small to medium companies.

The great thing with small to medium companies is, when they are swallowed up, new ones replace them. The best example to illustrate this is the beer industry.

In UK, beer manufacture went through a cycle of centralization, where economies of scale financed acquisition of small breweries by big companies. However, after a few years of consumers getting sick and tired of homogenized beer, CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) evolved quickly followed by the development of boutique breweries.

Similar things happen in Australia, Red Back Brewery for instance.

Parallel events are occurring in bakeries. The domination of Sunicrust etc. is being eroded by individuals opening boutique bread shops (actually a pressure for this, so I am told by someone in the industry, the cost of distribution increases means; bulk ingredient delivery to devolved points is cheaper than bulk ingredients to one point then transport of finished loafs to second devolved points).

A free market produces these outcomes and whilst far from perfect, recognizing we have the ACCC to review and regulate where some abuses might occur.
The price we pay in regulations, starting with a bureaucracy which expects to be paid and more importantly the centralisation of authority and power in the hands of those bureaucrats and rapidly leading to reduction in choice over a free market, the worse for all of us.

"Free Market Anarchy" is a preferred option to "stagnation through regulation".

Who does regulate the market which is allowed to operate
in this country? Us or the World Trade Organisation?
Once upon a time, tarrifs and subsidies were the only
things supposedly standing in the way of free trade. It
is disturbing that the WTO considers almost everything, including
all public ownership of infrastructure and services such as health,
education etc as "barriers to trade" which it is constantly pushing to have removed.

In my area, a good 75% of the workforce are employed by multi-nationals. They conrol between a third and one half of all global
trade, so to say that most people in industrialised countries
don't work for them(which may be correct) is greatly understating
the amount of power and control they posess.

The question is not whether to regulate or not. It is to what
degree to regulate. If micro-breweries and small bakeries are
sucessful, it is because of regulations that allow them to set
up shop without the big boys squeezing off their supplies of malt,
yeast and so on. A true free market implies an absence of such regulation. Everything would be owned by the big boys, except that which was deemed unprofitable. The idea of consumer free choice
under such a system seems pretty far-fetched to me.

“The question is not whether to regulate or not. It is to what degree to regulate.”

Absolutely

“If micro-breweries and small bakeries are successful, it is because of regulations that allow them to set up shop without the big boys squeezing off their supplies…”

That’s for sure

“A true free market implies an absence of such regulation. …. The idea of consumer free choice under such a system seems pretty far-fetched to me.”

Totally agree Fozz